Archive of Our Own ^beta

Less than an hour into a twenty-four the 118 heads to the scene of a car accident. From the sound of it and the reports of frantic honking, Buck's pretty sure the brakes on the silver SUV went out, causing it to run a red light. Two police cruisers have already arrived to divert traffic.

The SUV is smashed in on the side. Looks like a pickup truck coming from the east crashed into it. There's glass and bits of plastic surrounding the scene, and the pickup truck driver sits on the curb with blood running from his nose and a nasty bruise quickly forming around his swollen right knee.

"Buck, Eddie, check the SUV. Hen and Chim, you're on the driver," Bobby orders. 

They head to their assignments, and as soon as Buck gets to the SUV he knows it's bad. A family of four. The dad and the kid on the back passenger side are obvious black tags, not viable. He averts his eyes to focus on the other kid since he can't even reach through the car to check. Even the kid closest to him doesn't look great. 

And Buck knows. He knows this won't end well. He tries his best, adrenaline pumping long enough for them to call Hen and Chim over, pry the doors open, and get the mom and the living kid out. 

They wrap up at the scene and head back to the firehouse, and they sit in tense silence for the forty minutes it takes Hen and Chim to get back from the hospital. Buck can tell by the set of their shoulders what the answer will be long before Bobby asks with no hope in his voice, "The mom and the kid?"

Hen shakes her head.

They're barely three hours in at this point.

Any call that ends in a loss is rough. Their job is to save people, after all, not let them die. But this call? A car malfunction that results in a whole family dying? Rougher than most.

Buck tries his best for the next twenty-one hours. He does his job and his friends do theirs. They save everyone else they're called out to treat. 

But it's a relatively slow day, and Buck has ample time to stew on his failures. He can't sleep, so he sits on the couch watching One Day at a Time with a half-drunk hot chocolate in hand and one foot propped up on the coffee table. That's where Eddie finds him at one in the morning.

The couch shakes as Eddie plops down, making Buck bounce a little. "Dude, careful," Buck complains, holding his mug out and leaning forward.

"Sorry," Eddie says, clearly not sorry.

"I could have spilled my hot chocolate!"

Eddie plucks it from his hand and takes a sip. "You mean our hot chocolate?"

Buck rolls his eyes but settles back again. The crease in the middle of the couch causes them to sink together but neither makes a move to separate.

"What are you thinking about?" Buck asks after a while.

Eddie shrugs. "Probably the same as you."

"How you could have done something better? Cause thats what I'm stuck on. What I could have done." 

Eddie shrugs again. "Calls like that ever make you wonder if this job is worth it?"

Buck thinks for a moment, fingers rapping against his thigh. "No," he says. "I mean, they make me doubt how good I am, but I try to think about all the people we did save and what we did to save them. We're good at what we do, Eddie."

"I know." Eddie purses his lips. "It's just how much it hurts to lose someone, even if we couldn't have done it any different. Never gets easier."

Buck hums and stares at the TV, at a loss for anything productive to say. He takes the hot chocolate and takes a swig even though it's lukewarm now.

"Remember the Alvarado hospital fire?" Eddie asks.

"Yeah."

"We thought we lost those two kids, that boy and his baby sister."

"But we didn't," Buck reminds him. "You figured out where they were."

"You told me to put it away and move on to the next one."

Buck cringes. He wasn't clear that day. Tension and adrenaline had been high, the smell of fire and smoke and burning chemicals turning his brain to mush. He can't turn his emotions off like the SEALS wanted him to, but sometimes he feels like he goes on autopilot, every movement and word a second-nature reflex. It makes it nearly impossible to have a conversation that doesn't immediately involve a rescue. "Sorry about that. All I meant was that we had a job to do and could let ourselves feel it later."

Eddie almost smiles. "I figured. But I'm not talking about that exactly. It's the calls with the kids that I hate. They should have their whole lives ahead of them."

Buck lifts his arm and wraps it around Eddie's shoulder before he can think better of it, and Eddie lets him. "I hate them, too."

By the time the rest of the station wakes up there are only a few hours left. Everyone seems to have lost their footing, going through the motions with a drag in their steps. When they head out and say their goodbyes, Eddie tilts his head in the general direction of his house and heads to his truck without a word. 

Buck can read Eddie's body language like a book, flip the pages under his fingers. So he gets in his Jeep and follows Eddie back to the house with an obedience he feels for no one else. Eddie holds the door for him when they get there and makes them both coffee that neither of them will drink, and they once again sit on the couch. This time, though, Buck means to press along Eddie's side from foot to hip to shoulder, and he thinks that Eddie means to, too.

He falls asleep within moments.

—

When he wakes up, the sun is bright through the curtains. He'd tipped over at some point, laying back on the couch with his legs stretched down to the floor. He probably would have fallen off if not for the weight on top of him.

Which, upon further inspection, is Eddie.

Eddie's already awake, apparently, his cheek pressed to the back of his hand, which is splayed across Buck's chest. The other hand scrolls nonchalantly through his phone like this is a normal, everyday thing they do. As if they've ever fallen asleep on top of one another.

It's so goddamn nice that part of him wants to pretend to be asleep still so it doesn't end, but Eddie must feel the way his breathing changes and stretches over to set his phone face-down on the coffee table. "Morning."

"What time is it?" Buck asks, keeping his voice soft.

"Eleven fifty-two, so it counts."

Buck huffs out a laugh, watching Eddie bounce slightly. 

"Got a few hours of sleep," Eddie continues.

"And yet I'm still exhausted."

"We had a tough one." Eddie's still laying on Buck's chest. He's propped up his chin on his hand, though, so he can look Buck in the eye.

"Yeah," Buck agrees. 

They lay in silence for long enough that Buck starts to doze again with Eddie's comforting weight holding him down. He could dislodge the guy pretty easily if he tried, and his back doesn't particularly like the way it's bent, but he's not about to move if he can help it. Eventually, though, Eddie sighs, and Buck's treacherous mouth mumbles, "This is nice."

Eddie hums in agreement.

"But this kind of thing is usually reserved for couples."

He expects Eddie to move away, to sit up and give him space he doesn't want. Instead Eddie speaks calmly. "You know what else is usually for couples?"

Buck hums. 

"Coparenting," Eddie begins.

Buck says nothing. His throat is too tight.

"Grocery runs," Eddie continues. "Sharing custody. Dinners with the kid. Being each other's medical proxy. Parent-teacher conferences. All stuff we do."

Buck clears his throat and averts his eyes to the ceiling. "Look, if I've… If I've pushed or something and you want me to, like, back off-"

"I'm the one still laying on you," Eddie cuts in.

Buck swallows. He runs his tongue over his teeth- and, wait, he really needs to brush his teeth. His mouth feels gross now that he notices it. He should ask Eddie to get up so he can do that.

Wait. Again. He has a toothbrush at the Diaz house. Huh.

"We're not a couple though," he says carefully. 

"No. We're not."

"But we…" He clears his throat. "It would make sense."

"What would?"

"If we were."

The silence feels heavy now, heavier than Eddie laying on top of him. He thinks maybe he's misstepped, but Eddie still doesn't move. "Do you want that?" Eddie finally replies.

"Do you?"

"You're the one who suggested it."

Buck has to choose his words carefully or he might break this moment, and he knows that this won't happen again. They've breached unknown territory and if they stop this conversation now they'll never talk about it. "Yeah, I… I'd like to try. Cause we're…. We're close. And we do all these coupley things. And I kind of like you?"

"Good. I think I like you, too," Eddie replies, smile evident in his voice.

"Oh." Buck chances a glance back down and finds that Eddie has laid his head on Buck's chest again and closed his eyes. "That's good."

Eddie chuckles, chest moving against Buck's stomach.

"Can I… Can we shift a little?" Buck asks timidly, cautious even though they seem to have moved to something a little more stable. "My back's bent a little weird."

"Course." Eddie lifts himself up and Buck adjusts himself as quickly as possible, hoping to get Eddie's comforting weight back. He straightens his back and legs, and then Eddie lays back down, sort of wedged between Buck's side and the back of the couch, but he looks comfortable enough. He even throws his arm across Buck's stomach before he sighs like a cat settling down for a nice long nap.

Yeah, brushing his teeth can wait.

When he falls asleep again, he's pretty sure he has a boyfriend, but the exact label can wait, too.

—

They call Bobby when they wake up that afternoon, because Eddie very smartly points out that their captain has to know since they work together. Bobby fake-huffs over the phone. "As Bobby, I'm really happy for you. As your captain, I'm not happy about all the paperwork."

Buck almost feels guilty.

They don't outright make an announcement. Hell, they haven't even kissed by the time Maddie comes over for lunch with Jee a few days later. She raises her eyebrows at Eddie's presence in the apartment but accepts it quickly. Near the end of the meal, she scrolls through her phone and then slides it toward Buck. "There's this new dispatcher who's really sweet," she says. "Her name's Meredith. She's your age. I think you two would hit it off."

"I'm good," Buck replies without looking at the picture.

Maddie tilts her head. "Maybe think about it for more than half a second?"

"He doesn't need you to set him up," Eddie says, focused on the picture he's coloring with Jee. "He's dating me."

Maddie's eyes go wide and flick between them. "Oh! Oh, my God! Really?"

"Yeah," Buck says. "It's pretty new. Bobby and Chris know, but no one else."

Eddie shrugs. "Not a secret, though."

Maddie hugs them both. "This one's a keeper," she tells Buck on her way out the door.

"I know," he agrees with a smile.

They don't make a big announcement, obviously, but they have kissed by the time Hen and Chim figure it out. They sort of just let it slip into conversation when it feels natural, like when Hen makes some good-natured quip about how chronically single both Buck and Eddie are these days and how they don't seem to be trying to fix that at all. "We're not single, though," Buck says. "We're dating."

Hen blinks at him. 

"Each other," he clarifies.

Chim chooses that moment to return to the loft from the bathroom and immediately clocks Hen's shock. He freezes. "What did I miss?" 

Hen gestures between Buck and Eddie. "Apparently these two are together. Romantically."

News travels fast after that.

They've had sex by the time they have dinner with Bobby and Athena at the end of that month, which is weirdly the first time Buck has seen Athena since this all began. She makes it clear from the second they walk in the door that Bobby told her right after he got off the phone with them, which Buck fully expected.

They haven't yet said "I love you" by the time Buck almost dies. Again.

—

Being blown up is no more fun the second time around.

If he had a nickel.

Granted, the bomb isn't supposed to be active. He sees it while sweeping an apartment building with Eddie by his side, fire licking the walls and jumping from couches to shelves to curtains. He never thought of fire as alive until he walked through it for the first time.

The bomb is incomplete. It sits in pieces on a wooden table in the back of what looks like an arsonist's office, and said arsonist appears to have died by smoke inhalation on the floor. A silver canister glints up in a dance of orange and bits of shrapnel litter the space around it.

As soon as he spots it, he yells at Eddie to back away. And he feels this sharp shock of fear the same way he does when lightning flashes too bright or the waves at the beach get too high. Pervasive, cold, freezing his body against his will for a split second before he snaps out of it at the insistent tug on the strap of his oxygen tank.

He manages a single step back before the canister explodes, and the floor is already weak from the fire. They'd been about to leave. Disintegrating structural integrity.

The canister explodes, bits of shrapnel fly in all directions, and a nail pierces Buck's oxygen mask and stops a hair's breadth away from his eye. The table splinters with a deafening crack , but the floor collapsing is more deafening still. The force of the explosion sends Buck backwards at an angle through the space where the floor used to be, and the floor below seems to have collapsed, too. He falls.

He stops. 

He's been punched before. He's been blown up. Crushed by a ladder truck. He slams into an angled bit of cement floor with the same force as a tsunami, and his entire body radiates with it. And there's something more intense, tighter, sharper.

He seems to have fallen away from the bulk of the fire into a dark crevice somewhere, and his mask is basically useless now, anyway, since the nail broke the seal. He reaches up with a shaky hand, glad that he can move at all, and carefully tugs the mask off. He looks down to take stock, running his hands up his body.

"Buck, Eddie, your status," he hears crackle from his radio.

Crap, where's Eddie? Eddie was behind him, a little to the right. He turns his head but can't see much in the dark. "Eddie?" he croaks.

"Here," he hears to his right. 

He reaches out gingerly and feels around. His hand bumps into something and Eddie grunts, and he determines that he now has a hold on Eddie's shoulder. 

"Buck, Eddie," Bobby calls again.

"You should answer that," Eddie says, voice a tiny bit strained. "My radio's busted."

"Are you hurt?" Buck asks.

Eddie scrabbles around his arm until their hands meet and he latches on. "No, no. I'm pinned, though."

Buck pulls his hand away and unclips his radio. "You're going to have to answer."

"What? Why?"

"Ask Chim if there's a membership fee for being impaled."

"What?" Eddie says again, louder.

"If I had a nickel for every time someone on our team-"

"Buck," Eddie bites out. "Stop joking around and tell me exactly what's wrong."

Buck takes a deep breath, a twinge in his gut. "I've been impaled through the abdomen on a piece of pipe."

Eddie takes the radio in one hand and grabs onto Buck with the other. "Okay. Okay." The radio clicks, and Eddie says, "This is Eddie. I'm pinned. Buck's hurt. Stand by." 

"Hurt how?" Bobby asks.

"Impaled. Stand by."

"I need details, Eddie!" Bobby's voice is strained, even through the radio. Buck thinks of Springsteen tickets and rosary beads and dinners at the Grant-Nash house.

"I'll give you details when I have them," Eddie practically snaps.

"Be nice," Buck says with a strained smile. The pressure in his abdomen is getting sharper as his body settles and the adrenaline wears down.

"I can't see you that well," Eddie says, all business. "You need to tell me what's going on."

Buck nods. He feels where the pipe exited his abdomen and then manages to reach underneath himself to find the entry wound. "Left side. Entered at an angle halfway up my back. Exited lower left quadrant."

"How far from the spine?"

Buck swallows against the pain as he moves. "Two… two inches."

The radio clicks as Eddie relays the information, then Buck feels Eddie's bare fingers slip beneath his sleeve and press into his radial pulse point. Buck hadn't noticed him take off his glove. "Heart rate in the 80s. Breathing is labored."

"What's your location?"

"Looks like we fell to the basement, Charlie side."

"On the way."

"Eddie," Buck says.

"Yeah?"

"I'm bleeding." He feels Eddie shifting, hears the shuffle of his coarse turnouts on the floor. "What are you… what are you doing?"

A grunt. "Trying to get to you."

"Don't hurt yourself."

Eddie lets out a breathy laugh. "I'm not the one you need to be worried about right now," he says, strained.

Buck yanks off his own glove with his teeth so his right hand can stay connected to Eddie and prods around the wound on his abdomen. He clenches his jaw against the pain but doesn't stop. "What are… you pinned under?"

"I don't know, some kind of furniture, I think. I might be able to shift it a little."

"Careful," Buck says breathlessly.

"Buck," Eddie replies. He says Buck's name so often that Buck thinks he simply likes to say it, and sometimes he says whole speeches in the word. This time he means, "I swear to God, if you don't stop worrying about me and start to worry about yourself, I will tell Bobby."

"Okay, fine," Buck replies. He doesn't say that Eddie is more important than him as far as he's concerned, and there's no reason for Eddie to get any more hurt. 

Eddie shuffles more and his hand disappears. Buck stretches to find him again in the dark but goes still when the movement makes him want to vomit. The pipe probably missed his major organs but definitely speared right through his intestines. The pain is getting exponentially worse and he's finding it hard to breathe even though he knows his lungs are fine.

Ish. They're fine-ish. He got the wind knocked out of him when he landed and he might have a few cracked ribs.

Then Eddie is beside him, knees barely brushing Buck's side. His hands carefully skate down Buck's body before focusing on Buck's abdomen. "How did you…" Buck begins.

Eddie took off his turnouts, that much Buck can tell in the dark. "Long story short: I might have twisted my ankle."

Buck huffs, then hisses when Eddie presses too hard. 

"Sorry," Eddie says. "I'm not trying to hurt you."

Buck takes as deep a breath as he can. "I… know." 

Eddie doesn't reply, but one of his hands brushes Buck's hair and rests on his cheek for a moment. Then it disappears and the radio crackles to life. "How much longer until you get here? He's getting cold."

"I am?" Buck asks. He feels warm, actually. Warm in his gut and up into his throat. The building's on fire, okay? How could he be cold?

"We have to break through a lot of rubble," Chim's voice says. 

"Buck, can you hear us?" Hen asks.

He sees the shadow of Eddie's silhouette hold the radio close to his mouth. "Yeah," he says.

"How's your pain?"

"Was a… a six? Closer to… Closer to eight."

He imagines Hen listening to his voice, judging his condition on how strong it sounds and cataloging every pause and hiccup. Buck knows how to do it, too. They all do. "Hang in there," she says after a moment.

Eddie produces a flashlight from somewhere. Probably one of their helmets, Buck thinks. He took his off with his mask and Eddie isn't wearing his, either, so Buck can't be certain whose it is. Eddie clicks the light on and Buck squints against the sudden glare. "Sorry," Eddie says again.

Buck doesn't open his eyes again. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of Eddie's pants. "S'okay."

"You're really pale."

"I'm… always pale. Really white."

"Buck," Eddie says. He means, "Stop joking around, this is serious."

"Eddie, stop… being my… my partner and… be my partner."

"That doesn't-"

"There's nothing…" He swallows thickly, glad Eddie has decided to wait him out. "You can't…do anything else… until… until help… gets here." He takes a deep breath and bites out the next words as steadily as he can. "I need my boy… boyfriend, not a fire… fighter."

For a long moment, he can only hear the creak of the damaged wood of the building, no fire, no words. Eddie's right, he does feel cold. The fire must be under control. Then, "I can do that."

Buck looks up. Eddie has positioned the flashlight to illuminate them both, and as if Buck's words gave him permission, he's started to tear up. Buck wants to take it back, to say that he does need a medic, actually, and he knows Eddie would swallow it down and agree. The problem is that he's scared, alright? He's scared and in pain and he needs his boyfriend. "Listen," he says.

"Always," Eddie replies.

"I know… I know it's not… It's a bad time," Buck says. Everything is getting fuzzier by the second. Everything hurts. "But I… I love you." 

Eddie barks out a rough laugh. Even though he's blurry, Buck can see his red eyes from trying not to let the tears fall. "Hell of a time, Buck."

"Y… Sorry," he manages, then practically screams as Eddie presses down on his gut around the pipe.

"Sorry," Eddie mutters.

"What… I say?"

"It's not my fault your boyfriend's a medic."

Words are getting harder. Everything hurts. Buck can't lift his head anymore. "It… It is." His eyes drift closed.

"I can't be just one." Then, a little frantically, "Hey! Buck! Evan, open your eyes. Please."

"Tr… ying." 

He's heavy. He's spinning, feels like. He's warm and cold. Buzzing. Smells something metallic.

Blood. That's blood. His hand drops, slips from where he'd been holding Eddie's waistband. 

"Buck!"

It's distant.

It's…

—

Eddie watches Buck fade, right there on the ground in front of him.

When he said he'd been impaled by a pipe, Eddie kind of expected a thin copper pipe, not a three-inch-wide PVC pipe. He can't be sure whether it was for water or sewage, so there could be all sorts of infections brewing in what little blood Buck has left.

Because there's a lot. It practically gushes out of him and down the slope of the rubble they're on, soaking into Buck's clothes wherever it can sneak past his turnouts. It smells stronger than the burning building or charred insulation. The smell of blood is stronger than the fire. 

Buck's chest barely moves. He closed his eyes and hasn't opened them again. He won't reply.

"Buck!" Eddie brings one useless hand up to Buck's cheek, barely mindful enough to try to wipe away a little bit of the blood before he pats Buck's cheek. "Buck, please. Wake up. Stay with me."

He didn't say it back. Buck might die without having heard Eddie say it back.

No. He's not going to die.

Both useless hands now cup Buck's cheeks, shaking him slightly. Panic bubbles up, spills over. Blood and Eddie's tears stain Buck's pale, cold face.

"Eddie," he hears Bobby say through the radio. "Check in. What's Buck's status?"

Eddie clicks the radio, voice shaking. "He lost consciousness."

A door crashes open somewhere to Eddie's left but he only has eyes for Buck. His pulse is weak but it's still there, and Eddie clings to it like a lifeline.

More flashlights illuminate the space, and then Chim kneels on Buck's other side and Hen beside Eddie. Bobby hovers nearby. 

"Starting a line wide open," Hen says tersely.

Chim prods around the pipe. "He's bleeding into his abdominal cavity."

"He's tachychardic," Eddie says. 

"How long ago did he lose consciousness?" Bobby asks.

Eddie shakes his head. "Can't be more than a minute or two."

"We're gonna have to lift him to cut him free," Hen says. "We can't get under the rubble."

"Move him as little as possible," Bobby says. He hands over the saw. Now that Eddie really looks, he sees hammers, two saws, a backboard, and a neck brace all dropped on the floor ready to use. God, he has no idea how far they'll have to carry Buck. The fall disoriented him. Charlie side, that's all he knows. 

Chim cuts through Buck's turnout coat and tapes down gauze around the pipe. Only about two inches stick out from Buck's abdomen so they don't have to cut it from above.

Eddie and Hen lift from one side as Bobby lifts from the other. More blood pumps out as Chim slides a hand saw underneath Buck because the electric saw won't fit. Chim grunts as he works.

Eddie knows it must be painful. If Buck were awake, he'd be screaming, and Eddie has heard those screams of pain before. He's heard Buck scream in pain and fear, and he wishes that he could forget how it sounds. 

The silence is worse than the screams. 

"We're clear," Chim says, and Eddie and Hen wait for him to situate the backboard before they roll Buck fully onto his side and strap him down, neck brace in place.

"Let's move," Bobby says.

It's as Eddie stands that he remembers that he twisted his ankle trying to dislodge himself. His turnouts remain pinned under a cracked wardrobe and his leg almost buckles. "Cap, I can't carry him," he chokes out as he rights himself. He'll probably be able to climb out of here but any additional weight could damage his ankle beyond repair.

Bobby looks him up and down. "Chim and I will get him out. Hen, check Eddie."

"I can make it," Eddie protests. He doesn't want to let Buck out of his sight. He might puke if he can't see Buck. 

"Eddie, sit down," Bobby orders.

So he does.

And he watches as Bobby and Chim carry a still unconscious Buck into the darkness.

Hen kneels beside him and flashes a glance toward the others for a split second before turning her attention to Eddie. "Where are you hurt?" she asks, all business.

"Twisted my left ankle," Eddie replies quickly. The faster they get this over with the sooner he can get out. He needs to be in the ambulance with Buck.

Hen splints his ankle in record time and helps him stand, and together they make their way out. Loathe as he is to admit it, Bobby was right to make him wait. The terrain is rough and if his leg wasn't splinted he'd probably break it.

They still make good time. The ambulance doors haven't yet closed, and Eddie hops as fast as he can to climb in, Hen close behind him.

In the harsh light of the ambulance Buck looks even worse. His already pale skin has taken on a bluish tint, a stark contrast to the drying blood on his cheeks and the birthmark near his eyebrow. His hair is a mess and covered in dust.

"Eddie, I need you to move," Hen says as the ambulance lurches forward.

Eddie scoots over to the seat at Buck's head and leans down until he presses his cheek to Buck's dusty hair. He closes his eyes, only vaguely aware of Hen cutting open Buck's clothes further to attach leads to his body. The monitor beeps to life. "Blood pressure is low, heart rate in the 110's," Hen says. "He's still fighting."

"Come on, Buck," Eddie mutters. "You can do this."

Bobby's in the passenger seat relaying information to the hospital. Chim's driving as quickly and as carefully as Eddie's ever experienced, and Hen does her best to keep the remaining blood in Buck's body.

The worst part happens as they pull up to the hospital and the doors fly open. A doctor calls that the OR is prepped and waiting, and Eddie can't keep up with how fast they unload Buck and wheel him inside.

He does, however, see Buck's eyes crack open right before he rolls out of sight. It's a punch to the gut that Buck woke up surrounded by strangers. If he'd done so just a few seconds earlier, he would have seen his team.

But he's… He's going to make it.

There's no other option. 

—

Eddie has to wear a boot for a few weeks but other than the ankle and a few bruises he's fine. The doctors release him before Buck is out of surgery, so Eddie hobbles to a chair along the waiting room wall and props his foot on the chair across from him.

Bobby has his hands folded tightly in his lap, leaning forward on his knees. Athena sits beside him with one arm wrapped around his shoulders and the other tapping impatiently on the arm of her chair. May waits on her other side.

Maddie, of course, left work the second she could. "The LAFD liaison told me," she said. 

Karen brings them all coffee that they barely drink. Eddie can't stomach anything right now. In fact, he might end up dry heaving into the fake plant next to him if he sees another hospital staff walk by without giving them news. He hasn't eaten anything since breakfast and it's starting to make him lightheaded and irritable. Or maybe that's the anxiety.

He clears his throat and speaks against his better judgment, throat scratchy. "Chim?"

Chimney lifts his head from the pillar he'd been leaning on. "Yeah?"

"Buck wanted to know if there's a membership fee."

The room is silent for a long moment except for a few lowered voices at the nurse's station. Eventually Chim's eyebrows scrunch. "What?"

"For the… The being impaled club," Eddie finishes, cheeks flaming.

Silence again.

It's a horrible time to joke, Eddie knows that. They've been here far too many times waiting to hear how one of the team survived their latest near-death experience. They never joke. They talk in hushed, reverent voices, unwilling to break whatever tense spell lay over them, or they sit quietly for hours until a doctor comes to tell them news. They never joke because it's never a joking matter.

But this is the first time since he and Buck got together that one of them is injured this badly, and Eddie's brain isn't working right, and he's hungry and achy and in an unfathomable amount of pain at the prospect of Buck dying, and the only goddamn thing he can do is try to lift this suffocating tension before it takes him out, too.

Hen is the first to make a noise. She sputters a tiny little laugh, lurching forward slightly. That sets Chim off, too, and then the two of them are laughing and sobbing at the same time.

The others stare at them, though Maddie looks like she might pummel Eddie for daring to joke, but at least the silence isn't choking him anymore.

He sees Bobby stand and his head whips to the side. The door to the ICU is swinging open and the same doctor from the ambulance bay strides out in her blue scrubs and hat. Eddie tries to stand but loses his balance. He crashes into the chair on his right with a violent clatter, and Hen's and Chim's laughter stops abruptly. After that it takes less than two seconds for them to clue into the doctor's presence as Eddie rights himself and moves closer.

The doctor folds her hands. "Mr. Buckley coded twice during surgery," she says, and ice shocks through Eddie's body. "But we were able to bring him back. The pipe damaged his small and large intestines but missed all other major organs. He had significant internal bleeding but we were able to repair the damage."

"Oh, my God," Maddie breathes. She reaches out to Chim for support.

"Mr. Buckley suffered from significant blood loss," the doctor continues. "He's in an induced coma at the moment and we're not sure if he sustained any organ or brain damage from that loss. There are no guarantees here."

"What are his chances?" Bobby asks quietly.

"I don't have a number for you, but we'll continue to monitor him closely. All I can tell you is that he's stable right now."

"When can we see him?" Hen asks.

The doctor waves. "I can take a few of you back now. Keep in mind that he'll be unresponsive."

Maddie steps forward, as does Bobby. The rest turn to Eddie expectantly, but he shakes his head. "Someone else go. I can't." 

Which is a horrible thing to say, but he knows from experience what Buck looks like unresponsive in a hospital. Last time, during Buck's last coma, Eddie couldn't even look at him. He barely went into that room, and when he did he kept his head down and his eyes averted, because every time he saw that tube in Buck's throat he saw his dead wife on a stretcher and he felt like his own throat was about to close.

Athena goes with Bobby and Maddie, and then…

Well, Eddie doesn't go.

He leaves the hospital.

For two days he wallows in his misery, glad that he doesn't have to tell Chris because his son's on a school-sanctioned weekend trip and guilty as hell that he's hiding from the two most important people in his life while they both need him. 

He doesn't answer the door when someone knocks or the phone when someone calls. He texts Maddie to text him with updates.

He kind of forgot that Bobby and Athena have a key to his house.

Near the end of the second day a key rattles in the lock and the door swings open. Eddie sits up from where he'd been laying on the couch in silence ruminating on how horrible a person he is. First his stupid brain thinks Buck is about to walk in before he remembers he's in the hospital, and then he wonders if it's Carla coming to smack some sense into him.

Athena comes in first and spots him, her head tipping to the side. "Oh, you'd better have a better excuse than laying on the couch."

Then Bobby, who shuts the door more loudly than necessary. "Where the hell have you been?"

Eddie gestures at the house in general and collapses back on the couch.

"Get up," Bobby says. "You're going to go see Buck."

"I can't, Bobby," Eddie replies miserably. "I can't see him like that."

"I don't give a damn what you can and can't do," Athena snaps. She looms above him with a hand on a cocked hip. "That boy has been through hell and he needs you."

"He's in an induced coma, remember?" Eddie replies.

"They're bringing him out of it," Bobby says. The bags under his eyes betray how little sleep he's gotten. "You should be there when he wakes up."

Eddie scrubs a hand over his face,  stubble scraping his dry palms. "I know you're right," he mutters. "But-"

"Listen to me," Bobby interrupts firmly, all business. "You think this is easy for any of us? For his sister? But we keep going anyway. The way we feel doesn't matter right now, because Buck is in the hospital again and we need to be there to support him. You need to be."

Eddie keeps his face buried in his hands and nods. "I know."

"Then let's go."

He stands slowly. He tries not to show how sore he is and how much it aches. Carla has tried a few times to get him to take pain meds but he's refused, and she's said that he doesn't need to suffer just because Buck is.

He deserves this, though. He deserves the pain and anger, because he's the one who couldn't keep Buck awake or stop the blood flow. 

He lets Bobby and Athena steer him out the door and to their car, and he sits in the back in silence.

—

Waking up from a coma is always disorienting, and Buck would know better than most. If he had a nickel, he'd have… What, three nickels? Maybe more. There was the truck bombing, the lightning, and this whole ordeal, but he's honestly not sure if the impromptu tracheostomy resulted in a coma, too, technically. It's kind of upsetting that he's lost track.

Waking up from a coma is a scratchy throat and blinding lights, stiff eyelids covered in dried rheum. It's not knowing what day it is and slowly taking stock of everything that's wrong with the body. It's trying not to immediately fall back asleep.

His entire body feels fuzzy and heavy, though his spine and shoulder blades ache and the pain is more intense all the way through his abdomen on the left side. It's only about a four or five, not overwhelming, so he can deal with it. He tries to feel around for a nurse call button or something but finds only a thin, soft fabric. He manages to crack his eyes open, squinting at first at the lights before he can look around.

Last time he woke from a coma it was to his parents and sister at his side. This time, the blurry, haloed shape to his left looks more like a man with dark hair, so it'll be… Chim or Eddie since Bobby's hair is more of a light brown with more gray by the day.

"Hey," he hears. The shape moves.

"Eddie," he croaks. He sees more each time he blinks. Eddie, hair loose and face unshaven.

"I'm sorry," is what Eddie says as he grabs Buck's hand.

Buck sniffles. "For… For what?"

Eddie hangs his head and works his jaw for a moment, and Buck has no choice but to wait him out. "I, uh." Eddie clears his throat and swallows. "You've been out for two days and this is the first time I've come to see you."

Oh. Okay. "That's okay."

"No, it's not okay," Eddie says angrily. He swipes his free hand across his eyes. "Because you… Your parents never came to visit you in the hospital when you were growing up and you deserve better."

"You're not them."

"No, I know. I… But every time I see you in the hospital I can't… Especially when you're not responsive." Eddie frowns. If Buck had any strength left he would reach out to try to wipe that expression away. "But Bobby's right: I should have swallowed it and come anyway, because it's not about me."

"I get it," Buck says. "I didn't see you in… in the hospital when you were shot. Not until you woke up."

"You were watching Chris."

"But you came anyway," Buck insists weakly.

Eddie scoffs. "Because Bobby and Athena dragged me here."

"I forgive you."

Eddie laughs wetly and shakes his head. "I'm going to go get everyone else. Maddie, Bobby, and Athena are in the hall."

"Wait, Eddie," Buck tries, desperate for Eddie to stay. Buck had woken up for just a minute when he'd gotten to the hospital, strapped to a gurney on his side and hadn't seen anyone. He'd been facing a light blue wall but had heard all sorts of medical jargon thrown around, most of which he'd have understood if he hadn't suffered severe acute blood loss.

He hadn't heard any familiar voices, though, just felt the pain.

"I need to get the nurse," Eddie says.

"Please," Buck croaks. "Text someone. Stay."

So Eddie, being the great freaking boyfriend that he doesn't think he is, nods and digs his phone out of his pocket. Buck blinks and then Eddie's phone is gone and the door swings open. It's… That shouldn't happen that fast.

Maddie rushes in with Bobby, so Buck figures Athena went to go get a nurse or something. Maddie and Bobby are both crying and it makes Buck feel even worse. And that's saying something, because the more conscious he gets the more everything hurts.

He clears his throat and squeezes Eddie's hand. "More?" 

Eddie leans closer. "More what?"

"Morphine."

Eddie grabs something from out of Buck's sight and brings it down to their joined hands. He situates it so that Buck can press a button- testing Buck's motor skills, maybe. "There you go," he says softly.

Buck manages to push the button and feels almost instant relief from the pain, though everything blurs a little. His family is swarming him and the nurse comes in with Athena on her tail, but Buck can't keep his eyes open any longer.

—

Buck takes a long time to heal. 

He tries not to be too upset about being sidelined again. He tries not to annoy Eddie much. 

The problem is that he's always been pretty impatient when it comes to getting back out there, and no matter how many times the doctors say it's a "miracle he survived," it's not fast enough. 

He grits his teeth and presses his hands to the arm of the couch as he tries to stand, even if the position twists his abdomen. He's not about to let some damn PVC pipe- a sewage pipe, no less- cause him to lose his muscle mass. 

Sewage. He'd been impaled by sewage. The pipe had been clear of solid material when it had gone through him but he'd still had bacteria in his blood and a frankly aggressive amount of antibiotics to stave off infection. The thing is that it hadn't worked entirely. His whole body has felt weak since he woke up, his cracked ribs are taking their damn time to mend, the impact gave him a concussion despite his helmet so he's had a headache for a while, and most of the blood in his body isn't even his and he swears he can feel the difference. 

He sees Eddie hovering in the archway to the dining room and can feel his silence. Eddie's been a godsend. He's been patient and careful but not stifling. Buck knows there are things he wants to say because they can practically read each other’s minds, but he refrains from saying them.

"Stop pushing yourself so hard," Eddie doesn't say because he knows how much Buck wants to get back to his old self.

"Let me do all the work," he doesn't say as he helps Buck into and out of the shower, bed, chairs, the car, because he knows Buck hates feeling like a burden.

"We should make a plan for if you can't go back," he doesn't say because he knows Buck finds the idea to be unfathomable.

But Buck knows his limits better than he used to, and he's not as young as he once was. He doesn't feel as alone as he did when he was twenty-seven and recovering from a crush injury in an oversized, overpriced loft with a revolving door of friends who never stayed the night. So he slumps back against the couch and says, "Eddie, can you help me? I need to go to the bathroom."

Eddie's by his side quickly and still lets him do most of the work. Buck loves him for it, but he can tell he's holding something back. "Say it," he mutters once they're on their way to the bathroom. 

"Say what?" Eddie replies.

"Whatever you're not saying."

"Just go to the bathroom first."

Buck acquiesces and tries not to be too humiliated as Eddie has to help him get situated on the toilet, and then help him off of it. When they're both back on the couch with water in hand, Buck says, "Spill."

Eddie sighs and stares past the TV. "Last time you pushed yourself too hard, you almost died."

Buck stares for a long moment. He has a good view of a scratch on the side of Eddie's face from the fall. Neither of them are back at work yet, and Eddie doesn't seem to be in as big a rush as Buck. "I'm not-"

"I'm trying to be patient," Eddie interrupts. "I'd like to think you're more careful now, but you… You're still pushing. You're not letting yourself heal."

"I am! It's not my fault it's going slower than I want."

"It's been less than two weeks, Buck. You were impaled. It's going to take a while."

"Chim-"

"You're not Chimney." 

Eddie finally looks up and Buck kind of wishes he hadn't. There's something indescribably terrified in his eyes. Buck nods slowly. "I'll… I'll be more careful." He'd do just about anything for him, and it looks like letting his recovery go at a snail's pace is one of them.

Eddie leans forward, his hand cupping Buck's cheek. "All I want is for you to be safe."

"I will be. I promise."

Eddie smiles sadly. "I'm sorry this keeps happening to you. You don't deserve this."

"Neither do you."

Eddie frowns now, lips turning down, and Buck wants to pull them back up. "You know I love you too, right?"

And that is the precise moment Buck remembers that he told Eddie he loved him while actively bleeding out on a PVC pipe in the basement of a burning building. Not amazing. "Can we forget that I said that and pretend that this is the first time?"

"Nope," Eddie says lightly. "I don't want to forget a single minute with you, good or bad." As soon as he shuts his mouth, his face turns red and he looks down, tensing slightly, hands balling into fists.

Buck almost teases him for it. He almost tells him it's the sappiest thing anyone's ever said to him, because it is. No one has ever said anything so sappy, so sweet, and he's not sure what to do with it. 

Instead, he reaches forward as much as he can without the movement hurting and grabs Eddie's knee. "Me neither," he says. "I mean, there's stuff I wish didn't happen or had happened differently, but, I don't know. Everything that's happened to us got us here, right?"

"Right," Eddie replies, clearly relieved, though the slight discomfort stays in his shoulders. 

Buck can't quite find the words to remind Eddie that every argument and disagreement brought them closer in the aftermath because they understood each other better. Every close call forced them to lean on each other. Every rough patch made them stronger.

He squeezes Eddie's knee. "C'mere?" he asks. He's sometimes a little uncertain asking for things even though it's been months since they started dating.

Eddie shifts closer as he always does and wraps himself gently around Buck, and Buck swallows thickly. He always gets a little choked up when people are gentle with him. Maybe part of him still thinks he doesn't deserve it. Whatever the reason, he accepts the touch and settles back against the couch with his partner for the rest of the day.

—

Buck used to like getting hurt because it was the only time his parents ever paid him any attention, a fact that he's discussed at length with his therapist. He hates getting hurt now that he has a family that loves him no matter what. He hates the time away from what and who he loves. He hates feeling like a burden to the people he knows won't leave or hold it against him.

It's easier to stomach now, at least. He isn't afraid of the 118, his sister, or Athena leaving him behind. They'll stick by his side the same way he'll stick by theirs. 

They have dinners, parties, weddings, get-togethers, fights, disagreements, and spontaneous visits. 

By the time Buck heals and returned to work, he's fully moved into the Diaz house. He leaves his loft for the last time with a twinge of melancholy, thinking of all the memories he's made here with the people he loves.

He'll make more, and all of those memories will stay with him no matter whether he ever sees this overpriced open floor plan again. 

He prefers Eddie's house anyway. It's warmer and cozier, fuller of life. He likes everyone else's houses over this place, actually, because of the people and the community.

By the time he officially meets Eddie's family and Eddie meets his, it's not as boyfriends but as fiancées. 

And, well, if he had a nickel for every time one of their dads spit out his drink at that particular announcement…

Two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?