Thinking About Wendell Asking Bobby In The Early Days If Athena Makes Him Feel Like He's "flying." And

Thinking about Wendell asking Bobby in the early days if Athena makes him feel like he's "flying." And Bobby says no, Athena makes him feel like he's standing on solid ground, implying that she's the first person to make him feel like that. Grounded, on the earth, solid ground.

Thinking about how Buck needs to be set free, to "fly" for a bit, to discover himself, in many ways for the first time. Tommy, the pilot, helping Buck learn to fly. But Eddie? Eddie is the earth beneath his feet, his solid ground. Flying can be beautiful, but you can't stay in the sky forever.

All the people and connections and love in our lives who help us grow and become ourselves. It's all so beautiful and real. I love this show.

i know we only just got hurt buck last season, but now he has a hot pilot boyfriend. so i'm gunna need him to get hurt again, even if it's only minor, so i can witness his hot pilot boyfriend worry and fret over him, maybe share an 'i thought i lost you' kiss with him, before taking him home so he can worry and fret some more while he looks after and takes care of him.

are you a hot person? you punk? yeah??? what kind huh??? masc or femme hot vibes? cocky or down to earth hot vibes??? why dont you stick around and find out what incredibly long and oddly specific example of a hot aura you give off?

my figayda crumbs? acquired in the fucking funniest way possible

17 or 23 (or both?) For the prompt list eddie/buck 💛

17. "OK, well...fuck." (also for @eddiediass who sent the same prompt). this got...away from me.

"Buck? What are you doing in here?" Eddie asks, opening the supply closet door and taking a step inside.

"No, wait, don't let it--" Buck lunges past him to grab the door before it can latch, but he doesn't make it in time. "--shut."

"Why?" Eddie asks, raising his eyebrow at his best friend. Buck's been a little weird the past few weeks since Eddie came out, but not...lock-himself-in-the-supply-closet weird.

"The latch is broken," Buck says, dragging both hands down across his face in despair.

Eddie turns to try the handle and it doesn't move.

"Okay," Eddie says slowly, rattling the handle a little bit. Zero motion. "Well...fuck."

"Yeah," Buck agrees, slumping back against the shelving where they keep the station's spare paper towels and toilet paper.

"Here I thought I was done being trapped in closets," Eddie mutters, and Buck snorts. Eddie pats down his pockets for his phone. It isn't there. He knows it's not there. It's on his bunk where he left it.

"Mine's on my bunk," Buck says before Eddie can ask about Buck's phone. "I didn't want to look at it anymore."

Eddie raises both eyebrows. "Everything okay?"

"If it was, would I have been hiding in the supply closet?" Buck asks.

Eddie concedes the point with a nod. "Want to talk about it?"

Buck considers and for a minute, Eddie thinks he's going to say no. But in the end, he flips over a bucket and takes a seat. Eddie mirrors him. There's not enough space in the closet for either of them to stretch their legs out all the way and so they end up interlocked like laced fingers.

"I, um, I was just wondering," Buck starts, making steady eye contact with the nametag over Eddie's chest rather than with Eddie. "How did you...figure out you're not straight?"

"Extensive therapy," Eddie replies. Buck huffs something that's almost a laugh. "And then, I don't know, I guess slowly started to realise that a lot of stuff I'd taken for granted as being part of the common experience of being a completely average heterosexual person actually, uh, was not that. Why?"

"I don't...think..." Buck seems to be fighting against himself to make the words come out and Eddie's pulse leaps for a second. Is Buck queer, too? Even entertaining the possibility jostles something in his head that he's pretty sure he's been avoiding jostling even through all of his therapy sessions, considering that it might contain the explosive power necessary to ruin his life.

Buck takes a deep breath, holds it for a second, and then says in a rush, "I don't think we have a normal friendship."

Eddie's heart leaps into his throat but more in the impending-doom sort of way.

"I didn't really notice that anything about it was weird, right, until--"

"Until I came out." Eddie can't get his voice above a whisper and he thinks he might puke. "Buck, I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"What? No, not you," Buck says, sounding much less strained. Eddie's throat relaxes. "I mean, not not you either, but like...no, I mean, I made a normal friendship."

"Oh," Eddie says.

"And I couldn't figure out why ours was so different," Buck says. "And then there was this quiz I took online, and one of the questions was like 'are you particularly possessive of a friend with your same gender?' and I was like 'yeah, that's not a bad way to put it I guess' and it told me I was like 65% queer or whatever, but then I was like 'no, obviously I would know that about myself by now,' because I'm thirty, you know, and then you came out and--"

Eddie's heart is in his throat again, but he feels much less liable to throw up anytime soon.

"And?" he prompts, knocking his calf against Buck's.

Buck finally meets his eye and he looks just this side of terrified. "And I think we might have been dating for a few years and not realised it because we both thought we were straight."

Eddie's surprised when all of his tension vanishes. It is the exact thing the unjostleable box in his head had been holding onto. And now it's here, alive and well and nontoxic, not life ruining, in the middle of the supply closet with them. And Eddie smiles.

"Do you think we're supposed to charge interest on anniversary celebration back pay?" he asks.

Buck blinks at him for a second, and then he smiles too. "I think that would require figuring out what our anniversary is."

"True," Eddie admits. "We should find screw drivers and dismantle the lock and get out of here so we can talk about it without the chemical fumes."

"Good idea," Buck agrees, standing and starting to rifle through the shelves. Eddie does the same, finding a Philips' head stuck in a box of pens that looks like it'll probably have enough torque to take off the door knob.

"Got it," Eddie says, holding it up and turning back to face the door.

Buck nods, but he's chewing on his bottom lip like it's a piece of gum and Eddie wants to pull it free.

"Hey, before we go back, can we just...check and make sure?" Buck asks.

"Check...what?" Eddie asks.

He's unprepared for the way Buck's eyes darken and drop from Eddie's down to his mouth. "I mean, can I kiss you?"

Kiss him now, so that if they turn out to feel nothing, the conversation never has to leave this closet. Makes sense, Eddie supposes.

"Yeah," Eddie says, and steps closer to Buck.

Buck's the one who gently cups Eddie's face, presses their lips together softly, and then leans back. Just that small contact is enough to make Eddie's skin fizz like he's been carbonated.

They get about half a breath in, and then crash back together. Eddie drops the screwdriver in favour of wrapping both arms around Buck, getting one hand on the back of his neck, the other gripping the back of his uniform tight enough to stretch the fabric. Buck's gentle cupping of Eddie's face transitions immediately to a hand in Eddie's hair and the other arm wrapped around his waist to make sure they're plastered as close together as they can get.

It's only when they stumble into the door with a thud and a clatter that Eddie remembers through the haze of unleashed, questionably suppressed lust that they're trapped in the supply closet.

The closet door swings inwards, knocking into them and pushing them back, and they're met with Bobby's mildly disapproving stare.

"Come on, guys, not at the station," he says, sounding tired.

They disentangle themselves and file past Bobby and out of the closet. Eddie makes it about four steps before he glances at Buck and bursts into giggles like he's fucking twelve years old again. His giggling sets Buck off and when they try to head for the bunks to, uh, giggle some more, Bobby grabs them each with an authoritative hand on their shoulders.

"Nope," he says, steering them back down the hallway to the app bay and, beyond that, his office. "You two have paperwork to do."

Eddie can't say he minds too much. After all, the paperwork might help them figure out when their anniversary is.