feeling a lil brave and a whole lot insane publishing this in the liminal week between christmas and new years, but here we go.
buddie | mature | 12,600 words
tags: rip jeep, near death experience(s), double whump, angst with a happy ending, reckless Eddie, protective Eddie, near drowning, POV alternating (but mostly Eddie POV), everybody lives (check the rest of the tags and tw in notes)
Above the Fold(113k) Alternate Universe / Prince Evan Buckley / Regent Eddie Diaz / Arranged Marriage / Fiancés to Friends to Lovers / PTSD / Chronic Pain
They were engaged.
And they hadn’t even said a single word to each other.
“You can, uh…you can call me Buck,” he offered a little awkwardly through his PR smile, still plastered across his face. He was trying not to make it too obvious to the cameras that he was speaking.
There was a pause, long enough for Buck to think he already ruined everything, before he heard the regent offer back,
rating E; and this is the only scene that doesn’t spoil what the fic is going to be about, which is really important to me
(drop a word in comments if you want to be tagged once it’s published btw)
There’s a hand over his mouth. Wide palm, blunt nails, firm and steady, gentler than it has any right to be. There’s a hand over his mouth, and his eyes sting with tears, and the breath brushing his cheek isn’t his own.
They have to be quiet. He remembers that much. They. Have. To be. Quiet.
He tries to draw in a breath against Buck’s palm, chest straining, lungs burning, and even that seems like too loud. Why is quiet such a problem? Right. Right, because there’s a kid asleep down the hall. Chris is home. Chris is asleep in his room, and they have to be quiet.
They have to be quiet, but everything in him is screaming instead, clawing up his throat, because Buck’s eyes are feral when he looks down at him, dark and blown wide, nothing held back. Buck’s breaths break loose in soft, ruined sounds right by his ear, each one vibrating straight through him, and Buck’s mouth is everywhere – hot, wet, impatient against his neck, against the hinge of his jaw, burning, like he’s claiming space he’s already earned.
Buck’s other hand is dug into his hip, fingertips biting hard enough to bruise, holding him exactly where Buck wants him as he drives into him again and again and again and again.
Eddie braces himself against the headboard, palms planted, every push met eagerly, every movement sending heat spiraling tighter through his core until it’s hard to tell where it starts or ends.
Buck fucks into him like his life depends on it, and maybe it does, it does, if the fire building low in Eddie’s stomach, burning hotter with every second, stealing his breath, stealing his thoughts, is anything to judge by.
There’s a hand over Eddie’s mouth, and Buck’s other hand slides from his hip to pull him closer, syncing their movement until everything blurs into heat and rhythm. Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, the dark behind his lids flaring white, sensation cresting too fast to hold as his body arches on instinct.
At some point the hand is gone, replaced by Buck’s mouth – hot, open – and whatever sound Eddie makes disappears there, swallowed whole.
“I love you,” he whispers against Buck’s lips, the words tumbling out before he can stop them. Again, softer. “I love you. I love you.”
He would shout it, if he could. If they didn’t have to be quiet.
^^^
tagging some moots, but anyone should consider themselves tagged 😌
kinda need buck to tell eddie i don’t need you. like he’s desperate and he’s trying to convince both himself and eddie that he’s not in love with him, even though neither of them have brought it up. so he’s like i don’t need you. and eddie looks like he’s been shot through the chest again. and is like but i do. i do need you buck. and buck goes no. no you don’t. and then they get interrupted. maybe they’re at work and the alarm goes off. and it’s a really bad call and they’re separated for hours, and once things calm down a bit buck is looking around, looking for eddie, because he needs to see him. he just needs to see eddie and makes sure he’s okay. that he made it out. made it out alive. because buck was lying. he was lying and he needs eddie to know that he does. he does need him. he needs him more than air.
tags: POV Evan Buckley, miscommunication, mutual pining, your honor they are idiots, jealous Eddie, oblivious Buck, the closest you’ll ever see me fly to the romcom sun, first kiss, everyone knows before they do, romantic settings as a pressure cooker for emotional clarity
what’s most critical about a “buck impulsively spends the equivalent of a month’s rent in LA bidding for a charity date with eddie (for friendship)” is that eddie is 100% the one who looks at buck afterwards and asks him what they’re doing and what he should wear
and buck promptly loses his mind again because he didn’t think eddie would actually expect a date with him
ALT
