Buck's Baby (By Accident)

Accident

Buck had successfully completed a month of fatherhood and couldn't remember what it was like before his son came into his life. Him and the boy had settled into a routine now with Buck having enrolled Aidan in a daycare that was just down the road from the firehouse. When Buck had his 24-hour shifts, Aidan would stay with Maddie who thankfully loved this time with her nephew. Buck had noticed a sharp increase of broodiness in Maddie since the boy came along, something that alarmed Chimney quite a lot. The man often complained to Buck that it was his fault that he hadn't had a night without sex in nearly 2 weeks, because Maddie was desperate for another baby. Buck couldn't quite see the problem there and had told Chimney to get over himself.

Buck spent every spare second he had fawning over his son. The little boy had filled a hole in his life that he hadn't even known was there. Buck would generally wake up before the baby and spend the first 20 minutes of his day getting himself ready before waking Aidan up. He'd give the baby a bottle, burp him, and then they'd spend some time on his playmat doing tummy time. Aidan was starting to get very good at lifting his head up during tummy time and Buck was pretty confident his friends were getting sick of all the photos he'd send to them when the baby did just about anything. All his friends, that was, except Eddie.

If Buck had thought Eddie had had his back previously, nothing would have prepared him for the level of support he received from his friend now. Since Aidan had arrived, Buck and Eddie had become pretty much inseparable. They'd kept up their usual Friday night dinners with Christopher, but Eddie often came over at least two other times during the week, or Buck would go to theirs. It had taken a lot of psyching up and no small amount of reassurance from Eddie for Buck to feel comfortable leaving the house with Aidan, but once Buck had seen that the baby couldn't care less about sleeping at home or at Eddie's, they'd taken several trips to the older man's house.

The day seemed to be progressing as any other. Buck had dropped Aidan off at daycare at 7:30am, getting to the station just in time for his shift to start at 8am. Their first call had been about 10 minutes later and the whole team had piled into the truck. It had been a moderate house fire and didn't take much effort to put out. Hen and Chimney had transported a lady to hospital with a laceration on her head from when she'd tripped over trying to exit the building, but there'd been no other casualties.

They'd gotten back to the station and Buck and Eddie had settled onto the couch to watch whatever was on TV. They were joined by Hen and Chim not much later and that was where they were sitting now. Hen had found an old episode of the Bachelor and her and Eddie were watching with enthusiasm, arguing over who they thought should be the one to be offered the rose. Buck wasn't much of a reality TV person and was struggling to stay awake, having had another rough night with Aidan the night before. His eyes were drooping and head lolling to one side as his breathing slowed and deepened, falling into an light slumber.

"Hey, looking at Sleeping Beauty next to you" Hen whispered to Eddie, pointing at Buck's sleeping form.

Eddie watched in amusement as Buck's head dropped lower and lower before finally coming to rest on his shoulder. Buck let out a small snore and nuzzled his head into Eddie's neck, his mouth opening a little. Eddie pulled a face as he felt a drop of Buck's drool hit his shoulder.

Hen had alerted Chimney to the spectacle and the older man had his phone in hand, happily taking photos and sending them off to Maddie.

"He must be pretty tired, huh" Hen remarked as she watched Eddie pick up a pillow and tentatively try and nudge it between Buck's head and his shoulder.

"Aidan kept him up all last night" Eddie replied, breathing a sigh of relief as he managed to wriggle the pillow into place.

"You look remarkably chipper though" Chimney said as he took one last photo, sending this one off to Bobby and Athena.