Work Text:
Three small words.
How hard could it be to say three words?
For Eddie Diaz, it was like climbing a mountain with a summit that always felt out of reach no matter how far he walked. He would get within reach, close enough for relief to fill his chest, but with the next step, he was back at the bottom, staring at the jagged path ahead of him. It was a battle that he knew he couldn’t win. A fight that never ended.
There were moments, countless of them, when the words almost tumbled from his lips like flowing water.
The words sat on the tip of his tongue whenever Buck went into one of his spirals; the days he would list facts about some obscure topic, a small smile on his mouth and his eyebrows scrunched together as he reeled off information. Even when Eddie didn’t know what he was talking about, he found himself clinging to every word because it was Buck speaking them.
It was all he wanted to say when they were out on a call and Buck focused on the task in front of them. The pinpoint focus in his blue eyes, the determined look etched onto his face like marble even when the rescue looked impossible. The way he snapped from cheerful Buck to work Buck in a matter of seconds.
Those small moments when Buck was … Buck, when he was unapologetically himself, caused the flurry of butterflies in Eddie’s stomach. It caused his skin to flush, his head to spin, and for those three words to be all he could think about.
Then there were the moments he thought he might lose him. When he slipped away and Eddie felt himself slip too.
Eddie remembered the day the fire truck exploded. He remembered the flash of light, the sound of the truck tipping onto its side and slamming into the asphalt. His eyes focused on the orange blaze, the flames flickering in the darkness. Fire trucks were supposed to stop the flames, not cause them.
When the smoke cleared, he saw Buck.
His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. The world swirled around him, becoming unsteady as he watched Buck try to drag himself out from under the burning wreck. He ignored everything around him and focused on Buck; his fingers curling against the asphalt, the pain embedded on his face as he tried to claw his way out.
Eddie took off the moment he was able to. He clenched his bag between shaking fingers, taking deep breaths to center his mind. The one thing he couldn’t do was panic, not when Buck needed him . Eddie choked back the sob when he saw the blood trickling down Buck’s face and the slightly glazed, unfocused look in his eyes. He didn’t look at his leg, he couldn’t.
Hen took the lead and Eddie let her. All he could do was hold Buck’s hand and do his best to mutter reassurances he wasn’t sure Buck listened to. He could hear Bobby talking down the radio, but the words were foreign to Eddie. All he could focus on was Buck.
Buck, who was gripping his hand so tightly his fingers were going numb. Buck, who put his life on the line to save others now being the one to need saving. Buck, who always seemed indestructible. The man Eddie loved.
Those three little words.
The words sat on the tip of his tongue as his hand gripped Buck’s. They swirled through his mind with each scream ripped from Buck’s throat when they struggled to lift the truck from his leg. When they pulled him free, relief flooded Eddie's chest, they were resting on his lips just waiting to be said, but he couldn't do it.
He should have said it.
Why couldn’t he say it?
Then there was the lightning. The day everything stopped.
When he saw Buck dangling from the end of his harness, Eddie’s heart stopped. Despite the pain coursing through his body after slamming into the ground, he needed to reach Buck. His name ripped from his throat. His fingers found the cold, wet metal of the ladder. Without a harness, without thinking about anything else, he scrambled up after Buck.
Rain soaked through his turnout coat and stung his cheeks, but that didn’t matter. Buck still wasn’t moving. His hands tangled themselves in the rope of Buck’s harness. His injured muscles screamed as he took the weight of his body and lowered him towards Bobby. The moment he was safe, Eddie scrambled down the ladder.
His heart dropped to his chest when he heard those dreaded words. No pulse.
He wasn’t going to lose Buck.
He couldn’t.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins and he forgot about his own bruises and just focused on Buck, on bringing him back.
The words hung off his lips with each shock to Buck’s heart, with each painfully slow second ticking by. How long had it been? Too long. Far too long.
Bobby made him drive, but Eddie wanted to be there. He wanted to be holding his hand, whispering those words to break through to Buck and bring him back. A tidal wave of pain smashed into his chest with each agonizing minute on that drive. If ever there was a time to speak those words it was then, but he couldn’t do it.
Still, they wouldn’t come.
Seeing Buck unconscious in the hospital, hooked up to all those machines, broke something inside him. He couldn’t stand to see him like that so broken and fragile, not when Buck had always been larger than life. Eddie wanted nothing more than to hear his excited voice when he reeled off his facts, to see that slight furrow in his eyebrows.
Even then he couldn’t say it. When Buck’s life hung in the balance, when those words could bring him back, he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say anything. He just watched, breaking apart over and over again until he wasn’t sure he could stand it.
The words were on his lips but he didn’t have the strength to say them.
He should have said them.
Now, Eddie looks at Buck with Tommy. He looks at how relaxed he is, how happy he is in who he is and he wishes he said those words. Now, his heart clenches whenever he sees them together. All those times he should have said it would have saved the heartache, the constant reminder that, for now, he’d lost him.
One day he’ll have the guts to say them.
Just three small words.