Title: A Carefully Engineered Plan (That Fooled Exactly No One)
Author: an-alternate-world
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Word Count: 2,200
Summary: There's mistletoe above his head as the camera shutter clicks and Eddie is next to him and Buck will go to his grave pretending that he hadn't set it there.
Warnings/Spoilers: If you haven't seen 3x10 yet, then this'll spoil the final shot of the episode.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with 911, Fox, or anything else related to that particular universe.

When May starts announcing they're going to get a photo, Buck springs into action. His moment, his moment, has arrived.

Everyone is scurrying around, finding their relevant relative to stand near and – luckily for him – Buck ends up squished between Maddie and the Diaz family, which is…frankly perfect and better than he could have actually planned.

Everyone yells "Merry Christmas!" and he assumes they're all smiling and posing and Buck puts two thumbs up and it's all cheesy as hell but that's what Christmas is all about. He hears the shutter click and everyone release the breath they'd been holding while grinning and he feels sufficiently satisfied that he pulled off the Most Excellent Surprise Christmas Party ever considering the surprise on the faces of his team when they'd climbed the stairs. He was especially proud of how he'd managed to get everyone's significant others there, and he was so grateful to Eddie's abuela for coming, and staying, and bringing Christopher. The party had been worth it to see Hen and Chimney and Bobby's faces, but it had been especially worth it for Eddie and Christopher because that's where the idea had first taken root in his brain.

Hearing Christopher ask to spend Christmas with him had made him soar, the way this kid trusted and loved him and had no issue with abandoning his actual extended family for Buck, but when he'd glanced at Eddie, receiving that small headshake which meant that he'd have to crush the kid's soul too… He would've spent Christmas with Christopher in a heartbeat, would have called in sick to work or sliced his leg to justify his inability to do any rescues, just so he could spend the day with his favourite kid and make him feel better because Eddie was working. Hanging out to make gingerbread houses had been awesome – and not just because he got to steal extra candy from the decoration plates and eat it – but it hadn't been the same. It was getting them in the Christmas spirit but it wasn't the real day and so he knew it hadn't been the same for him, or Christopher, or Eddie, or Hen and Denny. And he'd been able to see it in Eddie's eyes when his best friend had disappeared into himself from time to time, because he knew Eddie was remembering his attempted rekindling with Shannon a year ago. And he could hear it in Christopher's voice because Buck knew it had to be tough that last Christmas he'd had both parents and this year, one was dead and the other was working.

And sometimes, Buck couldn't stop thinking about that elf who had assumed Christopher was his and Eddie's son.

It was time to cast off the demons of last Christmas.

So Surprise Christmas Party it was!

After the photo, various groups break off to gather other presents, or to share a conversation, or grab another plate of Christmas pudding, but Buck stays where he is as Isabel Diaz guides Chris somewhere in the direction of the pinball machine, because the kid has decided that's his favourite place to be today. Buck stays, because he's somewhat deliberately engineered this and he manages to snag the back of Eddie's shirt where he's turned to chat with Hen.

Eddie's eyes light up when he turns, gathering Buck into a hug before Buck can even say anything to his stupid delighted face.

"Thank you for this, Buck," Eddie says, squeezing him tight and maybe his voice cracks a little or maybe that's just Buck's imagination as he wraps an arm around Eddie's back and somewhat returns the hug. "It- It really means a lot that you brought all our families together like this."

Eddie lets him go and Buck feels sheepish, his cheeks almost certainly flushed as he ducks his head and struggles to meet Eddie's eyes because he knew it meant a lot but so much of his time at the house feels like he's making amends for all the screw-ups of this year. In some demented twisted way, he wonders if he pulled all this together just so that everyone would realise he had value rather than trying to destroy their lives and break their hearts with that lawsuit.

"It- Well, I can't say it was nothing because it was hard to keep it all secret but when Bobby said we were having Chinese?" He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head, just as appalled now as he had been when Bobby had made the decision to get takeout for Christmas. "Besides, you needed Christopher. And Chris needed his Dad. That made it easy."

There's a small smile that crosses Eddie's lips as he glances over to where Chris is playing pinball, where Denny's now standing next to him and gesturing wildly in some sort of conversation that they can't hear. "After the year he's had, that we've all had, I really can't tell you how much I appreciate what you did."

He ducks his head again and Eddie's hand clasps his shoulder, thumb at his neck and hovering near his pulsepoint and Buck's just…such a mess when Eddie does that. Eddie's head moves around a little until his eyes catch Buck's, and though Buck is very much grounded in the present, he's also very aware of how he remained distracted the whole rest of the day after being touched like this and told that Eddie didn't trust anyone else with Christopher as much as he trusted Buck.

Not even his aunt? His sisters? His parents? His abuela?

Buck?

Eddie's fingers twitch against him, drawing him away from the memory. "You know it means a lot, right? That's getting through that thick head of yours?"

He sticks out his tongue and Eddie rolls his eyes, but there's still that warm little smile that he sees aimed at him more and more often, the one that makes his heart do the jumpy-jumpy thing and that leaves Buck utterly unable to meet Eddie's eyes.

"Mature, Buckley. Mature."

He grins, maybe more at the way Eddie finally gives up and uses his full last name, but Eddie's expression flickers with something unreadable and Buck suddenly remembers the plan he'd engineered.

He hopes he doesn't royally screw all of this up.

"So," he begins, swallowing somewhat nervously and glancing over Eddie's shoulder to where Chris is with his abuela. It's safe, at least for a little while, from interruptions. "So listen-"

But whatever words he's been rehearsing for the past week since he'd started putting this whole party together stick in his throat. Eddie's brows draw together, head tilting a little to the side in adorable confusion that really doesn't do anything to help Buck's concentration on stringing together a sentence.

"Are you okay? It's not another embolism isn't it?"

God, why is Eddie so nice?

"Yeah, no, it…uh…" He licks his lips, increasingly and acutely conscious of Eddie's hand still on his shoulder, thumb still hovering against his skin and making it difficult to remember that he needs to use words.

Wait.

Screw words.

He'll do this another way.

He looks up and for a moment, he knows Eddie is even more confused at his reaction, until Buck gies a little wave gesture thing and Eddie's eyes finally follow his.

And then he gets it.

"Oh." Eddie's fingers tighten against his shoulder, not quite painful but definitely betraying his uncertainty and surprise and shock and maybe his anxiety and fear. Or maybe that's just Buck projecting. "Oh."

Buck can imagine Eddie being furious at himself later for not being able to find the words but Buck's secretly over the moon because he's not the only one now with his tongue in knots and a dysfunctional connection between his brain and his mouth. It's oddly comforting.

"We don't have-"

But Eddie's already leaning in and Buck can only freeze, words turning into a series of stuttered nothings because as much as he'd engineered this, he hadn't actually…expected it to work. He'd pinch himself, except he doesn't want to wake up and find that this is a dream.

"Am I playing for the title?" Eddie says, a mumble an inch from his lips that only just makes it to Buck's ears amid the din of the rest of the firehouse, and Buck can't help the small bubble of laughter that escapes him.

"I think you need to do a whole lot more than just kiss me for this title," he teases, and Eddie makes some sort of frustrated huff/grunt thing which would be hilarious if he hadn't started kissing Buck and whatever noise had been in the firehouse just…fades into nothing, into the weird roaring silence that he became so aware of during the tsunami.

Except with the tsunami, he became aware of just how pushed and pulled he was, and how wet and cold. And with this, he becomes incredibly aware of how still he is (aside from the small nervous trembles) and how warm he feels and the heat and gentle pressure of Eddie's mouth against his and the slight scratch of stubble against his jaw when Eddie adjusts his head and the hand that had been on Buck's shoulder which has skimmed upwards to cradle his neck – thumb pressing under his jaw and making him tilt his head back a little, which is…something he really likes and will discuss more with Eddie later – and he would swear he can feel Eddie's temperature radiating through his shirt like the sun, except then Buck realises that's because at some point his fingers have latched on to Eddie's shirt at his hip and his chest, and then he realises he's so dizzy that he wants to hold onto a table but it's probably because he doesn't remember inhaling since …probably about the time that Eddie's eyes caught the mistletoe that Buck had somewhat deliberately engineered to be above where he stood when he heard they were doing a group photo.

So he probably should breathe.

Even so, it's Eddie who breaks the kiss, pressing their foreheads together as they both scatter unsteady puffs of air against the other's lips. His brown eyes are huge when Buck hesitantly opens his to check Eddie's not closing himself off, not getting lost in the memories of last Christmas, not doubting himself and letting all the guilt and shame creep into his eyes, not putting up all those walls of rage and fury and disappointment. Because, above everything, it was the disappointment that had hurt the most when Buck realised he's totally screwed up.

"Did I win?" Buck jokes and Eddie's nose brushes against his as he shakes his head with a laugh and pulls away, hand slipping off Buck's skin and leaving what feels like an absolute scorching burn on his flesh in its wake. If Buck hadn't been a firefighter, he would've been concerned at the flames that seem to have been left behind by Eddie's touch.

"Well, you're at least better at that than you are at video games," Eddie retorts, right side of his mouth pulling up in a grin that Buck can't help but mirror and he realises he can breathe. He can breathe. He didn't screw everything up.

"I'd say I'd teach you but I can't have you beat me at everything," Buck says and Eddie has that rare grin of pure, unadulterated joy that Buck really hasn't seen in so many months.

"Even if beating you at this might be worthwhile for you?"

Buck opens his mouth to response when, with a snap like a rubber band against his arm, he realises that the rest of the house is deathly silent.

It startles him and he jerks, and maybe it's that or it's his rapid blinking which pops his insulated bubble with Eddie, where he'd completely zoned out and now he realises literally everyone is watching him, watching them, and his cheeks probably turn almost the same colour as the firetruck.

His fingers slip from Eddie's shirt but it's too late. He can't hide it.

"Uh…" He tugs at his collar and notices Eddie shift a little in front of him, shoulders straight. Huh. "Mistletoe?" he says awkwardly, jabbing a finger above his head because that's the only explanation he has and it's the only explanation he needs.

"Well, it's about time," Christopher calls from the pinball machine, surprising everyone that is still staring at them with wide eyes. "Jeez."

Eddie's shoulder's shake in front of him and then the next moment he's dissolving into full-body laughter, and Buck's not entirely sure why or what was so funny – aside from, perhaps, the absolute sass of Chris which he will absolutely take credit for teaching him – but then Hen says something like "Thank God for mistletoe" and Maddie meets his gaze and just shakes her head with one of her small, fond, and absolutely knowing smiles and he wonders if he really fooled anyone with his carefully engineered plan of bringing Christmas to the firehouse and rigging up mistletoe directly above his head.

If anyone accuses him, he'll absolutely go to his grave denying it.

It's not like anyone could prove otherwise.

~FIN~