Work Text:
Buck’s not used to being in a dimly lit bar in a suit. The dimly lit bars he used to frequent definitely did not have this elevated of a dress code, or an LAFD Captain and Chief sat next to him, his partner and Julie Rosen to his right. As the night went on, the night continued to get more and more tense, setting Buck on edge, but he seemed to be the only one with an increase in tension. His shoulders had been gathered up to his ears the last three rounds of the supposed ‘low stakes’ poker game Eddie had brought him to.
The dealer started the next hand as the table got back to chatting. “I still can’t believe you survived that, Buckley,” Captain Mehta said, Buck glancing up from where he was organizing a growing stack of chips, both Julie and Eddie looking at him with neutral expressions on their faces. “Although we’re glad that you did.”
“Thank you,” Buck answered, growing a bit uncomfortable with the topic of his (temporary) death being brought up again. He felt Eddie press his knee against his thigh under the table, and looked up to see Rosen giving him a small smile from off to the other side of the table.
“Let’s see if he survives tonight,” Chief Williams stated, placing her initial bet on the table. Buck sighed and glanced over at Eddie again, who just gave that smile/frown combo that he always gave when a situation had grown awkward but was hopefully turning the corner.
They played another round, smack talking about each other and trading normal LAFD banter before it was brought up again. “So, three minutes, huh?” Williams asked casually.
“Uh,” Buck answered, confused. He didn’t even need to look at Eddie to feel the other man tense up, “what’s that?”
Williams looked between Eddie, Rosen and himself before continuing. “That’s how long you were dead.”
“Three minutes and seventeen seconds,” Buck heard Eddie correct, but it sounded almost like his partner was underwater, a weird emptiness to his voice. He turned towards Eddie quickly before glancing back down at the cards on the table.
“Did you see anything?” Mehta questioned, not picking up on the growing discomfort about the topic at hand like Eddie and Rosen were next to him. “Bright light?”
“Uh, well I saw that while I was still on the ladder.” Buck answered, and though he wasn’t trying to be funny about it, Mehta let out a small, surprised laugh.
The game continued on for another half hour, Buck winning most of the hands dealt that he actively played. Chief Williams kept giving him odd looks, like he was able to count cards or something. He may have been able to solve more math problems easier than the lightning strike, but counting cards was on a whole other level. He and Eddie had both assumed it was luck when they had taken a break earlier in the evening.
The night was finally winding down, everyone moving from the poker table to the bar to grab one last drink and settle tabs before it was brought up again.
“I still can’t believe you went up there to lower Buckley down, Diaz.” Chief Williams stated nonchalantly. That hadn’t been something that Buck was told when he woke up from the coma, not even by Maddie or Bobby. He had assumed that someone had lowered the line from the base of the ladder, giving slack and slowly lowering him down without putting themselves in danger. Buck glanced at Eddie, who was now refusing to make eye contact with him, turning instead to Julie who just put her hands up in an “I’m not getting into this” type of way.
“That’s just how Buckley and Diaz are, you know that, Miranda.” Captain Mehta answered, and oh Buck did not like where he assumed this was going. “I told you about the sniper. How Buckley rolled underneath the truck and dragged Diaz to safety. All while we were taking active fire. Then loaded him into the truck like it was nothing and worked to stabilize him while we were still taking active fire and had the door blown off?”
Now it was his turn to avoid Eddie’s gaze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Julie squeeze Eddie’s arm before grabbing her coat and walking with the Chief towards the back entrance of the restaurant.
“I am glad both of you are okay,” Captain Mehta said when it was just the three of them again. “Try to stay that way? Nash has a lot more gray hair than he had a few years ago.”
“We’ll try, Captain Mehta,” Eddie answered after a moment, extending his hand to shake the Captain’s hand, Buck following quickly after. Captain Mehta grabbed his own jacket before telling Buck and Eddie to drive safe, following after Chief Williams and Rosen.
Eddie was just finishing settling their tab, and Buck could tell that they were in for…probably a long discussion when they got back to the loft, if he had anything to say about it. He must have zoned out for a moment, as he didn’t even notice Eddie moving away from the bar to where Buck was leaning against the stair railing. “Ready to get out of here?” Eddie asked, placing a hand on his shoulder, gently turning him to head up the stairs.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Buck answered, starting the walk towards the back hallway out to where Eddie’s truck had been parked.
The ride back to Buck’s loft had been tense, neither Eddie nor Buck saying much. Buck barely even fiddled with the radio, something he always did while in Eddie’s truck during the rare times Eddie actually drove. He honestly could barely even look at Eddie, instead just keeping his head either pointed straight ahead looking out the windshield, or angled slightly to the side to look out the passenger window.
Eddie pulled into Buck’s guest spot and got out of the car without Buck even having to ask if the other man wanted to come up, which made Buck think that this wouldn’t be a completely one sided conversation they were about to have. They stood side-by-side in the elevator, close but not touching, staying the same distance apart as they made their way down the hallway to Buck’s loft. Buck unlocked his door, tossing his keys onto the counter and shrugging out of his suit jacket before turning to lean against the counter.
“I can’t believe you did that, Eddie,” he said softly, only looking up at Eddie after he was done speaking, knowing that if he looked at Eddie any sooner, his anger would drain easily. But it didn’t matter, Eddie wasn’t looking at him anyways, his partner leaning against the counter near the sink, reminiscent of a previous heavy conversation three years before.
“Did what?” Eddie asks and oh , that’s how it’s going to be.
“You know what, Eddie,” he answers, moving slightly to grab two glasses out of the cabinet, filling them both up with water and placing one a few feet from where Eddie is standing. Buck moves towards the kitchen island, placing one hand on the cool surface, and takes a sip before continuing. “You went up a ladder - a metal ladder - in a storm. When I had been struck by lightning not even a minute before.”
Buck hears Eddie laugh once darkly, hears him take a sip of water and place the glass down heavily on the counter. “You, of all people, don’t get to be angry at me for this.” Eddie says, pushing himself off of the counter near the sink. Buck can see him moving around the kitchen out of the corner of his eye, can feel the heat of him moving towards where Buck has both hands placed firmly on the counter now, somehow managing to hold himself upright. “You crawled under the fire truck? While taking active fire!”
“Eddie, you don’t get it!” he says, turning to face Eddie where the other man has stopped a few feet away from him. “ I’m the reckless one. You’re the sensible one, the one who thinks about all of the possible outcomes before he acts.” Buck almost yells, finally making eye contact with Eddie for the first time since they’ve arrived back at the loft. “You are the one who has to make it home,” he says, his voice cracking on the last word, “Chris could have been alone , Eddie.”
They stand opposite each other, Eddie having moved to mirror Buck, his hip against the counter of the island, water glass forgotten behind him. They maintain eye contact for another few seconds more, and Buck can see so many emotions in Eddie’s posture and behind his eyes. People would often say that Eddie was more of a closed book, where Buck wore his heart on his sleeve, but it was actually often the opposite. You just needed to know how to read Eddie , and Buck was fluent. There’s devastation there, pain, and something else that Buck just can’t put his finger on. He can see the unshed tears gathering, just on the edge of falling.
Eddie’s the first one to break eye contact, his eyes dropping to countertop, fingers tracing the edge of the cutting board Buck had left there earlier. “Not with you, Buck,” he says on an exhale.
“What?” Buck asks, not sure he heard Eddie correctly.
“I’m not the sensible one,” Eddie answers, voice a bit louder but still wavering. “Not with you. Not when it's you.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks, slowly taking a step forward. He stops when Eddie backs up one step, then another, his back hitting the corner of the counter.
Eddie lets out the shakiest exhale that Buck thinks he’s heard since…since he received a panicked phone call from Christopher almost a year ago now. Looking at Eddie, his partner, his best friend, he doesn’t look that different than he had when he was leaning against the window frame in his dining room after Buck had eventually been able to get Christopher into bed. Eddie has his arms crossed over his chest protectively, and Buck can see him picking at his nails even though they are tucked against his torso - it’s one of the nervous habits he’s never been able to stop.
Eddie has to take a few deep breaths before speaking again, but Buck would give him all the time in the world.
“You were dead , Buck.” Eddie says quietly, still not looking up from where he’s staring at the corner of Buck’s countertop. “You weren’t breathing, your heart stopped .” Eddie continues, his voice breaking on the last word, wiping his eyes roughly before the tears there can even fall.
“For three minutes.” Buck adds, and the look Eddie gives him lets him know that that comment was not helpful.
“And seventeen seconds,” Eddie adds.
“...and seventeen seconds,” he confirms, taking another step towards Eddie. When the other man doesn’t immediately flinch back, Buck moves to settle against the edge of the island, now only a few feet in front of Eddie. “You got me back, though. I know you did that, Hen told me that you were the one that was doing compressions and shocked my heart into rhythm when it started beating again.”
“Yes, but for three minutes and seventeen seconds, I had to live a life without you in it,” Eddie says, finally looking back up and meeting Buck’s eye for a split second before dropping to look at Buck’s shoulder, right where the Lichtenberg figure had been.
“Eddie…” he starts, but Eddie lifts his hand, silently asking for Buck not to interrupt him. It’s something that they had started doing in the aftermath of last spring. If one of them needed a moment to collect their thoughts, they lifted a hand. It was something pretty universally done, but they had always just seemed to barrel over one another previously.
“Do you realize we’ve only known each other for five years?” Eddie asks, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Yeah?” he answers, deciding to take another step towards Eddie, but veering off slightly to the left to lean against the sink instead of standing directly in front of him. Eddie turns slightly so that he is still facing Buck straight on.
“Five years,” Eddie repeats, “and it only took me three minutes and seventeen seconds to realize that I don’t think I could live another fifty without you in it,” Eddie says, moving forward slightly to place a hand on Buck’s shoulder, again right where the Lichtenberg figure had been, almost right over his heart. Buck can feel Eddie’s hand trembling slightly. “I knew Shannon for almost twelve years. And don’t get me wrong, I miss her every day , but in relation to Chris.” Eddie continues, and Buck hasn’t even dared to audibly exhale since Eddie’s hand had come to rest against his chest. “I hate that she doesn’t get to see Chris grow up, that Chris has to live in a world where his mother is dead. He’s seen so much hurt and been through so much and he’s not even a teenager yet.”
He moves forward another half step, Eddie matching him. He raises his own right hand to rest on top of Eddie’s, his fingers filling the gaps between them. “I cannot live in a world where he doesn’t have you,” Eddie whispers, still talking about Chris, “so I had to go up.”
“Eddie.” Buck says, his heart breaking with both syllables of the name.
“I yelled at a team of medical professionals,” Eddie continues, his fingers flexing slightly. “Yelled at them to ‘do more’ after they said they would do their best to save you. Bobby was telling them about your history of clots and that you’re allergic to naproxen. But me,” he takes a break, laughing once without any humor whatsoever, “me, I yelled at your doctors to do more. As if they wouldn’t do everything they could.”
They both stand there in the wake of Eddie’s confession, neither of them daring to speak and break whatever spell has come to settle over the room, filled in every nook and cranny of the kitchen. They always have their most important conversations in kitchens - Eddie telling Buck that he trusts no one more than him with Christopher post-tsunami, working through the remaining tension after the lawsuit and Eddie’s fight club, Buck calling Eddie out on his unhappiness after leaving the 118, and most recently finally talking about the sniper. Buck shouldn’t be surprised that this time isn’t any different.
“Do you know that I couldn’t even look at you when you were in the hospital?” Eddie asks, meeting Buck’s eye again for a moment before looking away to trace his finger along Buck’s collarbone. “I could only talk about you, not to you. Hen had to explain the ECMO machine to Chris when I snuck him in because I just…couldn’t.”
“I…I heard Chris,” Buck starts, and Eddie looks back at him and raises an eyebrow, and it shouldn’t be as endearing as it is. “I heard him. And Hen. And Bobby and Athena. Chim, Maddie, even my parents. But you…you weren’t…”
“I wasn’t…?” Eddie prompts, and he grips Buck’s wrist where it has drifted to Eddie’s waist, pulling him closer so that Buck is now essentially boxing Eddie in against the corner of the counter.
“You weren’t in the dream,” Buck says, and realizes that this is the first time he’s really talking to Eddie about his coma dream. Eddie knows that Buck had a weird alternate reality coma dream, but not the details of it. “Not that I saw, at least. I asked Chim and Hen about you, but they just referred to you as ‘the angry guy who lost his kid’. I guess your parents sued for custody of Chris and won…he was back in Texas. With them.”
Both of Eddie’s hands have come up to rest along Buck’s shoulders, the one on the left hand side occasionally drifting to trace the faded Lichtenberg figures over and over again, like he memorized them. Buck has one hand on Eddie’s waist, the other settled on the counter. It almost looks like they could be dancing, in the middle school slow-dancing type of way.
“I don’t know if it was my brain’s way of refusing to see you knowing that me not being a firefighter, us never meeting, may have been even a small part of the reason that Chris wasn’t with you.” Buck admits quietly, even though he knows -
“Buck, that’s not your fault,” Eddie answers, head dropping and doing that endearing thing where he moves around until you’re forced to make eye contact.
“I know it’s not my fault, Eds,” he answers, squeezing Eddie’s waist lightly over the turtleneck sweater he had on under his suit jacket. “You are a great parent on your own, you were five years ago, too. It was just a lot, moving to a new city, with a new job, with a young kid.”
“That without meeting you, I wouldn’t have met Carla - you wouldn’t have brought us Carla.” Eddie says, his lips tilting up in some approximation of a smile. “Just like everything else, we’re better when we’re together.”
“Exactly.” Buck says, pulling on Eddie gently to bring them closer together. He moves his free hand from the counter to circle around Eddie’s waist, pulling Eddie into a hug. They haven’t hugged - without Chris in the middle of them - in years. And Buck feels himself relax, feels as Eddie relaxes against him as Eddie’s fingers come up to tangle in the short hairs at the nape of his neck.
They stand there, clinging to each other for a few minutes before Eddie pulls back a bit. They don’t fully separate, though. Eddie’s hands drop slightly to settle around his neck, his thumbs running back and forth along Buck’s jaw.
“It’s a weird thing, dealing with mortality.” Eddie starts, and Buck squeezes Eddie’s waist slightly, in what he hopes is an encouraging manner. “I hate thinking about it, but I know we don’t have a ton of years left with Abuela, my parents are getting older. It’s the circle of life, you know? But I naively thought that because you’re a few years younger than me, regardless of our jobs…”
“That you would go first.” Buck finishes Eddie’s train of thought, and Eddie just nods sadly. Buck can’t do anything but pull Eddie closer again, resting his lips against the top of Eddie’s head in some approximation of a kiss. He feels Eddie nod against him, letting out a deep exhale that Buck is sure he’s been holding for a while.
“You know how you say to Chris that you’re always going to fight to come home to him?” Buck asks, resting the side of his head on top of Eddie’s.
“Yeah?” Eddie answers, slightly muffled by where he is still pressed against Buck’s chest.
“Well, I’m also always going to fight to come home to my family.” Buck says, and Eddie leans back, causing his own head to move. He moves a hand from Eddie’s waist to cup the other man’s cheek, and Eddie leans into the touch, making Buck’s insides absolutely flip. “This family; you and Chris. Yeah, everyone else at the 118, too. Maddie and Athena and May as well. But you two, you are who I fight to come home to. Every day. As much as I woke up for me, I woke up for the two of you, as well.”
“God how are you real?” Eddie says after a moment, laughing slightly and finally breaking the tension that had been blanketing them since before they even left the poker night. His hand comes up to stroke Buck’s cheek, drifting upward slightly to run over his birthmark, and he can’t help but smile. “What did I do in a past life to deserve you, huh?”
“I don’t know, but I must have done something pretty stellar as well to deserve you.” Buck answers, placing a light kiss against Eddie’s temple, smiling as he hears the man hum. Feeling brave, he decides to confront something else tonight. “Can I be honest with you about something?”
“More honest than you have been already?” Eddie asks quietly, looking up at Buck with a smirk on his face.
“Yes,” Buck says, chuckling softly. “Eddie, this is it for me,” he says, and the small smile that forms on Eddie’s face could power all of Los Angeles. “But I still have so much work on me that I need to do until I can be the partner that I want to be for you, that you deserve.”
“We’ll get there, love.” Eddie says, his smile not even faltering for a moment. “You’re it for me, too. And you’re right. We’re not there yet, but we’ll get there.”
“Yeah?” Buck asks, meeting Eddie’s eye again. “You really think so?”
“Of course.” Eddie answers, “it’s us. I don’t doubt us for a second.”
And Eddie’s right. This is them. They’re Buck and Eddie.
They’ll be just fine.