[fic] our hands speak for us

[pairofraggedclaws]

Title: our hands speak for us
Fandom: 9-1-1
Rating: T
Word count: 1782
Characters/pairings: Buddie
Summary: Just some no pressure kissing practice between friends (written before we knew how bi!buck would happen, now retconned).

It was a long shift, 24 hours, plus five additional surprise hours, and Buck falls asleep as soon as he gets home. When he wakes up, it's to a text from Hen in the group chat. WELCOMING THE LATEST ADDITION TO THE LGBT COMMUNITY TONIGHT NO EXCEPTIONS OR YOU'RE HOMOPHOBIC, it reads, surrounded with about ten rainbow emojis on either side. Buck stares at it with nap-muddled comprehension for a moment before he bursts out laughing.
Once he gets to the bar, he's nervous. He should've arrived fashionably late, but instead he was early and now he's sitting alone at the booth they usually claim, trying not to check his phone for the nth time and tapping his toes frenetically inside his shoes. It's a warm night, warm and humid, and his shirt is sticking to his back a little. Buck doesn't know why they always come to the one place in LA with no air conditioning. He tugs at the collar of his shirt.
Then he nearly jumps out of his skin as he's smacked gently on the arm.
"Thinking deep thoughts?" Chimney says, sliding in across from him.
"Hi, Evan," Maddie says, giving him a big kiss on the forehead. She used to do that a lot when he was a kid, back when she was still taller than him. When he was little enough to be tucked in, Maddie was the one to do it, and sometimes she left a lip print in her sticky lipgloss that smelled like vanilla. When he woke up in the night after a dream he didn't remember, one that made him feel scared and ashamed and sad, he'd smell the lingering notes of vanilla and all of a sudden feel safe again.
Since the other night, when Buck came out to her, she's been doing it again. It makes his throat tighten every single time, a bittersweet ache.
Soon everyone's there, and it doesn't feel weird or nerve-wracking anymore. Hen and Karen are looking at him and whispering together, but that's pretty normal for them. Chimney and Maddie are completely wrapped up in each other, showing each other pictures of Jee-Yun, which is very normal for them. And Eddie, who arrived recently and last, is bumping a knee into Buck to get his attention, pink in the face and raising his voice to be heard. Also normal. Bisexual Buck, out on the town, and everything is the same. He's not really sure what he was afraid of.
"Alright alright alright," Chimney says in some terrible approximation of a southern accent when Hen disappears and comes back with a tray of rainbow shots.
"Oooh, I didn't know they had rainbow!" Karen says, taking one and looking at it admiringly.
"Sweetheart, we're at a bar in WeHo. They have rainbow shots, they have every kind of shot a queer person would want," Hen says. Once everyone has a shot, she says, "To Buck. Congrats on coming out, and thanks for helping me gay up A shift, it was getting to be a lot to accomplish on my own."
"To Buck," everyone choruses raggedly, and Buck drinks too even though his parents always told him you should never toast to yourself. It tastes like vodka and horrible artificial food coloring and everyone winces at the taste.
"Thanks," Buck says. "All of you. It - it really means a lot."
"Aw, Buck," Maddie says, and Eddie bumps his shoulder into Buck's.
"We all support you, you beautiful bisexual disaster," Chimney says.
Buck ducks his head and laughs at the sticky surface of the table. "Okay," he says, "more shots if you're just gonna make me cry anyway."

A few hours later, and Eddie and Buck are the last stragglers. Outside, it's cooling down, but it's still hot and muggy, and Buck can see that Eddie's hair is curling with sweat at the back of his neck, at his temples.
They're sitting on the curb and Eddie's laughing at him, that uninhibited joyful laugh that Buck wishes he didn't only hear when Eddie was two sheets to the wind, and he's tripping over his words enough that it's making Buck laugh too. Buck's got his phone in his hand, but he keeps forgetting to call a ride.
" - I know it's a big deal, okay, I'm not tryin' to mini - minimin - fucking, I'm not trying to - shut up, Buck, I'm not trying to min - to say it's not. Important."
"Take your time," Buck chortles. "No rush."
"Shut the fuck up, dude, shut uuup," Eddie says, and dissolves into laughter again.
"You are so drunk," Buck says. "Drunk-ass."
"You're drunk," Eddie says. "Look. I know it's a thing. But it's not gonna be your first first kiss."
"First first," Buck says.
"When you're a kid it's scary because like," Eddie pauses for several seconds, then continues like he never stopped. "You don't even know how. But you know how to kiss now. I assume."
"I," Buck says with dignity, "am a great kisser."
Eddie makes a skeptical face seemingly just to give him shit. "So you'll be fine, man."
"I know, yeah, but. Yeah, it's scary when you're a kid but you grow up and realize, no one actually knew what they were doing," Buck says. "Now there's expectations. It's all built up. I wish I could just get it out of the way and then the pressure would be off."
"Okay," Eddie says. "Kiss me." He looks at Buck, smiling a little, streetlight illuminating the light shimmer of sweat on him into a glow.
"Kiss you," Buck says.
"Yeah. Come on, hot stuff, lay it on me."
"Hot stuff?" Buck says.
"Then," Eddie says, literally pointing at his own mouth as if Buck needs directions, "it'll be done, no more pressure. And I'm straight so you don't need to worry about impressing me."
This is the kind of logic that is only really logic to the very drunk. "Makes sense!" Buck says. "Let's do it."
"Really?" Eddie says.
"R - Yeah? Why not?" Buck says, defensive in sight of Eddie's narrowed eyes.
"I just thought it would be harder to convince you," Eddie says, and closes his eyes. "Okay, go."
"Get ready, hot stuff," Buck says. Eddie's eyes are crinkling with a smile he's trying to hold back so Buck can kiss him, and Buck catches his jaw with one hand to hold him still before he leans in.
They're both wobbling and swaying and too far apart for it to work at all. Buck tries to yank Eddie closer by the collar of his t-shirt, muttering, "Hold still, dammit, hold still."
"Okay," Eddie says, "I guess you were right to worry if this is your technique."
"This is your fault," Buck says, shamelessly whiny. "It was your idea and you're too far away."
Eddie goes right and Buck goes left and they miss each other again. “See, the lips are on the face,” Eddie says, able to be perfectly articulate as long as he's making fun of Buck. “If that helps.”
“You're not helping me at all,” Buck says.
"Jeeesus okay okay okay," Eddie says. Buck's hand is still clutching the collar of his shirt as he scooches closer on the curb, tilts Buck's chin with firm fingers, and kisses him, just a sweet catching of their lips.
Eddie pulls back about half an inch and laughs softly.
"What," Buck says, quiet into the tiny space between them, smiling at the sound of Eddie laughing.
"Nothing, nothing," Eddie says. He's still got his fingers on Buck's chin, calloused and strong, and they find their way back to span his cheek from jawline to hairline, thumb making little movements over his cheekbone. He kisses Buck again, so softly that it makes time stop, or slow, and this time they don't part.
It's strange, Buck thinks, how well he knows Eddie. Eddie's seen him at his worst, at his most childish and petty, angry and vindictive, at his lowest. He's seen him at his highest highs; he's been there, been a part of them. He knows Buck in every way and still comes back for more, and Buck's done the same. They've high fived, they've hugged, they've cried over each other and begged each other to hang on and held the life inside of each other with bare hands and sheer force of will.
Kissing Eddie is new, but Buck can still read him. He can feel when Eddie starts smiling, and when he pulls back to take a breath, and when he's trying not to go back for one more kiss but doesn’t have it in him to hold back. He can feel when Eddie goes from thinking to deciding, half a second before he tilts his head to kiss Buck that much more deeply. And Buck knows he's being read just as clearly, every shift of his weight or little sigh or the way he hangs on to Eddie's shoulders, just like he knows if he were to voice any of this Eddie would smile that way he does when he's drunk or tired to the point of being loopy, extra big with a little wrinkle in his nose, and tell Buck that he sounds so fucking drunk.
It takes the time to think all of this through for Buck to realize that they're still kissing. They're still kissing, and for everything else they know about each other this has never been one of them; they've never touched each other like this. Even Eddie's hand on his face crosses some line past platonic, one they've never crossed before, let alone the way they're - well.
It's getting more heated, is the problem, and Buck is drunk enough that his head is feeling kind of muddled. He can remember that he shouldn't want to keep going; but he seems to have forgotten how to actually not want to keep going, and instead of stopping he's scooting over on the curb so he can get Eddie in even closer with a hand on the back of his neck, fingertips in the short hair at the back of his neck.
After they've sprung apart, laughing and shooting glances at each other, after Eddie calls a ride for himself, after the drunken, silent, and painfully awkward wait before Eddie's Uber actually shows up, after Buck, alone, looks at his phone and curses himself as he realizes he forgot to actually order his, what with all the kissing -
After all that, when Buck is home, he lies in his bed and stares at the ceiling and he's still drunk as hell but he can't sleep for a long time. Can't stop feeling Eddie's lips on his.