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Three minutes and seventeen seconds turns to three days and seventeen hours remarkably slow.
Eddie knows, logically, that time is passing as it always has, but somehow, these three days without Buck have been the longest of his goddamn life.
Maybe it'd go faster if he could actually bring himself to walk into Buck's room. Grab his hand and feel the warmth of his skin (would he be warm? or is that hospital room keeping him cold? buck always gets cold in the hospital), see his chest rise and fall (the machines are doing that for him, it's not buck's lungs expanding on their own, it is sterile oxygen being pushed in, not the same air eddie breathes as he shudders through another sob), see his hair curling over a pink birthmark (any gel that was in buck's hair was washed out by the rain. his hair is getting greasy. he's going to complain about his head itching when he wakes up. when, when, when).
(if.)
(when.)
Eddie knows the team is concerned about him. He barely moves from his seat in the waiting room. He shows up as early as he can after dropping Chris at school, and he sits in the same chair, third from the entrance. It has a perfect view at those double doors into the ICU, so he can see everyone who goes in and out. He can see all of the doctors; he knows which ones are with Buck. He knows which ones have the capacity to end Eddie's life.
Because he knows. He knows that if Evan Buckley doesn't survive this, if Evan Buckley dies, three days and eighteen hours into this nightmare, Eddie may never wake up from it. He'd be living endlessly in the worst moment of his life. He'd die, too.
He'd survive. Of course, he would. He has Christopher to think about, and he can't let Chris lose another parent. He's lost one, and another is on the brink, and Eddie can't fathom what would happen if Buck died. If Christopher was oh-for-two on parents in the hospital coming out the other side. So, he'd survive. For Christopher, he'd survive.
But he wouldn't live.
He'd be weighed down forever by the life he'd lost. By mornings and afternoons and evenings with Evan Buckley by his side. With waking up to a key in the door, pots and pans clanking in the kitchen, the smell of pancakes wafting through the house. To walking into the kitchen to see a travel mug of coffee sitting on the edge of the table, to Buck setting three places. To Christopher shuffling down the hallway, grumbling about it being too early to be awake, but lighting up at the stack of pancakes sitting atop his yellow placemat. To Buck joking that Chris must have grown three inches since the last time he saw him, pouring way too much syrup on the plate atop the yellow placemat, saying a growing boy needs sugar to keep going. Chris, giggling. Buck, smiling.
Eddie, falling. Falling in love deeper and deeper and deeper until he can't see the sky above the hole he's fallen into.
Eddie, falling in the love with the life he shares with these guys, his son and his best friend, and the whole world at their fingertips.
Eddie, falling in love with Friday movies nights and trips to the zoo and impromptu road trips to accessible hiking trails that Buck spent hours researching and bird observatories and reptile conventions.
Eddie, falling in love with the wealth of knowledge he's learned about Evan Buckley.
He doesn't know what he'd do with all of that information if Buck died. If he held the most important favorite color and quirks and thoughts in one hand and had to bury it alongside the most important man he'd ever met, the most beautiful soul he'd ever had the pleasure of coming across.
Eddie knows more about Evan Buckley than he does about himself.
His favorite color is yellow, because it's the color of sunshine, and Christopher is his sunshine boy.
One of his favorite foods is tacos, white people tacos, of course, because it was one of the things Maddie used to make when they were kids, and their parents didn't care to get them dinner. Quick and easy for a 14-year-old girl to cook. He knows authentic tacos are better, thank you, abuela, but there's something about a hard shell and ground beef and a shit ton of sour cream that Evan Buckley will never tire of.
He knows that Buck doesn't like his blankets to go above his shoulders unless he's sick or sad because he doesn't like to feel closed off from the outside world.
Eddie Diaz knows Evan Buckley's shoe size (thirteen and a half. eddie wears a ten. "shopping for shoes fucking sucks, eddie, why do you think i wear the same white sneakers all the time?") and his preferred brand of coffee creamer (a specific store brand oat milk variety that he has to go halfway across town for) and his favorite book (trick question, he has one for every genre. "it's not fair to compare, eddie, there's a huge difference between autobiographies and historical fiction!"). Eddie Diaz knows who Evan Buckley's favorite people are (chris. maddie. jee-yun. bobby. eddie. chris and jee-yun, again. maddie.) and his first crush (a girl who worked at the grocery store near his house when he was 8) and when his first real kiss was (kindergarten. "it was real to us when we were five so it's real to me now! it's romance, eddie! five-year-old evan and hanna thought they'd love each other forever, i can't discredit that.")
He knows Buck loves card games and doesn't know a lot about cars and will never pass up an opportunity to go to a museum or the aquarium or the zoo. He knows Buck loves to cook and that washing dishes is his favorite chore, but he hates vacuuming. He loves to listen to music, but he doesn't have a favorite song and he doesn't like tequila very much.
Eddie Diaz knows Evan Buckley. He knows him in the present-tense, and he doesn't know if he'd still know Evan Buckley if every word he spoke about him was in the past.
The things Eddie Diaz knows about Evan Buckley form poems in his thoughts, paintings through his words. How can he keep creating art if the inspiration stops?
If Evan Buckley died, Eddie Diaz would be fluent in a dead language. He'd be a bird without its wings, a musician with no instrument.
A man without his heart.
Eddie Diaz needs Evan Buckley like no one can ever understand.
He can't explain that he's scared to see Buck in his hospital bed because he doesn't know how to reconcile late night beers and wrist taps before rescues and you could have my back any day with the man lying there, moving only because the machine forces him to, the blankets pulled up too high, greasy hair free of gel that Eddie just wants to run his fingers through, he needs to, he has to, he needs to feel him, to know that everything he knows and feels and thinks about Evan Buckley will last once he wakes up from this nightmare, he has to wake up.
Eddie gets out of his chair.
He walks towards those double doors and reaches them as Maddie steps out.
She's smiling.
Eddie feels a sonnet scribbling into the notepad in his brain. Lyrics about the Buckley smile are running wild, even though Buck and Maddie don't share the exact same one, he knows this is a smile that has mirrored Evan Buckley's since the day he was born.
"They took him off the ventilator. He's breathing on his own."
Eddie holds his breath. He needs to see him.
Together, he and Maddie walk down the hallway. Eddie's never made it all the way down before. Usually, he sees the window from down the hall, and he turns around before he sees any more than Buck's face half covered by unforgiving plastic. But now, he washes his hands in the sink in the hallway before he keeps walking and places his hand on the door handle. He looks through the window and sees Bobby at Buck's side, holding his hand in a loose grip, a smile on his face as he looks over at the man on the bed.
He pushes the door open and walks towards the bed, his feet feeling too heavy for his body, but his chest feeling lighter than it has in the last three days and nineteen hours. He takes the empty chair opposite Bobby, sees Buck's hand lying there atop the blankets, and reaches out.
At four days and eleven hours, Evan Buckley wakes up.
Eddie Diaz never lets go of his hand. He holds it as Bobby calls a nurse in, he holds it as the doctor checks his vitals, he holds it when Buck begins to speak. He asks about how long it's been and Eddie knows he could tell him down to the second, but he settles for days, all while keeping Evan Buckley's hand in his own.
Eddie Diaz takes Evan Buckley home with him after he's released. He tells him to take the bed but he lays next to him every night, his hand holding Buck's. At nine days and six hours, Buck gets cleared to return to work. Eddie gets so excited he kisses Buck after he ends the phone call with his doctor.
Buck never goes back home to his loft. Eddie Diaz learns more about Evan Buckley than ever before, creates tapestries and pottery and blows glass into shapes that he presses his love for Evan Buckley into. He writes novels and epics and essays in a language that only he knows, because Eddie Diaz speaks Evan Buckley more fluently than any other.
Eddie Diaz doesn't allow another moment to go by without speaking his favorite language. As long as he's alive, it will never die.
Time continues to pass remarkably slow, but now, Eddie Diaz does not complain. Minutes feel like hours and hours feel like days, but with Buck asleep on his left and Christopher in his room down the hall, Eddie hopes time never speeds back up.