Work Text:
Eddie’s having a dream—one of those odd ones, where everything makes sense but nothing makes sense. He’s taking over for Santa this year, but there’s an electric pickup truck instead of a sleigh, and Mrs. Claus is actually his old drill sergeant, and he has to feed the giraffes at the El Paso Zoo in order to save Christmas. Y’know, normal night-before-the-holiday dreams.
He’s just about to feed Obi—the littlest one. And unlike Obi’s parents, Gigi and Juma, who have been staples of the zoo for a while, Eddie’s never met Obi, he’s only a year and half old. Buck sent him all the articles about Obi when he was born, going on about how he’s the first giraffe born at the El Paso Zoo and how great for conservation that is.
Anyway. The little guy is cute and Eddie is happy to finally meet him, even under such circumstances. As he gets to the feeding platform, he puts his arm out, offering a handful of hay to the majestic creature across the giraffe pen.
“Obi,” Eddie beckons him over, “Obi, come here!”
Obi starts to walk over before stopping and turning his head. Tilting it like a confused dog.
“Eddie?” Obi says.
Oh. A talking giraffe. That shouldn’t be happening. Yes, this is a ridiculous situation but… the laws of biology should still apply, right? Nothing has broken that rule so far.
“Eds?” Obi asks again. Okay. Never mind the whole talking thing, when did they become close enough that Obi knows his nicknames?
“Obi?” Eddie tilts his head now, just as confused.
“Eds?” And why does he sound like Buck? And why is the ground shaking? “Eddie. Edmundo. Baby?”
That’s not– Obi shouldn’t be–
“Baby?”
Eddie gasps in a gulp of air. His eyes shoot open as his shoulder is jostled one last time by his husband.
“Babe?” Buck chuckles, smoothing a hand through Eddie’s hair.
“I was– you– Obi–” Eddie babbles uselessly, already half asleep again just from the gentle touch.
“Like, as in the Jedi or the giraffe?” Buck asks as he snuggles under the covers again.
“Um– giraffe, I– I was– what was happening?”
“I’m not sure, honey,” Buck chuckles again. “You were sleep-talking about him when I got back into bed.”
“Something about a truck, and– and Christmas and the zoo and–” Eddie lazily pulls Buck close as he hums his story. “I was– wait… you got out of bed?”
“Just wanted to double-check a few things before tomorrow. Finished up the dough for the rolls, it’s proofing now.”
Despite being married to a committed home-baker, Eddie’s still not exactly sure what proofing is or why the dough needs to do it.
“It’s gonna be perfect, Ev,” Eddie settles for instead. He might indeed not know the first thing about baking but Buck’s kitchen creations always come out wonderfully.
The moment before Buck says anything stretches out a little too long for Eddie’s liking. He’s just about to add something else on before Buck sighs, “Yeah, I hope so.”
“It’ll be the best Christmas ever. It better be. First one with my husband.” Platonically or not, they’ve basically spent Christmas together for the past seven years in a row, but this is their first one as a married couple.
Eddie smiles as he rubs up and down Buck’s side, slowly slipping back into slumber—too sleepy to hear the trepidation in Buck’s voice when he softly repeats “Yeah.”
Eddie wakes up for the second time, hours later.
“How long do you think we have before our little elf wakes up?” Buck whispers.
Compared to how they fell asleep, Eddie is even more spread out on the bed beneath him. Buck can hear his heart thumping gently, his head to Eddie’s chest. Eddie’s barely awake, Buck is sure of that, but he also just received a kiss to his messy bed-head curls, so Eddie’s gotta be somewhat lucid.
Unless he’s started sleep-kissing, too. Which, honestly, Buck wouldn’t put it past him.
But, sure enough, the next thing Buck hears is a sigh and his husband’s ‘I just woke up’ voice asking him “Time’s’it?”
Buck tips his head up a little to look at the clock on the bedside table.
“Just past eight.”
Eddie hums. “We’ve probably got about half an hour.”
“Last year he let us sleep in until ten!” Buck whines.
Buck can feel Eddie’s chest rise and fall as he chuckles. “Yeah, well. I hear him and Denny and Mara and Harry all made a pact to start presents by nine this year. Hen tried to stop it, trust me, but I’m afraid we’re nothing against the power of the cousins' group chat.”
Buck can’t help but smile. “It’s cute, y’know? How they’re always all connected all the time. Regardless of blood.”
Eddie almost doesn’t stop himself from pointing out that blood relation means very little in their big family anyway. Bobby is Buck’s dad and Bobby is May’s father and Jee is May’s niece and Jee is Chris’ cousin and Chris is Buck’s son and so on and so on. They’re all connected in this big web, the whole firehouse and their families, that has nothing to do with blood.
Still, though, how cute it is does not take away from the fact that they’re going to be forced out of their warm bed soon.
“How cute will it be when we have a fifteen-year-old knocking down our door in twenty minutes?” Eddie traces patterns up and down Buck’s back absentmindedly.
“Twenty minutes? You said we had thirty!”
“He didn’t tell you about the schedule?”
Buck shakes his head.
“He’s your son, Buck. He knows how to plan things. He knows it’s gonna take us ten minutes to get up, and then ten minutes to make coffee and get all awake, and then ten minutes to set up the FaceTime call. He knows we need breathing room.”
Buck laughs at that. Giggles a little, actually. Buck knows how to work an efficient and realistic schedule. Like father, like son.
“Fine. Twenty more minutes of sleep and then it’s showtime.”
Buck burrows more into his husband’s warm chest. He drops a kiss to his sternum and hums as Eddie does the same to his head again.
And, just as they suspected, at 8:20 on the dot, there are knocks at their bedroom door.
“Daaaad! Buuuuck! Time to get up!”
Both men groan a little from where they are, still all tangled up with each other.
“Coming, bud!” Buck calls back.
It takes a minute or two (or twelve) but soon they’re all dressed in tacky Christmas sweaters and ready to take on the day.
“I’ll get the coffee,” Eddie grumbles, still half asleep, as they emerge from their bedroom.
“Can you do that thing I made for you the other day? Half coffee, half hot chocolate?”
“Isn’t that just a mocha?”
“No, a mocha has espresso, this one just has brewed coffee–”
Eddie rolls his eyes.
“–I programmed a button into the Hildy for it.”
‘Oh, great,’ Eddie thinks. If it wasn’t for the fact that Buck moved in and was incredibly offended that Eddie refused to use his fancy coffee maker which was a gift, Eddie never would have dug it out of storage.
But Eddie is utterly whipped for his husband. And it’s Christmas. He’ll do whatever Buck wants.
“Yes, baby, I can make you your thing,” Eddie says as they finally make it to the kitchen together.
“Chris will want a hot chocolate too–”
“Yup, I’ve got it covered, Buck. Don’t worry.”
A weight appears to lift from Buck’s shoulders. He kisses Eddie on the cheek as he leaves him to beverage duty, opting instead to check on his dough.
He opens the oven where it’s been proofing overnight. And–
“No!”
Buck all but falls to his knees.
“No! Why didn’t it– it didn’t rise!” Buck takes the pan out of the oven and throws it down on the counter unceremoniously, dangerously close to throwing a tantrum.
“Hey! Hey, hey, Buck, it’s okay,” Eddie comes up behind him, letting Hildy do her its thing. “Oh, baby, it doesn’t look too bad to me!”
“That’s because you don’t know what it’s supposed to look like!”
Well. He’s not exactly wrong. But the dough is nearly breaching the top of the pan, that has to be a good thing, right? It must have risen at least a little.
Buck continues babbling. “It proofed a bit but not enough, it should be double the size by now. The air bubbles need to be bigger– I don’t understand how I could have–”
“Can’t you just put it back in?” Eddie rests his chin on Buck’s shoulder, frowning.
“It was supposed to be ready this morning! I had it all planned out–” Buck pouts.
He really is just like Chris. Schedule and all.
“–and it’s not like I did anything wrong! I always proof bread this way. You just put a ramekin of water on the bottom rack and the pan in the middle and only keep the oven on really really really low until–”
“Babe,” Eddie interrupts.
“What?” Buck sighs, nearly snapping.
“Do you think there’s a chance you never turned the oven on?” Eddie extends one of the arms that had come to rest at Buck’s waist, pointing to where there’s a flashing six-hour timer on the oven that never started.
Buck looks at it for a second. Blinking in time with the little LEDs in the display. Oh, fuck.
“Shit!” Buck has to stop himself from punching the cabinet next to them. “How did I–?”
“It was late, honey. It’s okay. Look,” Eddie takes the pan and places it back in the oven. He presses a few buttons on the side of the door until it lights up inside, slowly heating to its very lowest warming option. “All done. How long will it need now?”
“Only a couple hours. It already– it’s like halfway there on its own,” Buck grumbles, still annoyed. It’s quickly being taken over by a wave of calmness, though. His flurry of thoughts settling as his husband helps him fix his mistakes as always, pressing little kisses to the side of his neck as he does so. He loves his husband so fucking much.
They’re shocked out of their little lovey-dovey bubble by the sound of the Hildy coffee machine going off. It’s a little electronic jingle, like those Samsung washing machines.
Eddie rolls his eyes. “It has to sing to us? Really?”
“No! Listen! I set this one specifically for drinks that have hot chocolate in them!” Buck beams.
Eddie listens a little closer. And, oh, God. This is so Buck. A cute 8-bit version of Feliz Navidad plays from the Hildy speakers.
“How did you– you know what– I don’t want to know,” Eddie laughs as he goes over to collect the drink.
“They have so many options, Eds, it’s grea–”
“It’s a little terrifying, to be honest.”
Buck smiles like a fool. Technophobe Eddie, his beloved, how he’s missed him.
By 8:55, Chris is sat square in the middle of the living room, setting up the group FaceTime call.
One by one, everyone joins. Denny and Mara from the Wilson house. Harry and May from the Grant-Nash house. And Maddie (on behalf of Jee) from the Buckley-Hans.
“Hi!” Buck waves to the camera from his spot on the couch, putting on his Santa hat. “Merry Christmas!”
He gets a chorus of ‘Merry Christmas’s back, complete with a ‘mewy cwismis unca Bux’ from his niece. Their family is so goddamn cute.
Eddie joins Buck on the couch, handing him his full-to-the-brim, decade-old, Christmas in Peru mug, complete with some marshmallows on top. He smiles at the way Buck’s engagement and wedding ring clink against the ceramic. As he places Chris’ hot chocolate on the table and nurses his own cup of coffee, he drops a peck to Buck’s lips, relaxing into the couch.
“Thank you, baby,” Buck hums. He rubs his nose against Eddie’s for a moment after.
“Ugh, are your parents being gross too?” Chris complains to the iPad. Immediately, several resounding and annoyed ‘Yes’ s answer his question.
“It’s Christmas! Let your dads be gross just for once,” May laughs.
“You’re one to talk,” Harry says, eyeing where May is snuggled up with her girlfriend, Ellie, on the floor by the tree. “Don’t push your luck.”
“You love me,” Ellie bites back. “I fixed your Switch for you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” Harry flips her the bird with a smile, out of the view of his Mom.
Chris strongarms the effort from then on, making sure they stay on track and all go around in order, ensuring no one gets left out of the gift-opening cycle. Clipboard Buck is out. iPad Chris is in.
As they go on and on, surrounded by their unwrapped presents, Buck becomes incredibly anxious about separating the wrapping paper and ribbons and bags and tissue paper—snatching the discarded wrapping away as soon as it hits the floor. He scoffs and has a little heart attack whenever he finds scraps he missed.
“Buck, it’s okay, it’s just paper!” Chris tries to calm him. Maybe it’s to make Buck feel better or maybe it’s selfishly just to stop Buck from annoying him—he’s waiting on the sidelines like a gator, ready to snatch up any bit of wrapping the moment it makes itself vulnerable.
“Did you schedule in time for clean-up after the gifts? Because if it weren’t for me, this place would be a mess,” Buck grumbles but boops Chris’ nose and Chris recoils with a face of faux disgust. Why must Buck embarrass him like this in front of his cousins?
“The place is already a mess! Don’t worry about it,” Eddie gestures to all the gifts and stocking stuffers strewn about.
“But!”
“–No, no buts!”
Mara and Jee both laugh from the iPad. Their uncles are so silly.
Buck walks back to the couch and curls up in Eddie’s lap like a dog with his tail between his legs. “Okayyy,” he pouts.
Chris just rolls his eyes at them.
But alas, the third Buck-freak-out of the day comes along not too long after.
For the very last presents under all of the trees, Chris has decided Buck and Eddie should open their gifts from each other at the same time. The two men sit together on the couch, facing each other, with a box in each of their laps.
Buck is giddy. He totally nailed his gift this year.
Eddie is excited, too. He’s got this one in the bag (or, the box… not that this is a competition anyway).
Chris flips the iPad around to face them. “Alright, one, two, three… go!”
Buck and Eddie both scramble to rip the wrapping up, scrawling the paper off the boxes and flipping them around to see–
“A toaster!?” they both exclaim.
Huh?
“You got me a toaster? I got you a toaster! You always complain about ours!” Buck whines.
“Well– I got you a toaster first! I bought that months ago when you first went on your bread-baking kick,” Eddie laughs.
Buck hides his head in his hands. Shoulders starting to shake.
Fuck. Is he laughing or crying?
Eddie reaches a hand out to rub Buck’s bicep comfortingly. Buck just melts into the touch and vibrates more.
Okay. Definitely crying.
“Hey, Chris. Why don’t you start sorting your gifts out? Buck and I are gonna go talk in the kitchen, alright?” Eddie is already weaving a hand in between Buck’s, trying to get a gentle hold on his husband so he can lead him up off the couch.
“Uh, y–yeah, okay,” Chris mumbles, turning the iPad back around. It’s not often he’s seen his Buck cry. It definitely hasn’t happened in the past year, not since he started dating Dad, at the very least.
Chris immediately switches gears, diving into his pile of presents and trying to show them off again to Denny on the call, more in-depth than when he first opened them.
Meanwhile, Eddie drags Buck to the kitchen, holding one of his hands and rubbing his knuckles with the other. He sits Buck down in a chair at the table and takes a seat of his own, putting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward to talk to Buck.
Buck sniffles and takes Eddie’s hands again, twiddling their fingers together to ground himself.
“What’s wrong, Buck?”
“The– this was– ugh! This was supposed to be perfect!” Buck breaks, the little speed bumps throughout the morning crashing upon him again all at once, making tears roll down off his nose.
“What was supposed to be perfect? The toaster?” Eddie uses one hand to wipe away some tears for him, knowing there will be more coming soon. Buck hates it when his eyes go all blurry, Eddie always helps wipe his tears away as soon as they start.
“Christmas! It’s our first Christmas married and our first since Chris came back and it needed to be perfect, okay? You deserve a perfect Christmas! Chris deserves a perfect Christmas! I know how hard Christmas is for him sometimes and I just– I wanted– I just–” here comes more of those tears, Eddie is on them immediately.
“Shh, shh, shh, baby. It’s alright–”
“It’s not alright! I was trying so hard to keep us to Chris’ schedule and now it’s– now we’re gonna be behind and we should just–” Buck goes to get up but Eddie uses his free hand to hold Buck down by his shoulder.
“Look at me, Evan,” Eddie whispers. “Mírame.”
And, ohhh, that’s not fair. He knows Buck can’t do anything but perk his ears up when his husband uses his real name or speaks to him in Spanish. Eddie’s not ashamed about using this trick now, even if it’s more often a bedroom thing.
“…Fucker” Buck chuckles, glassy blue eyes finally meeting Eddie’s.
“Listen to me, Ev. Escúchame.”
“Stop that,” Buck smiles more as he swats playfully at Eddie’s face. “I’m listening, I promise.”
Eddie leans forward to kiss Buck before speaking. He’s a weak, weak man.
“This Christmas is already perfect. Exactly because of what you said. It’s our first Christmas married,” Eddie rubs the ring on Buck’s finger he put there just this year. “It’s our first Christmas with Chris back,” he nods towards the living room. “And, yes, it’s still hard for Chris without his Mom. But that’s what makes this Christmas special, alright? We’re finally here together. That’s what makes it perfect. Not flawless time management or efficiently proofed dough or completely unique gifts or pristinely clean floors. Us, baby. Us. You being here. Me being with my boys. Chris being with his dads. It was always going to be perfect as long as we were together. Okay?”
Buck’s shoulders start shaking again, but not from sad tears this time. Happy tears. ‘I’m so silly’ tears. ‘I love my family’ tears.
“Do you wanna know why Chris made his schedule?” Eddie asks gently, kissing the tears off his husband’s face.
Buck nods.
“He told me he made it because he knows you like schedules. And he knows you didn’t grow up with nice family Christmases. He wanted to plan it out for you. He wanted it to be perfect for you, baby. And do you know what I told him? I told him the exact same thing. Being together this time doesn’t put pressure on Christmas, it takes pressure off Christmas. It’ll be perfect as long as we have each other. He doesn’t need to worry. Isn’t that right?”
“Of course, Eds. He didn’t need to worry about me! I would have loved whatever we– ohhhhhhh. Yeah. Okay. I get it now,” Buck shakes his head and laughs. “I didn’t need to worry about you guys, you would have loved whatever we did.”
“Exactly,” Eddie pulls Buck to his chest and kisses the top of his head, lips pressed tight to the fur of his Santa hat.
They sit there for a while, just breathing, in each other’s arms. Buck ends up practically on Eddie’s thighs soon enough.
After a few blissful, quiet minutes, “Hey,” Eddie whispers, pulling Buck back to look down at him from his place perched high on Eddie’s lap.
Before Buck can say anything, Eddie grabs a piece of fake mistletoe from the centrepiece on the kitchen table and stuffs the stem of it into the brim of Buck’s hat. The plastic sprig lays flat against Buck’s forehead and hangs off over the tip of his nose, dangling above his lips between him and Eddie.
“Looks like you have to kiss me now,” Eddie smirks.
“That’s cheating! You can forcibly put me under mistletoe! Anyone who comes near me now would be under mistletoe!” Buck laughs, but he’s already moving his hands to hold onto the sides of Eddie’s head.
“Oh, so you don’t want to kiss me?”
“Shut up.”
Buck dives right down for a kiss. It’s fast at first, lips wide in smiles, but then slow. Gentle. Loving. The perfect mistletoe kiss—never mind the fact that the pointy mistletoe is pressed between their noses and poking them both in the eyes.
Buck is the first to break the kiss, separating for just a second so he can take the mistletoe out of his hat and throw it on the floor. Eddie laughs and kisses him again. Kisses him and kisses him and kisses his husband, tasting like coffee and hot chocolate and the gingersnaps he’s been snacking on.
Eventually, “Fuck, that reminds me.” Buck pants.
“Yeah? What’s that?” Eddie smiles as he leaves little smooches along Buck’s jaw as he talks.
“I don’t even care about the toaster thing anymore.”
“Uh-huh? Why, baby?”
“I’ve got another present to give you tonight anyway.”
Eddie audibly laughs at that, pulling Buck in for one more big kiss before they’ve gotta get back out to the living room.
As soon as Chris notices Buck is back, he springs up off the floor and throws himself into a hug with his Buck.
“Merry Christmas, Dad,” Chris muffles into the ugly Christmas sweater on Buck’s chest.
“Dad?” Buck asks, hugging Chris back and looking over his shoulder at Eddie, who gives him a ‘don’t ask me’ look.
“Don’t make a big deal out of it, god,” Chris mumbles in typical teenage fashion, still not letting go of Buck, though.
Buck squeezes him tight, thankfully out of view of the iPad, lest he embarrass Chris again. “I love you, kid.”
Eddie comes up from the other side, enveloping both his boys in a big hug.
“Merry Christmas.”