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Another relationship down the drain.
Another relationship over because of Buck and the one person he wanted to talk to about it with was the one person he couldn’t.
“You should tell him, Buck,” Taylor had said, surrounded by the boxes and boxes of things that made Buck want to crawl out of his own skin with guilt. He’d upended her life, using her the same way so many had used him before, and he’d been sick with it. “You and Eddie both deserve to be happy.”
Buck didn’t know if Eddie remembered what being happy even looked like. He could still feel the hitching sobs buried under his skin from when Eddie hyperventilated into Buck’s neck, his knuckles still red and weeping even after Buck pried the baseball bat from his grip, that awful heartbreaking night.
“You’re the guy who fixes things.”
Eddie had said that with such conviction and Buck hated that he’d proven him wrong. Because Buck didn’t fix things. He just wrecked them. He couldn’t fix Eddie even as he broke down in his arms for over an hour, curled up as small and terrified as Buck had ever seen him, and then later when he’d been able to pull himself together if only to wash his face and get in bed.
“You don’t have to hide, Eddie,” Buck had said the next morning when Eddie had his arms wrapped himself and his eyes fixed to the floor.
But Buck had been a hypocrite. He knew Taylor was right. He and Eddie both deserved to be happy. But Buck didn’t think him telling Eddie how he felt while he was scrambling to hold onto the edge of his sanity would help.
So, he kept his feelings inside and went for a drink to commiserate his wrecking tendencies with someone else. Someone who had started off a lot like Eddie had. With coy smirks and fast quips that got under his skin until eventually he started quipping back and found a friend.
He thought she’d been a friend.
And now he was swimming.
Drowning really but it was like the slowest, softest drowning anyone could ever experience; with the lights from out the window of his Jeep blurring together as he rocked through the sea of LA. Like when the whirlpool of the tsunami had calmed and Buck had been able to find a pocket to look up. Violent and soft all wrapped up in one terrifying moment. Buck’s heart was slamming in his chest kind of like then too.
Why was he scared?
Buck tried to blow bubbles but all that managed to do was spread spit across the window in a cloud of his breath that fogged up the glass.
A hand yanked on his collar and Buck whined as he was pulled to slump away from the window.
“Nice try.”
Buck hadn’t been doing anything.
Wait… where was he?
He hadn’t…
Buck shook his head to clear the filmy cobwebs covering every inch of his brain.
A mistake.
A huge mistake.
Buck’s stomach rolled, filling his mouth with a rush of saliva, and the hand on his collar shoved him down until he was staring at his feet and the long tail of the zip tie around his wrists.
“Puke in your own lap, Buckley.”
But Buck didn’t. He was too transfixed by the plastic around his wrists. He pulled, a feeble attempt with sore muscles, and the slow cloud over his brain he was steadily trying to fight through to figure out what the hell was going on.
Buck had given Taylor space to clean out her things. Buck had gone for a drink. Buck had stared at Eddie’s name for a long time on his phone. Another drink…
One that tasted off. Bitter and sweet at the same time on his tongue.
His tongue felt weird.
Why were his hands zip tied?
Buck rocked with his Jeep as it pulled into park and squinted up to see his building through the window shield.
“Not a word, you understand?”
Something smelled like vanilla.
And smoke.
Buck didn’t know why he was nodding but something told him to so he did. He nodded even though he didn’t know why and the motion made his head feel like it was one twist from floating away from his body.
The hand on his collar disappeared and something rocked beneath him before he was listing with gravity.
Cool air kissed across his too hot skin and settled into his bones with a chill until he shivered. The vanilla and smoke was back and yanked his hands from his lap before a knife was cutting through the zip tie. Buck’s hands fell uselessly by his side before he was being bullied from the passenger seat and onto shaking legs.
“Strong legs.” Buck had heard Eddie say that countless times. Strong legs. He needed strong legs.
A small body slipped under his arm and all but hoisted him up and Buck was useless but to try and strong leg it up through the walk to the door and the elevator.
Sounds filtered through him like rain. Like drops on his skin that slid down to his feet to be forgotten.
“—too much to drink tonight—“
Buck frowned at the floor. He hadn’t had too much to drink, had he? No… no he only had two drinks and the second had tasted weird.
The smell of home soothed something in his chest that had been tight all evening.
The door fell closed with a slam and the steady shoulder holding Buck up slipped out from under him. He crashed to the ground in a heap, teeth rattling in his skull. Buck moaned as blood filled his mouth, coating his tongue, and he could only watch as it strung out past his lips to stain on the floor with his drool.
“You weren’t kidding, Buckley,” Lucy said as she stepped further into the rows and rows of boxes. Buck lifted his head to follow her but the equilibrium shifted at the fight and sent Buck’s head rolling onto his shoulder. His stomach churned again and Buck had to swallow to keep back the urge to empty everything onto the floor. “You really were just going to take the big step.”
He was. He really was. But the mere idea of following through had his stomach in knots the moment he thought about it. He winced at the sting. The wound of the breakup was still too fresh on his heart and watching Lucy filter through his things, Taylor’s things, was like rubbing salt into the wound.
Taylor.
Taylor would be coming back for her things.
Taylor would be coming back and walking right into the clutches of a monster.
He had to stop her. Lucy hurt people and now she was trying to hurt Buck.
But Buck didn’t know which way was up or down anymore. Pressing his head to the cold tile didn’t help but he had to try. He had to try before Lucy hurt anyone else. Buck dug his fingertips into the floor and bit down hard on his lip to keep from groaning as he dragged himself what didn’t even feel like an inch across the floor. His muscles shook with a weakness that was the stuff of his nightmares.
The tip of a boot pressed into his shoulder hard enough to rip a whine from him before his arms gave out and he dropped to the ground in a heap again.
“Here Buck,” Lucy said as she stepped over him. “Let me give you a hand.”
Then Buck felt himself being pulled by his ankles and it felt like he was being stretched like taffy. He went limp as he lost his grip and Lucy dragged him around his kitchen island until he was hidden from view by the counter and the miles and miles of boxes. She dropped his legs in a heap and stepped over him to rummage around with… whatever. Tracking Lucy was starting to become nearly impossible with each thundering beat of Buck’s heart against his chest. He didn’t know what she’d given him but it made his limbs feel like he was dragging them through molasses with no traction for leverage inside. His fingernails were clawing onto the edge of consciousness but kept slipping every second he spent having to blink away the creeping darkness in his vision.
“Jesus Christ Buckley,” Lucy muttered as she threw things out of the boxes onto the floor. Buck was helpless to watch as bits and pieces of his life piled up in front of him as if tossed like trash. “How much stuff do you— aha!”
Buck didn’t know what she found but as far as he cared she could take it. If it meant her leaving she could take whatever she wanted. He’d replace whatever of Taylor’s was stolen if it meant Lucy leaving before she came back.
“You know it’s a bummer, Buckley,” Lucy said as she stepped back over Buck and picked up his ankles. It took him too long to understand what was happening and by then she’d wrapped something tight around his ankles and dropped onto his hips as she pulled his arms behind his back. She pushed his arms up to bend at the elbow until his shoulders ached in protest and Buck could only bleat out a pained sound as she tied his wrist into that awkward position. The synthetic bite of his climbing ropes burned into the soft skin of his wrists and Lucy was twisting and knotting the rope with expert precision. Buck’s fingers buzzed with numbness almost immediately but he was too busy trying to understand what Lucy was doing as she yanked him up his hair.
The rope coiling around his throat made Buck jolt in a flash of coherence but Lucy just planted all of her weight into his back. The thick rope pressed heavily onto his windpipe as Lucy wrapped the rope twice before she was pulling the slack and tying the ends to his wrists. Buck choked as he tried to buck her off, the fight tugging his hands and forcing his noose to tighten until he almost couldn’t breathe.
“Lu—”
Buck stopped as a tremble skittered violently up his spine as he felt the bob of his Adam’s apple rub against the rope.
“You were fun, Buck,” Lucy said as stood. “Kinda needy but fun. Too bad you set all those fires.”
Buck’s head was spinning as he shook it, only for him to choke again at the pull on his throat. The rope burned as the texture of the rope rubbed into his skin, coiling tight like a snake with his every inhalation. He swallowed again, licking his lips to try and get them to work but nothing was working and everything was spiraling out of his control.
“Lucy… don’t…”
“You just got too addicted to the adrenaline rushes,” Lucy said as if he hadn’t said anything at all, once again digging around for stuff in the boxes. “I know the feeling. It’s intoxicating and it feels better than heartbreak from losing your sister, your partner, your girlfriend.”
Lucy stopped as she looked down at him with a frown.
“What is it about you that makes everyone want to leave, huh?”
The air slipping through Buck’s lips thinned and it had nothing to do with the two thick bands of rope tightening around his throat. Pinpricks of pressure sprung behind his eyes as he stared up at her.
He thought she’d been his friend. He’d thought—
No, no! It wasn’t true. Whatever she’d slipped in his drink was confusing him. Maddie was back. Eddie was getting help. Taylor was moving on.
But there was still those lingering doubts, the ones that pricked at his self-consciousness when he was lying awake at night and wondering why there was still such a deep, echoing pit in his stomach that he couldn’t seem to fill. Her words pressed into a bruise on his heart and dug a knuckle into it until he cried out.
He sucked in a breath and held it tight in his chest as he tried to twist his wrists free but the line between his wrists and throat pulled taut. He gritted his teeth and dropped his forehead to press into the floor for leverage and wiggled his hands for any sort of give until the rope around his throat had to have been searing in two impressive burns into his skin.
“Oh, cute!” Lucy hummed before she was walked the distance between them and dropped down beside Buck. Her hand wrapped around the line tether his throat and his wrists before she pulled, hard. Buck gasped as his windpipe closed, blood rushing to his head as all his access to air was cut off. He squirmed, running only on instinct to guide his movements, but it was like swimming throughout concrete that was hardening with each terrifying second without air. Buck felt every dip in the braided fiber of the rope as it chafed into his flesh, rubbing his skin raw with every struggle. Spots flashed like alarms across his vision but Lucy just yanked up, pulling on his arms and throat, until Buck’s mouth dropped open with a silent scream.
Something soft and silky— it smelled like Taylor’s body wash— was shoved into his mouth and Lucy’s fingers shoved hard into the back of Buck’s throat. Buck retched against the intrusion, bucking up as wild panic cut through the haze of the drugs in his system to fight for survival. But it was useless as Lucy kept shoving the the fabric into his mouth until his mouth was stuffed full.
Just as the dots in Buck’s vision started to cut across in streaks of grey, Lucy let him go and he crashed back down onto the floor with a muffled grunt. His cheekbone throbbed in time with his heart as it pounded against his ribs, threatening to break free.
The sound that slipped out of Buck was thin and pitchy as he tried to sip in air through whatever Lucy had shoved his mouth but it wasn’t working. He tried to push it out with his tongue but Lucy shushed him as she covered his mouth with her hand and grabbed the roll of packing tape. The sound of the adhesive ripping free clapped loud in Buck’s ear, making him flinch, but Lucy just scooped up his chin and lifted his head enough for her to cover his lips and wrap the tape around his head until it felt like half the roll was gone. She tapped him twice on the cheek before gently resting his head back down.
“You were fun, Buckley,” Lucy said again, smiling down at him as she cupped his cheek, thumb stroking the soft skin under his eye. “And don’t worry. I’ll make sure to take really good care of Eddie for you.”
Suddenly all the anxiety and confusion sharpened into crystal clear rage. It burned hot in Buck’s stomach like a flashover on his nerves until his blood was boiling with a rush of adrenaline. He snarled at her, lurching her touch off of him as his muffled curse fell flat on the floor, and she only laughed that small sound that made her nose wrinkle. She wouldn’t touch Eddie. Buck wouldn’t let her. He’d rub his skin raw, bite his own leg free, if it meant standing between her and Eddie. He didn’t care what she did to him. He didn’t care what he had to do to keep her attention away from Eddie. He would do it in a heartbeat.
A heartbeat if it meant protecting Eddie from her.
“You’re too easy, Buckaroo.” She flicked at his forehead with her fingers, pushing his head back down, and then stood without a second glance.
Buck lost sight of her as she walked back into the kitchen and the pain around his throat was too intense to push himself through. Something felt wet beneath the ropes and Buck didn’t know if it was sweat or blood but it did little to soothe the rope burns.
Every exhale through his nose was noisy and thick and if he didn’t slow down, he knew he was going to hyperventilate.
Buck pushed his cheek into the cool tile beneath him, closing his eyes as he forced himself to breathe! The drugs in his system were still very much weighing heavily on each and every muscle in his body. It coated his ribs and made every inhale and exhale feel near impossible. With the gag tickling the back of his throat, making his stomach lurch and the tape too tight on his skin, there was no way he’d be able to free himself without his hands. But he could still breathe. Despite the noose around his throat, he could still breathe.
Buck smelled the hot rancid smell of burning oil sharp on his nose.
“Oops,” Lucy said with that same nonchalance from before. “Buck, you should know better. Fifteen percent of house fires being deadly and all that.”
The jab slid right past the slippery haze of his intoxication and burrowed deep into his skin to stab at his insecurities. He bit down on his gag and shook his head. She wanted a reaction from him. The same way she’d made a similar jab in the truck when Buck had been sprouting off facts into the comms on the way to a kitchen fire.
An intense heat picked up behind Buck as the burning smell changed from a hot pan to the paneling of the wall behind his stove top and something synthetic like cloth.
She stepped over him and Buck looked up in time to see her pinching a burning towel in her two fingers before she dropped it into a box of Taylor’s clothes.
The box went up faster than it should have and Buck could only watch as the cardboard wilted under the heat. Flames spread to the next box and the sharp burning smell shifted onto the side of smoke.
Lucy was going to burn him alive.
“You think Bobby will be disappointed in you when he finds out that you turned off the sprinkling system in your building?” Lucy asked and Buck’s stomach bottomed out as he realized what she’d done. She took in the carnage that was slowly spreading into uncontrollable before she bounced on her toes. “You look hot, Buckley. Let’s get you some air.”
Then with a flick of her wrist, she opened one of the windows. The flames spreading from one box to the next surge higher with the oxygen.
Buck struggled anew even though the fight the second time was harder than the first. But she was going to kill people. Good innocent people he’d known for years and all because of him. Without the sprinkler systems, the building would be a death trap. He begged her! Pleaded with her! Anything through the muffle of his gag even as the ropes around his throat tightened until he could only get sips of air down to his lungs, each one getting more and more contaminated with smoke.
But Lucy only smirked down at him before she turned on her heel and left with a final click of his lock.
Taylor’s heart clenched painfully tight in her chest as she spotted Buck’s Jeep.
She thought she’d have more time. Moving her things into Buck’s loft had only taken two trips with Buck’s Jeep. But moving her things out in her hybrid required significantly more trips.
He’d said that he would give her more time. For privacy. For heartbreak. Because as much as she knew the breakup was the right decision and as much as she knew it was right for her just as much as it had been right for him, it still left an ache in her chest that would bruise over and eventually heal. Buck had helped her feel settled in her place in the world for the first time in… ever possibly and in the end she would always love him for that.
But it was time to move on.
And Buck had offered to stay away until she was gone. A clean break they had agreed so that when the grief of their broken relationship healed over, they could still be friends.
Taylor parked her car into the visitors lot and sighed as she curled her fingers around her steering wheel. She still had maybe two trips left. Her gas tank would be paying the biggest price for their mutual uncoupling but Taylor was anything but a dweller. She wouldn’t be able to sleep until she could get all of her things and put some space between her and what had started to feel like home.
“C’mon Taylor,” she said to herself, bracing for impact with awkward. She still had her key— had been planning to leave it on the counter when she was done— but letting herself in felt wrong now that Buck had taken back his space. But then again the mere thought of knocking on the door made her skin crawl at the picture of patheticness.
She could always come back another day? When she knew he was on shift next.
Nope.
Clean break.
Buck had broken her heart but she still wanted to keep him as a friend. She needed the clean break.
She could deal with twenty minutes of awkwardness.
The scent of early summer was cloying at the air with aromas of restaurants opening up their patios and bonfires still competing with the lingering heat from the sun during the day. The breeze was still warm as it tickled at her skin and she sighed as she tossed her hair up into a messy pony.
A woman that she’d seen once or twice when work would have her intersecting with Buck and the 118 walked out of the building with a smile on her face and an easy flick of her hair.
Well…
Taylor frowned. She guessed Eddie and Buck were still avoiding each other. Honestly, after Eddie had called Buck, gasping for breath and not making enough sense that all the color had drained from Buck’s face before he was racing out of dinner with a hurried “I’m coming”, she’d thought that’d be the end of the weird hiccups they kept hesitating to face like speed bumps that they didn’t want to drive over.
“Hey, is that smoke?”
As soon as the words bashed into Taylor’s ears, she smelled it.
Buck had been cute the way his overprotective streak ran a mile long filled with pit stops in fire safety. He made sure she knew the first night she stayed over where the fire extinguishers were throughout his apartment (one under the kitchen sink and another in the closet closest to the grill) and a small one had ended up in the trunk of her car maybe three weeks into dating Buck exclusively. But he’d belabored other things as well. Electrical fires could smell like fish. Check your batteries in your smoke detector. Keep paper towels and other flammable materials by the sink not the stove top.
If you smell smoke, there is smoke, and when there was smoke then there was fire.
She smelled the smoke in the air, hot and rancid as polyester and synthetic materials burned somewhere close and Taylor stepped back as she looked up.
Smoke was billowing out of a window with flickers of orange and red flames gleaming as it climbed up the walls of a loft.
Buck’s loft.
She knew that balcony.
She knew those curtains.
She knew the view.
And she could only stare as fire roared up the walls like a raging beast and curl at the ceiling.
The ground shifted from underneath Taylor’s feet, a hot flush consuming every inch of her too cold skin as her heart pounded against her chest.
“Oh my God!” Someone cried as people gathered on the sidewalk, staring up as the fire spread up into the loft above Buck’s.
The fire alarm wasn’t going off… Lights weren’t flashing. Sirens weren’t blasting. No one was rushing out.
The fire alarm wasn’t going…
“You!” Taylor all but barked as panic seized her throat, turning to a man that had stopped to stare at the growing inferno. “Call 9-1-1! Tell them the fire didn’t trigger the alarm!”
“How do you—”
But Taylor didn’t wait. She sprinted up the rest of the walk way, slamming into the door of the entrance as she slammed shaky fingers to punch in Buck’s code. The door unlocked with a swift click and Taylor didn’t know if it was the adrenaline or the fire but it felt infinitely hotter inside.
Fire alarm! Fire alarm! Where was the damn—
Taylor cried out as she spotted the small red box and raced to it before she yanked down hard on the handle. Instantly the building lit up with strobes, alarms screeching alive throughout the building as people cursed in their units but Taylor didn’t stop.
“Fire! Everyone out! There’s a fire!” She shouted down the hallway of the first floor before she raced up the stairs. “Fire! Get out!”
Buck’s Jeep had been out front.
Eddie was already driving towards Buck’s before he even realized where he was going and he really needed to stop doing that; drifting off as he moved from one place to the next. Some days it felt like Eddie was living in high definition where everything was sharp and there and impossible to hide from. Other days felt like everything was slow and misty with exhaustion weighing him down like his hands and feet were tied with cinderblock weights that made everything ache . Some days it was a mix of both. A combination of his hyper vigilance rearing its ugly head and Eddie’s disassociation from lack of sleep creeping in until he was falling into bed and starting it all over again.
“Trust me, I’ve been there,” Buck had said with all that earnest sincerity that made Eddie want to lean into him so he could carry the weight a little. “Therapy gets worse before it gets better. But you’ll get better. I promise.”
A promise Eddie kept reminding himself even as he rubbed at the tacky way his skin felt after crying again in Frank’s office.
He never used to cry and somehow Eddie felt like he’d cried more in the last month than he had his entire life. He hated it.
But also he needed it. Eddie was seeing that now even if it was so fucking hard to let go. The inside of his lip was swollen and raw from biting it and his head was pounding with each scalding tear that slipped through his lashes but he needed it. It felt like exhaling and Eddie didn’t know when he’d started holding his breath.
Eddie was also learning that it was okay to reach out; to need help sometimes.
To need Buck.
He’d spent so long tucking his hands into his chest assuming no one would be there to take his if he reached out. But not Buck. He took it every time and Eddie was learning that it was okay to need— want— that too.
So, he’d been driving to Buck’s after a long session with Frank that left Eddie’s scar on his shoulder achy and his body bruised. Like he was paper thin and one careless jerk would rip him in two.
His phone rang once in the cupholder before it connected to his truck. Eddie pressed the button on his steering wheel.
“Hello?”
“ Eddie?”
Eddie frowned as Taylor’s voice flooded the cab of his truck.
“Taylor? How did you—”
“You have to get to Buck’s loft! It’s on fire!”
Eddie’s foot nearly jumped the gas. “What?”
“Buck’s building is on fire! I… the smoke was too bad and—” Taylor broke off with a harsh cough that sounded like it had been ripped out of her with claws leaving her with slashes along her throat. The light changed green and Eddie slammed on the gas, swerving in and around traffic as he raced to Buck’s place.
“Call 9-1-1!”
“We did! Eddie… Buck, he… I think he’s inside!” Taylor could’ve punched him and it would’ve hurt less. Nausea rolled up into his throat as adrenaline skittered into his blood under his skin.
Buck was inside. Buck was…
Buck must have blacked out because when he woke, his cheek was pressed to the tile like it was stuck to it. Sweat pooled down the small of his back, coating his hairline as the heat from before blazed above him. Smoke shadowed above him but thankfully the open window had kept Buck from suffocating in his unconsciousness. But the same window had fed the flames until there wasn’t an inch of the kitchen wall that wasn’t raging with fire.
He tugged on his hands and yelped out a choke as the rope around his throat tightened. Everything came flooding back to him in droves. The breakup, the space, Lucy. The fires. They’d been Lucy. Lucy in some misguided fucked up game of trying to one up Buck every chance she’d gotten.
And Buck had fed into her addiction, getting competitive and addicted to his own thrill he’d forgotten.
Buck needed to move but the drugs in his system were still very much thick in his veins like syrup. Every twist of his wrists made the rope around his throat tighten and his legs didn’t want to work for some reason.
But the fire was raging around him and he needed to get out. She would go after Bobby next.
Eddie.
“And don’t worry. I’ll make sure to take really good care of Eddie for you.”
Buck had to get out. He had to help them. But he couldn’t move. The heat of the fire was making his heart race in his too slow body and he needed to move.
Rope. She’d tied his ankles. That was why he couldn’t move them.
The slamming fist on his door made Buck jump, choking himself in the process, and making all the pain ripple through him until he almost couldn’t see.
“Fire!” His neighbor shouted through the door. “There’s a fire! Everybody out!”
Buck sucked in a thin breath through his nose to cry out as he blinked through the tears swimming across his vision but it was no use. He heard his neighbor’s cries fade away further down the hall until there was nothing but silence.
Silence and the low hum of the fire alarm that someone must have pulled.
The heat was unbearable as it scalded at the back of his neck, singeing the short hairs at the base of his scalp, and Buck could only lean into the sting to keep himself from falling back into the easy embrace of unconsciousness. Every fluttering blink lasted longer and longer as Buck’s eyes rolled around in his head.
He had to get away. Fire was like a hurricane except the eye of the storm was the worst of it and Buck was too close. It was getting too hot. The fire was growing too tall. The open window was feeding more oxygen into the flames and making them burn hotter and hotter with each passing second. All the moisture in his body was pearling onto his skin with sweat and the dehydration only added to the never ending dizziness.
He needed to move or he was going to die. It was the last line of defense that was pinching him awake and keeping him giving in to the inevitable.
Fight, flight, freeze.
Buck didn’t have a choice.
He had to fight or Eddie would be alone.
Eddie wasn’t sure he even took his keys out of the ignition as he threw his truck in park. Sirens wailed down the street as terrified people stared up at their home being consumed by a growing fire raging out of control.
His eyes landed Buck’s unit from memory and everything in his stomach threatened to come out as he saw the flames curling up through the glass, smoke filtering out his window.
Buck…
“Eddie!”
Taylor pushed through the crowd as she sprinted over to him. Her usually meticulous kept hair was frizzed and damp and her makeup was streaked down her face with sweat and tears that burned bright in her red, irritated eyes. Soot covered her cheeks and Eddie only just managed to catch her before she nearly tripped off the curb to get to him.
“Taylor?” He scanned her for injury but other than the signs that she’d been inside with the smoke, he didn’t see anything. “Are you okay? Are you—”
“The fire alarm didn’t go off and the sprinklers aren’t working!” Taylor rushed to get out, her voice hoarse from coughing and smoke, making her sound even angrier than she already was. Eddie’s world tilted on an axis as he stared up at the raging inferno. Something tickled at the back of his mind, elements of the arsonist case he’d overheard Bobby talking about with Athena and the few scrapes details he’d been able to glean from a few of his calls at the call center.She swallowed and shook her head, fisting onto his shirt as she shook him. “I couldn’t get to Buck! His Jeeps here! He wasn’t supposed to be here! He was supposed to be out while I moved my things but I saw him with that woman!”
“What woman? The arsonist? Taylor—”
But Taylor yanked on Eddie’s shirt hard, popping a seam as she shook him.
“ He’s inside!” Taylor nearly shouted. “Buck’s inside!”
Fear twisted around Eddie’s lungs until he almost couldn’t breathe. Pure, unfiltered fear that burned hot beneath his too cold skin and sunk down into his feet until he was almost rooted in it. The kind of fear that was like quicksand, threatening to pull him under until he crumbled beneath the weight of it as he stared up at Buck’s building.
Buck.
Fear ruled every nerve ending beneath Eddie’s skin but Buck…
Eddie’s heart slammed against his ribcage like a kickstart, shocking his limbs into action as he turned towards the fire
“Stay here,” Eddie said to Taylor, eying as a fire truck came racing down the street in a blaze of sirens and horns. “Tell the captain!”
And then Eddie was pushing his way through the crowd and racing into the emergency exit of Buck’s building.
The sharp, rancid scent of smoke flooded Eddie’s nose the moment he stepped through the door. The alarm was sharp and shrill against Eddie’s ear with a frequency that shot through Eddie’s veins. Sweat dipped down the slope of his brow as he heart thundered against his chest and rocked him into a stillness. Eddie’s breath fell into exhales, too sharp and too shallow to do anything good.
No.
Not here…
Panic swept up like vines, curling around his legs and locking him into place.
He could feel the emptiness of the building, a shell of absent heartbeats except his own which was roaring in his ear.
Except Buck’s.
“Buck’s inside!”
Taylor’s warning rang through him like a shock again, jolting him onto his toes, and snapped Eddie out of the cycle of swelling anxiety that had been clinging to his ankles for months now.
Eddie blinked and shook his head as he turned towards the stairs. Running up them sent a burn through his thighs he’d missed. His lungs went tight with exertion instead of panic for the first time in months and he leaned into it for momentum.
Buck was inside. Buck was inside and Eddie didn’t know why but he had to find him.
“You can have my back any day.”
“Or you could have mine.”
Buck’s hallway was ablaze with fire creeping up the walls, burning hotter than anything Eddie had ever experienced. His shoulders felt too exposed without the weight of his turnout coat and smoke instantly coated his throat, doubling him over as he barked out a cough.
“B-Buck!” Eddie’s call was met with nothing but silence and the creaking groan of a building under duress. The sprinklers, as Taylor had said, sat unhelpful and dormant above him as smoke and flames licked at the ceiling. The entire hallway would be up in flames in a matter of minutes if not seconds and Eddie shoved his elbow against his face as he ran to Buck’s door. “Buck!”
Buck’s door handle was hot beneath the touch and Eddie sent a silent prayer up as he reared back. Best case scenario, the open window he’d seen would offer enough ventilation that he wouldn’t be met with a firewall. Worst case scenario?
Eddie’s worst case scenario was trapped as a possibility behind that door.
Eddie shifted his weight back onto his foot before he coiled all his strength into his legs and kicked. Buck’s door shuddered under the punch of Eddie’s boot and Eddie lifted his leg, kicking the door three more times before he felt the lock give out and the door swing open.
The heat nearly knocked Eddie over and he threw his arm up to shield his face as he stared inside at the source of the fire.
“Buck!” The temperature shot up into the stratosphere of unbearable and Eddie wretched as more smoke forced another barking cough out of him. “Buck!”
The building groaned beneath Eddie’s weight as he stepped inside and his heart rate kicked up another notch. He was running out of time! But he couldn’t see him and the silence of Buck was enough to have the desperation clawing at Eddie’s throat as he looked around.
“Buck!” Eddie screamed, scanning through the piles and piles of boxes that were burning like bonfires in the middle of all the chaos.
Hysteria nearly took Eddie out at the knees as he tried to find Buck in all the flames and smoke. Buck had to be inside. He knew it. But he wasn’t anywhere Eddie could see and he wouldn’t leave without him. Not until he—
There!
By some miracle he wasn’t covered in head to toe with black burns but Eddie couldn’t find it in himself to seek much solace from that. Buck had managed to shield himself from the worst of the fire by half twisting himself under the lip of the counter of his kitchen island, his hair and clothes covered in soot and sweat. But what Eddie could only stare at, horrified, was the way black climbing rope was twisted around his wrist and ankles; around his throat like a mocking noose that was connected to his bound wrists.
Eddie bit out a curse as his knees buckled under him, forcing him into action as he stumbled to where Buck was before he was grabbing him under his arms and dragging him out.
“Buck!” Eddie screamed, the angle too wrong and the timing too fast to even see if Buck was breathing. “Buck! Wake up!”
A pained cry ripped out from between Eddie’s lips as his back and legs screamed at the exertion but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop! He dragged Buck down the length of the hallway to the too smoky stairwell and dropped onto his ass with Buck half on top of him.
Buck was limp against him, unmoving, and Eddie blinked past the tears that burned at his eyes as he scrambled to free his hands and feet. Deep, weeping red marks were left like imprints on Buck’s skin from the rope with the worst around his throat like every thrash had choked more of the life out of him and Eddie was almost afraid to check.
But he did anyway with two steady fingers as he pressed against Buck’s pulse point and prayed for a response.
Buck’s pulse was weak, almost too weak for Eddie to feel, but it was there and the sound the fell from Eddie’s lips would’ve sounded like a sob if he was even aware of anything but the steady beat against his fingers and the warm weight in his arms.
“Buck,” Eddie said again, his voice getting lost as the smoke caked his throat. “Buck, wake up!”
But Buck remained still, his long eyelashes fanning his cheeks and that’s when Eddie saw it. The glistening almost clear plastic wrapped around his mouth. He reached up with numb fingers and clawed at the tape. Some fucking monster had gagged him so he couldn’t call out!
Eddie couldn’t even feel his fingertips and his nails left red marks against Buck’s cheeks but they had to move.
He found an edge and brought Buck’s face close so he could use his teeth to tear the tape free. It ripped down the middle but Eddie didn’t care! He yanked the tape off and Buck’s jaw went slack as some kind of fabric peeked out through his lips. Eddie snarled as he grabbed it and snatched the fabric out of Buck’s mouth, tossing it to the side before he curled his arms protectively around Buck’s lax frame.
The smoke was getting thicker with each passing second, the heat growing until Eddie was coated in sweat. They had to move. They had to—
The stuttered exhale kissed into Eddie’s throat, whispering into his soft skin like a tender greeting.
“Buck?” Eddie rasped as he stared down at Buck. Buck’s face scrunched up in displeasure, beautiful and animated and alive! “Buck? Hey, c’mon!”
A pained sound, thin and weak, slipped out of Buck’s lips as he opened his eyes in slits.
“Eddie?”
He mouthed Eddie’s name with only another whistle of an exhale but Eddie couldn’t blame him. Not by the way his throat was practically purple and fragile with every bob of his Adam’s apple.
“I’m here,” Eddie breathed, dropping his forehead against Buck’s. “I’m here.”
Buck smelled like ash and smoke but Eddie didn’t care. Because Buck was alive when Eddie had been almost certain he was dragging out a dead body. Alive and burning up with a fever from the lingering exposure to the heat.
“We have to move,” Eddie said, his heart clenching in his chest as he felt Buck’s weak fingers tangle into the fabric of his shirt. “Can you walk?”
If it was at all possible, Buck’s body only seemed to get heavier in his arms and Eddie heaved himself up before they could think twice. Hoisting Buck up made all the muscles in Eddie’s body cry out and Buck was almost no help whatsoever. He was almost… drunk which didn’t make any sense but Eddie didn’t have time to worry about that. Buck’s legs dipped one time too many times beneath his weight before Eddie was crouching low and scooping Buck over his shoulder. Unused muscles screamed in protest but adrenaline helped ease the burn as he locked his grip around Buck’s leg and wrist. Despite every urge to sprint down the stairs, Eddie wanted to get them outside in one piece so he was careful with each step until finally the darkness was exposed by the high beams of a firefighter’s light.
Everything else was a mess of noise, chaos, and too many unfamiliar hands as he and Buck were hurried outside.
Buck was pulled from his shoulders and whisked away to a spot where paramedics were hovering over him with hurried efficiency.
The first sip of fresh air caught in Eddie’s throat and he doubled over as he wretched. Globs of spit and mucus, black in color fell past his lips onto the concrete beneath his feet. His stomach rolled once and it was all Eddie could do to turn away from the shoes surrounding him before he was vomiting into a bush.
“Eddie? Eddie!” Athena’s voice settled over Eddie’s frazzled nerves like a soothing balm and he could only squint up at her, lines of spit smacking onto his chin. Her face was pinched with worry but Eddie simply shook his head and pointed over to Buck.
“Someone tried to kill him!” He gasped before he was overtaken by another bout of stomach wrecking coughs.
Athena’s mouth dropped with shock as she turned to where Buck was flopping a hand uselessly by his side, the skin around his wrist a deep purple against his ashen skin. The paramedic tried to take Buck’s hand but he ripped it free with a viciousness that didn’t fit the rest of the lethargic movements of his body.
Eddie’s stomach swooped as he caught the urgency in Buck’s flopping and he pushed up until he could drop to his knees beside him.
Buck’s fist clawed at Eddie’s wrist, little pained sounds huffing out of him as tried to see around the paramedic. Eddie shoved in between them and grabbed Buck’s hand, holding it to his chest as he curled his fingers into his pulse point.
Buck sighed as he felt Eddie’s heartbeat slamming where Eddie had Buck’s hand pressed against his chest.
“We need to move him!” Another paramedic shouted as an oxygen mask was slipped over Buck’s face. If Buck heard them, he didn’t give any indication. He just stared at Eddie with blue eyes that looked like glass beneath all the soot and grime covering him.
“What the hell happened? The arsonist?” Athena asked but Eddie couldn’t even begin to speak. He was too busy staring back at Buck, at the open vulnerable windows that he’d never been able to see so clearly through.
It terrified him and yet… settled something that had been thrumming beneath him skin for years.
He latched his teeth onto his lip and brought Buck’s knuckles to his lip. His kiss trembled against his skin but Buck sighed beneath it anyway.
“Sergeant Grant!” Taylor said, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her voice still hoarse but much steadier now that she’d had a few more minutes in the open air. “I think I can help with that.”
And Eddie stayed sitting there, letting everything else wash away, as Buck’s gaze kept him tethered in that moment and away from his fear.