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Eddie’s in the ER when the 217 team shows up in their usual fashion, like a whirlwind of chaos and blood (the latter not always present but pretty often a guarantee with this lot). The team’s two paramedics are passing off their diagnosis and current treatment to the doctors on call, standing by their patient who appears to be unconscious. Before Eddie can even consider going to help them out, the doors to the ER burst open again and in come two more members of the 217, wheeling a guy who appears to have a plank of wood- no, wait, that’s definitely a garden rake sticking out of his leg.
“My,” Mrs Delaney muses from the bed Eddie is currently stood by. He had been checking her vitals (or, well, he’d already done that and was catching her up on the hospital gossip. She’s in here often enough that she knows pretty much everyone that works here and they all love her.), before all hell broke loose. “That young man doesn’t seem to be having a great day.”
“No,” Eddie agrees, “I suppose not.”
It’s then, as he’s watching the two firefighters manoeuvre their patient into a free spot on the ward –coincidentally right next to Mrs Delaney - that he realises who one of them is. Well, actually, he recognises all of them. Like he said, the 217 are regulars here. But only one member of the team has ‘Captain’ printed across the front of their helmet.
“Diaz!” he calls, causing said captain’s head to snap up. Blue eyes meet his and Eddie smiles. For about a split second, before he spies the blood trickling down the man’s face and his heart stops. “What the hell happened to you?!”
The firefighter besides him glances between them both, smirk growing wide. He nudges his elbow into his captain’s ribs, muttering “Busted!” in a stage whisper.
Eddie crosses his arms over his chest, lifting an unimpressed brow at the two of them. “Evan. What happened?”
“Eds, I swear, it’s nothing.” he insists, palms raised in a placating manner. “Tommy, go find a doctor and fill them in on Mr Williams’ injuries would you?” With a dismissive wave of his hand, he sends the other firefighter away.
Eddie glances down at Mrs Delaney, who’s watching him with a more-than-amused smile. “He’s rather attractive.” she says. “Are you going to introduce me?”
Even Eddie can’t help the small chuckle that escapes him at that. With a shake of his head, he squeezes her shoulder and gestures towards the 217’s captain. “Sorry, Gloria. This is Buck. My idiot husband I was telling you about.” He steps around her bed, moving to stand closer to Buck and giving his face a careful once over. There’s a cut just above his eyebrow that’s steadily bleeding out. “Who’s going to come with me, right now, so I can fix him up.”
To his credit, Buck knows better than to disagree with Eddie. He sends Mrs Delaney his signature, thousand watt smile. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” he tells her, taking the hand she’s holding out for him and pressing a quick kiss to it before Eddie rolls his eyes and wraps his fingers around his husband’s wrist.
“Now, Buck.” he demands, tugging him away.
They pass James and Victoria on their way, two fellow nurses, and Eddie sends them an exasperated look as he gestures towards Buck.
“I’m gonna go stitch him up. Tell Michelle I’ll be right back?” They give him the thumbs up, not bothering to question him – which goes to show how often this particular scenario happens. Eddie offers them both a grateful smile before he continues to drag Buck to a quieter section of the ward.
“Seriously, sweetheart, I’m fine. It’s just a scratch!”
Eddie tightens his hold on Buck’s wrist. “Don’t sweetheart me.” he snaps, spinning Buck and shoving him backwards until he falls onto a spare bed. He turns and pulls the curtains around them. “Scratches don’t bleed all down your face. Look at you! You’re a mess.” Which is maybe a slight exaggeration; sure, there’s a dried up trail of blood down Buck’s cheek, but that’s about the extent of his injuries. The rest is just dust and dirt, an occupational hazard for any firefighter.
Buck either already knows this or is a goddamn mind reader because he simply smirks up at Eddie, slowly taking his helmet off to place it on the bed. His hair is stuck up at all sorts of ridiculous angles and Eddie can’t resist the urge to reach out and run his fingers through it, smoothing it down into something less like a bird’s nest. “See,” Buck starts, and Eddie can already tell just from the glint in his eyes that he’s going to hate whatever follows, “I have it on good authority that you love when I look a mess.”
Yeah. Eddie was right.
He groans, swatting lightly at Buck’s arm. “Nope. Y’know what? You can just keep bleeding out, I don’t care.” He makes to take a step away but Buck stops him, arms wrapping tight around Eddie’s waist as he pulls him forward again, settling comfortably between Buck’s legs as his idiot of a husband giggles- fucking giggles, into Eddie’s abdomen.
“Nooo!” Buck whines, laughter in his voice making Eddie crack another smile. “Please don’t leave me. I could die, Eddie! Do you want me to die?!”
“You won’t die. Stop being over dramatic you dork.”
“Hey, I’m bleeding, Eds. You said it yourself. You should just be grateful I’m not still on those blood thinners.”
Eddie pulls back at that, fixing Buck with a stern, very unimpressed glare. He ignores the way that his breath hitches at the reminder of ‘the incident’ last year but, if the guilty quirk of Buck’s brow is anything to go by, Buck notices it anyway. “That’s not funny.” he says.
Buck nods, then shakes his head, brows knitting together. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He cracks a smile, though, and leans back to properly look at Eddie, head tilted to the side in a ridiculously coy way. “Now, I think a very hot nurse promised to fix me up.”
Eddie sighs but moves to grab the first aid kit from the draws behind him. “You’re lucky I love you.” he mutters to the needle in his hand.
“Well I should hope so,” Buck quips, “we are married, after all.”
Eddie bites his tongue, shifting into focus as he settles in front of Buck. He cleans up the wound on his forehead, gently dabbing at his skin and letting the quiet ease his worry. Really, now that the residual blood is gone, the wound isn’t all that bad at all.
“What happened anyway?” he finally asks as he starts on the first stitch. Buck winces under his hands, hissing through the pain, and Eddie tuts at him; even after all these years, after all the times Buck has ended up in hospital, he still hates getting sutures.
Buck shrugs, and then grunts when he realises that was a dumb idea considering Eddie is sticking a very sharp object into his fucking head. Eddie drops his hand to Buck’s shoulder momentarily, giving him a reassuring squeeze.
“I honestly don’t know.” Buck starts, “One of the guys kept drifting in and out of consciousness when we arrived, but we’re pretty sure that’s because of the damn rake sticking out of his friend’s leg. From what we could gather, they were cleaning the yard, y’know raking leaves? Then they started playing some game – the guy tried to explain it to us but, honestly, it sounded stupid. Well, I mean, he ended up with a rake in his leg so I guess it is stupid.”
“Aren’t you supposed to not judge the people you meet on calls?” Eddie teases, meeting Buck’s eyes in time to see the way Buck gives him a look – one that says that they both know Eddie is full of bullshit. And, yeah, okay, most of their dinner conversation ends up being gossip about the people they’ve treated over the day but, hey, it’s funny! And educational for Christopher. So he doesn’t grow up to become one of the idiots they treat on a daily basis.
“Eds,” Buck says in that exasperated tone of voice he gets whenever he can’t believe what Eddie has just come out with, “the guy had a rake in his leg!”
“Alright, alright!” Eddie laughs, finishing off the last of Buck’s sutures. “There. All done.”
“Already?” Buck actually manages to look surprised, something that Eddie takes great offense to.
“Hey, I was a medic in the army! I had to do stitches a lot faster than that, back in the day.”
“I know.” Buck groans, the corners of his mouth twisting up into a teasing smile, “It’s not like you haven’t reminded me, like, a million times.”
Eddie doesn’t feel bad about pushing his husband over.
Before Buck can get all offended over the action, the curtains are pulled apart and Tommy joins them. “You nearly done here, Cap?”
Buck waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah. All good now.”
Tommy smiles, looking mildly relieved at that news – and Eddie will never not be warmed by the way that Buck’s team genuinely cares so much about his wellbeing. Ever since he joined them, after the whole fiasco with the fire truck and the blood clots Eddie has been, admittedly, extra cautious with Buck’s health. Not cautious enough to stop him from going back to the job once he was medically cleared; that would’ve been pointless since his husband is quite possibly one of the most stubborn people Eddie’s met. Hell, he left the 118 over it for Christ’s sake. Being a firefighter is who Buck is, Eddie wouldn’t ever want to change that.
Still, he’s glad that he’s with a team that is aware of his past injuries and looks out for him whilst still treating him with the respect he deserves.
Besides, leaving the 118 meant that Buck had the opportunity to expand his skills and climb the ranks. He never would’ve made captain if he’d stayed at his old station.
“Good. Because Sasha is so gonna beat your ass for scaring her like that. She came in and couldn’t find you anywhere. You should’ve seen her face when I told her Eddie was stitching you up.” Tommy tells Buck.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. I’ll grab her one of those chocolate croissants she loves so much on the next coffee run.” Buck says with a light smile and Tommy laughs.
Eddie reaches out a hand for Buck to grab hold of, pulling the younger man up to his feet. “I better get going. Thanks for patching me up.” Buck says, offering Eddie one of his private smiles, the soft, warm ones that turn Eddie’s insides to mush.
“Just be careful.” Eddie murmurs, brushing a knuckle down the line of Buck’s jaw. He sends Tommy a stern look over Buck’s shoulder, “You make sure you watch over him. He spends too long looking out for everyone else, he forgets that he isn’t invincible.”
Tommy grins at him, giving him a mock salute. “You got it, Eddie.” Eddie sends him a grateful smile.
“Now, go on. Get gone. I’ve got patients to treat.” Eddie tells Buck, pushing gently at his chest. Buck nods, holding up his hands as he takes a step back.
“I’m going, I’m going!”
“See ya next time.” Tommy calls out to Eddie as he slips out between the gap of the curtains. He adds a, rather unnecessarily loud, “Stop giving your husband heart eyes, Cap, we gotta go!” after that has Buck rolling his eyes.
“I’m gonna put him on cleaning duty all week if he keeps saying shit like that.” Buck mutters under his breath and Eddie snorts.
“Oh, give him a break. Christopher likes him, we don’t want him moving to another station.”
Buck scoffs. “Yeah, right. He wouldn’t leave me.” Buck says, sounding very sure of himself. He has a point, though, so Eddie isn’t going to argue with him. “Besides, I’m gonna suggest he goes for the lieutenant position now that Mary’s gone.”
“Ooh,” Eddie grins, leaning in a little with excitement. “He’s gonna freak!”
Buck’s smile grows wider and, seriously, could he be any more attractive? “I know.” He drops his hand, giving Eddie’s wrist a quick squeeze, and adds, “Right, I really am off now.”
“Good. Go! I’m going to get in trouble if you keep me any longer.”
Eddie practically pushes Buck out, ignoring his husband’s complaints at the cold treatment. He shakes his head, failing to fight back the grin on his face as he turns to straighten up the bed and discard the used equipment.
But then the curtains rattle again and a hand grabs his waist, spinning him in one swift movement. Eddie stumbles, hands coming up to brace himself on Buck’s chest and he looks up to see Buck grinning down at him. “I forgot something,” Buck practically purrs, and Eddie is very grateful for the curtains closing them off from the rest of the ward when Buck leans in to capture Eddie’s lips in a downright filthy kiss that leaves him swaying on his toes. Buck’s hand tightens on his waist for a moment, nose brushing against Eddie’s, and he drags his lips up to Eddie’s ear to whisper, “You look fucking sexy in pink scrubs, by the way.” before he releases his hold on Eddie and is gone as quickly as he came.
Eddie has to take a moment to catch his breath, hands smoothing down said pink scrubs as he wills his face to cool down.
With a clear of his throat, and when he’s sure he can walk steadily, Eddie peels the curtains back and steps out onto the bustling ward again. He heads straight back to Mrs Delaney, where he left his clipboard, and isn’t surprised when she throws her magazine down the moment she lands eyes on him, a smirk creeping over her face.
“You’re looking a little flushed there, sweetie. Are you feeling alright?”
Eddie swallows, eyes darting over to where Buck is talking with one of the doctors on the other side of the ward. “I’m just peachy.” he mutters. She doesn’t miss a trick, though, and follows his gaze. Eddie busies himself with checking her IV drip, for lack of things to do with his hands, and doesn’t say anything when she bursts into laughter.
“You landed yourself a real looker. He sure is something.” she tells him in a hushed voice, and Eddie meets her eyes, smiling back when he sees the fondness on her face.
“Yeah,” he says, resisting the urge to look back over there, “he sure is.”