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“If I don’t make it—”
“Buck—”
“I need to tell you something.”
“Nearest RA unit is 3 minutes out,” Hen reported quietly.
“It’s too late, they aren’t gonna make it,” Buck moaned; clearly Hen hadn’t been quiet enough. His eyes were unfocused as he spoke, but still somehow angled in Eddie’s vague direction.
Eddie shook his head, gripping Buck’s hand as tight as he felt it safe to. “We’re not doing this, Buck—”
“This is important, I need to say it.”
“You’re gonna be fine—”
“I’m dying, let me have this,” Buck insisted.
Eddie looked skyward. Buck was not dying tonight—
“I can’t die without telling you that I love you.”
A pin could’ve dropped in the silence that followed and it would’ve blown out the eardrums of everyone in the vicinity. Well, it would have if not for the din of the bar around them. It actually wasn’t all that quiet now that Eddie thought about it.
Eddie could feel the gaze of everyone on him, waiting for him to respond to Buck’s declaration. Eddie truly didn’t understand how the night had gotten to this moment in time.
“Eds, did you hear me?”
Dios, Buck’s voice sounded breathy and needy, Eddie could not take this—
“Buck, we are literally married.”
May giggled uncontrollably somewhere in the background.
Buck blinked up at him slowly, a dopey, lovesick grin melting into place. “All the more reason to make sure you know.”
“I’m pretty sure I knew when you were moaning it on our wedding night.”
May cackled as Maddie dropped a mortified face onto May’s shoulder. Eddie couldn’t find it within himself to be embarrassed. He felt quite floaty himself, and if he wanted to share just how vocal his husband was when they were consummating their marriage together, he was gonna do it.
Eddie didn’t realize he’d be talking out loud until Chimney blanched. “TMI dude—”
“You are both the absolute worst,” Hen agreed, shaking her head.
Buck looked at Eddie adoringly, “You knew before that. I just wanted to remind you in my dying breath.”
“Could you be any more dramatic?”
“Yes,” Maddie said emphatically. “Don’t encourage him.”
“I’m dying, Maddie,” Buck said, acknowledging someone else’s presence for the first time. Eddie didn’t like it, he wanted Buck’s attention on him. “I’m allowed to be dramatic when I’m dying.”
“You aren’t dying, mi amor,” Eddie said, brushing a loose curl of Buck’s hair back into place.
“I can feel it, Eds,” Buck insisted, and his voice was breathy and raspy again and he had to know what that voice did to Eddie. Granted they hadn’t yet explored breathplay, but the way Buck sounded right now…
While surrounded by his friends and his boss’s daughter was definitely not when Eddie wanted to discover that he had a kink for Buck gasping for breath, nevermind while Buck was having a medical emergency. And yet here he was, hands itching to settle around the long column of Buck’s throat as his eyes watched Buck’s parted lips pant for air—
“I think I’m floating—” Buck whispered.
“That’ll be the dizziness, Buckaroo,” Hen said patiently.
“And the lights are fuzzy, there’re halos everywhere.”
“And that’ll be the blurred vision,” Chimney said.
“You have a halo, you’re an angel,” Buck said, voice awed.
“I’m never letting you forget you said that,” Chimney said smugly. Eddie wanted to rip the smirk off Chimney’s face, he was the only one who should be an angel to Buck.
“What’ve we got?” a new voice asked.
Eddie looked up; two paramedics from the 129 had arrived.
“30 year old male, showing symptoms of hyperoxia,” Hen explained, moving out of the way so they could get to work. “The only reported symptoms thus far are blurred vision, dizziness, he’s running a little hot—”
Eddie scoffed, “He’s a lot hot, Hen. Certified ten.”
May cackled again. Hen sighed. The paramedics exchanged amused looks.
Buck gasped, sounding betrayed. “How dare you, I’m an eleven. I want a divorce.”
“Wow, we’ve gone from love confession to divorce very quickly tonight,” Chimney joked.
“I’m only divorcing you if you let me propose this time,” Eddie said. “I had a plan, you beat me by two days.”
“I had an inside man,” Buck grinned.
“The manager said the regulator on Buck’s oxygen was broken, so he was getting a much higher concentration of pure oxygen than the rest of us,” Maddie explained to the paramedics.
It was yet another case of Buck having the worst luck Eddie had ever encountered in his life, and having been shot twice in his life—one of which not even while being in the Army—he thought that was saying something.
May had been the one to bring up the existence of oxygen bars, facilities that offered concentrated oxygen—sometimes scented, sometimes not—for patrons to inhale. Higher levels of oxygen were known to elevate serotonin levels, thus granting the experience of being high while not having to take otherwise illegal substances. Or at least, not allowed for LA County employees.
Buck, in an unsurprising show of excitability, had schemed with May to plan an outing to High Altitude, a local oxygen bar, and Eddie wasn’t about to let his husband—that was still so fun to say—get high off oxygen without him. Hen had volunteered to be designated driver with none of them really knowing how being oxygen high would affect them that night, and Chimney insisted on joining citing missing out on the 118’s LSD-infused trip. And Maddie insisted on joining not wanting to miss out on seeing Chimney high, but she’d volunteered to drive as well.
Bobby and Athena decided to take the night to themselves, and Josh, Ravi, and Albert were tragically stuck on shift. Buck and Eddie had gotten Abuela to watch Christopher, and Jee-Yun was being cared for by the Lees.
In an unfortunate turn of events, the line that was supposed to feed into Chimney’s oxygen mask was obstructed, leading to a delay in him getting his turn at receiving his oxygen. He was still regretfully ‘sober’ and had made a point to complain to everyone about it.
In a more unfortunate turn of events, the regulator that was supposed to cap Buck’s oxygen supply at a safe 40% was broken, leading to him getting a much higher potency of oxygen which rapidly resulted in Buck becoming hyperoxic. Luckily their resident paramedics were ‘sober’ and were able to respond quickly, while May and Eddie were well into their own oxygen trips.
“Eds.”
Buck’s voice was a whisper but still loud in the way that a five year old tried to be secretive but still managed to use their outside voice.
“Yeah?”
“You haven’t said it back.” Buck’s eyes glanced over to one of the paramedics. “I told him I loved him on my deathbed and he hasn’t said it back.”
“I think you’ll have plenty of chances to hear it, you aren’t dying tonight,” the man responded with an amused lilt. Eddie couldn’t decide if he was happy to hear the prognosis or if he was angry that someone other than him was comforting his husband.
Eddie did the only thing he could think of. He leaned over and latched his lips onto Buck’s. Buck’s eyelashes fluttered against his cheek as he responded lazily, and when Eddie pulled back he was met with that dopey, lovesick look that he adored so much.
“I love you, too, mi amor.”
Buck grinned, then turned back to the same paramedic. “He said it back!” he said in that childlike loud whisper.
Eddie leaned in to repeat the kiss but Hen pulled on his shoulder to keep him upright. “Hey, as inspired as your alternative treatment plan is, depriving Buck of oxygen via makeout is not what the man needs right now.”
“You should let me try,” Eddie said petulantly. “Make it a case study for med school.”
Hen snorted but didn’t let up on her grip until the working paramedics got Buck rolled onto a backboard and then lifted up onto a gurney. Maddie replaced Hen at Eddie’s side as the pair followed Buck and the paramedics out of the bar.
“Buck needs someone right now, and I’m not going to tell you you can’t ride with your husband.” Ride with, ride on, be ridden by...Eddie wasn’t fussy. Maddie groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose; Eddie must’ve been speaking out loud again. “But I’m definitely not leaving you alone in a hospital waiting room while you’re still high,” Maddie said determinedly.
The paramedics seemed okay with this arrangement as Buck wasn’t in need of critical care at the moment, so Maddie sat in the front while Eddie and one of the paramedics—his nametag read Manson—sat in the back with Buck.
Buck reached a hand out to Eddie as the ambulance doors snapped shut; Eddie grabbed it with one hand and returned the other to the side of Buck’s face.
“In the future,” Buck started, leaning his head into Eddie’s touch, “if I’m dying—”
“So you admit you’re not dying right now?” Eddie interrupted, partially to abort whatever thought Buck was starting about actually dying.
Buck flicked his gaze to Manson, then back to Eddie. “I don’t feel floaty anymore.”
“That’s definitely a good sign,” Manson said idly, checking Buck’s stats.
“In the future, if I’m dying,” Buck started again, and Eddie sighed, resigning himself to letting Buck finish the thought. He’d keep trying otherwise. “If I’m dying, I expect you to respond to my dying love confession way faster than you did tonight. Four out of ten, try better next time.”
Eddie growled. “Evan Buckley, if there is a next time for you nearly dying, I will kill you myself before you have the chance.”
“That’s a weird way to say ‘I love you, too,’ but I know words are hard for you,” Buck said, patting the hand Eddie had on his cheek.
“You’re right,” Eddie said, and there was no Hen to stop him this time as he leaned down to kiss Buck breathless. He pulled back with a smirk when Buck leaned up to chase him. “I much prefer to use my actions.”
“Yeah, I think I much prefer that, too.”