Chapter Text
From the moment the alarm blares through the station, they know the call is one hundred percent medical. But since it involves a vehicle halted in the middle of the street, Bobby decides to go out with the whole team.
Buck is tired and in a weird mood. He feels a bit out of it and he doesn’t understand what he’s going to be doing there, more than securing the scene for the team.
Definitely weird mood.
He never laments over getting to tag along for any call, even if it’s just medical, but today, for once, he wanted to stay back at the station, be the man behind; and he doesn’t know why.
So, most definitely weird mood or, how he likes to call it, intuition: there will be something about this call that will irk him. Something is going to happen that will push him off the ledge. His intuition never fails him.
Regarding this weird mood of his and a possible explanation, Buck won’t let himself think about the many ways in which this little dance he’s been playing with his best friend has changed him. He’s lost count of the versions of himself that he’s burned through. But this one, the current one has to be his favorite. He’s comfortable in his own skin. He’d lay down his life for his chosen family.
There’s also the fact that he’s very much in love.
In love as, he thinks, he’s never been before. And the main problem is he suspects this love of his is also very much unrequited.
They’ve had moments, Eddie and him. They’ve had intimate moments and domestic moments. They’ve even had flirty moments. Even some sort of lovers’ quarrel moments.
Thinking about these moments consumes him. But he also understands how much is at stake and if he has somehow read it wrong, he could be setting himself to lose everything and he’s not willing to risk it.
So he stares and he pines and he yearns from the sidelines.
The fact that nothing out of the ordinary happened in the last couple of days, makes this mood of his even less comprehensible, but he’s tired and sometimes he’ll just accept his weird mood as it comes. It’s just something that happens to him.
The moment their truck starts approaching the scene, Buck sees the car stopped in the middle of the street. The traffic light is green and luckily there’s no one around. By the side of the black car, there’s an old man laying on the floor and above him, a very beefy and ripped younger man in green scrubs, is giving him CPR. And with good rhythm nonetheless.
Buck and Eddie get out of the truck as Hen and Chimney rush toward the men to take over the reanimation efforts.
Bobby instructs Eddie to join and assist them and tells Buck to stay with him to assess their surroundings and secure the scene. “Lucky there’s no one trying to drive through.”
“Yeah. If this happened during the week, it’d be chaos.”
There’s movement where the team is working and Buck takes notice of Eddie’s hand placed over the blond beefcake’s shoulder. Buck watches in awe as Eddie shakes him a little and he falls on his ass over the asphalt. He wants to walk over there and do something. Mark his territory, even if he doesn’t have a right or a claim over that territory. Still, he doesn’t know why Eddie touching a stranger makes him feel so uncomfortable. Maybe this is the thing. It’s probably what his intuition was trying to tell him before.
As he watches Hen and Chimney coordinate their CPR effortlessly as ever, Eddie is left to check on the man in scrubs. Buck feels staked to the floor where he’s standing, can’t avert his eyes from the scene. Eddie is flirting with the man.
Eddie is flirting with a man, a stranger. In scrubs.
Eddie is smiling and batting his eyelashes at the man in those scrubs that hug his muscles in all the right places and Buck is confused.
Fuck his luck.
Also, fuck his intuition.
Bobby coughs and puts a hand on Buck’s shoulder. “Buck, go check on her.” He points to a woman, Buck assumes the old man’s wife. She is hyperventilating and holding onto her cellphone as if her life depended on it.
When he approaches her, he makes a first assessment: she’s talking, her breaths are jaded and her tone is monotonous. She’s clearly in shock.
“He’s dead, Dad’s dead, we were-” she sobs and continues repeating like a litany, “-dad’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, Sophie.” Her eyes stare into the distance, filled with tears. Buck moves to stands right in front of her and tries to gently pry her thoughts back into reality.
“Excuse me? Hey, hi. I’m Evan. What’s your name?” he talks slow and sweetly and the woman looks up into his eyes.
“Amanda.”
“Amanda, he’s not dead, ok? Listen, they are working hard to bring him back.”
“Arthur? he’s not-” she hiccups, “-not dead?” Another sob escapes her lips and Buck hears as someone is screaming on the phone.
“No, he’s not.”
“Oh,” she says and rubs at her eyes. “Sophie, I- he’s not-” Whoever is on the other side of the line is still screaming and Buck hears as they ask the woman to put him on the phone at the same time as Amanda is shoving the phone into his hands and turning around to look at her husband.
“Hi.”
“Yes, I’m Sophie, she told me my father is dead. What the hell is going on?”
“Your father collapsed while driving, they are giving him CPR as we speak and getting him ready to move him to the hospital.”
At that, Amanda looks at him again, hopeful and grateful. Buck passes her the phone and leads her away. He hears Chimney say that the man, Buck now knows is named Arthur, got a pulse and they are going to load him on the ambulance.
“Tell Sophie to meet you and Arthur at the hospital.” He steers Amanda and starts slowly guiding her towards them.
Hen and Chimney load them both into the ambulance and they take off.
Buck stares from a distance as Eddie and the prime hunk of a man, clearly some sort of healthcare worker, talk.
Eddie’s face is as red as a tomato. And he looks a bit awkward and maybe even self-conscious but still.
Buck feels something break inside of him. Eddie might look awkward, but still, he is shamelessly flirting with the blond hottie who’s still panting from the effort of giving CPR.
Eddie has his phone out and is typing something on it while the other man laughs and shoves him lightly on the shoulder. Buck feels his heart skip quite a few beats, he has his stomach in a knot while there’s bile rising to his mouth.
“Who the hell is that?” Buck mutters. There’s another question he doesn’t let out: why the hell is Eddie getting all flustered and flirty with him.
Bobby pats him in the back. “No idea.”
“We going?” he asks Bobby, taking a step toward the truck and then another, eyes still fixed on Eddie’s mystery man. He hangs on the side of the truck absentmindedly.
“Yes,” he nods curtly, “hey, Diaz, we’re leaving.”
“‘Kay, Cap.” Eddie turns around and Buck’s heart constricts in his chest when Eddie hugs the stranger. “Nice seeing you again, Tuck.”
Tuck.
Buck is far away but he clearly hears Eddi’s voice.
He has to be losing his mind. Who the fuck is Tuck and why on earth is Eddie flustered by his presence and hugging him. Exchanging phone numbers.
Being friendly.
Eddie’s not friendly.
Oh god, he’s going to throw up. He climbs into the truck and finally sits down.
The ride back to the station is silent. Buck keeps sending glances Eddie’s way, but he turns his head back to the window and sighs. Every. Single. Time. He needs to stop sighing like a scorned lover. That’s not what he is.
And more importantly, that’s not what they are.
Four hours and three calls later, Buck has worked himself up, mind running through all possible scenarios where Eddie could be flirting with a man. He needs to know what happened and he can’t wait until they are off shift. Eddie has asked him at least ten times if he is okay, and Buck can’t keep avoiding the obvious.
“So, Eds, who was that?” Buck finally manages to spit it out. He tries to sound nonchalant and only a little curious. Not jealous, just curious. By the look Chimney gives him from behind the book he’s reading, he has failed monumentally.
“Mhmm? Who?” Luckily, Eddie’s distracted, sipping on his coffee; his fourth coffee of the day, if Buck’s counting is right.
Since when does he count the number of coffee cups Eddie has during the day. Probably since the beginning of time itself. He’s so screwed.
“The guy.”
“What guy?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Diaz.”
Eddie laughs and it comes from his belly. It’s not the kind of laugh he usually shares while at work, this type of laugh is more private, the type that he shares in the privacy of his home with Buck and Chris. Sometimes with Isabel.
Buck doesn’t understand why Eddie’s being so carefree. Where this comfortable and gleeful attitude comes from. And he’s not amused.
He huffs as he sits down beside Eddie, pressing their thighs together, even if the rest of the couch is empty. Who cares anymore. If he’s going down this path at least he’s going to comfort himself with Eddie’s heat.
“Tucker was- we were high school sweethearts, we dated for four years. It was all very hush-hush back then, though. You know, Texan catholic-raised bisexual was not an easy thing to be back in the early two-thousands. Or now even.” The look on Buck’s face must be priceless because Eddie is staring at him in delight and kind of wide-eyed. “What?”
“You-” Buck chokes on his own tongue and coughs, he needs to rein it in right the fuck now. Shake the shock off. Conceal, don’t feel, Buckley, be like Elsa . “Tucker, you said?”
And Buck’s trying. He’s trying so hard to play it cool but he knows Eddie will see through him like he always does.
“Yeah, he moved to LA a month ago, it seems. He’s starting a new job here, running an ICU at some hospital, he’s an intensivist.”
“Oh.” Eddie’s high school sweetheart is a man. A very handsome doctor. And Buck is reeling.
“And we haven’t spoken in years, so we exchanged numbers and we’re going to meet. Just to catch up, you know? After we split during college we never spoke again.”
“Right, yeah, to catch up.” Buck really is trying but his words come out bitter and cold. He stands up and starts to leave, crossing paths with Hen who gives him a questioning look. He shakes his head and lets it hang low, waving a dismissing hand at her. “Forget about it.”
Hen takes a seat beside Eddie. “What’s up with him?”
“No idea,” Eddie responds and it’s the last thing Buck hears before walking down the stairs to the gym.
He works out. He pushes and pulls and sweats until his muscles feel raw and his brain is empty. No Eddie and no Tucker in mind. Empty from hope, trying to lighten his heart. He doesn’t dare believe that maybe Eddie could reciprocate his feelings. No. That’s a dangerous thought to have.
Eddie’s not interested in him that way and he never will be. They are best friends, and this right here and right now needs to be the end of this train of thought.
Past moments be damned.