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Bobby Nash loved his job. Absolutely adored his job. He’s from a long line of firefighters in his family and the opportunity to be a captain, to lead his team to achieve incredible feats is an honor he doesn't take for granted. There’s no universe where Bobby Nash dislikes being a firefighter, being the Fire Captain.
But right now the word he would use would probably be annoyed, maybe even vexed as he watches two grown men stifling giggles and whispering into each other's ears.
Eddie, currently leaning over the back of the couch over a sleeping Chimney, the other man completely knocked out with his mouth hanging slack open and left arm hanging over the edge of the furniture. Eddie who has his eyes crinkled as he laughs in a whisper, watching Buck. Buck who is currently dangling a singular brussel sprout above Chimneys open mouth.
Both men have been in the position for about three minutes and Bobby is beginning to question whether or not they’re even going to carry out the prank. Each time they’ve come close to their objective they’ve made eye contact and thrown their body’s backwards (and in sync) with snickers and giggles.
The action itself isn’t the annoyance on Bobby’s part. On the contrary, Bobby loves how their little family feels comfortable enough with each other to be able to mess with each other. Honestly he finds the image funny.
The annoyance is coming from the implications involved.
Bobby’s not stupid, far from it. He’s noticed the shift in Buck and Eddie’s relationship since Eddie’s return to the firehouse. The glances exchanged, the extra concern in dangerous scenarios, the sneaking off during downtime-
Leaving and arriving in the same vehicle.
And don’t get Bobby wrong, the implications of it all are overjoying. Bobby has watched both young men struggle through the years, grappling with themselves and their love interests in a search for what they really desire. The fact that they have presumably found the answer through each other is something that Bobby has yearned for on their behalf. Both of the boys deserve the happiness they so obviously provide for each other.
But a relationship between two firefighters? In the same unit? HR nightmare. One that Bobby would honestly rather bang his head against a brick wall then deal with.
It's obvious that the culprits in question understand this concept as well. Which would explain the lack of announcement to the team and the sneaking around. But god does Bobby wish they could be more discreet about the matter. That’s the annoyance, Bobby knows that inevitably the antics are going to give them away, meaning that he has to grapple with the aftermath.
A harsh choking noise followed by bursting laughter brings Bobby back to the scene at hand as Chimney lurches up from the couch, brussel sprout launching from his mouth as the grown men behind him double over in hilarity.
“I’m going to beat your ass Buckley!”
“You wish you could have a piece of this ass Rebar!”
“Gross! I’m basically your brother in law!”
Bobby presses two fingers to the middle of his brow and retreats as he faintly hears Chimney calling for Hen in the same way a child calls for their mother after a fight with siblings.
__
Bobby’s always had a distaste for the bunks. He brings it up at every meeting he can about the lack of comfort (and size) that his team has to crawl back to after calls that leave their bones and heads weary, always campaigned for a miniscule amount more of warmth in their darkest shifts. The excuses for beds they all face are cramped on a good day.
Which is why Bobby (almost comically) has to consciously keep his jaw from hanging open when he spots the two grown men squished together on the surface, slotting their bodies together in an almost poetic sense.
Buck, given his added height, has his chin resting against the top of Eddie's slack forehead, shoulder curled inward as his arm cradles the upper half of the other's body. From Bobby’s position he can’t exactly see Eddie’s face but he can tell the man is asleep by the steady rise and fall of his chest. The older man's arms are curled upwards, hands overlapping as they stay cradled impossibly close to Buck’s chest.
It’s only then that Bobby startles at the sight of Buck's open eyes, half-lidded and blinking down at the figure in his arms.
The blackout curtains can only do so much to keep the daylight imprisoned, leaving a thin strip of muted haze cutting through Buck’s face, lightening his already radiant eyes with a soft glow. Eyes that stay observing and frozen, drinking in the sight in front of them with such adoration and protectiveness that it almost leaves Bobby dizzy. Buck drinks in a deep inhale and tilts his head a touch lower, inching his face closer to Eddie’s. He stalls and considers as he calculates his next movement, leaving a slow and soft kiss to the area next to Eddie’s nose and slightly under his eye. It's an unconventional and indulgent gesture that just feels so Buck that the coil of concern Bobby harbors in his chest for the kid on what feels like a daily basis loosens just a little. He’s never seen an image that feels so safe.
Having intruded enough Bobby retreats, leaving his boys in their own little sanctuary.
Maybe the HR hassle of a workplace relationship isn’t as bad as it once sounded.
__
The call comes through at around seven in the morning resulting in the chugging of coffee and the rubbing of crust from the team's eyes. The details are this; a couple set out to dig a time capsule from when they were in highschool out of the ground, nestled somewhere in the middle of a national park. The problem is not only is it hard to locate an item buried twenty years ago, it is also very illegal to deface a national park. The couple resolved to dig as deep as they could before being detected, leaving a towering and wide pile of dirt over their ridiculously deep dig site. This alerted the park ranger who instantly radioed in for the extraction of the couple. The woman found her way out of the whole quite quickly, whereas the man found his foot snagged in a tangle of roots.
The team arrive already exasperated at the stupidity of the pairs actions but hide it under a veil of professionalism as they help the man out of what has practically become a manhole. Hen announces that the man has a dislocated ankle as she leads the man and Chim to the ambulance.
“Wait, hold on!” Buck yells out as he begins his ascent out of the hole, a tower of thick dirt casting a shadow over his figure.
“I think I found the piece of junk they were looking for.” He announces, gesturing towards the bottom of the hole where a metal corner is nestled.
Bobby leans over to confirm the sight before Eddie calls out to him.
“Cap, we need your help over here!” Eddie yells out.
Bobby looks back to see the man struggling against the combined effort of Hen, Chim and Eddie. Yelling nonsense about the time capsule, flailing his limbs against the team's effort to help.
Bobby jogs over, leaving Buck and the pit behind him as he climbs into the ambulance to assist. He places both his hands on the man's shoulders.
“Sir. Sir, I need you to calm down so my team can help you.” Bobby’s extra handling keeps the man still but does little to deter the angry exclamations coming out of his mouth.
The situation doesn’t receive the chance to escalate as Bobby feels the beginnings of a rumble, vibration in the ground and in the air.
The man's eyes go wide underneath him, mirroring the expressions of his team as an earthquake takes hold of their atmosphere. Ambulance rocking violently and bodies knocking into each other.
“Hold tight!” Bobby yells into the fervent air as supplies fall to the floor with deafening thuds and grunts of exertion fill the air. Bobby spends the duration of the quake swivelling his eyes to each member of his team. Hen and Chim keep their eyes planted to the victim with determination each time Bobby lays his eyes on them.
Yet with Eddie, his eyes remain panicked and set in the direction they last saw Buck.
Buck who was at the bottom of a pit as the quake began.
The earthquake lasts forty excruciating seconds. It seems the earth has barely even settled before Bobby and Eddie are launching themselves out of the back of the vehicle and in the direction of the clearing.
The horror is palpable when instead of a tall blonde climbing out of a hole, there is a mound of dirt over a filled pit.
“Buck!?” The yell pulls out of Eddie’s chest as he frantically searches.
That's when he sees it.
The tips of three limp fingers barely grazing the surface of dirt.
Bobby doesn’t even get a split second chance to call out to Eddie before the blurred figure is rushing past him. The sound of Eddie’s knees hitting the dense dirt rattling Bobby’s teeth and ticking his heart rate impossibly higher. Bobby joins Eddie not a second later, a sickening feeling akin to deja vu dropping through his body as Eddie lets out an earth shuddering, panting breath as he begins to claw at the dirt surrounding Buck’s fingers. Bobby can’t help but see slick mud, gloves pawing at the ground, a stark birthmark contorting with an eyebrow into a shape of pure desperation.
The sound of one's beloved on his lips.
“Buck! Buck I’m coming! If you can hear me, I'm coming! just hold on!” Eddie screams, the noise splitting into a crack as his hands uncover an arm to its elbow. Bobby faintly notices his own hands assisting Eddies at a just as fervent pace. He refuses to note the lack of movement from his firefighter. Refuses to see the sickly pale pallor of the exposed arm.
But above all he refuses to acknowledge how Eddie, usually the first to assess a victim's state, has forsaken to check Buck’s exposed wrist for a pulse.
Between their combined effort of four desperate hands they uncover Buck’s shoulder and grip on the exposed skin following up his arm, bracing to pull. Eddie’s rapid breaths rise as he tightens his hold on Buck’s limb, pupils constricted and knuckles tinged white.
Bobby takes a deep breath.
“On three Eddie.”
He receives a cut nod in response.
“One,
Two,
Three!”
Both men pull tight on his arm as they attempt to free Buck’s body upwards. They both witness Buck’s shoulder jerking upwards as they grunt and haul their weight, only for the man's body to remain firmly in the ground.
Another tug, a third, a fourth-
“Shit!” Eddie screeches, vein protruding from his forehead as he kicks at the dirt before letting out a distressed keen as he begins digging even deeper. Bobby feels his body run cold.
The scene unsettles Bobby to the core. Being so used to seeing Eddie at the highest level of calm and competence in high pressure situations, hardly losing his cool and keeping himself grounded. It aches him to know he’s finally seeing the day something breaks Eddie Diaz like this. Watching him scream and paw at the ground like a wild animal.
The pull between composed captain and petrified father figure ripping his soul in two. He knows if he allows the reality of the take hold he will fall apart and become useless. He brings his hands back to the ground and resumes digging around his fallen firefighter. The muted and mumbled pleas falling from Eddie’s lips refusing to fully reach his ears.
“Cap! Eddie!”
Bobby doesn’t think he’s ever been so relieved to hear Hens' voice. He turns to see her sprinting toward the scene, Chimney in tow, both distressed. Time to put his captain hat back on.
“Chimney! Hen! I need you to help us pull him out now! We’re out of time!”
Four sets of hands descend, gripping and twisting onto the arm. On Bobby’s order they heave and grunt and pull before finally, they feel the body give way. Inching closer towards the surface
“We got him!” Hen announces as the top of a head clad with blonde waves appears in the dirt. Followed by the inching up of slack eyebrows and closed eyelids dusted with soil.
The team grab hold of their youngest, anchoring their knees into the ground as they quickly uncover Buck from his grave before depositing him on the ground.
Eddie’s blue gloved hands grab Buck’s shoulders as he rolls him onto his side. Buck’s body moves softly under Eddie’s hands as the side of his face lolls onto the earth beneath him. Buck’s lips are pale and blue as Eddie’s fingers pry into his mouth, scooping as much dirt out of Buck’s body as physically possible with his right hand as his left cradles the back of Buck’s head. Anxiously satisfied with his work Eddie once again rolls Buck onto his back with startling efficiency. Tipping his head back and opening his mouth, making the sight of his slack face even more terrifying. Chimney is already filling the position next to Buck’s head while Eddie hovers over his body, locks his hands together and starts compressing on his chest. Each forced movement of Buck’s chest paired with a distressed grunt from Eddie.
“Don't you dare Evan. Don’t you fucking dare.” Eddie’s voice takes on a new sense of venom with each failed attempt to beat Buck’s heart back into proper action. There’s sweat dripping down his forehead and his body shakes with exhaustion and terror. If Bobby looks close enough he can pinpoint the tears starting to form in his eyes.
Bobby can do nothing but stare as Buck’s still form jerks with each compression, as Hen returns to the scene with a stretcher, clearly shaken and distressed.
“Do not make me tell my son that our favorite person in the world is gone. Don’t you dare do that to us! Breathe Buck!” Eddie is begging at this point, literally on his knees next to a dug up grave. Shaking as Chimney supplies another two rescue breaths.
A grunt is the only warning they receive as Buck’s chest suddenly hitches upwards as he makes an aborted attempt at drawing in even half a breath, before making a noise mixed between a choke and a hurl as he begins to let out chest splitting coughs.
A shaky holy shit can be heard from Chimney as Eddie quickly rolls Buck into the recovery position, hands shaking and tears finally falling from his face as he lets out soft relieved curses.
Buck continues to hack up his lungs on the ground before he takes in a full breath, eyes half-lidded as his reprieve from choking is ended short by hurling up a mix of bile and dirt next to his red face.
Bobby can’t take it anymore and finally reaches out to touch the man. Large hands patting him on his back as he continues to be sick on the ground. He feels the sick similarity in how he too, is only just catching his breath.
“That's it. let it out kid, just let it out”
After it seems Buck is finished throwing up Hen is already sliding in with an oxygen mask as the man was beginning to wheeze and whimper due to not being able to take a proper breath in. Buck’s body relaxes once the device is on his face, letting out a soft hmph as he begins to seemingly sink into the ground with exhaustion.
Eddie remains frozen, hands stiff on Buck’s upper body as he stares down with such intensity. The man no longer actively crying but tears remaining stagnant on his face, unblinking and taking in shaky breaths as he takes in the sight of an out-of-it Buck, sluggishly moving and living on the ground beneath him. Bobby can see the shock that is slowly slipping off his own body digging its claws deep into Eddie’s skin.
Buck slowly blinks up at Eddie, his arm weakly rising into the air to grasp Eddie’s own. His pupils try to reach Eddie’s as he clearly senses the strong sense of upset rolling off of his partner.
“Eddie. Eddie.” Hen softly urges as she eyes the man like he’s a spooked animal “Lets get him on a stretcher. Let's go c'mon.”
Eddie takes a long swallow and looks up at Hen, then right back at Buck, as if bracing himself. Bobby takes a step toward the man as he begins to feel more like a human and less like a misplaced ghost. An instinct pulling him to hover over and protect both young men glued to the floor.
Eddie closes his eyes and nods as he prepares himself to move from his protective stance. He opens his eyes and places his left hands on the side of Buck’s face before delivering a tender stroke to his cheek. Buck’s eyes flutter under the gesture. Eddie bends his head down, whispering into the other man's ear.
Bobby doesn’t listen, he’s witnessed enough of their private moments. He’ll let them have this one. He leaves them in their own sanctuary as Buck is loaded onto the ambulance.
_______
Buck’s cramped hospital room might as well have been a house party with the amount of people who have shuffled in and out. After being brought in from the ambulance the team had to melt into the waiting room chairs as Buck received full care. Phone calls were made, Maddy bustled into the room with a half asleep Jee on her hip. Bobby felt the pull loosen from his chest as Athena strode into his space and placed her warm, calming hand on his shoulder.
Eddie sat, removed slightly from the group, hunched elbows on his knees and a set of scarily unblinking eyes.
Since then everyone has taken a shift at Buck’s bedside. Radiating relieved concern but happily playing along with Buck’s tired jokes and jabs as he plays his usual cards of downplaying his own painful circumstances.
Eddie stands towards the back of the group as everyone decides it's time to head home and let the man rest, bidding farewell with smiles and soft hand squeezes. Maddie lingers as she leans down and whispers something into Buck’s ear that fractures his expression just a tad, before she delivers a soft kiss to his forehead. She heads out with her partner and child, Hen following in line leaving Eddie, Bobby and Athena to linger behind.
Eddie remains stagnant as he drinks in the sight of his partner with a haunted glint in his eyes.
“Eddie.” It's a soft statement falling from Buck’s lips, Bobby can’t help but notice the way the younger man has dropped his playful bravado and has instead taken on a slightly pleading tone.
Athena communicates with Bobby using just her eyebrows that Bobby understands instantly. They should provide some privacy for this moment. His brilliant wife seeming to pick up on the shift in dynamic Bobby has almost been painstakingly analysing these past few weeks.
“We’ll give you two a moment.” A pause. “Glad you’re ok kid.” The words feel like a colossal understatement leaving his lips as Bobby’s pretty sure this stunt alone has added a dozen extra grey hairs.
Buck gives Bobby and Athena a small smile of appreciation before falling to a serious expression once again and facing Eddie.
“Eds. Come here.”
A hushed and beckoning call as Bobby and Athena exit the room. As he’s retreating Bobby can’t help but peek at the sight of Eddie Diaz folding himself onto the top of Bucks frame, Buck’s splayed open palm making soothing tracks through brown hair. Soft shuddering wracking through both of Eddie’s shoulders as Buck mutters soft words to the top of his head.
Heart softening, Bobby spins outside the door only to be met with four sets of eyes looking at him. Athena, Chim, Hen and Maddie looking back at them.
“So…..” Hen makes a popping noise with her lips, a sheepish pull to her face with a hint of mischief.
“We have a wager going. Well. Have had a wager going for quite a while now.” Maddie smirks through her words.
“And you’ve clearly finally caught up.” Chim continues their statement with bright eyes as he looks up at Bobby. “You reckon they’re bumping and grinding?” He finishes with a smile paired with a scolding Howie from Maddie.
Bobby blanches.
“And how long has this supposed wager been happening?” He asks the room.
Only to turn his head and see his own wife giving him a pitying but adoring smile.
“Traitor.” He quips.
The group have a much needed laugh together after the day's events. Bobby leaves the hospital feeling lighter.
__
Bobby pretends not to see the money being forked out of his team's pockets when Eddie grabs Buck on both sides of his face and places a soft I missed you kiss on his lips the second he returns from sick leave, barely letting him finish his bounding up the stairs into the loft.
Quite frankly he doesn’t have time to give a lecture.
He has HR paperwork to fill out. Happily.