(poster By @sorchas)

(poster by @sorchas)

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Close Enough for Comfort

Pairing: Evan “Buck” Buckley/Eddie Diaz

Rating: Teen and Up

Word Count: 14074

Summary:

Their first hug doesn’t happen at the firehouse.

It’s at a bar where they’d decided to get a drink after work. Eddie arrives a little after he does once he drops Christopher off at his aunt’s place and when he joins Buck at the table he pulls him into one of those casual, back-slapping kinds of hugs.

It’s nothing to write home about. It’s friendly, comfortable, but Eddie’s hands are warm on Buck’s back and for the briefest second Buck can feel Eddie’s smile imprinted against his shoulder before it’s over.

He puts it down to missing Abby that he finds himself thinking about it when he’s trying to fall asleep that night.

*

A look at how Buck and Eddie’s physical relationship develops from season 2 to season 5 AKA the one with all the hugging.

Read here on ao3

I wanted to do a fic rec list for buddie, but also I hate deciding things and I'm bad at writing pretty things about the fics I like. So I just went through my roughly 200 ao3 buddie bookmarks, pulled out the ones that, as stated above, made my brain go !!!, and put them in alphabetical order.

There's 50 fics in total, so I broke it down to 5, more manageable, posts of 10 fics each. This is the first post. I hope you enjoy.

Part Two | Part Three

a flower in a gun (a bird in flight) by @extasiswings (T, 3k)

Even if Buck felt the same—and Eddie isn’t convinced of that, doesn’t have the arrogance to assume—what right does he have to say please, to say wait, to ask Buck to put his life on hold indefinitely while Eddie sorts through the tangled mess in his head in the hope that one day he’ll finally be ready? He can’t be that selfish. Especially not with Buck. [Or: in the aftermath of the shooting, love endures.]

a hundred little pieces by @renecdote (G, 3k)

The tap is bloody, the sink stained red, paper towels wadded up and abandoned in it, soaked with blood, and Eddie can taste his heart in his throat, sour and metallic, because he’s doing the math and—shit. Kitchen + blood + blood thinners = only bad things. (Multiplied by Buck, which equals Eddie’s blood pressure jumping through the roof.) In which Eddie takes care of Buck.

And if you swear that you’re alright, I’m not gonna try and change your mind by @homerforsure (T, 8k)

"Buck wants to shake him. He’s staring at him right now and Eddie looks haunted. He looks exhausted, like he could sleep for a hundred years, and there’s a wildness in the depths of his eyes as he talks about moving on that betrays how desperately he wants it to be true and how much of a lie it really is. Eddie looks the way Buck’s sure he looks right now and if Eddie would just say that he’s not okay, Buck might feel a little less alone. A little less crazy. A little less broken." Buck and Eddie both struggle after being held hostage.

and longer by far by @buckactuallys (T, 14.5k)

“Eddie’s been married once, and after Shannon asked him for a divorce and then died before they could do anything about it, he figured that was it for him. One marriage with all its ups and downs is enough for a lifetime. Granted, he didn’t think he’d fall in love with Buck and be lucky enough for that love to be returned.” OR Everyone seems to expect Eddie to propose to Buck any minute now, which is annoying because Eddie doesn’t want to get married again. He's sure of that. Or is he?

at the kitchen table by @oatflatwhite (T, 1.5k)

“Have you ever thought about us? Together?” * Post-5.03. Eddie's single. Buck's not. They talk about the elephant in the room.

Bases Loaded by @lamardeuse (E, 2k)

Eddie asks to go slow.

This fic is a lovely piece about Buck being patient with Eddie while he slowly gets used to the idea of being sexually intimate with another man.

Before the Night Fades by @milenadaniels (T, 8.5k)

“I have a bottle of champagne, four champagne flutes, one engagement ring to go into one of those champagne flutes, and a note to deliver it all to table 34 with dessert,” Tomas explains, wide-eyed, throwing his hand back to the prep station where said champagne is waiting on ice next to four flutes and a small ring box. “Okay?” “Okay so there’s two men and two women and I have no idea who’s getting proposed to. I’m not even 100% on who came with who." --- Or, EddieAna and BuckTaylor double date and it ruins everyone's night.

Please read this fic. It's a very funny and well written outsider pov. A true gem.

Burn a bridge, learn how to swim by WatermelonShots (M, 13k)

In which there is some unexpected making out, some pining, one third of an existential crisis and a lot of unhelpful advice. Not necessarily in that order.

This is the first part of the Burn a bridge, learn how to swim series, which is maybe my number one favorite fic series for Buddie. The internal monologues are so amusing and awkward and charming.

Buy Back the Secrets by @littlespooneven (T, 19k)

He casts his gaze to the right, to the voice he’d heard a minute ago and the hand still on his shoulder. And, well. Okay. So Buck may have just been unconscious for an indeterminable length of time but he doesn’t think he’s exaggerating when he says the guy leaning over his bedside is one of the most attractive people he’s seen in a long time. Especially when his face splits into a smile that rivals the brightness of the hospital lights that almost just fucking blinded Buck a second ago. “Welcome back, hotshot,” the guy says and it sounds fond – familiar – and Buck honestly has no idea who this guy is. His brown hair is dishevelled on top of his head and his eyes look tired but then Buck notices the LAFD t-shirt so- alright. Someone from the firehouse, maybe? But he’s pretty sure he’d remember a face like that. * After getting hurt on a call, Buck wakes up thinking it's 2018. AKA Buck can't remember who Eddie is but he's pretty sure everyone's lying when they say they're "just friends."

Ciara is the one who lured me into the buddie fandom. Any fic by her is worth a read, but this is one of my favorites.

Close My Eyes and Stumble (Right Into Your Love) by @hmslusitania (M, 21.5k)

Eddie's PTSD is just that little bit worse and when he moves to Los Angeles, instead of joining the LAFD, he joins dispatch. Which is all good and fine, except for this one firefighter he keeps ending up talking to.

This lovely fic is an AU where Eddie is the one who works at dispatch in s1 instead of Abby.

what?! pharmacies close in the US?! WTF!!

THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING TO GET YOUR MEDS BEFORE THE PHARMACIES CLOSE

they are going to be CLOSED OVER THE HOLIDAYS and so will the DOCTORS WHO SIGN YOUR PRESCRIPTIONS.

if you don’t have enough meds to last the next THREE WEEKS, put in for your repeats and refills tomorrow! that’s Wednesday! do it! don’t go to hospital at New Year because you ran out of stuff!

THIS!!! the ending was the only part of the movie that did not sit right with me!!

Not that the ending of Encanto is untouchable in terms of criticism, but the specific criticism that them getting their magic back at the end of the movie takes away from the main point of the movie kind of irks me. It’s like… what do YOU think the main point of the movie is? Because this in no way took a water from the main point.

I think a lot of you took “magic bad” instead of “the generational trauma is bad.” The magic showed how their generational trauma created certain pressures around them, and the magic also represented their family. Once their were cracks in the family, there were cracks in the magic. When they rebuilt the house, and reinstated the magic, it represented the bond of the family being fixed.

Also, it literally makes no sense to take away from the magic when some of these characters journeys are about discovering themselves with their magic- a huge example of this being Isabela.

Like I get that some of you just don’t want fantasies to stay fantasies, but to say that the ending missed the point shows me that you don’t actually know what the point is.