Work Text:
Los Angeles had been hit with a serious heatwave for two weeks now, which had meant a busier than usual time for the 118. To make things worse, the station was hit with some bug, which meant that those who were not ill, were working double shifts. Even for a young fit guy like Buck, the situation was extremely rough. That is why he tried to get some shut-eye every chance he got. Normally the best he could manage was an hour or two, if he was lucky. Usually he would wake up feeling tired but ready to go. Now though, he felt weirdly rested. He reached out for his phone on the nightstand but forgot he had put a glass of water next to it and managed to knock over the glass. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!!” he groaned and tried to save his phone from the flood.
“Buck, are you awake?” he heard Eddie whisper and saw his head peeking between the curtains of his bunk. Was everything okay? Eddie didn’t normally come to wake him up, not that he actually did wake him now either to be completely fair, but still. “Yeah, is everything okay?…is Chris okay?” the thought suddenly hit him and he sounded a little panicked and started to get up from his comfy covers (Buck has his own heavy blanket at work, same as he has at home, it helps him sleep and he needs his rest). “Yeah, he is fine, relax,” Eddie said, partly amused at Buck’s train of thought. “I just wanted to give you this,” he said giving Buck a little gift bag and sitting down. “Happy birthday Evan.”
Buck blinked and looked at the phone in his hand which said 4 AM, had he really slept 6 hours at work. The long days and the heatwave had really done a number on him apparently. “How did I sleep this long, you should’ve woken me up!” He sounded both panicked and annoyed. “Relax, it’s been a quiet few hours, we’ve all had a good amount of rest. Christopher insisted I give this to you the first chance I got and when I heard noise from your bunk I took my chances. Glad I didn’t wake you up though, but I also didn’t mean to scare you,” Eddie said sounding apologetic. “But I do value your concern and care for Christopher a lot,” he said with an earnest voice looking straight into Buck’s eyes. It was still quite dark at Buck’s bunk but looking at Eddie’s eyes he was sure he saw something else in there, like he wanted to say something more… but also, hesitation? Buck opened his mouth to ask Eddie what was wrong when he suddenly looked down at the little gift bag and nodded, “go on, open it.”
Buck opened the little bag and studied the card which said ‘Happy Birthday to my Buck’ with letters so familiarly Christopher’s. He felt warm and happy inside, he loved that little kid so much. “Oh I love this!” Buck said with a big grin looking at Eddie, who smiled back at him and nodded at the bag again. Buck took another look at it and saw a rock(?) at the bottom. He lifted the perfectly round rock which had a smallish handprint on it. “Christopher made that at school art class for you, he was so proud of it,” Eddie stated with a proud voice. Buck looked at the blu and red, and a little purple where the colours mixed, handprint a little tear forming in his right eye. “Oh, Eddie, I love this!” He whispered emotionally and looked into Eddie’s eyes. “I love him so!” He could see Eddie’s smile reaching his eyes and blurted “I love us, I…” when the alarm went off. He saw Eddie opening his mouth wanting to say something when Bobby drew the curtains open, “come on boys, big fire at the Lambert street!”
Whatever they were gonna say had to wait.