black butterflies

to care for someone

the bright light of the rising sun shines through the silky curtains in eddies room. buck slowly wakes up due to the change of brightness in the room. he checks the time then turns to his side and is face to face with a sleeping eddie. he feels the breathing of him against his face and then decides he should get up. as he wiggles his way out of the bed, careful not to wake up eddie, his feet get tangled and he hits the ground with a mutter of angry words. he gets up and watches as eddie shuffles around in the bed, praying that he didn't wake him up. once he sees eddie settle down and start sleeping again, he makes his way out to the bathroom. he walks in and sees the clothes he wore to bed that night and gets small butterflies in his stomach remembering it wasn't his clothes. he turns his back to the mirror just to sees the names diaz on the back again. he finishes up he goes out to the kitchen and starts his search of the ingredients he needs for breakfast. after some time he had found everything but bacon and continues his search finally finding it, buried in the fridge like its never used. he was going to interrogate eddie about that later. in the other room, christopher was just waking up due to the smell of chocolate chip pancakes in the kitchen. chris walks out to see buck cooking and runs up and hugs him from behind. this gives buck a scare but when he turns around to see who it is he smiles and picks him up in a hug. 

"good morning bucky!" he says with a large smile 

"good morning christopher" buck says back "how'd you sleep?" 

"good, i didn't know you were having a sleepover with daddy." he says confused but excited with bucks presence. 

"yeah we did i was very tired last night and decided to stay here." he says back with a small smile putting him down. 

buck flips the last pancake and gets everyones plates together setting them on the table. 

"he do you want to go tell your dad breakfast is ready?" buck asks

"lets go together and jump on him" chris says with a little laugh and takes bucks hand and starts walking.

once the two get to the room the tip toe in and buck puts his finger over his lip to signal to be as quiet as they can. they make it to his bed and buck holds up three fingers and puts them down every second and when he puts his last finger down buck helps chris onto the bad and they both fall on eddie. 

"WAKE UPPPP" they both yell at him

this causes eddie to jump and wake up with a startle. he looks up and sees the two on him and shakes his head smiling. when the two see he's awake they get up and sit on the bed next to him.  

"well good moring to you too," eddie says with chuckle. 

when he gets up the blanket falls off of him revealing his bare chest and buck feels himself staring at him. he didn't remember eddie not wearing a shirt to bed last night. 

"dad we have a guest put a shirt on," chris says looking over at buck. 

"I don't think buck minds buddy," he replies back. 

when buck hears his name he is jumped back to reality. he has no idea what they were talking about but just nods in response to not look suspicious. the three of them all get up and make their way to the kitchen. when they get there eddie looks back at buck in shock.

"did you do this?" he says in disbelief with a light smile

that smile was just enough to drive buck insane though. he nodded and smiled wide not being able to contain himself. they all sit down and start eating. 

"eddie i have a bone to pick with you" buck says looking over at him

"and that is..." he said a little nervous 

"why is it that it took me almost 30 minutes to find your bacon, all the way in the BACK of your fridge." he says crossing his arms

"I dont cook it because i get scared of the oil popping and i don't want to get burned" eddie replies

buck starts laughing at him, "you're a firefighter are you serious" he says. 

"bacon is scary!" he says back and this sends the three of them into a fit of laughter. 

everyone finishes eating and eddie catches a glimpse of the time and panics. 

"CHRIS YOURE GONNA BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!" eddie yells and goes to find him

when he walks into his room he sees chris sitting on his bed putting his socks on and tells him they need to leave. eddie and chris walk out and chris starts walking to the car.

"hey i'm gonna go drop him off, feel free to stay until i get back so we can hang out more." eddie says smiling and runs out the door leaving to drop chris off. 

buck goes to start cleaning the dishes and loads the dishwasher. he notices that more of the house needed some cleaning. he wasn't judging not for a second, he knew how busy eddie was and he respected everything he did for his son and friends. that's why he decided to help him and get some stuff done. he started laundry, vacuumed, washed the floor, cleaned the bathroom and put eddies clothes away in his room. as he was folding the dry laundry and putting the other load in the dryer, he heard the front door open. 

"buck? you still hear?" he hears from the kitchen. 

"laundry room" he calls out still folding 

eddie makes his way over to where buck is but feels that something is off. he looks around and sees the house cleaned up for once and looks at buck folding laundry.

"did you do all of this? eddie asks in a confused voice still looking around

"yeah, i hope you dont mind. I started with just washing the dishes but then couldn't help myself." buck says carrying the basket back into christopher's room. 

he places the basket down on the floor and walks back out to eddie. he sees eddie start to tear up and runs over.

"eddie, hey i am so sorry if i overstepped i really didn't mean it." he says all worried and looks at him

no response from eddie begins to scare buck, but then he feels the warmth of his friend and is embraced in a tight hug. eddie begins to cry into bucks chest, this scared buck at first but he then ran his hand up and down eddies back. 

"thank you, i dont deserve this. i'm a mess of a father and i just get so tired." eddie speaks between sobs

"eddie what are you talking about, you're such an amazing father and you are so special to all of us. you're my best friend and you take care of everyone, it was time someone took care of you for a change." buck says softly while holding eddies head to his chest. 

hearing this was enough to make him hug buck even tighter.

"dont let go" he says muffled into bucks shirt

"wouldn't dream of it" he says back and gives a small kiss on eddies head

the second he does this buck starts to overthink and mentally punish himself. why would I do that and ruin our friendship, hes gonna hate me, hes crying why would you make his life 10x worse, thoughts like this was all he could say too himself. he was brought out of his thoughts when he felt eddie moving and he looked down to see eddie looking at him. 

"buck, i think i like you," he says with some pauses

buck didn't know if he meant friend like or more so he just looked at him like a confused puppy. 

"I shouldn't have said that i don't want to ruin anything it just came out," eddie says, but buck finally understood what he meant. 

buck looked in his eyes and thought about what to do, he didn't want to mess up.