Chapter Text
It's been three days and still the rain hasn't let up.
‘Torrential’ , some news outlets ran with; ‘ once in a generation ’ Eddie hears from a brief snippet of Channel 8 news as it floats across the firehouse loft. Until a very familiar voice starts playing through the TV speaker.
Not missing a beat, Chimney scoops up the remote, promptly channel hopping until he finds an unassuming commercial - “ a Hildy-brand food processor, hey Diaz found you your next present! ” - much to everyone's collective relief.
He watches Buck's shoulders creep higher and higher past his ears. He sits slumped in his chair opposite Eddie, his blonde hair starting to curl after their scalding hot showers.
Sure, the change in channel helps release some tension in Buck's posture, but Eddie can see plain as day, Buck is still wound tighter than usual. Frankly, he’s worried.
As much as Buck can force a smile, keep his eyes bright, Eddie has come to read other signs that the younger man couldn't so easily hide. The slightest hitch in his breath, the barest tremor of his hands, the vacant staring at his phone when he thought no one was watching. Like the small block of glass and metal was going to explode, or disappear in his hands.
Whatever it was that has worked its way under his skin, into his subconscious, he still hasn’t come to Eddie about it.
Not since his announcement over the group call a few months back. To Eddie’s stomach swooping, brow furrowing confusion.
Not for a moment to explain his reasoning, or seek reassurance, or even to just let Eddie tell him he’s too in his own head, and that nothing but a little patented Diaz boys therapy would help.
Thus, Eddie thinks, the cycle continues.
Watching Buck struggle with a weight he won’t reveal, boxing himself away - former pot, meet current kettle.
The evening prior had been - of at least it had initially seemed to Eddie - their usual affair of rolling out the firehouse into their rides and swinging by South Bedford Street to pick Chris up. Playing a few rounds of their fighting game as Buck pottered around his kitchen multitasking by occasionally passing comment at Eddie’s losing streak to his son.
But yesterday even Chris had caught onto the tension around Buck's table, his half eaten plate of food forgotten as Buck had leapt up to grab fresh beers for himself and Eddie.
“Something on his phone upset him.” His son whispered. “I told him that talking about it helps, but he just keeps saying he’s fine. We ended up talking about my project instead, we didn’t even start there!”
Eddie had snuck a peek over Chris’ shoulder into the kitchen, feeling his brows furrow as Buck hastily fumbled with his phone. He barely clocked the look of frustration flitting over Buck’s face before the younger man schooled his features and turned, a smile plastered on as he pushed the bottle into Eddie palm. For the rest of the evening, he managed to dip and duck and dive and dodge every opening Eddie laid out for him.
Not even Chris could pull him round; loosened his tongue enough to be receptive to Eddie’s invitation to speak.
Carding a hand through his drying hair, Eddie let the breath he had been holding out through his nose. Focuses on his breathing. Letting his building worry slip away with his exhale. Worrying on shift wouldn’t help anyone. Especially not Buck.
Taking another long pull from his mug, Eddie leans back in his chair and tries to let the heat of his coffee warm his bones as much as possible before the next deluge of accidents.
Dispatch had been inundated with calls - from flooded streets to hydroplaning vehicles, mudslides sweeping down the hills to storm-drain blockages bursting their banks. They’d hardly had five minutes to even remember what dry clothing felt like against their cold, goose-flesh covered skin.
The squeak of boots on the wet floor fills the firehouse alongside the steady drip of water from drenched turnouts left out to try and dry, though everyone seemed to realise there was a snowball’s chance in hell that would happen before the next call.
Ortiz tries to keep the puddles at bay with his furious swabbing, but he might as well be trying to mop away the Pacific with only his Bucket for support. From the loft the rest of A-shift watches his inevitable defeat, some wrapped in blankets, most keeping their steaming mugs held close.
The scrapping of chair legs to his left has Eddie's gaze flicker from Buck to a very cosy looking Hen, cup of camomile in hand, her glasses slightly fogged over from the steam curling from its surface.
She looks calmer than minutes earlier. A frantic text followed swiftly by a call from Karen had pulled her from the table. A blocked gutter buckling under the weight of the never-ending storm water.
Her smile is soft, as she looks over their hunched forms, though Eddie is sure he catches the slightest twitch of her brows as she tries to seemingly catch Buck’s line of sight where it disappears out across the vaulted ceiling of the loft.
“Karen managed to get the leak fixed?” Chim asks from his spot on the couch. Only the top of his head visible from where he has swaddled himself in a mountain of blankets. A ‘ Chim ’-ichanga, he’d joked.
“Clive is going to swing by ASAP and try to at least shore it up enough for tonight. Until then, she and Denny are having a documentary night.”
Normally Buck would interject here, asking questions and suggesting, comparing the Wilson’s streaming catalogue against the current documentary series he and Chris are watching. Instead he brings his own mug - a novelty fireman's axe as a handle and the phrase ‘ World’s okayest firefighter’ emblazoned on its surface, faded from years of use - to his lips.
It's Bobby's voice that fills the silence from his place behind the island countertops. “Everyone got plans for what they're doing post-shift?” He asks as he wipes down the counter-top.
“Karen already knows the drill. After this shift I’m getting the deepest bath she can run; the biggest mug of coffee we have, and the fleeced lined sweatpants I keep for rainy shifts all nice and warm out the dryer.” The tiredness drains from her voice slightly, replaced by what Eddie senses to be hope tinged a hint of longing.
Chimney goes next, describing in great detail how he will be snuggling in bed with Jee-Yun tucked away beside him and Maddie, watching movies and swaddled in a duvet.
Humming in approval, Eddie nods along, imagining that comfort. His own plans weren’t as grand, but the thought of them warmed him through softly, gentle, like a hug.
Like molten chocolate.
He was sure he could convince Buck to catch a ride with him, with Eddie's place being closer and all, alongside the added bonus of Christopher's presence.
He’d set the kid on Buck and get him to beg for breakfast the next morning, hide a laugh behind his fist as Buck easily relented.
He’d hear Buck’s off key shower singing through the moisture-swollen door of the bathroom and know the two most important people in his life were safe and warm and with him.
Together.
And whilst Chris slept, he’d finally try and speak to him.
Waiting for Buck to come to him isn't working. Not wanting to push has let Buck drift further and further away.
Eddie needs to cross the divide, to be the one to reach for him like Buck had.
They chatter on for a few moments longer before letting rain-drummed silence take hold once again until the alarm splits it. A collective sigh leaves them all as they thunder down the stairs and pole.
So much for dry clothes.
The feel of damp turnouts makes Eddie's nose wrinkle as they all shimmy their way into their gear. Watching Chim’s face contort as he sticks his feet into his boots however - still swamped from the audible squelch they all hear - does make Eddie bring a fist up to his mouth to smother a laugh.
They pile into the cab, the engine already pulling off as the last door slams shut. They cross from the dry bright haven of the firehouse into the rain-drenched darkness of the LA night. Initially the sound of the rain is cacophonous, echoing round the cabin's interior, until the sound settles and fades more into the background, ever present.
Eddie can’t help but glance at Buck from under his own lashes where he sits opposite him. The truck barely gets up to speed before Buck lays his head against the cool glass and lets his eyes slip shut.
Slowly, deliberately, Eddie lets his knee swing out and press into the crease of Buck’s turnouts. The bright bands circling the calves of their turnout pants lining up perfectly, glinting back at him.
Buck’s eyes open. His chest hitches. Eddie's own almost follows suit as Buck's leg stretches away. An uneasy sensation prickles the back of his neck, stirs his stomach.
Buck’s not facing him. Not facing anyone.
It settles like a sour note in the back of his throat, leaving him scrubbing a hand down his face, thumb and forefinger digging into his closed eyes where a headache threatens.
Despite the torrent, the streets are still wick with motorists. The bright beams of their headlight refracting through the rain. The passing street lamps illuminate the droplets chasing their way down the window glass, their shadows playing across Buck’s face.
Letting the slick roll of the engine lull him slightly, Eddie turns inwards, once again to the jigsaw puzzle of the man before him, and the pieces he's sure he is missing.
He had missed some signs, and ignored others.
‘The age of absolutely’ , God, even the name of that book made Eddie want to find wherever Buck had stashed his dog-earred copy and tear every page out. Burn each leaf and then toss the ashes off the 405 into the busy LA morning traffic.
Opening himself to possibility, he’d said, saying yes and not letting opportunities pass him by. Sure, Eddie had thought the sentiment seemed nice, helpful in some ways, but not for himself.
Right now, he was the happiest he had been.
And he felt that.
Felt the overwhelming pride of seeing his son walking into his prom dressed to the nines and smashing every milestone in sight. Felt the bursting fullness of his heart as tears filled his eyes, Carla beside him and just as happy to see his son thriving.
Felt content that the spectre of time wasn't breathing down his neck, ticking away every second. Happy to finally allow the arrow of time to fly forward for the first time in his life and not feel like he had missed every event, every detail.
He had felt at home, cosy and warm in that flat with his son and Buck, gathered round a table eating a lasagna the younger man had perfected after three tries just for them.
He’d felt it, and not that crushing emptiness and despair he had been so sure would linger forever, would drag him back into the pit he had been pain-stakingly hauling himself out of and take Christopher with him.
Frank had been a godsend, Bobby's intervention heaven-sent like the man himself, and Buck had been by his side through it all. Again.
Yet somehow the man had not settled himself as Eddie had.
At some point they had passed each other, Eddies not sure when, climbing as Buck seemed to be backsliding and not asking for help. Searching for something Eddie couldn't fathom.
Hearing from Chim that Buck had been out to a meal with some old frat house friend and their wife had been a slight shock. There had been no surprised text from Buck, no mentions of it over a beer on Eddie's couch once Chris had decided to go play with his friends online.
The change in his diet should have been a big red flag flashing above the younger man’s head Eddie realised belatedly.
He knew Buck - knew he loved his carbs, loved trying new foods and experimenting with the skills and flavours that Bobby had introduced to him. Eddie had always appreciated Buck's culinary skills when it came to him and Christopher specifically - waking up to the smell of perfectly made pancakes, or standing shoulder to shoulder chopping and dicing for their next- well, family meal.
But the sudden appearance of those anaemic-looking green smoothies in the communel fridge door had thrown everyone for a loop, especially when the food spread for Hen’s return had looked that appetising.
Again, Eddie knew Buck; if the blonde had been worried about his calorie intake he would usually just add an extra half an hour to his routine in the firehouse gym. Not skip every single meal in sight and replace them with uranium green mush.
Everyone but Hen had turned to him, confused and curious, like he was some Buck-whisperer who knew the secret to why Buck had decided to eat every green vegetable known to man in a single cup. The fact they just believed he would know, be in on the joke, made his stomach twist still.
It had also been around the time Buck started acting more elusive, taking odd breaks on shift and returning looking more frustrated than ever. Which, to Eddie's chagrin, explained a lot after Connor and his wife had decided to have that rather private conversation right in the engine bay for all to hear.
Of course, they had peeked over the railing even as Hen had tried her damnedest to throw them off Buck’s tail.
Which opened up another can of worms; Buck hadn't gone to him.
Eddie can't blame him, everyone knew of Hen and Karen's own foray into IVF. Buck had seemingly gone full-Buck in the matter - tried to gather every bit of information he could find and gone to someone he trusted, someone he looked up to, someone who had experience in what Connor was asking of him.
Yet still, Eddie couldn't help but feel the acid-tipped fangs of jealousy sink a little deeper.
Not that he didn't acknowledge that. Frank had been, well, frank that not all emotions were logical, even if Eddie could think his way into a million sane reasons as to why Buck went to Hen for advice and not to him. His own feelings could be messy, completely unhelpful even. But that was being human. They weren’t something to be feared or angry at, this was how he felt.
Case in point, he thinks whilst letting the tip of his boot skirt next to Buck's own as the engine took a sharp right at an intersection, his reaction to the news.
Learning his best friend had been another step further into bringing a life into the world over a shitty headset on a Santa Ana’s night wasn’t exactly how he’d thought his restless episode would have gone.
Yet it had.
He’d pursed his lips and furrowed his brows, Buck's words reverberating like ripples on a disturbed pool of water in his mind. His words after had been curt, bitten off. He’d ended the call as quickly as he could without being too rude, and thrown down the controller onto the cushion beside himself, not caring as it had bounced and clattered to the floor.
Even Hen had texted a series of question marks after what he had assumed was the group calls ending not too long afterward, but he had been too busy trapped in his own mind, spinning the situation every which way and still coming up no clearer on just what Buck was doing, what he was putting himself through.
The blaring of the engine's horn is enough to finally pull Eddie somewhat out of the train of thought, as they turn off the freeway onto an interchange.
“Hey, um, did you guys know lightning storms can just keep coming back to the same place over and over?”
Bobby's head turns slightly from his seat up front, whilst Chim and Hen glance at each other - small smiles forming - before looking over at Buck.
A patented Evan Buckley info-dump - tried and tested to fill in the journey and give food for thought.
“Like a never ending one or?” Chim ponders, fully invested now, swivelling in his seat.
“No no, there's a- this place - Islands off the north coast of Australia - and everyday there's a thunderstorm, same place, same time, turns up most of the year.”
Allowing his eyelids to slip shut, Eddie lets himself relax into his seat and listen as Buck continues, prompted by Hen’s further questioning about how a storm just keeps reappearing.
This, Eddie realises, is what he had been hoping for on their journey.
Sometimes, when Chris decides that he - his own father - is allowed to be graced by his pre-teen presence, he will let Eddie in on his day.
Not just a grunted ‘ fine ’ or a beleaguered five syllable sentence.
But truly ramble on about anything and everything he’s discovered or found ‘ cool ’ - even as that pool of items is steadily shrinking with age, and Eddie can’t help but see the part of Buck that Chris has taken to heart, where Buck has been in their lives for almost half of Christopher’s now.
Of course something of Buck has burrowed itself into Chris’ marrow and made a home there, because Eddie’s damn sure it's taken root round his heart and ensnared it, slowly, carefully, then all at once over the last five years.
That damn arrow of time flying in one direction yet again.
“Hector? They named it Hector?!” There are tears in Hen’s eyes, as she laughs, leaning into Chimney who is as creased as she is.
“The convector!” Buck adds, finally cracking a smile.
Just like that, the quietness of the cab is once again filled with the sounds of braying laughter, the crinkle of damp turncoats as they curl into each other with their chuckling, and Eddie soaks it in. Listening to Buck get lost in the flow of his own ramblings about multicellular storms , and mesoscale phenomina. Grateful, once again, that he can appreciate and feel this moment.
The road changes from a rougher cambered surface to a slicker feel as they arrive onto a wide street flanked with tall buildings. At this time of night, the warm glow of occupants' rooms dots the windows, decorating the towering structures in esoteric patterns of light. It's strangely beautiful as it catches and glints in the rain drops.
Buck is quiet once more, the thoughts of an ever-appearing cluster of clouds dissipating as the moment seemingly passes and he retreats back to his position of watching the outside-world unseeingly.
“118, this is dispatch,” It's Maddie's voice that graces the comms, and around him both Chim and Buck breathe a little deeper, calmer.
“Go for captain 118,” Bobby responds, eyes fixed on the road ahead as they streak past cars bathed in the reds and blues of the engine's lights.
“Call is from a hotel’s multistory parking lot, and appears to be a small scale fire on the building's top floor. There’s partial flooding to the underground levels and a power outage caused by the storm, we have multiple reports of a stair crush event, and a high priority patient on an upper floor requiring urgent medical assistance.”
There’s a pause as Bobby takes a measured breath. “How many points of entry do we have?”
“From the parking lot layout, there's only a single stairwell, and two elevators to the top. With the power out and the crush we have no alternative routes up to the patient without a ladder involved.” Maddie replies.
Eddie watches his captain's jaw clench, muscles working under his skin, not an ideal situation in this weather.
They finally pull up to the building - feeling his seatbelts cut tight into his turnouts as the cab rocks forward where the wheels finally manage to find purchase on the slick tarmac - overlaying dispatch's description with the sight before them through .
The parking lot itself, to Eddie's eyes, seems new, with a looping curved facade almost like chainmail obscuring the upper floor from full view below. Above the entrance a white sign emblazoned in deep red reads ‘parking’ an arrow pointing to the bright fluorescent white innards where a few high-end cars are lined up in neatly parked rows. Sitting atop the garage is a taller, squarer building; its decor similar with looser spirals decorating the outer cladding and covering each window.
There’s a small huddle of civilians - all dressed to impress in suits and gowns, colourful fascinators and patterned cravats - trying to stay under the building’s scant canopy and failing to stay dry. Some lean against the building's soaked wall, a few slump heavily on others.
A party of some sort then, large enough that one wrong foot placement had everyone tumbling down a stairwell. Just like that practice fire drill, his mind supplies unhelpfully, feeling a shiver of deja-vu work its way down his spine.
“Hen, Chim I want you both on triage, see who needs medical attention down here whilst we assess the roof access to the stairwell.” calls Bobby over his shoulder, his voice catching in the wind as he exits the captain's side door.
With a snap of his gum, Chim nods following Hen as she swings out after their captain.
With barely a chance to catch Bucks eye, the door opens and the blonde is swallowed by the night. Drawing a deep breath, holding it for a heart beat, two, and exhaling, Eddie pushes out his seat and after his team.
Above them, thunder rolls. Seconds pass before lightning off in the distance illuminates the night, cracking the sky in half.
It's not like it hasn't rained in LA since the tunnel collapse, not by a long shot, what with global warming and all - a voice that sounds suspiciously like Buck supplies sagely in his mind even as the man stands beside him, quiet and still cowed.
The sudden tightness of his chest surprises Eddie. He brings a hand to his chest, closes his eyes, and tries to breathe.
The night's earlier calls had mainly been indoors, with only the moments moving between the engine and their patient's location leaving them exposed to the elements - or in Chim’s unfortunate case, a surprisingly deep and well concealed flooded pot-hole he had found with his entire left boot.
There's no tunnel, no loose earth pelting his shoulders. He’s not racing against time to save a child. Water isn't rising around him, enveloping him in shockingly cold darkness, trying to slip up his nose and down his throat. There's no blinking red light or last ditch hail mary on a single breath.
No moment of weightless fear.
Except here, the rain and the storm seem to snare him.
Trying to dredge Frank’s teachings up from the depth of his mind feels near impossible, until a hand slips round his wrist.
With a jerk, his head swings to see Buck, face already rain-damp and concern writ over every feature.
One squeeze, and Eddie takes a stuttering breath in. A few seconds later, another band of pressure on his wrist makes him release it in a drawn out exhale. Its small but enough, evening out his keel to let the instructions from his sessions take a hold - taking note of what he can sense; the shift of his turnouts, the drumming of the rain, the feel of Buck’s gloved hand and the warmth he is sure he must be imagining, yet grateful for all the same.
It must show on his face, because the younger man seems to nod to himself, before slowly releasing Eddie.
The slick sound of boot against the tarmac draws them both spring apart, turning around as Bobby joins them in the engine's shadow. The three of them draw closer, trying to shield away the noise of the rain, even as it beats against their helmets.
“Buck, I want you up on the ladder and assessing the extent of the fire and its proximity to the roof entrance ASAP. With the way this rain is coming down I want you harnessed up, we’re not taking any fall risks tonight.” Their captain says, a hand to Buck’s shoulder, before turning to Eddie. “Eddie, I want you manning the controls until we’re happy with the situation top side. Depending on the accessibility we might need you up there too.”
In unison, they nod and turn to lift the rolling covers of the truck's compartment as Bobby disappears into the night.
Hands already reaching to retrieve Bucks harness, Eddie stops as he notices Bucks sudden stillness beside him. A low rhythmic buzz just makes the periphery of his hearing. He follows the younger man's gaze to his turnout pocket.
A phone call.
One Buck doesn't scramble to answer, doesn't seem to want to even acknowledge from the maelstrom of emotions that clash and twist on his face.
It rings, and rings, until it falls silent.
There's a moment, and Eddie is sure Buck is about to say something, anything, open up and spill his guts.
Instead, Buck steps forward into Eddie's space, not encroaching, but seeking comfort, routine, trust.
And this, Eddie knows, deep in his bones, is something he can give him.
This ritual is theirs alone.
Eddie, handing Buck each piece of the harness, keeping an ever watchful eye as Buck steps into the loops, hikes the belt higher under the constant downpour.
Stepping closer and dropping heavily to one knee, Eddie can almost feel the heat of Buck’s breath ghosting the back of his damp neck as he tilts his head down to start pulling at each strap in turn, starting from the left hip, left thigh…
“Come over.” His own voice nearly startles him, definitely catching Buck unaware if the speed of his neck snapping up to look him in the eye from where he had been aimlessly staring over Eddie’s shoulder into the ever-growing puddles is anything to go by.
“Eddie.” Buck’s voice cracks round each syllable of his name, a warning, one that Eddie won’t heed right now.
He brings his hands round to Buck’s right thigh, slipping a finger between the coarseness of the loop and the slickness of his turnout pants. Tugs once, twice, three times.
“Look, you weren’t going to come to me and I wasn’t going to push, but this, I can’t take it, even Chris can see somethings up with you and you’re saying you're fine?”
“I am.” A lie. Another damn lie.
“Not, not now, not here. We go in, we get the job done, you come home, we talk - me and you.”
His stomach twists as a plethora of emotions vie to settle on Buck’s face, before he shutters, facade-like.
Eventually, as Eddie’s hands leave his right hip, Buck’s voice cuts through the rain, small and tired, diminished.
“Home… yeah, yeah.”
He’s about to stand, the coolness of the wet ground making his knee ache something fierce, when Buck's hand tentatively lands on his shoulder. With breath caught in his throat, Eddie looks up and brown eyes lock with startling blue.
They’re locked there for a second, a minute, the hitches in Bucks breathing slowly ebbing away as a single finger moves to graze the side of Eddie's neck, just beneath his turnout jacket.
A shiver races down Eddie's spine.
He feels untethered for an instant, then grounded just as quick.
“Buckley, Diaz, let's go.” The moment is washed away, like dust in a deluge, as Bobby's voice squawks through their radios, overlapping.
They’re shoulder to shoulder as Eddie stands, feeling Buck's hand fall away, but imagining the warmth it leaves behind leaching into the surrounding night.
Clipping his helmet, and turning his LED flashlight on, Buck lifts his fist and braces his forearm out toward him.
Wordlessly, Eddie leans in, and bumps the backs of their gloved knuckles together once - seeing the matching bands of their tattoos overlaying in his mind's eye - before radioing Bobby their joint reply, and following Buck up the slick ladders to the roof of the engine.
It’s been a while since Eddie has manned the console, usually in lock-step with Buck, but he can see why Bobby would want him down here. Eddie could attend the patient with Buck if they need a rooftop rescue, allowing Chim to stay down at ground level helping triage any injured parties from the crush with Hen - divide and conquer.
Beside him, Buck takes his line, clips it, and instinctively turns to allow Eddie to pull once again, the rope taut and carabiner unmoving from its loop.
“You’ve got my back.” It's a statement, not a single iota of doubt in Buck's voice as he says those just words loud enough for alone Eddie to make out.
He has no chance to reply as Buck clips himself a few rungs up, and starts ascending the ladder, each footfall shaking loose droplets that get lost in the downpour.
“Eddie, we need him a few feet to the left.” Bobby shouts from the ground below, head tilting up into the rain at Eddie. A burst of static and Bobby's voice cut through the noise again, tinny where he tells Buck to hold his position.
Squinting, Eddie scans the building's facade. From atop the engine he can just make out the misalignment of the ladder and the roof edge. A slight change in angle should do it, enough that if they need to send the backboard it can be safely lowered onto the roof.
A few deft adjustments - the mechanical whir of the ladder’s housing vibrating through the soles of his boots, the hiss of hydraulics all but being snatched away by the winds - and Eddie watches as Buck resumes his slow ascent. Hand over fist, replacing his lead rope every few rungs.
With the rate of the rain, Bobby had been right to call in the extra safety equipment.
Progress is slow, with adjustments being made far more often than either Eddie or Buck would like. He’s giving the ladder an extra few inches of height when everything begins to go wrong.
“Eddie.” There's an edge to Buck's voice through the static of the radio, uncertainty laced with something else that makes Eddie's stomach start to churn, fear like a sour film coating his tongue.
“Eds, stop the ladder now.”
Hands suddenly numb, Eddie halts the ladders progress, eyes never leaving Bucks form, the bright yellow-green stripes of his turnouts the only sign of him through the downpour. He must be at least two-thirds up, a good 30 feet off the ground where he’s paused his climb.
“Buck?”
“Some- something’s wrong.” The panicked hoarseness to Buck’s voice sets the alarm bells blaring in Eddie’s mind into overdrive. “It smells weird, and my um- my skins pricki-”
Buck’s voice cuts off sharply, the walkie-talkie letting out a peel of static before falling silent. Drawing a hand from the console, Eddie tips his helmet, using his palm to fend off the rain as he stares harder, focusing.
It’s faint against the dark of the night, the silver flashes of rain drops streaking from the sky, but settling around Buck and the ladders was an ethereal light, the softest most unassuming shade of blue.
Like Buck’s eyes.
Brows knitting together, Eddie’s mind races.
The smell, the tingling, the glow.
Putting the pieces together hadn’t been the problem, that had been the speed of arriving at the answer.
Buck had once said that the speed of light was around 300,000,000 metres a second, Karen - in want of clarity and correction for Denny and Chris - had corrected his estimate to a still rather respectable in Eddies humble opinion speed of 299,792,458 metres a second.
You could go round the earth almost 8 times a second at that speed.
The flash then, was nearly imperceptible.
One moment, there was nothing but the glow of the street lights fighting through the downpour and dark of night, the next Eddie’s world was bleached white.
Below his gloved hands the control panel blows, spitting up a shower of golden sparks that mix with the rain. Each point of light burning as they hit the exposed skin of his face and neck.
Then comes the noise, except it isn’t just the sound. Every fibre of his being, every atom shakes with the intensity. His ears don't just ring - he’d heard gunfire up close, he knew the crack of bullets far too intimately for his liking both with and without his defenders on - his entire head roars. Like the sound of a landslide, like rocks down a drilled tunnel thundering off the tight walls, the sound echoing with no escape.
It feels like his eardrums are trying to vacate his head, sensitive and raw. Suddenly the world isn’t on its stable axis, now spinning and cartwheeling as his stomach heaves and rolls.
And the next thing he knows it's like every muscle in his body has tried to escape his skin, to pull his skeleton out his body with the intensity of how tight they contract, and in a flash he’s airborne under the glow of street lamps.
The broadside of the engine skewed in his view as the tarmac hurtles towards him.
It's sheer dumb luck that he doesn't land on his neck, face down in the dirty LA rainwater. He’s got a bit more grace than that. He lands on his back instead, his helmet stopping his skull cracking against the bitumen, and lets his momentum roll him onto his front as he attempts to breathe, alongside gaining a mouthful of that sweet Californian dirt-filled water for his troubles.
Despite the blinding flash, the fall, the landing, it's the stillness that settles over him that shocks him.
Eddie blinks - once, twice, owlishly as raindrops roll down his cheeks - and tries to tell apart the blurred glow of the engine’s red-and-blues and the blanketing halo of the street lights from the star-burst like aberrations that start to fill his vision.
When he had been much younger, no more than eight or nine, he and his abuela had gone to a local pool. He’d let himself wade into the shallows, testing the water and wrinkling his nose at the smell before he had strode in and let himself sink.
The water had filled his ears, chlorine burning his eyes, tickling his nose but the stillness had been comforting. Like time had decided to drift in the pool's flow.
Suspended.
Alone.
Even as he watched the blurry figures of parents and children around him slowed by the water's resistance. Hearing the noise above filter through the water, refracted but still recognisable.
But now he is laid on the asphalt, rainwater dripping from his turnouts and seeping into his underlayers, chilling his skin. The world sounds like it's being filtered through a balloon, far-away and distorted, like he’s back in that pool.
Somewhere to his left there’s a panicked outcry, the voices timbre sharp and high - Hen.
Rainwater flicks from her boots as she runs, splashing his face and making him shiver.
Hen kneels over him, rain running in a steady stream from her helmet onto his neck. Her lips part but the words are hard to follow over the downpour. Her hands seem to move like time has made itself elastic and molasses-like.
The first words out his mouth are instinctual.
“Eva-”, His chest seizes, as a wave of pain hits like a truck, ribs protesting.
She leans to his right side, mouthing words that he catches in his perifiery but can’t understand, her hand circles to the side of his head, touching his neck, and the blue of the nitrile gloves comes away crimson, rainwater mixing with the blood from his burst eardrum.
Over the shoulder of her turnout there's a sudden flurry of movement, bands of fluorescent green soaring even whilst the rest of Eddie's senses lag behind, just off kilter.
It's Bobby, climbing higher and higher up the ladder, the red of his hat just visible to his muddled vision.
Eddie feels himself frown, head slowly tilting sluggishly to the cradle of his left shoulder even as Hen makes a sound of discouragement, gently manoeuvring his neck straight once again.
Why would Bobby be climbing up? Why now?
In front of him Hen shifts, her body blocking his view of the ladder rising into the dark sky. Of the rain-slick figure of his captain charging hand over fist to the top of the rungs. Three points of contact be damned.
Her eyes, Eddie notices, are too wide, too bright from where she whips her head around to the sight behind her, only to startle and look at Eddie once again.
There's too much spinning round his brain, and he’s forgetting something, he knows he is.
He’d got Buck into his harness, double- no triple checked every buckle and loop, he’d looked Buck in the eye and asked him to come home with him. To him.
Then.
Then Buck had climbed as he had manned the controls. He’d stopped, with panic in his voice and then the world had lit up.
No.
His sharp intake of breath must tip Hen off because she starts to speak, to say his name as Eddie gets a skinned-hand beneath himself and pushes upward, looking past her.
Backlit by the highrise lights, Buck’s blurred form sways from his final stop two-thirds up the extended ladder, only the single strap of fabric suspending him from a fall of so many metres.
With each of Bobby's thundering steps the line shifts and Buck’s limp body swings.
Even with time syrupy slow, but gaining speed with each beat of his heart that thunders through his entire being, Eddie can make out that Buck himself isn’t moving. The younger man's head is slumped forward, his helmet badly askew.
A second figure darts from the ruined top of the truck - small and nimble - up the ladders towards Bobby.
Chimney.
A roar of exertion fills the street as Eddie watches Bobby haul Buck’s upper body over the ladder’s rail, another shout into the night as Chim seemingly white-knuckles the rail in one hand to get a firm grip on Buck’s slick turnout pants to pull his legs over. Together, they shoulder the younger man’s weight - Bobby at his head and Chim holding the endless length of Buck’s legs - as they scrabble down the rain-slicked rungs.
A wave of dizziness forces Eddie to plant his gaze back firmly on the ground, Hen levering him back down once more onto his back even as a bark of pain leaves him where his shoulder takes his weight.
The vibrations of heavy footfalls spread along the wet ground, as crew from the 118 gather, swarming the far-side of the cab where Eddie can make out the yellow-rain slicked toe caps of their boots under the truck.
By the time he’s able to draw a draw breath without the world fading at the edges, Chim and Bobby are no longer atop the engine.
There, laid out on the flooded ground on the other side of the engine is Buck. From where his fall had left him contorted, all Eddie can see is Buck's legs and a single open palmed hand. Limp, lifeless.
He has to get to him.
He needs to.
There’s a touch as Hen tries to lower the arm that has outstretched itself towards the prone form by the truck's cab. He squints at the back of his own gloved hand, not even remembering moving the offending limb.
For a moment Hen turns her back digging through her medical bag as the rainwater pelts her, and Eddie seizes his chance.
He’ll apologise to her and he knows she will forgive him; call him a damn fool, but she knows, he's sure of it, even if right now she will be steaming mad when she turns to find a sodden patch of ground where he had once laid.
Under the cover of the dark night above, the cracks of lightning splitting the clouds, he crawls - feeling his turnouts chafe at his elbows and hips, where his knees and feet are useless.
And something about this makes Eddie’s head swim more - a recollection, fragmented and pushed deep down; a clear, bright day, a busy street, a call that wasn’t even their own.
Now everything has been flipped on its head.
A sniper's bullet for a lightning bolt.
It’s not Buck who fills his dimming vision, blood spattered and eyes ablaze with fear and determination.
This time he’s seeing with too much clarity, through the rain that tries to blur his vision, the dizziness that tries to consume him, all he can focus on is Buck.
Now he is dragging his limp body to that man - his legs seemingly uncooperative, tingling vaguely but he pushes the knowledge down. He can panic about that later, after. Once he knows Buck is okay and alive and still with him.
The moments under the belly of the truck are a reprieve from the bouncing rain against his throbbing back muscles, the world’s sounds and light muted further by the engines imposing presence overhead. It's strangely familiar seeing the LA grime above him, clinging to the metal of the truck's floor.
Once, Buck had dragged him under a very similar truck, had painted the asphalt crimson red with Eddie's lifeblood as he had barrelled head first into his personal nightmare to rescue Eddie from his own unfolding.
A shout goes up, as Hen scrambles up off her knees after him, Bobby's head whipping round in surprise to the view of Eddie dragging himself closer from under the bowels of the engine.
He’s sure he can see tears mixing with the rain on Bobby's face.
Still, there’s some constant voice that just won’t leave Eddie at bay.
And it gets louder the closer he gets to Bucks prone body.
“Chim, we need to-”
“Bobby you know as well as I do he doesn't have time for another team to take over. Lifepak.” Chimney says, taking over the situation - removing it from Bobby's hands and into his and Hens.
Frantically, she peels open the layers of Buck’s turnouts. There on the left shoulder a scorched hole pierces Buck’s turnout jacket. Practised hands stick the electrodes of the Lifepak to Buck’s still chest, working swiftly around Chim’s presence.
As the fabric moves, Hen’s movement stutters. Even with his spinning head, Eddie can see that beneath her blue-gloves palms there are branching lines etched, burned into Buck’s chest, over his collarbone and pec, disappearing into his left shirtsleeve and round his ribs.
With the last pad attached the lifepak awakens, and all that Eddie hears is a single pure tone. Familiar and seemingly unending.
“He’s in asystole. Shi-” And then Chim’s interlocking his gloved hands, his small form leaning over Bucks prone body. Even with his blown eardrum, the sickening crack from the first compression ripples through his being, muffled yet bone-sharp.
Chim’s voice is sharp as he shouts, breathing hard as he puts his weight behind each compression. “Hen.”
“Pushing epinephrine.” Her voice is shaking, hands working double time as she delves into the bag, finds the vial and syringe and expertly draws and administers the dosage.
‘ Hen did math in her head ’, Buck had said, after Eddie had swung round the Wilson’s not months prior, picking up the drunken man.
“Come on Buckaroo, not like this.” Hen chocks out, deft hands dropping the syringe as she rocks back on her knees, her hand gripping her head as he looks at Buck, stricken.
“Come on Buck, you can’t do this to Maddie, not to Jee, not to me, not to us”
Second after second ticks by, rain lashing down from the heavens, and Eddie swears his heart stopped the moment Buck’s did, leaving a hollow void that's getting heavier and heavier until-.
A beat, the cardiograms trace rising and falling, more and more peaks and troughs appearing in an ordered pattern Eddie’s never been happier to see than this endless moment.
“Normal rhythm.” Hen gasps, her fist to her mouth.
Bright blue eyes snap open, staring up at the sky. Until his neck twists, like a marionette tangling in its own lines, caught and twisted. His eyes staring straight at Eddie there in Bobby's embrace.
Then. “He’s not breathing, respiratory arrest.” Chim says, barely concealed panic slipping through further.
He can help, Eddie thinks, as he tries to push himself up. Buck is looking at him, to him, he has to get to him.
“Ev- Evan. Buc-” He tries, his speech slurring and stilted, barely registering to his lone working ear..
A heavy hand on his shoulder halts his progress, Bobby's face a spectre before him. Lips pulled dangerously thin. Eyes too bright.
The movement of Bobby's lips helps where his ears fail him, as he watches his captain grab his walkie talkie, fingers trembling.
“Dispatch this is captain 118, we have two firefighters down, requesting a second RA immediately with a second fire crew. Patient is a 31 year old male, direct lightning strike, Prior asystole, ongoing respiratory arrest.”
There's movement around them in the shadow of the engine, vibrations of boots and gurneys rattling up his palms where the glove has disintegrated, leaving the numb-yet-raw wounds of his hands exposed.
The cladded figures of Jones and Ortiz blur by, a backboard between them as they set about laying it on the tarmac beside Bucks form.
Hen moves to Bucks head, her still crimson hands unclipping his helmet, letting it fall away and spin on its top, leaving Bucks head exposed. Along his hairline, patches of angry red bloom.
“He’s got superficial burns from the hit.” she says, handling a c-collar deftly around Buck’s neck.
Time stretches once more as Eddie folds forward from Bobby’s hold, his useless legs splayed as he claws once more towards where the blue of Buck’s eyes have fluttered shut. There’s no mud or soil to claw at here, no rubble or rock to overcome. Buck is right there in front of him and he can’t do a damn thing.
“He’s unconscious. We need to get him breathing now before he’s loaded.” Hen says, not looking up from where her hands are grabbing gear, striping sterile packaging away from a familiar blue tube. Her fingers flex around the handle of her laryngoscope, its blade glinting red-blue under the engine's lights.
Hens' voice cracks. “Intubating him.”
That’s all it takes to throw Eddie back to the belly of an ambulance telling his wife not to speak, watching her vitals bottom out and having nothing but a bag of bloodied clothes and the weight of so much hurt and fear, shock and regret coursing through his veins.
There’s a tingling in his legs, running up and down his lower back and hips that pulls him from that memory, that nightmare. He tries again to right himself, and once again fails to even move his lower limbs.
“Bagging.”
There's a noise, harsh and hoarse and keening, coming everywhere and nowhere.
Eddie just wants it to stop.
A hand, heavy and wide, lands genty on his shoulder, avoiding the worst of the inevitable bruising but still brushing tender muscle. The noise stops for a second, as Eddie's lungs stutter and hitch, trying to get a full breath once more.
Oh .
Time morphs and skips.
He's barely aware of the clatter of the ambulance doors shutting, of Bobby placing himself under Eddie's deadweight and manhandling him onto a gurney, entering a second ambulance as the 136 take over the scene.
Across from him, Bobby sits, his helmet pooling rainwater on the ambulance floor and his head heavy in his hands.
All Eddie can think about is the body that had lain prone on the earth, and an all too familiar blue tube snaking down his throat.
“Eddie.” Bobby’s voice - rough, choked - pierces through, muffled on his left side though the bass of his voice travels through Eddie's bones where his hands grasp Eddie's shoulder gingerly.
Wincing, he keeps his focus on the older man’s lips as he speaks. Even with his hearing shot, even with the rainwater in his eyes, he knows each syllable Bobby is making, knows the exact question his lips spell out.
“Are you okay?”
And this time, there's no numbness, no anger or grief already coursing through his veins. No; months of breaking himself open to Frank and letting the festering out, lancing the wounds and letting them heal has helped with that.
Now though.
Now he feels it.
The pain, the despair, the guilt, and knowing he will have to go back home to South Bedford Street and tell Chris? He tries to bring a hand to his own chest, wincing at the stiffness as he jerkily rubs his sternum, ignoring the stinging of his raw palms and willing his chest to expand as that rush of emotion chokes him.
God he has to tell Chris.
Is this how Buck felt? Like someone had hollowed him out and then asked the world of him?
So, he tries to take a deep breath, stutters, and answers his captain honestly, in the back of a waterlogged ambulance, feeling cold and sore, and like he’s drifting away.
Like he’s in a flooding tunnel.
Like he's under the bluest sky and his lifeblood is smattering a white pin-striped shirt.
“No.”