#me as the excited buck tooth emoji

[bacchare]

recently uncovered pompeii reg. ix fragments!!!!

[buckleysjareau]

you feel like the perfect escape now

"In the symbolic language of jewels, a sapphire in a wedding ring means marital happiness."

or

Eddie planning his proposal with the help of Hen and Karen. Featuring good ol' Buck and Chimney banter, soft and in love boyfriends, and tooth rotting fluff.

part two of three in my series ‘cause i’m not too far and you’re my favorite place on ao3

Eddie Diaz was never the type of guy to actually think about marriage. He’ll sound horrible saying it, but he didn’t really think about his marriage to Shannon. He loved her, he’s loved her since their third date when they were caught in the rain and instead of freaking out, she grabbed Eddie’s hand, dragged him out from the shelter and spun them around, head falling back in happy, care-free laughter. He loved her when she told him, with tears in her eyes, that she was pregnant. He loved her as she walked down the aisle with a grin on her face, carelessly happy. He loved her when she gave birth to their world.

But he never thought about it as it happened. When she’d told him she was pregnant, after he got over the initial excitement, his first thought was oh, we should probably get married now. Before that, it never occurred to him that he would ever marry Shannon, even though he loved her.

It was different with Buck.

Realizing he wants to marry Buck, not because he should but because it’s the only thing he can think of when he goes to sleep at night and when he wakes in the morning. He realizes the difference in the thought when it comes to planning his proposal to Buck and how he treated Shannon’s proposal.

He loved Shannon, but he was never in love with her. The thought sends an uncomfortable amount of guilt through him, but he hears Buck’s voice in his ear saying, you can’t help who you fall in love with.

Not exactly what he meant when he said it but it helped Eddie shake a lot of the guilt.

He was wholeheartedly, one-hundred percent, completely, utterly and stupidly in love with Evan Buckley.

The second it struck him how much he not just wanted, but needed to marry Buck, he couldn’t wait a second longer to start planning it. 

The first thing he has to do before he even starts planning anything, though, is ask Christopher if he would be okay with him marrying Buck. He knows his kid loved Buck more than life, but sometimes he’s scared that Chris will think that if he marries him, he’ll be replacing Shannon.

When it happens that Buck and his schedules don’t line up, he takes Christopher to lunch at his favorite place and asks. 

“Christopher, can I ask you a really important question?”

He giggles when his son looks up from his triple chocolate pancakes with whipped cream and chocolate already covering his mouth. “What is it, dad?”

“Abuela’s gonna kill me for letting you order all of this sugar.” He shakes his head as he smiles before he clears his throat. “You know how before Buck and I got together, I asked what you’d think about it?”

“I said I loved my Buck and got really excited.”

“That’s right! Well, Christopher, how would you feel if I asked your Buck to marry me?”

Chris’ smile grows immediately. “You’re gonna marry Bucky?”

“If that’s alright with you.” He smirks.

“Yes! Yes!” 

His heart soars. He was really going to ask Evan Buckley to marry him. 

After he texts Hen for her help and the twenty texts he receives of her freaking out in the language of keyboard smash, he tries to plan it. Keyword: tries.

From Hen;

Alright, alright diaz-buckley, how do you plan to do this

To Hen;

I have no clue!!! That’s why i asked for your help to research and what not. I’m not Buck, i’m not good at research or whatever

Also

*future diaz-buckley, we’re not married YET

From Hen;

boy... you’re in love in love huh

Your boy is sitting right across from me 

*photo attachment*

What’s he smiling at eddie?

To Hen;

Probably dog videos 

Now helllllppppppppppppp

From Hen;

You were right. A golden retriever looking at videos of golden retrievers

Patient, diaz! 

Got a call, we’ll talk later

To Hen;

Tell buck to be careful!

You too obviously

bu t you know what I mean 

He doesn’t know why he thought he could get anything done regarding the proposal through text. That’s how Hen and him were, they had never been able to stay on one conversation at a time when texting. There was one time when Hen had asked him for a recipe Buck wouldn’t give her, followed by a text about a playdate with Denny, and a text asking his high score in Candy Crush. He responded to say he’d ask him and send it and continued the conversation. Talk of playdates turned into talks of weirdest calls, talk of high scores in Candy Crush turned to talk of modern technology and so on. By the time Hen stopped responding, presumably because Karen got home, Eddie realized he’d never given her the recipe. 

It was different in person, they could sit for hours and talk about the same thing. He cherishes any conversation with Hen, though. He cherishes their friendship so much. Next to Buck, Hen was his best friend. 

That’s why he couldn’t think to ask anyone better to help him plan the next step in his life with the man that he loves.

From Hen;

Heads up, your boys in a sour mood 

Dont worry though because ik you are!

Im sure a nice cuddle from his soon to be fiance will do the trick

To Hen;

Why shouldnt I worry? An hour ago you sent me pic of him smiling 

Now hes in a bad mood? Something happened

Hennnnnnnnn tell me what happppppennnnnneddddd

What was the call

im bored and worried 

From Buck; 

Can I stay the night? Ill bring wine and chinese <22222

<4444

To Buck;

You okay there babe? Haha

You never have to ask 

Or bribe me with food and alcohol

But i will accept it <3

From Buck;

You know i hate texting don’t judge me!

See you in 10 love love love you <3

Eddie’s worried. Buck practically lived at the Diaz’s, he never had to ask to stay the night and he knew that. All Hen had sent back was the shrug emoji so he was on his own to figure out why.

As promised, Buck walks in ten minutes later with two bags of chinese food and a bottle of white wine. He seemed tense, but when he sees Eddie in his presence, he can automatically see his whole body relax. 

“I hate when we’re not on shift together.” Buck says in lieu of a greeting. He places the wine and food on the coffee table in front of them before he plops down next to Eddie.

He leans into Eddie’s touch, instantly lying his head on Eddie’s chest and closes his eyes.

Eddie smiles down at his boyfriend, automatically moving to run a hand through his curls, wrapping the other arm around Buck’s chest. “Me too. I missed you today. So did Chris.”

“I missed you both like crazy today. I can’t wait to just cuddle up to you and fall asleep.” He mumbles. “You’re my world.”

Even after all of this time, Buck can still make Eddie blush like it’s nothing.

He presses his lips to Buck’s forehead. “And you’re mine.” 

It stays quiet after that until Eddie’s stomach growls, startling Buck into sitting upright in laughter. 

“I think it’s time to eat, huh?” 

“You’d be right.” 

Buck gets up and gets two wine glasses from the kitchen. The way in which Buck walks so comfortably around his home will never fail to bring a kaleidoscope of butterflies to his stomach. He knows where everything is and he knows how everything works and it feels empty when he’s not there. 

Eddie turns on the TV and picks a random station that’s playing reruns of a cop show he’d seen here and there. Eddie and Buck’s legs are interlaced and resting on the coffee table, food in their laps when things settle. The ease on Buck’s face makes him wonder why he was even worried in the first place.

They don’t talk as they eat their food and sip their wine. They just take in each other’s company as they watch what’s on in front of them, perfectly content in just being together. 

Buck’s phone rings from the coffee table. When he lets it ring through to voicemail without even looking at ID, Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you the one who said you should answer every phone call because it might be important? Or are you just a clone of my boyfriend?”

Buck snorts. “I know it’s not important.”

It starts to ring again and Eddie sees Maddie’s name flash on the screen. “It sounds important.”

“I promise you it’s not.” 

Then she calls a third time and Buck groans. “Fine, fine. I’ll answer.” 

He doesn’t leave the room, doesn’t make any effort to grab his phone, just sits back and pouts as Eddie hands him his phone. 

He listens to Buck’s side of the conversation closely. He’s talking about not wanting to go somewhere because he doesn’t know if someone is going to be at that place and he doesn’t want to risk it. Hm.

“I was having a nice, relaxing night with Eddie before you called about something you knew the answer to, so if you’ll excuse me, I’d love to get back to that.” He throws his phone onto his lap after he hangs up, then smiles sheepishly. “Any chance you can ignore that?”

“If you don’t want to talk about it right now, that’s perfectly okay. But we do have to talk about it eventually. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you snap at Maddie, so something must have happened.”

Buck cuddles back into Eddie’s chest, revelling in his arm comfortably wrapped around his shoulders. “It’s really not a big deal, Eds. It’s just stupid.”

“Well, lucky for you, I like hearing everything you have to say. Even if it’s stupid.” 

“Did you just boop my nose?” 

“And what about it?”

All Eddie feels is the shaking from Buck’s giggling. “Shit, whoever decided I was good enough to have you in my life is someone I’d like to meet because...man, I love you.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.” Eddie smirks.

Buck hides his face in the nook of his neck. “Stop making me blush.”

“Never.”

It’s quiet again after that until Buck finally talks. “So, uh…”

“Yeah?”

“I got a wedding invitation in the mail today. It’s from my cousin, she’s getting married in Los Angeles so she invited Maddie and me. We get along just fine, always have, but I haven’t talked to her in a few years and now Maddie thinks it’s completely necessary to actually go to her wedding. I just don't know if I want to risk going and have them be there as well, you know?”

“Your parents?”

“Who else?”

“Well think about it this way. If the risk of seeing your parents again was out of the equation, would you want to go?”

Buck sighs. “Of course I would. It’d be nice to see her again and have a good time, but Eds… you know how my parents are.”

It’s true, he did know how his parents were. He remembers when they’d come to Los Angeles when they found out their first grandchild had been born. He remembers how tense Buck had been the entire time, how he let his parents walk all over him and tell him how big of a failure he was like it was a normal day to day conversation. He especially remembers yelling at Buck’s father after a particularly barbaric comment on Buck’s lifestyle. 

He knows why he’d want to avoid his parents, because Eddie would too. 

“Can you bring a plus one?”

“What?”

“Can you bring a plus one to the wedding?” He smiles when Buck nods. “Take me. If your parents are there, I’ll have your back. Plus, your cousin seems nice, I’d love to meet the family that’s not pretentious.”

Buck choked on the wine he’d taken a sip of. “You think Maddie’s pretentious?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely pretentious.” He jokes. “I mean your extended family. You’ve met mine.”

Buck sighs. “Whatever. I guess we’re going to a Buckley wedding. I really did want to see McKenna so you win.”

“I always do.” He grins before he connects his lips with Buck’s and giggles against it when his fingers press against the only ticklish part of his body.

“What? Did that tickle?” Buck gasps. “You said you weren’t ticklish!”

“I’m not!” 

“Mhm.” 

Then suddenly, the wedding worries were long forgotten, tickle war long taking its place. 

“Oooooooh, so you’re going to a wedding with him, huh?” Hen wiggles her eyebrows from where she stands across her kitchen. “That’s gonna be you one day.”

Eddie sighs exasperatedly. “Not if I have nothing planned. I wanna make this special, okay?”

Hen’s face softens. “Anything you do to propose will make it special, honey. You’re Buck’s world, a simple Marry me? would be the most romantic thing in the world to him.”

“Maybe so, but that’s how it was with Shannon. She was pregnant with Christopher so I thought the next logical step would be marriage, but this is different. Buck is different.”

“Alright, alright, let’s get to work, then.” She opens her laptop. “What are some of your favorite things about him?”

Eddie’s face erupts into a look of pure adoration at that question. “Oh, Henrietta, you have no idea what you just got yourself into, asking that. What are some of my favorite things about Evan Buckley? Let’s see… When he wakes up in the morning, he makes this cute little noise when he stretches and it makes my heart fill with joy. He loves Christopher like he’s his own and he never treats him differently. He just has so much knowledge about literally anything. Random facts upon random facts are stored in that beautiful brain of his and whenever he tells me one of these random facts, it’s suddenly the most important thing in the world. He’s so selfless, you know this. When we got together and I still wasn’t sure about being open about my sexuality, he put my fears above his own fear of telling you guys. He’s an amazing cook, so amazing I have a hard time believing that before he joined the one-eighteen the only thing he could cook was ramen. Even if he could still only cook ramen, I’d still love him, we’d just be living off of frozen food. I love the little family we’ve got going on now. I can go on for hours, but I won’t. Any of that help?” 

By the time he was done, Karen was home and trying her hardest not to tease the lovesick man.

“Oh, honey, you’ve got it bad.” Karen giggles. “Buck has it just bad, though.”

Hen clears her throat. “What’s something that’s specific to you and Buck? Christopher, too. You can always propose that way. Doing something and it’ll just come completely unexpected?”

The metaphorical light bulb over Eddie’s head flashes on. “I have it!”

It’s a Friday morning at the firehouse and Eddie finds himself next to Hen, looking over her shoulder as she helps him navigate what needs to be done to propose. 

His eyes travel up to meet his boyfriend’s as he walks up the stairs, and even though his smile is bright as he sees him, there’s bags under his eyes. The second his eyes land on Chimney though, he deflates and rolls his eyes. Chimney has a smug look and Eddie knows he definitely missed something.

“You can’t avoid me forever, Buckaroo.” 

Buck looks over to Hen and Eddie, making an exaggerated face of confusion. 

“Did you guys hear something?” 

Bobby laughs from where he’s at in the kitchen, Hen snorts, and Eddie is grinning, looking between the soon to be brother in laws.

“How mature of you, Evan.” Chimney rolls his eyes. “I just wanna talk about the wedding next week and he keeps rolling his eyes and running away. Eddie, make him stop.” 

Buck scoffs. “You’re sitting here whining and you’re calling me the immature one.” 

“I wouldn’t be whining if you just talk to me for once. I just want more information, who I’m gonna meet, if your parents are coming, c’mon give me something.”

“Alright.” Buck smirks. “For good luck, Egyptian women pinch the bride before the wedding.”

Chimney groans. “What?”

“Engagement and wedding rings are worn on the fourth fingers of the left hand because it was once thought that a vein in that finger leads directly to the heart.”

“That’s beautiful, but I wanna talk about the wedding next week.” Chimney whines.

Eddie is torn between wanting to laugh and being worried about his boyfriend. It’s obvious Chim doesn’t know that this is Buck’s classic mode of deflection, and Buck seems to know this. Eddie can tell Buck is just beginning, too. 

“Seventeen tons of gold are made into wedding rings each year in the United States.”

“Maddie says you would know more about the family that’s going to the wedding, so why won’t you just tell me?”

“Ancient Greeks and Romans thought the veil protected the bride from evil spirits. Brides have worn them ever since.”

Chimney turns to Eddie and Hen, arms out in exasperation, desperate. “Eddie!”

Eddie shrugs his shoulder. “If he doesn’t wanna talk about the wedding, don’t make him talk about the wedding. I’m not gonna make my f- my boyfriend do something he doesn’t want to do.” 

Buck’s too distracted in his minds’ files of facts on weddings to tell Chimney to hear him almost slip up, but Chimney’s got his eyebrow raised and he hears Hen snicker under her breath, nice one. 

Chimney eyes him suspiciously for a moment before he goes back to the problem at hand. “Maddie doesn’t know her cousin all that well, she’s more around Buck’s age, I just want to know what I should expect because I know how the Buckley’s are. Why can’t you just tell me something, man?”

“The most expensive wedding was Sheik Rashad Bin Al Maktoum’s son’s marriage to Princess Salama in Dubai in 1981. It was forty-four million dollars.”

“What about your cousin’s wedding?”

“In the symbolic language of jewels, a sapphire in a wedding ring means marital happiness.”

Before Chimney can ask once more, Eddie cuts in again. “He hasn’t seen anyone in his family in years, why would he know who’s going?”

“Thank you!” Buck sighs and drops next to Eddie, who shuts his laptop so fast it probably would have broken the screen. “I have plenty of more facts about weddings if you want to keep talking about the wedding, though.”

Chimney hears the message it is and sighs. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like talking about your family. I’m just feeling a little anxious here, ya know?”

Buck sighs. “Me too, Chim. But if it helps you any, McKenna is not at all as pretentious and callous as my parents. That’s all I can and want to tell you about though, so please… Let it go.” 

Hen reaches over and places her hand on Buck’s in an attempt of comfort before her soft smile turns to a smirk. “So Buckaroo, why do you know so much about weddings?”

Eddie’s eyes go comically wide. 

“A little late night reading.” He shrugs. 

“Hm.” She turns to Eddie with a smirk when Bobby calls Buck over to help.

Eddie groans softly, resting his head on the cold wood of the dining table. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

Three days later, Eddie finds himself at a jewelry shop on Wilshire with Hen and Karen.

“I feel like all of these rings look the same.” He whines. 

“You’ve looked at four rings and this store is huge.” Hen rolls her eyes. “You’ll know when you’ve found the right ring, okay?”

“Will I?”

Karen snorts. “Yes, you will. Trust me, I went through this same thing when I was proposing to Hen. You’ll just know.”

So Eddie keeps looking. He’s completely indecisive as if it’s him that’s going to be wearing the ring, because Buck definitely wouldn’t care about a fancy ring or any ring at all, but Eddie needs it to be special. 

“How about this?” Karen calls from the other end of the store. When Eddie reaches her, she’s pointing at a black band, definitely something he can automatically picture on Buck’s hand. It still didn’t feel right to him, though. He says as much to Karen before he starts searching the glass case in front of them for more. 

He gasps as soon as he sees it. Hen was right about just knowing.

He calls over the jeweler and asks to see it. The second he’s holding it in between his fingers, he can see himself getting down on one knee. He can see it on Buck’s ring finger, shining brightly to everyone Buck proudly shows it to. It’s definitely the ring.

“This is it.” He grins, looking side to side at the women standing next to him and then smiles at the jeweler. 

Karen and Hen squeal loudly. “What is it about this ring, Diaz-Buckley?” 

“In the symbolic language of jewels, a sapphire in a wedding ring means marital happiness.”