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Buck is not a man who fucks with the Do Not Disturb feature.
He has slept with his phone on full volume, right next to his bed, every night of his life, and does not plan to stop. He doesn’t need a bypass list, because he doesn’t have a bypass list — if a friend from college he hasn’t spoken to in 10 years needs him at 3am, he’s answering the phone at 3am.
So when Buck’s phone rings at 12.35am, it could truly be anyone. He answers it like a reflex before he’s even really awake, his heart hammering in his chest.
“Hello?”
“Oh. It’s all wrong,” someone who sounds a lot like Eddie sighs. Buck pulls his phone away from his ear, squinting at the screen to confirm it is indeed Eddie.
“Eddie?”
“No, that’s not right,” Eddie mutters.
Buck is still recalibrating from the whole being violently pulled out of his slumber via an aggressively loud ringtone thing. He wills his racing pulse to calm the fuck down.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, batting around blindly for the lamp. “Are you okay?”
The lamp casts a golden glow across the room just in time for Buck to catch the “Call Ended” message that accompanies three horrifying beeps. Buck stares at the phone in his hand and tries to not overreact.
His ringtone blasts through the room for a nanosecond before Buck’s pressing his phone against his ear like a lifeline.
“Eddie?”
“Ugh. I think it’s broken,” Eddie groans.
“ What’s broken?” Buck prompts, throwing his sheets away from where they’re tangled with his limbs. “Where are you?”
Beep beep beep.
Call Ended.
His knuckles are white where they’re gripping his phone. He fumbles for his call log to return the call, but his screen lights up again with Eddie’s face.
“Eddie? What’s happening?”
“Oh no,” Eddie whispers. “This is very bad.”
“You need to tell me what’s going o-” He’s cut off by the beep beep beep.
He abandons his call log in favor of his Find My Friends app. He clicks on the icon, heart pounding as he watches the little wheel spin and spin and spin. The sound of his ringtone makes him jump.
He presses the answer button so quickly it honestly kind of hurts his finger. He decides to wait before he says anything, listening for the familiar background sounds of a hospital or sirens or, god forbid, danger.
He’s met with silence.
“...Eddie?” He tries.
As soon as he speaks, Eddie lets out a painful groan. It’s cut off by the beep beep beep.
Call Ended taunts him from the screen.
Buck is out of bed, down the stairs, and searching for his keys before he’s even really thought about moving. He presses Eddie’s contact and is haunted by the soft ringing tone for one, two, three rings before it cuts off.
“Hello?” Eddie slurs.
“Eddie,” Buck breathes, letting himself fall back against the counter. “Thank god.”
“Buck!” Eddie chirps. “Hey! It’s Buck!”
“Where are you?” Buck demands, pulling deep breaths through his nose and out his mouth. “What’s going on?”
“I’m at Karen’s house!” Eddie announces. “We’re drinking wine!”
“Are you hurt?”
“Who’s Kurt?”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m Eddie.”
Buck sighs. “Is something broken?”
“Hmmmm,” Eddie hums. “I can’t tell you.”
“Okay,” Buck nods, pushing off the counter and looking for his shoes. “I’m coming over there.”
“Where?”
“To Hen’s.”
“Oh! Okay! KAREN!” Buck flinches as Eddie yells directly into his ear. “Buck is going to visit Hen!”
He hears muffled talking, a loud bang, and then Karen’s voice flowing through the phone.
“BUCK!” She also yells. “I need your help!”
“Karen,” Buck breathes. “What’s going on?” He’s shoving his second foot into the second shoe when he realizes he’s not wearing any pants.
“It’s very important, Buck,” Karen whispers. “You have to listen to what I say exactly, okay?”
“Okay,” he agrees, finding pants.
“You have to tell Hen that we tried to use all the band-aids but they didn’t work.”
Buck blinks. He’s half-pantsed.
“Who needed band-aids?” He dares to ask.
“Buck you’re not listening,” she groans. “You have to tell Hen.”
“I don’t think she’ll even notice,” Eddie is saying in the background. “Did she tell you about when she restarted a guy’s heart with a hole in it? There was so much blood, Karen. A lot . This is more like a little .”
“Karen?” Buck tries urgently. He trips down three steps while pulling on the rest of his pants. “Eddie?”
“Oh! Eddie!” Karen gasps. “Hen’s first aid kit!”
“YES!”
He completely forgoes socks, shoving his feet into his shoes and sprinting out the door.
The front door swings open to reveal Eddie, alive and not visibly bleeding, and Buck almost collapses on the front porch.
“Buck!” Eddie grins. He sways a little where he stands. “What’re you doing here?”
Buck has to touch him, has to make sure he’s here and real and okay. He grabs onto his shoulders. “Are you okay? Let me look at you,” he instructs. Eddie happily twirls where he stands, Buck’s eyes sweeping over every inch of him, searching for injury. He lets out a deep, shaky breath when he doesn’t find any. “Where’s Karen?”
“She’s got the bandages,” Eddie explains.
“ Why does she have bandages?” Buck asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. He walks around Eddie and into the Wilson’s house, where he finds Karen sitting on the floor, covering the carpet with bandages.
His gaze snaps to the broken wine bottle on the table, red wine, Buck guesses, from the red staining the carpet beneath Karen’s knees. Beneath the bandages, the stained carpet has been covered in band-aids.
“Is anyone hurt?” He asks, unable to really process what exactly is happening here.
Eddie drops down onto the couch, shaking his head loosely.
Buck nods.
“You broke the wine bottle?” He guesses.
“No,” Karen says immediately.
“Maybe,” Eddie says just a moment too late.
“And you ran out of band-aids because you were using them to cover up the wine stain?”
“It didn’t work,” Karen supplies.
“Was a good idea though,” Eddie offers. Karen grins.
Buck lets the fear drain out of him with a deep sigh.
“Okay. I’m going to deal with that,” he says, pointing to the wine stain. “And then with you,” he says, pointing to Eddie. “Don’t move.”
When he returns with the tools to clean the carpet as best he can, Eddie and Karen are squished together on the couch, looking at something on Eddie’s phone.
“Eddie,” Karen says. “No. That’s just - - normal. It’s just a normal one.”
“No! It’s the best one!” Eddie assures her. “Listen!”
Buck is down on all fours, scrubbing at the carpet, when his own voice starts flowing through Eddie’s phone speaker.
“You’ve reached Buck! Wanna hear a joke? Knock, knock! Who’s there? Not me, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
It’s his voicemail message, he realizes, at the same time he realizes he must have left his phone in the car.
Eddie’s grinning at his phone. “We should listen again.”
Karen is looking off into space, but Eddie’s already calling.
“You’ve reached Buck! Wanna hear a joke? Knock, knock! Who’s there? Not me, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
“I think it’s too many words,” Karen says.
“No, because you get to listen to Buck for longer.”
“I don’t think I want that. I think just you want that.”
“Hmm. Maybe,” Eddie ponders. “I think everyone should want that, though. Buck’s the best. You wanna hear it again?”
“Okay,” Karen agrees.
“Oh my god,” Buck breathes. “You were trying to get my voicemail.”
“Huh?”
“You kept calling me. I thought you were in trouble. You wanted to hear my voicemail.”
Eddie nods. “It was broken before. Kept saying the wrong thing.”
“Yeah, that’s called answering the phone,” Buck offers vacantly.
“You’ve reached Buck! Wanna hear a joke? Knock, knock! Who’s there? Not me, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
“He has such a good voice. I love him,” Eddie sighs. Buck keeps scrubbing. If he keeps scrubbing maybe this will start to make sense.
“Mmhm,” Karen agrees. “I told you.”
“You’re so smart. Buck’s smart, too. And funny,” he adds. “ Knock, knock!” He chuckles to himself.
“Oh!” Karen gasps. “Eddie! You should tell him! After the beep!”
“Okay!”
“You’ve reached Buck! Wanna hear a joke? Knock, knock! Who’s there? Not me, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
“Buck!”
Okay, Buck actually can’t watch this unfold he’s gonna have to - -
“Eddie,” he interupts.
“Huh? Oh! Buck!” Eddie blinks, breaking out into a grin. He’s looking at Buck, but still talking into the phone. “Knock, knock!”
“Eddie,” Buck tries again.
“Answer the door, Buck,” Eddie prompts. “Knock, knock.”
Buck lets out a sigh.
“Who’s there?”
“Eddie.”
“Eddie who?”
Eddie frowns. “Eddie. Diaz? Buck, it’s me.”
Buck smiles. “I thought you were doing a joke.”
“Oh. Yeah, I was!” Eddie chuckles. “I forgot. Hang on. Go again. Knock, knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me and I want to kiss you on the mouth,” Eddie declares.
Buck stares at him.
“It’s me and I want to kiss you on the mouth, who?” He croaks. He has a feeling this punchline is about to live up to its name.
Eddie blinks. His brow furrows. “What?”
Right, because he’s drunk. He’s so drunk, and they can’t be having this conversation right now.
“Actually, you’re drunk,” Buck says. “Let’s table this. I’m taking you home.”
Karen gasps. Eddie grins.
They high five.
“No,” Buck rolls his eyes. “Not like - - whatever,” he sighs, pulling Eddie off the couch. “Let’s get you home.”
When he deposits Eddie on his bed with a glass of water and two advils, Eddie frowns.
“Oh,” he sniffs. “I thought you were taking me home to kiss me.”
“You’re drunk,” Buck reminds him.
“Oh,” Eddie pouts.
“Let’s get you in bed,” Buck suggests, pulling the sheets back. “Come on.”
Eddie resists every step of the way, but eventually he’s tucked safely in his bed, alive and in one piece.
“Where you goin’?” He frowns, as Buck switches off the light.
“I’ll be out on the couch.”
“Buck,” Eddie groans. “You don’t want to kiss me?”
“Not when you’re drunk,” he confirms. “Not for the first time.”
Eddie sighs dramatically.
“You’ll kiss me in the morning?”
Buck stands in the doorway and swallows.
“If you want me to in the morning,” he croaks.
“I always want you to,” Eddie mumbles.
Before Buck’s brain reboots at that little piece of information, Eddie’s loud snores echo through the house.
Buck’s on his third cup of coffee of the morning when Eddie finally shuffles out of his bedroom like something out of the walking dead.
He offers Buck a grateful hum as he plants a mug of coffee into his hands. The first word he speaks that morning is “shower” which is grunted in Buck’s direction as he shuffles back out of the room.
Thirty minutes later, Buck’s flipping pancakes when a knock on the kitchen door startles him.
“Knock, knock,” Eddie says, leaning against the kitchen doorway. He’s looking considerably more alive than when he last saw him. The small smile tucked into the corner of his mouth and the glint in his eye makes Buck’s stomach swoop.
He turns back to the pancakes. “Who’s there?”
He hears as much as feels Eddie move further into the kitchen.
“Kiss,” he says, from much closer than he was.
Buck takes a shaky breath and switches off the heat. He turns around. Eddie is right in front of him.
“Kiss who?” Buck asks.
“Kiss me,” Eddie grins, and it’s terrible — it’s a terrible line — but Buck does it anyway.