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There’s a demolition that somehow goes wrong, in that one building manages to collapse into the other, and Bobby says, “Chim, Eddie, I want you on the third floor doing triage,” and all that somehow leads to Eddie and Chimney stuck in an elevator together.
Chimney would love to be able to explain events clearer than that, but seeing as he’s been on the inside for the past hour and the radios have been on the blink all day, that’s as much as he’s got.
“At least we’re only on the third floor,” Eddie says, sliding his feet out until his back slips down the elevator wall and he lands on his ass.
Chimney gets down a little more elegantly, crouching and then kicking his legs out. “Sure,” he says agreeably. “Less distance to fall.”
“Less distance for them to come get us,” adds Eddie.
“More building to fall on top of us though.”
“There is that,” Eddie allows. “At least it’s not-”
“Ah!” Chimney wags his finger at him. “Do not finish that sentence. Don’t jinx us.”
“Oh, come on-”
“Nope! My elevator, my rules!”
“How the hell is it your elevator?”
“Because I claimed it.”
“When?”
“Right now.” Chimney pulls out his larger flashlight and stamps it onto the floor next to him as if planting a flag.
Eddie lets out an exhale of a laugh. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Please respect the elevator king, thank you.”
They’ve managed to open the doors, but only onto the brick of the chute, proving they’re midway between two floors. The both of them face the half-open doors, with the reflections smeared in the available steel.
“Your radio still on the blink?” Eddie asks after a few more moments of silence.
Chimney tries it for the sake of it, but all that comes out is a fuzzy static that both of them know means its dead.
“I still think we should try climbing up,” says Eddie. “Out of the hatch.”
“I know you do,” Chimney says, because he actually did hear Eddie the first time he suggested it, about forty minutes ago and then again ten minutes later. “But when we asked Bobby, he said that we should hang tight because they’re still assessing the stability of the chute. We’d have nothing to attach our harnesses to even if we had some.”
Wen Eddie doesn’t reply, just tightens his jaw behind the straps of his helmet, Chimney turns back to facing the open elevator doors.
He sighs.
“Fine, you can open the hatch. But just to assess, and you can’t just pull a Buck.”
“I already have,” winks Eddie, and stands up before Chimney can splutter out an acceptable response. The elevator creaks a little as Eddie adjusts his weight, reaching up to slide the ceiling hatch across. He looks down at Chimney, and nods to it. “Give me a boost?”
Chimney gets up to a crouching position, locking his fingers together for Eddie to step into. With a matching grunt, Chimney pushes up as Eddie pulls, until all that’s available are Eddie’s legs dangling from the hatch. “What do you see?”
The response is muffled. “There’s a beam I think we could climb up to and attach our harnesses to – looks stable enough-”
And because Eddie is, literally, the worst jinx to ever jinx, the whole building shudders and the elevator starts to screech its descent again.
Chimney acts on instinct and tackles Eddie’s legs, pulling him down into the elevator box and onto its floor. They both scramble to brace themselves in between one second and the next, as the elevator plummets.
And then it catches again, and shudders, and stops.
Chimney lets out a gusting breath. They don’t move.
Eddie says, carefully, “Promise not to tell Bobby?”
They turn their heads to look at each other solemnly, and Chimney says: “Deal.”
When the elevator doesn’t move for another few, tense moments, they both sit back up, now leaning on perpendicular walls. They’re stuck between floors again, with about three inches of the second-floor lighting them up.
There’s a buzz of static from Eddie’s radio, and then as if Chimney is dreaming, it’s Maddie’s voice coming through it.
“Firefighters Han and Diaz, come in?”
Eddie is fast on the button, and replies, “Both here, safe and stuck.”
“We’re working on the latter,” she says, and Chimney can hear the smile in her voice, and he loves her so stupidly much. “We’re coordinating a few different emergencies, what with the police searching for the original demolisher, a couple of medical issues, and trying to pull people out before the building destabilises.”
Chimney leans over to say, “Yeah, we get it, you’re a multi-tasker. No need to brag.”
She laughs, just a little giggle that Chimney’s always aiming for secretly. “My point is, we’re going to get you out soon, just debating a few different options as to the safest way to do it.”
“We can probably climb out if you can get someone to chuck down some harnesses,” Eddie offers.
“That’s a negative,” comes the reply from someone Chimney doesn’t recognise – maybe the captain from the 107? “We’re using up all the harnesses on outside rope rescues right now.”
And then, like he’s been summoned by the very discussion of an unsafe rescue, Buck’s voice crackles through: “We’ve just cleared the fifth floor, Captain – I can go collect them probably from the same winch.”
“The whole fifth floor?” The captain replies, sceptically.
It’s Ravi who replies, sounding a little exasperated, “He carried two out at a time. It was, unfortunately, very impressive, Captain.”
“Wish I’d been there to see it,” says Eddie, and Chimney is such a kind person to not retch in the background like he wants to.
“Okay, stay on this main radio channel, boys,” instructs Maddie. “We’ll update you as soon as we can. Over.”
“Yeah, we’re going to get you out of there soon,” Buck promises.
Chimney thinks to himself that despite everything, all the ways that each of them could have gone the other way, the Buckley siblings are pretty damn competent. There’s a weird sense of pride glowing through him. Maddie coordinating this whole operation from her desk, and Buck scaling a building and saving people from each floor he passes. Sometimes it's easy to take that for granted.
“Okay, we’ll hang tight for now. I love you,” Eddie says, tiredly.
Nothing comes back from the radio, until the captain’s voice says, “Okay, Panikkar, I need you on the fourth floor, we’ve got a suspected civilian head injury we need a backboard assist for.”
“On my way, Cap. Over.”
There’s a long pause of nothing else. Eddie slowly takes his finger off the speaking button, and then promptly starts smacking the radio against his own forehead. “Fuck,” he says under his breath. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“What’s wrong?” Chimney replays the last thirty seconds back, and the clues slot into place. “Wait – was that the first time you said the L word? To Buck?”
“Maybe? Well. Yes.” Eddie looks at him with a slightly hunted expression. “It came out on accident!”
“Just like you,” Chimney jokes. When Eddie does not at all look impressed, he raises his hands up in defence. “Sorry! Bad timing. I’m just surprised.”
“We’ve only been dating a few months,” points out Eddie, with wild eyes.
“Yeah, officially. I kind of figured you two were saying that back after your bomb retrieval incident, really.”
“Well, we said it like, platonically. Or about Christopher. And then- you know. Once in the conversation when things turned… not platonic.” Eddie leans his head back against the cool of the elevator wall, and his Adam’s apple juts out. “Not since then.”
“Right.” Chimney nods to himself. “Good job you said it for the first time since then on the public radio for a five-alarm emergency.”
Eddie groans and drops his forehead forward to hide it in his knees. “I hate you so much.”
“I’m sure no one else heard it,” Chimney soothes. “Maybe everyone else had their radios turned off. You know the 124 are never fucking listening to instructions.”
“Stop talking,” Eddie mumbles into his trousers.
And now Chimney actually kind of feels bad. He’s seen the both of them through previous relationships, and seen them together, and he can see how happy they somehow manage to make each other. For all his teasing, he doesn’t want this to actually cause issues. Especially for known commitment-phobe Diaz.
So, he says, softly, “It’s just words, Eddie.”
Eddie’s shoulders tense so solidly, the line of them is visible even underneath the bulk of his coat. “You know it’s not.”
“Well, okay, they’re special words depending on the context. But they don’t mean everything, I promise.” Eddie doesn’t reply, so without Bobby here, it’s apparently Chimney’s time to be a feelings mentor. Typical. They never mentioned this at the academy. “You remember when you told me I should just be honest about telling Maddie I loved her?”
Eddie’s shoulder contract impossibly tighter. Right. Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. So, if you love her, tell her. Bring up memories of his wife’s death; good job there, Chimney.
But he carries on regardless, maybe a little desperately. Christ, how does Bobby do this? “What I mean is that I did end up telling Maddie I loved her, and she didn’t say it back. Not because she didn’t feel that way, but Doug had weaponised the words against her.”
Eddie pulls his head out from the shield of his kneecaps, at least, and sits up straight. He turns to Chimney with something between understanding and sympathy in his eyes. The glint of the emergency elevator light shines over them both in the quiet. Even with the chaos they both know is going on outside, it’s still gentle in this bubble they’ve made.
“She said it back eventually,” Chimney continues. “But I mean – sometimes it means different things to different people. It’s just words.”
“Buck didn’t mean it when he said it back to Taylor,” Eddie considers slowly. “Maybe – maybe he’s worried about that again. But then Taylor didn’t really mean it. What if he thinks I don’t really mean it?”
Chimney rolls his eyes. “Dude. Martians who haven’t interpreted NASA’s wavelengths yet know you mean it. Maybe you’re right and he’s just a little gun shy. Maybe, just maybe, he was nervous about saying it in front of the entire working LAFD.”
At the reminder, Eddie lets out another dramatic groan, and now starts banging his forehead into his knees.
Chimney, because he is a good in-law, is not enjoying Eddie’s embarrassment at all. If, however, a certain memory comes to mind of a call last month where a victim, who had been choking from their own engagement ring, had told Chimney that, “Of course that firefighter Diaz there is romantic – you can’t be that good-looking without being suave, you know?” then that is between him, and whichever God ends up judging him.
The radio crackles, and both of them flinch at it. But it’s Maddie’s voice that comes through, and Chimney is selfish enough to be delighted to hear her. “Firefighters Han and Diaz, please be advised you have the 107 coming to get you out. The building has been cleared and we’ve got a plan to stabilise the chute. Hang tight.”
Eddie wordlessly unclips his radio and passes it to Chimney. Chimney gives him a grateful smile and clicks the button to answer as he says, “Message received. Glad to hear you didn’t forget about us.”
“Never,” replies Maddie, in a tone that could almost be professional if it didn’t sound like a vow. Chimney is going to hug her tight when he gets home and maybe never let go again.
Sure enough, barely five minutes later they hear the outside chatter and creaks, and then there’s another shudder and the elevator drops another few feet down – just enough for them to reach the next floor’s doorway, which is prised open with three firefighters waiting there.
“You missed all the fun stuff,” Johnson from the 107 says, with a grin, as he holds tight onto Chimney’s forearm and helps pull him out. “Barely even a little spark left to put out.”
“Don’t jinx us,” replies Chimney, tiredly. “Some of us still have six hours left on our shift.”
“That’s plenty of time for a nap!” Johnson says as Chimney’s feet touch ground and he claps him on the back. “That’s a full REM cycle.”
“Sure,” says Chimney, sceptically, and turns to help pull Eddie out too.
They manage to walk out of the building without much other interruption. Like Johnson said, most of the firefighters are packing up, with apparently no one left in the building (either alive or carried out in body bags). It’s darker than it was when they went in, and Chimney shucks his elbow into Eddie’s side.
“Come on, let’s find-”
“Eddie!”
Of course.
Buck’s yelling with a desperation Chimney isn’t really sure being stuck in the elevator for an hour and a half really warrants. But then he’s running over and wrapping Eddie in a hug that nearly takes them both to the floor. “Eddie, Eds, I’m sorry, I froze up when you said that, and then my radio died by the time I unfroze, and-”
“It’s okay, Buck, seriously,” Eddie says, getting back on his own feet and clutching a reassuring grip on Buck’s shoulder. They’re both still wrapped up in their turnouts, so trying for any kind of intimate touch seems ambitious. Like trying to fondle the Michelin Man. Eddie catches Chimney’s eye over Buck’s shoulder, just for a second, and then says to Buck, “It’s just words. I know we’re good, and-”
Chimney has half of a second to feel warm and gooey and mentor-y before Buck cuts across him with an offended, “It isn’t just words, Eds. They’re the best words ever, coming from you. I love you too. So much. Like, sometimes I think I’m gonna explode from it like the Nazi in Raiders.”
And that’s the least romantic thing Chimney has personally ever heard, but somehow it must work because Eddie’s eyes are shining bright. “Oh,” he says, quietly. “That’s, uh. Good. Same.”
“Wait,” Chimney interjects, because Eddie’s right, he is kind of an asshole, and really, it’s their fault for having their weird stupid romance out in public. “You’ve watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, Buck?”
“I made him and Christopher watch all the Indiana Jones movies last week,” says Eddie, still not looking away from Buck. “He still prefers Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, though.”
Chimney throws his hands up. “Jesus Christ, the two of you deserve each other.”
“Yeah,” says Buck, happily, because sarcasm is apparently lost on him when he’s too busy staring into Eddie’s eyes. Eddie scoffs, but it’s a little wet, and he tugs Buck back into another fierce hug.
Chimney decides to get out of there before they get written up for unprofessional conduct and/or public indecency. He wanders over towards the leftover ambulances to see if Hen is still around and available to commiserate with. Just as he reaches the vehicles, his phone starts to shrill with Maddie’s ringtone. He bites his glove off as fast as he can and accepts the call with a jab of his thumb.
“Maddie,” he says, breathier than he means to, because clearly those jackasses he works with have rubbed off on him.
(Gross.)
“Babe, hi,” Maddie says, sounding relieved. “You’re okay.”
“Thanks to you.”
She scoffs. “Yeah, sure. Didn’t you notice it was me in the fire jacket pulling you out?”
“You got them to me,” points out Chimney. If there’s one thing in this world he considers his mission, it’s to remind Maddie daily of her actual worth. “And you organised this whole rescue, Mads. Give yourself a little credit.”
“Well,” she says, and she sounds a little pleased and tender, which means Chimney is closer to being the boyfriend she deserves. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Yeah, me too. Hey, I love you,” he says, and means it with every single part of him.
“Love you too,” she says.
Chimney grins at his own boots, because no one can see him, and he figures he’s allowed. Then he adds, “Also, you being competent and bossy? Definitely a turn-on, Madam Dispatcher.”
She laughs through the receiver. “Oh yeah, that’s what does it for you?” She pitches her voice down low. “Organising surveillance? Allocating resources? Following procedure?”
“Oh yeah, baby, talk dirty to me.”
And then they’re both laughing, and Chimney’s chest feels too small for his heart. He looks over behind his shoulder, and Eddie and Buck are still holding each other tight.
Elevator aside, today’s a good day.