Work Text:
The apartment building was condemned two months ago according to the woman who owns the dry-cleaning business across the street. The 118 joins the 136 because the fire is spreading throughout the upper levels of the building. When they arrive, Eddie and Buck follow Bobby to Captain Kramer, who is acting as IC for this call. Eddie eyes the structure as he listens to the captain, bumping his shoulder against Buck’s when they’re told to do a sweep of the lower three levels.
There are reports of houseless people camping out in the building, and the dry cleaner hasn’t seen any of them since the fire started. Since the fire is in the upper levels, the assumption is that anyone squatting in the apartments would have moved to lower levels if they hadn’t left the building entirely. Hopefully, it’ll be a quick sweep, and they can get anyone still in the building out safely.
“Turn your radio on,” Eddie says, giving Buck a look. He swats Buck’s hand away when he reaches over to tap his helmet. “Hey, I’m not the one who forgot and nearly got left because I didn’t turn my radio on to make sure it was working prior to entering an elevator shaft.”
“One time,” Buck mutters, knocking his elbow against Eddie’s arm. “I checked it before we left the station. I don’t know how the damned thing had a drained battery by the time I needed it. I’m just glad that someone thought to check the shaft when my line broke. I was lucky.”
“I don’t think luck had anything to do with it,” Eddie says dryly. “That’s why you shouldn’t pick up extra shifts with other teams because they don’t have your back the way that I do. They could have left you in there, and we wouldn’t have known until our next shift.”
“Seriously?” Buck snorts. “You’re being overly dramatic, Eddie. I warned you about watching all of those telenovelas, but you never listen to me. They would have noticed I was gone when they got to the truck and didn’t see my pretty face waiting for them. I wasn’t in danger of being left behind. The drained radio just delayed my rescue for a few minutes.”
“I’m not being dramatic. And you still shouldn’t work with other teams,” Eddie says, checking the door of the apartment building before turning the knob. He and Buck enter the building, and he grimaces at the smell of urine, mold, and several scents that he doesn’t want to even try to place. “Well, someone’s definitely been living in here and using the hallway as a bathroom.”
“Come on,” Buck says, tugging his arm. “Let’s get this done before I throw up. We should have sent Ravi in here. I swear that he’s nose blind and probably wouldn’t even notice this smell.” He starts walking, knocking on apartment doors and calling out, “LAFD. We need to evacuate the premises.”
“The smell seems to be getting better,” Eddie points out when they reach the end of the hall. There are a dozen open doors behind them, the apartments empty with no signs of life in any of them. The amount of dust that he saw makes him think they haven’t been disturbed since the place was condemned. “It was mostly concentrated around the front doors and lobby.”
“Fire is spreading from the seventh floor to the sixth,” Buck says, listening to the radio. “Let’s head up to two. I’d rather not meet the fire in the middle, you know? I don’t want to press my luck.” He opens the door to the staircase and steps inside, staring up for a minute. “It’s clear.”
“From outside, it looks like the fire has been centralized and hasn’t spread to the east side of the building yet,” Eddie says, following Buck up the stairs to the second floor. “This place must be made of plywood, though, with how fast it was spreading up there. Surprised it hasn’t hit the stairwell yet.”
“How’s Christopher doing?” Buck asks, knocking on the door to apartment 2B before kicking the door open. Eddie’s across the hall doing the same to 2A. “He texted me the other day and said he hates El Paso summers. I’ve got a feeling that he might finally be ready to come home soon.”
“He didn’t mention coming home during our call last night,” Eddie says, talking louder so Buck can hear him as he does a sweep of the apartment. Chris has been in El Paso for nearly three months, and he’s glad that he’s reached a place where he can talk about it without feeling guilty and blaming himself for everything that happened. Sure, he knows it’s his fault—the situation with Kim would never have happened if he’d allowed himself to grieve and process Shannon’s death—but he’s accepted the fact that he’s human and makes mistakes.
“Well, I think he’s almost ready,” Buck says, flashing a quick grin when they meet in the hallway. “My gut instincts are usually right, Eddie. He’s calling you twice a week now, and he’s responding in our group chat. Those are positive signs. Besides, your parents would force him to go to Catholic school, and you know he won’t want to do that.”
“School starts in a few weeks, so I guess we’ll find out,” Eddie says, wishing he could bottle up some of Buck’s optimism for himself. He meets Buck’s gaze, his pretty blue eyes shining in the dimly lit apartment corridor, and Eddie finds himself biting his tongue to keep from saying what he’s wanted to say for weeks, months, hell, even years if he’s completely honest with himself. I love you, I love you, I love you. It runs through his mind whenever he looks at Buck, a steady repetitious stream of thought that’s always lingering there.
“You’ve just got to trust me, Eddie,” Buck says firmly. His grin makes his dimples flash, and Eddie forgets to breathe for a second. “Have a little faith. I know you’re a non-believer in things that aren’t tangible, but I believe enough for the both of us.”
“You know that I trust you, even when you’re spouting off ridiculous nonsense about the universe and jinxes,” Eddie says, holding his gaze for a moment. He smiles slightly before turning and kicking in the door for apartment 2C. “And I might not believe in all that mystical nonsense, but I do believe in you, so that’s gotta count for something.”
Buck is silent for a moment, which makes Eddie turn his head to look across the hall. He watches Buck shake his head and huff a laugh, his cheeks pink like he’s flushed. It is pretty warm in the building since there isn’t any type of air conditioning running. Buck turns to face the door to 2D, shoving it with his arm to break it open. “Yeah, Eddie,” he says finally. “It counts for something.”
They make quick work of clearing the second floor. They find two apartments that have trash piled up, but no one is in either of them. When they reach the west staircase, Eddie opens the door and looks up. He can see flames several floors above them and frowns. “West stairwell has been compromised. Looks like it’s three floors up, maybe four. We need to move faster, Buck.”
“Got it,” Buck says, clicking on his radio and giving report to IC before following him to the third floor. “If anyone was in the higher levels, they would have gotten out by now, wouldn’t they? The fire’s spreading at a rapid pace, but it started off small. How far up do you think we can safely go?”
“We’ll go until we’re called out,” Eddie says, sharing a look with Buck. “I’d think fourth floor, honestly. If anyone was on five or higher, they’d have evacuated by now. If they were on the seventh or eighth floors, it’s too late to rescue.”
“Fuck,” Buck mutters, frowning as he starts kicking in doors. There’s more of an urgency in both of them now, not they were taking their time previously. Seeing the fire in the stairwell drives home the fact that it isn’t being contained, that it’s still spreading, and they haven’t received word to clear out, which means no one has evacuated yet.
When Eddie enters apartment 3F, he hears something. “LAFD, please come out,” he calls, stepping further into the room. “We’re evacuating the building. Fire is spreading quickly. Come out, please.”
No one responds. Eddie frowns and walks to the closed door, opening it and seeing an empty bedroom. Turning, he’s about to leave when he sees a black kitten poking its head out from under an old newspaper. It mews at him, blinking blue eyes at him, and he curses under his breath as he picks up the cat. When he steps into the hall, he sees that Buck’s already moved down to another apartment.
“I found a kitten,” Eddie says, holding the squirming furball out when Buck looks out the apartment door. “Someone must have left it in the apartment, but no one else was there. I couldn’t just leave it, so quit giving me that look.”
“What look?” Buck asks, batting his eyelashes in an exaggerated way as if that’s going to cover up the fact that he’s been giving Eddie a look that Hen would call ‘cooing’. He walks over and touches the kitten’s head. “Aren’t you just the sweetest little thing? Don’t worry. Eddie’s got you now, and he’ll keep you safe. You couldn’t be in better hands.”
“Damn it. You’re going to make me carry it, aren’t you?” Eddie grumbles, looking at the cat and glaring before he puts it into the pocket of his turnout coat. “Stay in there or we’ll leave you. No scratching.” The kitten blinks those pale blue eyes at him before yawning. He assumes that means it understands him.
“Well, at least we’ve saved something,” Buck points out cheerfully, knocking their arms together. “Kind of a firefighter cliché to save a cat, but I’m glad you found it before the poor thing starved or burned. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have pets. Same thing with babies. If we have to pass tests to drive cars, why can’t we give people tests before making them responsible for a living creature? My parents would never have passed that test.”
“If they failed, we wouldn’t have you, so I’m anti-testing for parenthood,” Eddie points out, sharing a look at with Buck. I love you, I love you, I love you. He blinks and looks away. “And Maddie, too, of course. Not sure that Shannon and I would have ever passed anything, either, consider we were eighteen and clueless when she got pregnant with Chris.”
“Okay, so maybe not for kids,” Buck murmurs, clearing his throat before he kicks in another door. “LAFD.” He steps inside, and Eddie focuses on the apartment in front of him. The kitten squirms in his pocket but finally settles down, the sound of purring loud despite the small size of the cat.
Once the third floor is clear, Eddie calls in to IC. They’re told to proceed to the fourth floor, and he exchanges a look with Buck before they open the door to the east stairwell. Looking up, there aren’t flames, so it still hasn’t been breached. Thinking about the layout of the building, Eddie assumes that means the fire’s centralized and spreading to the west, which means the crews outside are possibly containing it.
The fourth floor has some smoke. Buck puts his respirator on, and Eddie gets his out. “Last one to the end of the hall has to buy beer for tonight,” Eddie says, putting his respirator on. Buck flashes a thumbs up, and they start moving. Their shift ends in three hours, and they have plans for a movie night.
Since Buck stopped dating Tommy, he’s practically moved in with Eddie, so movie nights are pretty common these days, but he still looks forward to them because it means sitting on the couch together and usually ends up with Buck cuddled against his side. Buck’s always been tactile, but he’s even more so now that Chris isn’t around. Like he’s worried that maybe Eddie needs casual hugs and touches since his son left. He’s right, the lack of touching something that hit Eddie hard the first week Chris was gone, not that he’s ever said anything about it to Buck.
They work so well together because they don’t have to talk about things to know what the other is feeling or thinking. That silent communication is a benefit when Eddie’s often not able to verbalize his emotions in an effective way, and when Buck says a lot of words without actually saying what he means most of the time. They know what each other needs even when they maybe don’t know what they need themselves.
They’re halfway through the fourth floor when the building starts to shake. The radio goes off, and he hears Kramer advising everyone to seek shelter because there’s an earthquake. Eddie stumbles out of 4H and catches sight of Buck, who is in the doorway of 4G. The kitten is squirming again, and Eddie pats his pocket, trying to soothe it. “This is just what we need,” he says, catching Buck’s gaze through his mask. “You okay?”
“Yeah, hopefully, it’s just a small one,” Buck says. His eyes crinkle, and Eddie knows he must be smiling. “Kind of nostalgic, though, isn’t it? We haven’t had an earthquake like this since you started with the 118. That’s when I met Chris, and you realized I was BFF material.”
“I realized you were best friend material when you recklessly followed me into an ambulance with the guy who had a live grenade in his leg,” Eddie reminds him, holding onto the doorframe as the building shakes even more. “The fact that Chris loved you was just a cherry on a BFF sundae.”
“Fuck,” Buck suddenly curses, and Eddie looks over to see Buck running towards him. Glancing up, he blinks at the fact the ceiling is starting to drop. Buck pushes him, long arms wrapping around him, and then they fall. Instead of hitting the floor of the apartment he’s been searching, they keep falling, and he puts a protective hand over his coat pocket where the kitten is, and the other hand reaches for Buck’s shoulder.
There’s a flash of pain before everything goes dark.
Eddie sits up with a gasp, his eyes opening as he looks around in confusion. There’s drywall on his legs that he kicks off, and his head is spinning, blood dripping from his forehead onto his face. Reaching for his radio, he clicks it on. “The fourth floor gave out. This is Diaz. No idea where I am. Looks like I fell several stories. Closer to the west side, but more centered than not. Think I’ve got a concussion. Buck is…Buck!”
He drops the radio and scrambles to his feet, pulling off his cracked respirator and blinking away the dust that’s in the air. The pocket of his coat moves, and he hears a low meow, his hand moving to soothe the kitten as he looks around the dark space for his partner. They had been together when they fell, but Buck isn’t here. Eddie stumbles through the debris calling Buck’s name, fear giving him a rush of adrenaline as he searches.
“Eddie?” The voice is faint, but he hears it. “Eddie, I’m here.”
After looking around, he realizes it’s coming from a pile of debris that’s nearby. Eddie reaches it and begins to pulling the wood and drywall away. “Buck, hang in there,” he says, moving as fast as he can. “Keep talking to me, man.”
“Hurts,” Buck says, his voice cracking before he coughs. Eddie feels a sharp panic at the sound, listening to the cough as a medic, knowing it isn’t a normal cough. Fuck. He moves faster, but he still feels sluggish and everything’s sort of blurry. Buck lets out a shaky breath. “I think I’m pinned, Eddie.”
“I’m almost to you,” Eddie says, pulling a ceiling tile away from the stack and finally seeing Buck’s hand. With renewed energy, he tosses the rest of the debris aside, clearing it off of Buck. When he reaches his partner, he does a quick visual scan and has to fight the urge to scream. Buck’s got some kind of metal pipe sticking out of his thigh, blood covering his pants from the wound, and his helmet’s been knocked off, blood on his head from everything that had fallen on top of him. His left leg is twisted at an awkward angle, obviously broken, and he’s cradling his wrist against his chest.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Buck whispers, blinking up at him. “I c-can’t feel m-my legs. It hurts to move my head, Eddie. My ribs are b-broken, and I c-can’t breathe.”
“It’s not good,” Eddie whispers, dropping to his knees beside Buck. “But you’re going to be okay, Buck. You’re lucky, remember? It could be a lot worse. I’m here, and we’re getting you out. We’ve got a movie night later.”
“D-don’t l-lie to me,” Buck says, holding his gaze. He tries to smile, but it’s more of a grimace. Eddie reaches for his hand when he moves his arm, Buck’s fingers gripping his tightly. “You have to tell Maddie that I love her.”
“Stop,” Eddie says sharply, squeezing Buck’s hand. “You can tell her that yourself. You aren’t going to die today, Evan Buckley.”
“You c-can’t stop it, Eddie,” Buck says, coughing again. This time, there’s blood on his lips when he stops. Internal bleeding. Eddie blinks away tears as he reaches for his radio. “My w-will is in my closet. The safe. Combo is y-your birthday. E-everything is f-for Jee and Chris. T-take c-care of them for me.”
“No,” Eddie snaps, clicking the radio. “Firefighter down. Repeat, firefighter down. Firefighter Buckley needs immediate medical assistance.” He takes a breath, his eyes stinging as Buck looks up at him. “Bobby, we need extract now. He doesn’t…there isn’t much time.”
“We’re trying, Eddie,” Bobby says, his voice shaken but firm. If they can be reached, Eddie knows that Bobby’s going to make it happen. Thank God Gerrard is gone. If this had happened a month ago, Eddie wouldn’t have any hope at all.
“You heard Bobby,” Eddie says, putting the radio down. He pulls his glove off, needing to touch Buck’s hand without any barriers. “They’ll get us out, and you’re going to be fine. Where’s your optimism when we need it, Buck?”
“I’m sorry,” Buck whispers, his eyes wet as tears drip down his face, clearing a path through the dirt and grime that covers his skin. “You know, don’t you? I never said, but you know.”
Eddie squeezes his hand, feeling his own tears dripping down his cheeks. “Yeah, sweetheart,” he whispers, holding Buck’s gaze steady. “I know. Me too, you know? So fucking much. I should have said something. We could have…” He drifts off because he can’t let himself think this way.
“Yeah, I know,” Buck says, his voice soft. He smiles, and Eddie feels his heart race. “W-was gonna t-tell you soon. F-felt b-brave. T-trying to w-wait for Chris to come home.”
“You need to stop talking,” Eddie says, pulling Buck’s hand up so he can kiss his knuckles. “Please, save your strength. They’re going to find us, and you’re going to be okay, Buck.” He kisses Buck’s palm, resting his lips against his skin as he takes a few shaky breaths. “This isn’t how our story ends, damn it.”
“It’s n-not f-fair,” Buck stammers, cutting off as he coughs again, more blood spilling out of the corner of his mouth. “I love you, Eddie.” He says the words that Eddie’s imagined hearing for what feels like forever, and a sob spreads through him, his tears falling on Buck’s hand as he kisses his palm over and over again. “It h-hurts.”
Eddie leans down and presses his forehead against Buck’s. Long forgotten words come to him, spilling out of his lips as he closes his eyes. “God of all goodness, look with mercy on him who suffers injury, that he may be comforted. Let your hand of healing and protection be upon him. When he is fearful, ease his fear and anxieties. When he is afraid, give him strength and courage. Amen.” He lets out a weak laugh as he raises his head, opening his eyes to look at Buck. “It’s the only prayer I can remember. Fuck, I’d pray to any deity if it means you don’t leave me.”
“I love you,” Buck whispers, his fingers spasming in Eddie’s hand as he starts to cough. Eddie doesn’t believe in the universe or mystical things, but he’s willing to set that aside to pray to a God he started doubting when he was a teenager, and he’s willing to beg the universe to save Buck if it’s listening to them.
I love you, I love you, I love you. Eddie can’t say the words, can’t verbalize them when he’s so scared that he’s going to lose Buck today. He wants to say them, but they get stuck in his throat, and he cries harder because Buck deserves them. If he says them now, he feels like it’s going to be the end of their story, and he can’t have that. They deserve better, they deserve to live their lives together, and he can’t jinx them by saying he loves Buck until he knows he’s not going to die today.
“I know,” Buck says, and Eddie feels like he does know. He understands Eddie, knows him better than he knows himself, and he believes in curses and shit, so he gets it. He gets why Eddie is silently making promises to the universe and every God he’s ever read or heard about, from Thor to Zeus to Kali to Mictlantecuhtli. Buck grimaces, a tremor going through him as he whimpers in pain.
“Don’t close your eyes,” Eddie says, reaching his other hand down to check the pole in Buck’s thigh. It’s shifted, the blood flowing more steadily than it has been. Fear hits him hard, and he looks into Buck’s eyes, seeing the sad acceptance on his beautiful face. “No, Buck. You aren’t dying today. I already told you that I’m not losing you. Not when I finally have you, damn it.”
Eddie starts screaming for Bobby and Chim and Hen and Ravi, screaming their names until his throat hurts and his eyes are stinging from all the tears and he’s bent over and sobbing with his lips pressed against Buck’s palm. The kitten in his pocket meows, like it’s joining him in the screaming, and the room starts to spin, blood joining the tears on his cheeks as he tries to keep his gaze on Buck’s.
A bright light suddenly feels the dark space, making him blink and close his eyes. There are hands on him, lifting him to his feet, trying to pull Buck away from him. Eddie fights them, his hand tightly gripping Buck’s, and he sees a flash of pretty blue eyes before Buck’s taken away from him. Eddie stumbles forward, trying to follow Buck, calling his name in his hoarse voice, throat sore, and a strong arm suddenly moves around his chest, pulling him back into the comforting smell of coffee and maple syrup as he blinks up Bobby, who is crying as he speaks, the words not making any sense to Eddie. Everything gets blurry, and Bobby looks worried as Eddie starts to fall backwards.
Then everything goes dark.
Hours later, Eddie’s been diagnosed with a concussion, two broken ribs that he didn’t even notice, and several lacerations on his face and hands from falling through three floors. The hospital wanted to admit him for observation, but he refused. He needs to be with his team—his family—while they wait for word on Buck’s surgery. Bobby isn’t happy that Eddie rejected medical advice, but he hasn’t said anything. He just gives Eddie the Disappointed Dad stare that is usually aimed at Buck.
Ravi is planning to sleep over on Eddie’s couch tonight, agreeing to monitor him so the doctor isn’t too upset about Eddie refusing to admit. It’s not like he hasn’t had plenty of concussions before, and the broken ribs aren’t new, either. Eddie isn’t sure if he’s even going to go home tonight, so he agrees to whatever is discussed in order to get to the waiting room sooner. The fact that Buck isn’t dead is good, but he knows that it isn’t over yet. There’s making it through surgery, assessing the damage that’s been done to his body if he survives surgery, and then recovery.
All Eddie cares about is Buck being alive. They can get through anything else together. The kitten is currently on his lap, brought into the hospital by Hen, who seems to think he’s got some kind of attachment to the black menace. The pale blue eyes blink up at him occasionally, and he rubs his fingers over the soft fur while replaying everything that happened when they entered the apartment building in his mind. Could he have done something different? Was it his fault that Buck’s fighting for his life in the OR right now?
People come and go around him. He hears Maddie whispering to Chim, her voice trembling with anguish and tears. He hears Hen talking to Bobby and Athena about Buck being a fighter. He hears Ravi telling him that cats are considered lucky in many cultures, and that he can tell the nurses that the cat is his help animal, so they don’t make him get rid of it. Eddie hears them, but he isn’t really listening. It’s like he’s forgotten how to breathe, like everything is moving around him in slow motion, like a piece of his heart—his soul—has been taken from his chest and is missing.
When Karen shows up with food, Eddie’s forced to eat the sandwich that Hen gives to him. He wants to refuse, but he knows her well enough to realize that he isn’t up to fighting her over it right now. Instead, he takes a bite and chews, everything tasteless and lacking any kind of flavor. He looks up expectantly every time a nurse or doctor walks into the room, but none of them are there about Buck.
At some point, Maddie ends up beside him, her hand on his arm as she murmurs stories of Buck as a child, how resilient and loving he’s always been, and Eddie knows that Maddie knows because she’s consoling him despite being scared and trying to remain hopeful that her brother is going to survive. He looks at her, remembering Buck stammering out his request for Eddie to tell Maddie that he loves her, and he’s suddenly crying, his face buried against her shoulder as she strokes his hair and tells him that Evan’s going to come back to them. She sounds so sincere that he starts to believe her.
Eventually, the doctor that enters the room is there for them. They find out that Buck died on the operating table two times. Two times, Eddie lost him again. But they pulled him back, got his heart going, and they were able to repair the internal damage, gave him a transfusion, and that he’s somehow managed to survive all of it. He hears Athena telling Bobby that she’d told him that Buck wasn’t ready to leave this world yet, her emotions making her voice sound thick.
After finding out that Buck’s going to make it, albeit with PT and lots of rest to recover from his broken leg, Hen and Karen head out to pick up Denny and Mara. Chim gives him a hug that almost rebreaks his ribs, not saying anything but giving him a nod that lets Eddie know he’s there if he needs anything. Then Chim leaves to pick up Jee from the Lee’s house. Ravi offers to stay, since he promised to monitor Eddie, but Bobby tells him they’ve got Eddie covered, so he leaves soon after.
The kitten has made itself comfortable on his stomach, wrapped up in Buck’s hoodie, which Eddie put on after being released from the hospital. The kitten fits perfectly in the middle pocket, and he can’t deny that having the warmth pressing against his belly is helping him cope with this waiting. Bobby ends up sitting beside him at one point, Athena and Maddie mentioning going to get coffee at the Starbucks in the lobby, and Eddie watches Bobby praying, hears the whispered words that are similar to the prayer he made when stuck in the apartment building.
Eddie puts his hands in the pocket of the hoodie, his fingers touching soft fur as he listens to the purring and thinks maybe he needs to figure out a name for the cat. Kali, he decides, figuring it’s only right to name it for one of the gods that he begged to save Buck and keep him alive. Maybe there’s something to the whole universe thing, after all, since Buck defied the odds and managed to survive his injuries, which probably should have killed him.
The hospital waiting room is a kind of liminal space. Time doesn’t seem to work the same way there as it does in the rest of the world, and it’s like no one else is around except for them. Eddie dozes off at some point, startling awake when someone touches his shoulder. Blinking up at Maddie, he sees her smiling at him.
“He’s awake,” Maddie whispers. “We can go see him. I thought you’d want to go with me.”
“Yes, thanks,” Eddie says, standing up and dragging his hand over his face. Following Maddie through the hallways to the elevator, he feels like he can finally breathe again. “He’s okay.”
“Yeah, he’s okay,” Maddie says, squeezing his arm gently. “We almost lost him, but he’s always going to fight his way back to us, Eddie. He’s too stubborn to let something as simple as death get in his way.”
“I’m so glad that he’s stubborn,” Eddie murmurs, leaning his head against the elevator wall as he watches the numbers light up. When they reach the fourth floor, he follows Maddie onto the floor. “I told him that he wasn’t dying today. He—he thought he might, but I refused to believe it. I told him that this isn’t how our story ends, and I’m so fucking grateful that he listened. That he came back for us. To me.”
“The doctor expects him to make a full recovery,” Maddie says, looking at him. “But he’s going to have to be out for six weeks, minimum, due to the broken leg. He’s just fortunate that it wasn’t his bad leg that got broken. Instead, that one just got stabbed with a pipe and almost hit his femoral artery. Not even a half inch over, and he’d have bled out before he could reach the hospital.”
“I was worried that the pole had nicked it,” Eddie admits softly. He scratches his mustache, the dust from falling through several floors still not completely cleared out of it despite his best efforts. “He was bleeding a lot, and I was trying to keep him conscious while also trying to keep him from talking so much.” He bites his lip when they reach the door to Buck’s hospital room. “He can stay with me when he’s released. I’ll take care of him, Maddie.”
“I know you will, Eddie,” she says, leaning up on her tiptoes and pressing a kiss against his cheek. “We’ll help you. You know how Buck can get when he’s on medical leave, so you can use all the help that you can get to keep him entertained and distracted when you’re on shift.” With that, she opens the door to Buck’s room and steps inside.
After a second, Eddie follows her. Buck’s obviously on painkillers, his pupils dilated, and his response time slightly delayed. When he sees Maddie and Eddie, he smiles widely. “My favorite people,” he says, making grabby hands at him with his good hand. The other one has a sprained wrist, so Eddie’s glad to see he doesn’t move that one.
“You scared us, Evan,” Maddie says, walking around to the side of his bed. She leans over and kisses his forehead, blinking away tears as she sits down.
“Sorry,” Buck says, his gaze focused on Eddie. “I think maybe one of those deities you were praying to must have heard you, Eddie. The doctor said he can’t believe I survived all of that, and he might have even mentioned the word miracle, but I’m pretty sure that the universe just wanted to reward you for actually believing in it finally.” He smiles a dopey ‘I’m on good meds’ smile. “Is that the kitten from the fire?”
“Hen brought her,” Eddie says, clearing his throat when he hears how hoarse he sounds. He walks to Buck’s bed and puts the kitten down, knowing he’s violating infection protocols but not really caring at the moment. “I named her Kali. I think she’s a her, at least. She, uh, she helped me while we were waiting on you to get through surgery.”
“The hospital doesn’t know you’ve got a cat, do you? Look at you breaking rules and looking so damn good while doing it.” Buck looks at him, petting the kitten’s head as Eddie pulls a chair over to the side of the bed. “I like Kali. It’s a good name for our new cat. You’re so pretty, Eddie. Maddie, doesn’t Eddie look beautiful? Even his mustache is sexy.”
“Yes, Evan,” Maddie says, giving Eddie a small smile, “he’s very attractive. I’m so grateful that he was with you today.” She pats Buck’s arm, and Eddie knows that she’s thinking about how close they came to losing him today. It’s all Eddie can really think about, at least.
“Eddie’s always got my back,” Buck murmurs, still holding Eddie’s gaze. “And I’ve got his.” Eddie sits down and takes Buck’s hand, squeeing it gently. “Hi, Eddie. They gave me really strong painkillers. I feel like I’m floating. I love you. Did I tell you that or was it just another dream?”
“You told me,” Eddie says softly. “But I, uh, refused to say it.”
“You didn’t want to jinx it,” Buck says, blinking at him. He curls his fingers around Eddie’s, not really squeezing because he’s still too medicated. “But you don’t believe in jinxes. You were scared that I was going to die. I knew it even if you kept telling me that I was going to be okay.”
“I don’t believe in them usually, but I didn’t want to take the risk,” Eddie admits. “You’re too important, Buck. I couldn’t lose you, not before I even got the chance to have you.”
“You’ve always had me,” Buck whispers, blinking up at him. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know it, but it’s true. It’s always been you, Eddie.”
“I think I’m going to take Kali out to Athena and Bobby,” Maddie says suddenly, standing up and picking Kali up off the bed. “We really shouldn’t have a cat in here.”
“She wants to give us privacy,” Buck tells him, like Eddie doesn’t realize why Maddie suddenly left them alone. “Because she doesn’t want to hear me call you sexy and beautiful. I want to marry you, Eddie, and have your babies.” He frowns. “I can’t have your babies, can I? That isn’t fair.”
“Those are some good meds,” Eddie says, laughing softly as he feels the stress and fear that’s been making him so tense start to fade away. He presses his lips against Buck’s palm, kissing it gently as Buck trails off and blinks at him. He kisses it a second time, holding Buck’s gaze as he slowly smiles. “I love you, Buck. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it when you were dying, but I didn’t want you to associate my love with pain. I’m in love with you, and I want to marry you, too, one day. I’m looking forward to finding out how our story ends, but I’ve got a feeling that it’s going to be happily ever after.”