In the hopes of getting more material to melt over, I'm sending you the soft prompt "shoulder kisses"
Send me soft prompts! Find the finished ones on ao3!
"You make me wanna, like, mow the lawn."
"What?" Eddie glances up from the old flashlight he’s trying to screw back together after replacing the busted bulb because this one’s always worked fine, Buck, what do I need a new one for? Whatever. Buck is going to hide a nice newer model in the truck somewhere. “Does the lawn need mowing?”
“What?” Buck cranes up in his seat at the kitchen table to see what he can of the backyard. “Eh. I’ll do it this weekend.”
“You know you don’t have to,” Eddie says down to the plastic and metal in his palms, frowning when the pieces refuse to come together right.
“No, I know, but I want to. Didn’t I just say that?”
“Yeah,” Eddie nods, finally solving the flashlight puzzle and blinking it directly into Buck’s eyes a few times. “But it kind of seemed like you were talking about something else.”
“I guess I kinda was.” Buck leans back in the chair, crossing his arms behind his head. "You make me wanna… do laundry and go grocery shopping and mop the floor.
Eddie raises an eyebrow with a little smile, leaning back in his own chair. “You saying we’re getting too domestic? Need to spice things up?”
“No,” Buck huffs a laugh. “I’d mow your lawn any day.”
“Well now it sounds like a sex thing,” Eddie teases, and his foot bumps into Buck’s under the table.
Buck laughs again, louder. “I mean,” he wiggles his eyebrows. “We could figure something out.”
Eddie’s eyes crinkle up in his grin as he shakes his head and gathers up the tools on the table. He snaps them into their case with satisfying plastic clicks and goes to store them back in their place under the sink. When he comes back to the table he takes slow steps, past his own chair to stand in front of Buck and run a hand through his hair. "Why do I make you want to do chores?"
"It’s like…" Buck leans into the warmth of his palm. “Being alive.” Eddie raises an eyebrow and Buck rests his hands on his belly to feel him breathing. “I mean… having a life? Sharing- I mean, we skipped right to it.”
“To what?” Eddie kind of hums the question, fingers still moving through Buck’s hair in a way that makes his eyes want to drift shut.
“I mean, even before we were-“ Buck gestures between the two of them. “We shared everything already. I think I literally actually did mow your lawn like two weeks after I met you.”
Eddie laughs, low, and Buck’s hands on his torso shake with it. “You did. I’m not sure I even knew I had a lawnmower.”
“Yeah, it looked pretty sad out there.” Eddie tugs on his hair for the comment, but only very gently. “So I guess… we skipped all the other things. Getting to know you, pretending to be somebody you’d like.”
Eddie’s eyes are soft. “Buck, I like you plenty.”
“I know,” Buck says, quiet through the smile spread over his face. “You make me feel real.”
Eddie’s eyes are even softer, and his fingers stop moving, his hand just resting against Buck’s skull. “You’re plenty real.”
“I know. It’s… I don’t have to impress you. I don’t have to be anything. I just get to live real, everyday life with you. I want to do all those things not because I think I have to, to make you stay. I want to mow your lawn because it’s my lawn.”
Eddie inhales and exhales a few times, just looking down at him, and then ducks down to press a slow kiss into the skin revealed by Buck’s old ratty sweatshirt sliding down his trapezius. When he pulls back he only goes far enough to look Buck in the eyes. “I want to do your laundry,” he whispers, mouth pulling into a little smile. “I wanna mow your lawn.”
Buck eyes drift down to his lips. “That does sound like a sex thing.”
Eddie’s small smile grows into an easy grin. “I’m sure we could figure something out.”
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cough hack wheeze who wants a teeny tiny fantasy au snippet with uhhhh laughingstock Tension. it's like... half a scene! unedited & out of context As Is Tradition
~
“Nothin’ much. I think I’ll poke around nearby towns, shake down some travelers - see what falls into my paws.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Barn,” Howdy says. He sweeps aggressively, spreading dirt more than gathering it into the usual neat piles. “Who knows if those ne'er-do-wells are still roaming around the woods - if you and Ed couldn’t take them, what makes you think you could alone? Or- or! What if you stumble across those cultists? I hate to think of you stuck in an ambush with no help coming, knowing fully well that-”
A large paw slips the broom out of his grip and sets it to the side, and Howdy stammers to a stop as Barnaby crowds him against the bar with a soft, “Howdy.”
Howdy swallows hard, bracketed on each side by strong blue arms. The look Barnaby fixes him with dries up his well of words and bristles his fuzz. Howdy’s heart hammers against his ribs. He can feel Barnaby’s body heat, and it’s lighting his blood on fire.
“I’m not gonna be reckless, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Barnaby says. He barely needs to speak louder than a whisper for Howdy to hear him loud and clear. He smells like sweet smoke. “The other day was a one time deal, cross my heart. But, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll take someone with me. I’m sure Jules is itchin’ to get outta town.”
“What would really make me feel better is if you stay,” Howdy blurts, just barely reining in the with me. He tenses, knowing that he’s toeing a dangerous line. One wrong word, and he’ll make the unspoken spoken - but the stress drains out of him as Barn’s eyes go soft. Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad. Of course there’s no reason to worry, not about this, not with him. There never has been.
“You know I can’t do that,” Barnaby murmurs. “Not yet.”
Howdy doesn’t need to say that he knows. Not for the first time and with any luck, not for the last, it clicks in his mind that they’re on the same page - he doesn’t need to be a telepath to understand the thoughts behind Barnaby’s dark eyes.
Barnaby says it anyway. “I gotta get him back. I can’t… there’s no room for anythin’ else right now.”
Howdy sighs through his nose and slumps against the counter digging into the small of his back. He nods and adjusts the lapels of Barnaby’s vest. His fingers ghost over soft blue, and Barnaby doesn’t flinch at the contact. If anything, he leans the barest millimeter into it. His gaze burns into Howdy’s, even if they aren’t meeting at the moment, but it isn’t a bad feeling. Quite the opposite, actually.
“Well,” Howdy says in a low voice, “if you find a good lead, send for the rest of us. I’ll be there as fast as my four legs can scamper.”
Barnaby smirks. “Even if you need to take a boat?”
“Even so, Barn.”
The smirk slides into something that isn’t a frown, but isn’t a smile. It’s too soft for a grimace, but too intense for simple recognition. Barnaby seems to sway forward, and Howdy is sorely tempted to meet him halfway.
But Barnaby’s claw taps the counter, and he pulls away before anyone’s mind can be made up. Howdy’s hands slip from his lapels, brushing against fur as they fall and knuckles skimming over the smooth, fresh scar cutting across Barnaby’s belly.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Barnaby says, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He squeezes Howdy’s shoulder and then his back is turned, and he’s leaving. All Howdy can do is watch.
And call out after him, “Your table will be open and waiting for you.”
Barnaby pauses in the doorway and looks over his shoulder at Howdy, and his grin is so full of affection that Howdy may just burst.
“With a free pint?” he asks.
“Hey now, don’t push your luck pal.”
Barnaby bursts out laughing, and Howdy can hear it even after the door thuds closed.
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