Work Text:
Buck!
The sky is so blue. Black has turned navy, like the depths of the ocean. Spindly clouds soar overhead like graceful waves, holding onto various shades the way a cotton ball holds onto paint. Light illuminates the center of each fluffy bundle.
Where is that light from?
Clear the area! I’m bringing her back!
What is that sound?
Move back. Everybody! Move back!
Reminiscent of an old TV, or computer monitor, buzzing in a way that only children can hear. Drawing forth memories of plasma balls and tesla coils in school, of tinny sound effects in arcades and home video games.
Buck!
It’s hot. Scorching, searing, able to feel it without touching it, radiating outward.
Mayday mayday mayday. This is Captain Nash 118.
It’s cold. The touch burns, stings, leaves a calling card for when his nerves wake again.
We have a firefighter down at the MacArthur Park apartment fire. Need additional task force and rescue immediately.
He’s floating. He’s weightless. He’s free. He’s in an endless sea, drifting as the clouds do, feeling nothing and everything. Time means nothing. Seconds, hours, minutes, days. There are no worries. There is nothing to fear. There is nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Buck!
Who’s there?
Come on, Buck. Hold on, buddy.
Who’s calling?
Buck!
So far away.
Can you hear me?! Buck!
Weight settles back into his form. Comfort is removed. The bed of that endless sea claims him, holds him up, reminds him what feeling is.
We need more slack!
The sand stirs beneath him.
More slack coming up!
But the ocean is empty.
Let’s go, let’s go, let's go, let's go! Back it up, back it up! Let’s go!
There is no one with him.
Take over!
He is alone.
Stop! Stop, stop, stop!
Hands reach for him from the void beneath the sea. The comfort returns, the memory foam of a mattress curling around him. There is a warmth flickering at the edge of his existence.
Come here, kid. Come here. I got him. I got him. Okay, bring that gurney over here, let's go.
He knows that warmth. Days and days of joking, prodding, hoping, bonding. Years and years of longing, wishing, finally grasping, it’s his.
I need a Lifepak!
No you don’t.
Come on, let's go, let's go, let's go!
He can rest in the warmth. There’s no need to go fast, to brush past it carelessly, to take it for granted. Exist for now. That is what life is, what it should be, what it will be. Relax.
I got his head! Get the Lifepak on!
Leave it off.
Get him on. Let's get him down.
Memory foam, luxury, warmth, replaced in an instant. Cold, generic, utilitarian, holding him instead. The sea is gone. The sky is gone. What is this?
All right.
Where is this?
Buck! Buck!
That’s something he knows.
No pulse.
That’s not right.
Get that Lifepak ready!
Why?
It doesn't make sense to shock him. He's in full cardiac arrest.
He is weightless again, drifting not through the sea, but the sky, untethered.
Starting compressions. Get that Lifepak off!
Better.
Come on, Buck. Come on, Buck. Come on, man.
It’s fuzzy. It’s all fuzzy.
Come on, Buck!
Where does he need to go?
Come on, Buck, come on!
He’s free.
All right, Chim. Chim, we got to move.
But
Eddie, Eddie, you're driving. Get off.
he
Get him in!
can’t
Dispatch, this is Captain 118.
feel
We have a firefighter down, struck by lightning, unresponsive, three minutes out.
anything.