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Eddie’s hurt. He’s hurt and he’s broken and Buck can’t remember why- can’t remember what happened- but he knows it’s his fault. He knows he’s the reason Eddie is lying before him, bloodied and pale and his face twisted in pain instead of peaceful in his sleep.
His hand doesn’t hold Buck’s back, no matter how hard Buck squeezes it. His chest rises and falls, but his breaths are shallow. His eyelids flutter, his eyelashes brushing his cheeks, but they don’t open.
He’s okay , a voice inside Buck’s mind supplies, he’s alive, he’s stable. He’s okay.
He doesn’t look okay. And Buck doesn’t feel okay. Buck feels like he’s choking, his chest constricting around his heart, his ribs cracking under the invisible pressure and stabbing into the soft tissue they’re meant to protect, leaving him bleeding from the inside out.
Then Eddie’s eyelids flutter again, cracking open ever so slightly this time. His eyes, dazed with pain and drugs, land on Buck and the corner of his mouth lifts in a slow smile. His fingers twitch in Buck’s grasp.
“Buck,” he breathes, some of the pain leaving his face as he murmurs the name.
“Hey Eddie,” Buck chokes out, the tears stuck in his throat threatening to drown him. He knows what drowning feels like. He’s had water fill his lungs, leave no room for air or a scream to let loose. He knows what it is to not be able to breathe. He’s never felt it quite like this.
“Am I-?”
“Stable,” Buck cuts in. “You’re stable. They want to keep you at least overnight, probably through tomorrow.”
Eddie nods, once, his eyes falling closed again. Buck thinks he’s fallen back asleep and he starts to lower his own head to meet their conjoined hands, to press his lips to Eddie’s split knuckles and whisper a wordless prayer. He doesn’t quite know how to pray, if he’s being honest. He thinks to pray he would have to believe someone was listening.
The only person he wants to hear his prayers is Eddie.
“Chris,” Eddie murmurs, his voice slurring. “Y’gotta go home to Chris, Buck.”
Buck shakes his head, firmly. He’s already been through this in his own mind, every molecule of his body being pulled in two directions. One is home, taking care of the child that makes up half his heart. The other is here, beside the battered and bruised other half, holding his hand as if by doing that he could heal Eddie himself. “Carla is there. Bobby is going to go over. Everyone’s agreed to look out for him, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you alone.”
Eddie squeezes his head. “He needs you , Buck.” His face contorts for a moment, his brow furrowing and mouth curling into a pained grimace.
“I need you ,” Buck whispers. And that- that feels like a prayer. It is a prayer, more holy than any words Buck could pull from the Bible or recite in a church.
Eddie squeezes his hand again, his grimace melting into a smile. “Hey, I’m right here. Okay? Not going anywhere. But I- I need you to be with Chris. Please, he needs a parent right now. He’s endured this too many times already.”
Buck’s breath catches in his throat at Eddie’s murmured confession, his blatant statement. It pierces Buck’s chest, expanding in the same way a flower blooms, the honey warm petals curling around his heart, protecting it from the fear trying to shred it to pieces.
“I’m not-,”
“You are,” Eddie insists, his voice the firmest it’s been since he woke up. Buck meets his gaze and it’s fierce, fully aware of what is being said. Eddie means this.
“Okay,” Buck breathes. “Okay. I’m going to take care of him Eddie, I swear. We’re going to be home, waiting for you to come back to us. Okay?”
Eddie only nods, his eyes falling shut again. Buck barely hears the whispered Thank you that falls from Eddie’s lips like a sigh.
Buck gives himself a couple more moments, studying Eddie’s sleeping face, more peaceful now than before, until he squeezes Eddie’s hand once, twice, and moves to his feet. He waits another moment to ensure the beeping of the monitors stays the same, then he turns and leaves. He feels the distance like a physical tether, connecting him to Eddie and growing tenser with each step he takes in the wrong direction.
But there’s another tendril, one connecting him to Chris even this far away, drawing him in and in further. Two lines, one heart. He wonders, briefly, if they’ll tear his heart in two. He doesn’t care.
Love doesn’t work like that . It sounds like Maddie’s voice in his mind. It’s not meant to hurt you, to tear you apart. Those lines don’t get cut, don’t get stretched too far. They are infinite. The tension is just a reminder they’re still there.
Buck lets out a slow breath as he walks down the hallway, further and further from Eddie’s room. The tension isn’t painful, Maddie’s voice is right. It’s just a gentle tug, a warm and constant reminder that Eddie’s still there .
A doctor passes Buck, bumping into his shoulder and continuing on without a word. And something- something feels off . Something twists in the pit of Buck’s stomach and bile rises in his throat and his hands start shaking and- he has to get to Eddie.
He can’t move. His feet are planted firmly to the floor, each desperate to run in the opposite direction.
Then two things happen in quick succession:
First, a text comes through on his phone. Automatically he checks it and nearly sobs in relief when he sees the photo from Bobby, of Chris fast asleep in his bed, his face sweet and innocent and peaceful.
Second, he hears a shout. It’s muffled, cut off, barely there. He almost thinks he imagined it. But the ringing in his ears promises he didn’t.
“Buck-!”
The tether snaps.
Eddie .
Buck spins on his heel and bolts down the hallway. It’s longer now- longer than when he came up it, Eddie grows further and further away as the tile expands under Buck’s feet
He bursts into the room late- too late, too late. The monitor has flatlined, reduced to one deafening, monotonous tone.
“No!” The cry is ripped from him as a torn off sob, raw and bleeding around the edges as he stares at Eddie’s lifeless, dull body. His face is contorted in pain, his lips parted in a silent scream, the veins in his neck distended, his fists clenched and bleeding.
“No, no no no no,” Buck sobs as he collapses to his knees right there, unable to take the last few steps to Eddie’s side. He doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to look into Eddie’s eyes and see nothing there, doesn’t want to take Eddie’s hand and feel no fluttering pulse under his skin.
Instead, he looks up at the doctor, back turned to him. “Why didn’t you save him?” The question comes in the form of a scream, desperate and shattered.
He drops his hands and his head, hanging and panting through his sobs, each one ripping out a piece of his heart. His vision blurs and there’s blood on the floor beneath him. He’s bleeding out, dying as the flower curled around his heart turns to ice and shatters, each shard piercing his heart.
The doctor walks over and kneels before him. Buck can’t lift his head, can’t look him in the eye.
“There was nothing to save.”
That voice-
Buck looks up and stares into his own eyes. Except they’re not his- he’s never seen him like this. Ice cold, void of emotion. Cruel.
“N-no- no,” he stammers, falling back, scrambling away.
“You were too late,” Other Buck says, his voice sharp and his words laced with barbed wire and poison. His face is twisted in a sadistic grin, his eyes dark and glittering. “You couldn’t save him.”
“No!” Buck shouts, his back hitting the wall. “Y-you’re not- this isn’t- none of this is r-real- it’s not-,”
Other Buck cocks his head, his smile a cruel and twisted imitation of Buck’s own. “Oh it isn’t?”
“No,” Buck insists, but his voice wavers.
“Let’s find out shall we?” His face morphs into a snarl and Buck can’t move, can’t react as Other Buck grabs the back of his neck, yanking him to his feet with inhuman strength, shoving him harshly towards Eddie’s still body.
“No!” Buck sobs, his knees collapsing beneath him as he goes boneless. Other Buck doesn’t let him fall, shoves him forward instead. “No, no please- please don’t do this to me! I c-can’t, I can’t do this!”
Other Buck’s mouth is right next to Buck’s ear, his harsh words hot as they scrape Buck’s skin like tiny razors. “Then you should have been strong enough to save him.”
“No!” Buck screams as his face is forced into Eddie’s, his forehead pressing into Eddie’s cold skin. Another sob rips itself from Buck’s chest. “No, no, Eddie, no, please come back to me.”
“Why would he?” Other Buck snarls, his fingers tight around Buck’s neck. “You’re nothing worth coming back to, you’re the reason he’s gone. You’re the problem, Evan.”
“No,” Buck cries, but it’s weak this time. He stops straining to get away, falls limp against Eddie’s corpse. This is what he deserves, this is what he must endure. This is the pain he will live with the rest of his life, unless it kills him now.
“You left him,” his own voice hisses in his ear as Buck’s eyes squeeze closed. “You failed him. You failed Christopher. Everyone you love. Everyone delusional enough to love you back.”
“Stop,” Buck begs, sobbing pathetically, his tears falling and slicking Eddie’s cold, pale skin. “Please stop.”
“I’m not doing anything, Evan. This is you. This is all you.”
“Please!”
“Buck.”
“Please stop, please!”
“ Buck! ”
“I can’t,” Buck sobs, “I’m sorry!”
“ BUCK!”
Buck opens his eyes with a gasp, but instead of staring at Eddie’s lifeless face, he’s met with panicked brown eyes hovering right above his, face twisted in terror. There isn’t a rough hand digging into his neck, but two gentle ones cradling his face. He isn’t kneeling on a cold hospital floor, he’s lying in a soft bed, the blankets twisted around his legs and a warm body covering half of his own.
“Eddie?” It comes out like a cry, hysterical and panicked around the edges. He searches the eyes above his own desperately as Eddie nods, shushing him gently.
“It’s me, Buck, it’s just me.” Eddie’s voice is soft, gentle. Careful. Scared. “I’m right here, you’re okay.”
“N-no, no,” Buck stammers, his hands clasping around Eddie’s wrists, searching for a pulse. Eddie leans back slightly, Buck following him, not willing to lose any of the closeness between them. “No.” Tears blur his vision, images of Eddie’s dead body flashing before his eyes, his own cruel and twisted smile mocking him. “No- no you were- h-he- he- no, no I - it was- it was me , god, it was me, Eddie-”
“Buck!” The sharp tone Eddie uses to cut off Buck’s panicked rambling makes him think this isn’t his first try, just the first that got through. Buck’s jaw shuts with a click as he focuses on Eddie’s face. His breathing is labored, loud panicked breaths through his nose making him dizzy.
“You have to calm down,” Eddie says softly, one of his hands leaving Buck’s cheek. Buck whines softly at the loos, but Eddie twists his fingers to grip Buck’s wrist, guiding Buck’s palm to his chest, setting it to rest against where his heart is. “I’m okay, alright? We’re both okay.”
Buck stares at Eddie’s hand covering his own, feeling the slightly fast rhythm of Eddie’s heart beneath his touch, through the cotton shirt Eddie’s wearing.
Too far , his heart whispers. The urge to yank away Eddie’s shirt, to press his palm to Eddie’s skin and feel his heart pulsing and the warmth of his blood pumping through his veins, rushes through Buck like… well, like a bolt of lightning. It’s sharp and dizzying and takes his breath away for several long moments. Then he lifts his eyes to Eddie’s, and all he can see is cold and empty- dead - brown eyes staring back at him.
Too close , his brain screams. He bunches his fist in Eddie’s shirt and shoves at his chest, scrambling back until he tumbles off the edge of the bed, stumbling for a moment until dropping to his knees with a resounding crack that he barely hears. All he hears is the monotonous beep of the heart monitor.
“No,” he whimpers, twisting his fingers in his own hair roughly and squeezing his eyes shut. His own dark eyes, dark and savage, flash in his mind. The hand is on the back of his neck, shoving him forward and gripping hard enough to bruise. “No, no no no, no !”
“Buck, please .” Eddie sounds scared now as he falls to his knees beside Buck, grabbing Buck’s wrists to stop him from tearing at his own hair. “Talk to me, Buck!”
Buck just shakes his head, whining pathetically. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t . The hinge of his jaw is stuck, frozen, refusing to open. His teeth grind together hard enough to send sparks of pain through his skull. He can’t even get himself to open his eyes, to look Eddie in the eye and see nothing but death looking back.
“ Baby .” The name, uttered as a desperate plea and laced with fear and tears, finally breaks through Buck’s fog. His eyes fly open, staring at Eddie.
“Hi,” Eddie murmurs softly. “You back with me?” His thumbs gently brush back and forth on the inside of Buck’s wrists, somehow in time to Buck’s own heartbeat pounding in his ears.
“You died,” Buck chokes out, half sobbing now. “Y- you died , I- I-” He cuts himself off with a huge, gasping breath, his exhale trembling as he starts to shake. He doesn’t blink, can’t tear his gaze away from Eddie’s face for even a moment.
Confusion and concern dance in Eddie’s eyes, but his voice is soft. “It was just a nightmare, Buck. I’m alive, I’m fine , okay?” Slowly, he releases one of Buck’s wrists, moving his hand to the back of Buck’s next. Buck flinches slightly and Eddie pauses. “Do you trust me?” Instantly, Buck nods. His muscles relax as Eddie draws him closer, pressing their foreheads together. Instinctively, Buck’s eyes fall closed.
Eddie brings Buck’s hand back to rest on his chest, only this time, he pulls down the fabric of his old shirt so Buck’s palm is directly against his warm skin.
“I need you to breathe, okay?” Buck starts to let out a small, distressed sound, but Eddie squeezes the back of his neck. Gently, tenderly, not harshly or cruelly. “With me, Buck. Just breathe with me.”
So Buck tries. His breaths stutter both in and out, but he does his best to match Eddie’s steady rhythm, guided by the soft hand on the back of his neck, grounding him. Eddie’s heart beats against his palm and Buck feels his own heart slow down to match the pace.
“Good,” Eddie murmurs after a few breaths, “you’re doing so good, Buck. I’ve got you.” Warmth floods through Buck, chasing away the tremors still wracking his body.
Buck doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but the longer Eddie holds him, the easier his breaths come and the steadier he feels. He waits as long as his guilt will let him before he croaks out a broken, “I’m sorry.”
Eddie’s hand tightens on the back of Buck’s neck. “Don’t. Don’t apologize to me for this. Ever.”
“It’s not- it’s not fair to you,” Buck whispers, even as he falls further into Eddie, his fingers digging into the skin of his chest, their foreheads pressed together hard enough for it to almost hurt.
Eddie shakes his head and pulls back slightly, breaking the point of contact. Buck almost leans forward, chasing the touch, but he catches himself with a sharp breath. He’s not allowed to do that.
“Look at me,” Eddie asks- pleads, really. Buck just shakes his own head, keeping his eyes shut and his head bowed. Eddie squeezes the back of his neck again, firmer this time. “ Look at me .”
Buck’s never been good at saying no to Eddie. He opens his eyes and lifts his chin.
The hint of a smile appears on Eddie’s lips, falling away just as fast. “You never have to apologize for needing help, Buck. Especially from me. I promised you I’d always have your back. I didn’t mean that just literally, you know that.”
“I killed you,” Buck blurts. It comes out as a soft cry, a broken confession laced with guilt. I don’t deserve your love , is what he knows he means. But he knows he can’t say that.
Eddie blinks, a confused frown creasing his brow and pulling down the corners of his mouth. “Y- you what?”
“I killed you, Eddie,” Buck says again, the tears beginning to fall down his cheeks as he hiccups a quiet cry. “I- I was too late, I couldn’t- and he- I mean me- I- I killed you.”
“Slow down,” Eddie whispers, his fingers carding through the soft curls at the nape of Buck’s neck. Usually the motion makes him want to purr, but now it just makes nausea twist in his stomach. “It was just a dream, okay? Walk me through it.”
“I- it- do you-” he takes a shaky breath, “do you remember what I told you about the dream I had? When- when I was-”
“I remember,” Eddie interrupts, his voice tight. The coma is a sore subject for them both.
Buck takes another deep breath, steadier this time. “I- I told you about the- the other me, right?”
“The evil doctor? The one who- who didn’t want to let you come back?”
He lets out a slow exhale, nodding. “I keep- I keep having these dreams, ever since I came back. He-” a shudder runs through Buck- “he’s killed everyone I love, Eddie. I mean- I have. Cause- cause really he’s me . It’s me . I’m- I’m the problem.”
“What do you mean, Buck?”
Buck bites down on his lip hard enough to nearly draw blood, then releases it and closes his eyes, fighting back the desire to cry. “Every- every night since I woke up, he’s killed someone. It- it started with my parents which- I can’t even start to wonder about, not right now. But- but then, h-he killed everyone . One by one. Each night. Athena. Chim. Bobby. Hen. Maddie.” Buck lifts his gaze to meet Eddie’s, tears welling in his eyes. “ You .”
“You never woke me before,” Eddie whispers, his own eyes shining with the start of tears. “Why did you never wake me?” It’s a fair question. Buck has spent every night sleeping by Eddie’s side since his parents left a couple days after he came out of the coma. Every nightmare has happened with Eddie pressed against him.
“It never- I always- it just, it wasn’t worth disturbing you, Eddie.” Buck doesn’t tell him that he would sit in silence, choking back his sobs as tears rolled down his cheeks, and watch Eddie sleep. That he would reach over and press his fingers against the space under Eddie’s jaw and find his pulse. That he would set his other hand on Eddie’s chest, counting his breaths. That he would stay like that until the rhythms of his own body matched those of Eddie’s and only then, would he allow himself to risk closing his eyes, resting his head on Eddie’s torso and letting the beating of his heart lull him back to sleep.
He never woke Eddie because he knew he could never ask him for comfort in the way he stole it in the dead of night, the very idea leaving guilt twisting in his gut. It’s a violation, he knows that. He’s known that all along. He just- he couldn’t help it, not when his own panic and grief and terror and guilt were a noose hanging around his throat, pulling him up and up until he was losing any sense of solid ground he had. Not when a single touch loosened the knot, allowing Buck to breathe easier.
He never realized he wouldn’t have to ask for it.
He never thought Eddie would give it freely, knowing what Buck needs as well or better than Buck knows himself.
He never let himself hope.
Now, Eddie holds Buck’s hand against his own beating heart, traces abstract soft patterns in the skin at the back of his neck, matches his breathing to Buck’s. He looks at him with so much worry and sadness and care that Buck feels his love like a physical force, wrapping itself around him and seeping through his pores and flooding his body with warmth.
“You don’t believe that,” Eddie murmurs. “You don’t believe it would ever disturb me.”
Buck swallows hard. He hesitates, searching Eddie’s gaze for a moment before shaking his head jerkily.
“Tell me the real reason, Buck. Please.”
Really, Buck cannot say no to him. He never could.
“He’s me,” Buck says softly, quietly. It’s laced with fear and guilt and a sharp stab of something threatens to penetrate the honey-like warmth coating his heart. “He’s me, so I’m- I’m killing everyone I love, Eddie. How- god, how fucking twisted is that?” His fingers press into the skin of Eddie’s chest harder, his other hand clenching into a fist that he digs into his own thigh, shutting his eyes tightly and shaking his head. “How goddamn broken do I have to be for my own subconscious to want to harm the only people in the world who give a shit about me?”
“Hey. Hey .” Eddie’s voice cuts through the panicked fog threatening to overwhelm him once more, his fingers a grounding presence on the back of his neck, his heartbeat a steady reminder of what’s real beneath Buck’s touch. “You know that’s not what this is, right? Buck, look at me.” Buck opens his eyes, lifting his gaze. “That’s not what this is. No part of you is broken, and there isn’t a molecule in your body capable of harming someone you love.”
Buck’s voice cracks and it sounds more like a plea than a question when he asks, “How do you know that?”
Eddie’s responding smile is painfully soft and heart wrenchingly affectionate as he moves his hand from covering Buck’s to cradling his face, his thumb sweeping across Buck’s cheekbone gently to wipe away stray tears.
“Because I know you, Buck.”
And that- that’s it, isn’t it? Eddie knows him. He knows him in nearly every way it’s possible to know someone, in every way that truly matters. He knows Buck inside and out, probably even better than Buck knows himself.
“He said it was my fault,” Buck whispers, turning his face further into Eddie’s touch, his lips brushing the inside of Eddie's wrist as he speaks. “He said I wasn’t strong enough to save you, that I was the problem. That I failed.”
“You didn’t. You know you didn’t, Buck. You saved me, so many times and in so many ways.”
“I know,” Buck promises softly. “It didn’t matter then, when you were cold and still beneath my hands. When you were gone and there was nothing I could do. When I knew my face was the last thing you saw and it wasn’t- it wasn’t me .”
“You are the last thing I see,” Eddie tells him and somehow it sounds like an oath. “Every night before I fall asleep, you and Chris. And every morning when I wake up. You’re there. The real you, Evan. Not your mind’s twisted manifestation of unwarranted guilt. You .”
Buck’s breath catches in his throat at the confession. His heart slows, time slows, and for a moment the only things that exist are Eddie’s eyes, honey-warm and filled with love and softness and something settles inside Buck, like a tether suddenly pulling tight all the frenzied and shattered pieces of himself. A single word echoes throughout his entire body, so intense it steals the air from Buck’s lungs, fills every part of his being until his entire body seems to pulse with the message: Home .
That’s what Eddie is. What he’s been for a long time, longer than Buck thinks he realizes. For a brief moment, he wonders how he could be so fucking stupid.
“I love you,” Buck breathes, before his mind has the chance to catch up and possibly stop him. “I think I’m really fucking in love with you. Did you know that?”
A soft expression crosses Eddie’s face, his fingers tracing up Buck’s face, along his birthmark, through his hair, down the line of his jaw, back to cradling his cheek.
“I had only just start letting myself hope,” he answers.
“What- what does that mean?”
Eddie’s smile is unbearably soft, tinged with disbelief and awe. “You weren’t the only one who had some realizations after that lightning strike, Buck.”
“Yeah?” Buck’s breathless, his heart racing. “What were yours?”
“That I’m wholly, irrevocably, undeniably in love with you,” Eddie replies. Buck inhales sharply, a different kind of tears stinging his eyes now. Eddie’s short fingernails scratch through the hair at the base of his skull. “And the dangerous hope that you might love me back.”
“I do,” Buck breathes, squeezing Eddie’s wrist. He swears he feels his heart kick beneath his palm, still resting against Eddie’s chest. “I do love you back.”
“That’s a really good thing cause this would be really fucking awkward otherwise,” Eddie sighs and that’s all the warning Buck gets before Eddie’s lips are on his and again, the air is stolen from Buck’s lungs. Kissing Eddie is everything and more than what Buck has ever hoped for. Kissing him is like breathing for the first time in forever, like suddenly every part of himself fits together properly. The buzzing under his skin eases as Eddie cradles Buck’s head between his hands, tilting him just so, his thumbs pressing in beneath the hinges of his jaw, his teeth catching on Buck’s bottom lip, his tongue begging for entrance that Buck easily gives.
Eddie kisses Buck like he’s starving for it, like this is something he’s been waiting to do for years, which- maybe he has. He holds Buck like something precious, something to be treasured, and Buck melts beneath his touch, both hands now gripping Eddie’s wrists as he kisses him back just as eagerly, nearly desperate.
They break apart after an eternity and a mere moment and Buck looks in Eddie’s eyes and realizes that was his last first kiss ever.
“This is for forever, isn’t it?”
Eddie huffs a soft, incredulous, adoring laugh, his thumbs sweeping over Buck’s cheeks and he leans forward, pressing their foreheads together, nodding. “I guess sometimes the universe does have to scream.”
Buck laughs softly, ducking to press a soft kiss to Eddie’s lips. “I’m really fucking glad we started listening.”
Eddie squeezes his face gently. “And all it took was you dying and a sexy evil twin.”
Buck jerks back, raising an eyebrow. “I’m sorry- sexy ? Eddie, he killed you.”
Eddie just shrugs, leaning forward to chase another kiss, murmuring, “Bet he looked hot doing it though,” against the corner of Buck’s mouth. Buck can feel his smirk and shakes his head as Eddie traces light kisses over his face, pressing a long one to Buck’s birthmark. “I still like my version much better, though.”