Archive of Our Own

“Listen to me, Rav.” 

Ravi was shaking his head rapidly back and forth, dark, haunted eyes avoiding Buck’s desperately. 

“Ravi. Panikkar. That woman is injured, and that space is tight. We don’t know how long our position is going to hold, and we don’t know how long we have to get out. Right now, I can hold that entryway open while you guys get out. I’m stronger than you. We both know that I am. I’ll be able to hold it open longer than you will. I can give you more time.”

The look on Ravi’s face was something akin to grief. New and fresh and suffocating, a funeral being held in real time.

Because what Buck was suggesting was nothing short of a sacrifice, and he knew it. If he was lucky, and he was able to shuffle through the rubble, maybe he’d be able to buy himself some time. Maybe.

But from where he was, and from the damage caving in around them, the chances of him getting out would drop to nearly nothing.

They both knew as much.

They were firefighters, trained to see the options. The possible ways out.

They’d searched. They’d talked. They’d argued.

“Buckley—” Ravi’s voice was sharp.

“You’re going to run out of time, Rav. It does no good for us both to get trapped. Just get her out, okay? Just get her out.”

Ravi was blinking rapidly, his eyelashes, white with powdered concrete, stuck together in clumps of tears and destruction. 

Buck was struck with the realisation that he’d always wanted a little brother.

He was struck with the realisation that for all of his fear, and all of his insecurity, everything he’d projected onto Ravi in the beginning, he’d grown to really love the kid.

Buck was self-sacrificial by nature, it was true, but it turned out that sacrificing for Ravi was… right. Another member of their family. Another person he’d happily lay down his life for.

The air between them was chalky and dense, and breathing felt hard, but it didn’t stop Ravi from slamming bodily into Buck, the hug around him bruisingly tight, his breathing sharp and laboured in Buck’s ear.

“I’ll send them back.” Ravi promised. Buck knew it was true— it was just that before the last shifting of rubble, back when they’d still had use of their radios, they’d heard that most of their team were trapped too. Chimney and Athena were trapped. Their team was low on resources.

The damage was wide and the journey to where they were buried beneath stone wasn’t an easy or a quick one.

“I’m proud of you.” Buck managed, his voice rough and choked. He was no Bobby Nash, but he liked to think his Captain would be proud of him anyway. He liked to think he could offer some peace to Ravi in this moment, even for as chaotic and troublesome as he’d always been.

“Okay,” Buck clapped Ravi’s shoulder and then shifted, getting into position on his hands and knees, his back against the rubble he could just shift enough to give them an exit. 

They’d already worked out the risk of this. That once Buck started, he’d shift the unsteady ground around them. That he could only hold it up for so long and that the second he stopped, the rubble would fall around them once more.

The place they’d found themselves would likely be enveloped, and Buck along with it.

“You got this, kid.” Buck told him with a steady nod, and then pushed his body weight into the stone, the immediate weight enough to feel like the world was bearing down on him.

Ravi was quick and efficient with their victim. She’d hit her head, and while Ravi was quick and clever, it would still be a task to get her out. He had every faith Ravi would accomplish it.

They started to climb through the narrow way that Buck had opened up, and already, the weight felt… Herculean. 

His lungs were full of chalk and damp, his helmet was cracked and obtrusive. His arms were already on fire, and his back ached. 

The knee he’d crushed was the worst point of pain in his body, but Buck refused to acknowledge it. He gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes, and focused on carrying as much weight as he could for as long as he could. Long enough to let Ravi and their vic out.

Buck thought about every time he’d been at the gym and his body had felt so tired that he’d nearly given up for the day. Every time he’d been so tired his muscles had felt shaky and his legs had hurt the next day. He thought of every time he pushed himself past his comfort zone.

He thought that every single one of those times had been preparation for this.

For Buck, on his hands and knees, sweat beading and dripping over his forehead, holding up the entire world to give his family a fighting chance.

He wasn’t any Greek God, he wasn’t Atlas, holding the world indefinitely. He wasn’t Sisyphus, pushing an unbearable weight up a hill for eternity. He wasn’t Orpheus, fighting his way into and out of Hell. 

Evan Buckley was just a man. He’d broken a bone fifteen separate times. He’d survived car wrecks, bombs, earthquakes, tsunamis. He’d been struck by lightning, dangling in the air like a fish on a line. Eventually, his luck had to run out. He was just one man, but if it ended like this, using everything he’d learned and all the strength he’d fought for to get his friends to safety, then he’d die a happy man.

He heard Ravi’s yell of confirmation that they’d made it out the other side, and he shifted back. He let the weight fall once more, and then he watched as the entire world caved in on top of him.

—

Being called back to the 118 was kind of like coming home.

Only, his home was on fire and his family were all trapped inside.

Hen’s urgent commands that Eddie get his ass there weren’t particularly welcome, but it was a better call than the last he’d received about the 118, so he took the very slight win.

Of course, that was before he’d gotten there. Because he got there, threw on some turnouts, and set about what had become an unequivocal rescue mission of their own team.

Hen and Gerrard were attempting to free Chimney and Athena, which left Ravi and Eddie to go after Buck.

No one was thrilled about working with Gerrard, but then, a set of hands were a set of hands when your friends were in danger.

Ravi’s explanation had been rushed and horrified.

Buck was trapped.

Buck had been buried alive.

Buck had sacrificed himself.

Buck had held up an unimaginable weight while Ravi and a stranger crawled through until they met fresh air.

Ravi had seen the collapse.

Buck’s radio wasn’t working.

It was all second nature.

Hands on tools, yelling back and forth as they worked.

Ravi and Eddie, completely in step, agreeing that no matter what happened, they didn’t give up on getting Buck out. 

They never gave up on getting Buck out.

Eddie kept replaying it in his mind, over and over. Buck’s horrible, high-pitched, unrestrained shrieks when the firetruck had landed on his leg. The animalistic howls of pain that echoed through his body. 

The look on his face when he’d vomited up blood and collapsed right in front of them all.

The pain in his eyes when he’d tried to explain to Eddie what happened during the tsunami.

The limp, empty dangle of his body, a marionette on a line, abandoned by the puppeteer. 

Not again.

There really wasn’t any great complicated plan. Nothing clever.

They just… dug. They found his heat signature and they made their way towards it as best as they could. It was dangerous work, knowing the instability could bring rubble down on them. Knowing they could bring more down on Buck.

But the truth was, he would be running out of oxygen down there, if he even had any to begin with. Pretty soon, any further efforts would be futile.

Eddie wasn’t waiting to be ordered to retreat. 

It was hard going. Bruises and sore limbs and a jaw tight from grinding his teeth against the screaming of his muscles and the screaming of his heart.

Eddie was terrified, but he didn’t have the time to dwell. He hadn’t been there last time, and the thought haunted him. He couldn’t miss the chance to help Buck this time. 

How could he live with himself if he hadn’t been there to help Bobby or Buck?

How could he live with himself if his best friend was crushed under the rubble of a fallen building and Eddie had been in their shared kitchen, preparing ingredients for dinner?

Eddie loved Buck ferociously. 

He loved him so much it made him a little wild sometimes. A little feral. He loved him enough that even when he and Buck bore their teeth and snapped at each other, Eddie never doubted the fealty or the love between them. 

It was always easier to lash out in pain at someone you knew wouldn’t leave you. He and Buck hadn’t always been the two most communicative or mature people, but they were good at each other. They were good at showing up, good at pushing through. They yelled and they fought but when the dust settled, they were them.

It was a soft place to land, even when everything in the world was wrong.

The soft glow of a candle after a frigid and all consuming darkness. 

The heat signature got closer as they worked, but there was no Buck.

No sound, no radio, no movement.

They yelled until both their voices sounded strained and raw.

He shouted, shrieked even, but there was no reply.

Eddie didn’t know who he would be without Evan Buckley. Without his silly jokes and his petty squabbles and his contagious passion.

Eddie’s life had been painted into glorious technicolour when he’d met Evan Buckley, and though Buck could be a pain in the ass, Eddie would do anything at all for him.

He didn’t believe in God, but he found himself praying anyway.

If there was a God, let them save Buck.

If the Universe was listening, spare his best friend.

If Bobby was looking over them, Eddie prayed that he could be Buck’s guardian angel. A father shielding him from pain. 

He didn’t care who was looking out, he just needed them to keep Buck alive long enough for Eddie to get to him.

That was all. Eddie would do the rest. Just so long as he was still breathing.

He’d nearly run out of desperate, battlefield pleas when he heard it.

Or maybe Ravi did.

Either way, they both shot into action when they heard it.

“‘M still alive down here!”

It was too weak to be heard from anywhere further than they were, but it was enough.

Buck was alive. Buck was yelling for them.

Eddie and Ravi worked like their hands were brand new. Like they weren’t scraped up and exhausted and shaking. 

At some point, Eddie abandoned his equipment and started shoving with his bare hands, yanking at rocks and ignoring the sharp pain of his nails snagging as he dragged solid cement and scaffolding back away from his Buck.

His grumpy, petty, incredible, wonderful best friend.

When they saw his face, it was immediately hard to tell how bad it was.

The residue of the crumbling structure left him painted a sickly white, broken up only be streaks of blood on his face and in his hair.

His body was, miraculously, seemingly unbroken.

He was sure there would be things wrong. Buck’s lungs must be filled with the debris. His chest had been pinned down. Tears streaked the white residue of his face. 

He was a little cross eyed, like he’d been running out of air and time.

Eddie was sure there’d be issues. Problems caused by his self-sacrificial bullshit, unending and unchanging, painfully endearing and horribly frustrating.

“Eddie… you’re here.”

—

The next few days were a mix of good and bad. 

Buck was concussed, and he had to have a few stitches. He had a chesty kind of cough, and he moved a little funny when his rib twinged just right.

Still, he was alive.

He was alive, and Eddie was still in LA. 

The pattern was familiar.

A little different to how they’d been doing it maybe, but familiar all the same. 

They lived in the same house now, so it was easier for Eddie to insist on laundering Buck’s comfiest clothes for him. It was easier to insist that Buck sit back and try to heal and let Eddie wait on him for a while.

Buck was never good at that, he made a valiant show of trying to sneak around Eddie to do things. 

But the concussion had been coming for him in the evenings, and when Christopher was playing video games, Eddie would insist on pulling Buck down to rest his head in Eddie’s lap. Buck would always grumble like he hated it, but then he’d settle in, and his expression would take on this content little quality, and Eddie would know it was all a part of their game of pretend.

Just like how they bickered every night about the sleeping arrangements, only for them to inevitably settle stubbornly on sharing the bed. They both made a good effort at pretending to want to sleep on the couch.

But their fight was more of a ritual than a real thing, and every time they settled into the bed beside each other, Eddie felt a sense of deep relief.

Buck, his Buck, slept peacefully beside him, snuffling little snores that should have been annoying, but served as a reminder that he hadn’t lost Buck just yet.

They were always playing a game of Russian Roulette, Eddie thought. Lightning and bullet sounds and being buried alive. One day, one of their world-weary hearts wouldn’t restart, and the other would wander the Earth like a ghost, forever searching for their missing half. 

Buck had embedded himself inside Eddie, as much a part of him as his son or his heart or the timbre of his laugh. 

Buck lived and breathed inside Eddie in the same place as the people he loved most. He was tucked away, safely beside Christopher, warm and protected, under Eddie’s care.

They existed in their little game of charades for a day or two before Christopher cornered Eddie in the kitchen.

“We’re not going back to El Paso, are we?”

Eddie hummed. It was true that his heart wanted LA. It was true that a part of him would never, ever feel home in El Paso. It was true that he longed for his son to change his mind and come home.

“That’s up to you, bud, not me. I’ll be wherever you are.” 

Eddie knew he could put his foot down and insist, their relationship had come a long way in a short time, but the truth was that Christopher adored Buck. He missed LA, and Eddie knew as much. He wanted his son to feel heard and respected.

Besides which, Eddie knew his priorities. He’d go where Christopher was, no matter what kind of tragedy it was for him.

But Chris silently contemplated for a moment and then answered, more resolutely: “We’re not going back to El Paso.”

Eddie loved his son so much he might burst.

“Thank god.”

Eddie swept him up in a hug, and Christopher grinned in that same way he always had growing up. Bright and unbidden and beautiful. 

Chris hugged Eddie back, waiting until Eddie was done to say his next piece.

“Buck isn’t doing very well.”

Eddie knew that that was true too. His best friend hadn’t exactly coped well with their Captain’s death, or anything that followed it. He’d been a little better since Eddie and Ravi had saved him in that rubble, but that underlying pain persisted.

“He’ll get there… he will.”

Chris hummed, nodding, “But faster if you’re there.”

A moment of understanding, clear and calm and shining, settled between them. 

Christopher knew, and he wasn’t angry or sad. He didn’t even seem worried, except for his concern for Buck himself. Maybe Eddie should ask more questions, or offer more reassurances, but something about their unspoken understanding felt like growth. It felt like his son growing up, and it felt like Eddie letting him do it.

Christopher was getting too old to miss the nuance between them, and while Eddie had been genuinely afraid of what that might look like, Christopher was taking it in stride. 

“I wasn’t there when Bobby— I wasn’t there to help.” Eddie offered, by way of an explanation.

Christopher’s answering smile was sad. “But you were for Buck. That’s why we have to stay.” 

Pride really wasn’t a strong enough word. Love wasn’t either. It lived in Eddie like a fire in a hearth. Or maybe like a garden in bloom.

Eddie had never been good at maintaining gardens or growing things. He’d always been a destructive force. A killer of all things fragile and soft and green.

And yet somehow, when he wasn’t even looking, he’d learned how to nurture this. The family he’d built. The son he’d raised. The life and the home that they all now shared. Not a physical place, but a community. 

Eddie had never had the kind of father he wanted to be, not until Bobby. Yet, somehow, he looked at his son and knew that he’d done something right. Somehow, miraculously, out of the battlefield of his life, he’d managed to foster a garden. It bloomed and grew and lived, and Eddie sometimes thought the sheer emotional weight of that might knock him right out.

“You’re a great kid, you know that?” Eddie asked softly, and Christopher smiled, a little warmer this time.

—

On the sixth day, Buck and Eddie lay in silence, side by side, the air between them swollen with everything they weren’t saying, but peaceful all the same.

Neither was asleep, that much was obvious. They knew each others’ routines.

Eddie always knew Buck was asleep when he started to twitch like a dog chasing a rabbit in his sleep. 

Buck said he always knew Eddie was asleep because his shoulders noticeably loosened up and his breathing got slow.

They had become so familiar to each other. Eddie knew every pitch of Buck’s voice. The higher wails he made when he was in pain and the deep gravel of the middle of the night. He knew how Buck sounded when he screamed himself out of a nightmare and how he sounded when he babbled about library books in his sleep.

There was an ease and a comfort to it, the ways in which they coexisted. 

Little touches Eddie always initiated. Little games Buck always played.

Eddie would always brush Buck’s lower back when he passed him in the kitchen. 

Buck would always ask Eddie silly questions about grocery facts they both one that Eddie couldn’t answer. The game was that Buck really only wanted to tell Eddie his fun fact. The game was that Eddie pretended to think, and pretended not to be smitten when Buck eventually told him anyway. 

“Your party is tomorrow.” Buck said softly, into the chasm of all the things they hadn’t spoken about.

Eddie hummed, nodding his head, “Cowboy themed, no less.”

He figured that Buck would say what he needed to say if he needed to say it, but Eddie also felt that he’d done enough pushing before the building collapse, and Buck could probably use the space. Besides, Eddie had figured a good while ago that he wanted Buck to come to him because he really wanted it, and not because he was sad or lonely.

A part of him suspected that Buck felt the same way. That the unspoken but ever present thing that breathed and grew between them was no accident. He wondered if Buck was afraid of Eddie’s potential uncertainty. He wondered if they were both anxious about the prospect of acting out of grief and losing the chance to do this right.

Some days, he thought Buck knew and lay in wait. Most days, Eddie didn’t think Buck saw it at all. That he was so convinced of his own irrelevancy in Eddie’s life and heart that he’d missed every obvious look, every indirect confession.

“Are you excited?”

It was a polite question, but not an honest one. Buck didn’t want to know if Eddie was excited about his party, he wanted to know if Eddie was excited about leaving.

“Do you want to know a secret?”

Eddie hadn’t intended to tell Buck anything just yet. He’d intended for Buck to find out at the party, just like everyone else. A big, fun surprise in the wake of all of the bad they’d faced lately. 

But he couldn’t lie to Buck, and the insecurity in his voice was a little too much for Eddie to comfortably bear. 

“Obviously.” Buck turned to face him, and even in the dark, Eddie knew all the details of his face. He knew Buck’s blue eyes, and his pink lips, and the birthmark that only made his lovely face more striking. He knew Buck in the dark, in grief and joy, in sleep and awake. Buck knew him the same way. It should have been terrifying for a man like Eddie, who’d once had a panic attack in response to his girlfriend being called his wife, but it wasn’t. It was a warm and safe thing. 

He sometimes thought about cooking frogs. How, if you put a frog directly into boiling water, it would jump right back out. But if you put a frog into lukewarm water and slowly brought it to a boil, it would sit there until it cooked, trapped by the gradual increase and normalcy. The warmth. 

Sometimes, he thought he was like a frog. Sitting in warm water, not knowing he was doomed until it had been too long. Until he was already dead and buried, Buck’s in every conceivable way.

But then, hadn’t he known? Hadn’t he crawled willingly into that pot, knowing on some level, at every step of the way, that he was boiling himself alive?

Because if he was being honest, it had always been this. Him chasing Buck’s ire on that first day, a little drawn to his petty remarks and heated glances.

Bringing Buck to meet Chris and fighting in a grocery store and signing Buck’s name into his will like he could sign it onto his own rib. 

No, Eddie hadn’t been tricked into loving Buck. He’d done so willingly, followed him wherever he might lead again and again and again. He’d sought out Buck’s fire and his tragedy and his obsession and he’d taken it willingly. Shoved his way into Buck’s life and welcomed Buck into his. 

There was nothing accidental about any of it.

He hadn’t fallen, he’d jumped. 

“I’m not leaving.”

He felt as much as heard Buck’s breathing catch. He felt the swell of his best friend’s chest, and the way he twitched forward but didn’t touch. 

“Eddie, that’s— don’t fuck with me here.”

Eddie breathed a quiet laugh, facing Buck and giving him a soft smile in the inky dark of their shared room. 

“I’m not fucking with you, Buck. We’re not leaving. We’re flying back this week to pack up, and then we’re driving back home. For good.”

“But the house and—?”

Eddie hummed, glad he had his answers to all of this sorted already.

“Adriana and Frankie just announced some stuff. A wedding, for a start. But a pregnancy too. Turns out they need a house. They can’t afford much, but Frankie is a contractor, so he’s happy to buy a fixer upper. Especially at a friends and family discount.”

The breathless laugh Buck let slip was music to Eddie’s ears, and though it might have been fun to tell him at the party, this was nice too. A moment just for them, something gentle and fragile and fleeting. Laying in the dark, hearing the soft puffs of Buck’s breaths against the silence of the night, time felt irrelevant. Just a construct, an afterthought. They lived outside of it, together in the abyss. 

“Because of me? Because, Eds, I want you to stay, but I also want you to be happy and I know things still aren’t perfect with—”

“Buck. Yes, I’m staying for you, but… not the way you think.” He sucked in a breath, and the liminality of their situation helped him to be vulnerable. “When Bobby got… I was all alone. Sitting alone in the dark, with a hand covering my face. I didn’t even find out from family, I found out from Chief Simpson. I can’t— I can’t do it again, Buck. I can’t leave, again, only to get called back because I wasn’t there for someone else I love.” He sucked in a sharp breath, “You got hurt, Buck, and I was there this time. I was there, with you. Eight years ago, I told you that you could have my back any day and you— you told me I could have yours. I can’t have yours from eight hundred miles away. Any of yours. And I would never forgive myself if…”

Buck sighed, and it sounded so weary that Eddie felt guilty for bringing it all back up. For detracting from that joy in any way. He told Buck he was staying to make him happier, not remind him of the pain.

Eddie reached out until his hand rested blindly on Buck’s shoulder, squeezing. 

“I’m staying because I want to stay. Being with you is one of the most important parts of my life, right after my son. We live dangerous lives, and we swore we’d be there to have each others’ backs. Seeing you in that rubble just reminded me that I need to live up to that promise. For me as much as for you.”

He heard Buck’s sniffle, and he wished it could be a laugh instead of a cry, but he understood too. 

“C’mere.” He mumbled, and Buck tucked up into him like he was small. Eddie turned onto his back, and they shuffled until Buck lay with his head against Eddie’s chest, a hand curled up under his chin. He rubbed a hand along his best friend’s back comfortingly. 

“‘M’sorry. Didn’t mean to ruin your moment.” Eddie could feel the wetness against his chest. 

“Didn’t ruin anything,” Eddie promised in a soothing voice, “I know everything’s a lot right now. We can be happy tomorrow. Right now, tears are just fine.”

“You’re really staying?” The question sounded fragile, and Eddie thought he’d remember the moment for a long, long time.

“I’m never going to leave you, Buck.”

It wasn’t everything that Eddie wanted to say. It didn’t encapsulate all of the love and devotion and faith that coursed like blood pumping between them. It was enough though. Enough for one stolen moment in the dark, where they could be safe together without anything changing.

Buck breathed out a long, content sigh against Eddie’s chest, and Eddie let his hand find Buck’s hair, scratch through his curls and comfort him until he fell asleep.

—

The party was fun. 

Everything had an undercurrent of grief now, but everyone was happy anyway. Glad for a reason to smile instead of cry.

When Eddie stood up over lunch and announced that this was really more of a welcome home than a going away, he was rewarded with too many hugs to count and a few happy tears instead of sad.

Buck hung back, gave everyone else their moment to celebrate a homecoming. After all, he already knew, and Eddie suspected Buck could still feel the phantom warmth of sleeping pressed together as well as Eddie could. 

They didn’t talk about the living situation, because when they did, they’d have to talk about all kinds of new things.

Eddie would need to find the right words, but he had no doubt they’d come. They always did where Buck was concerned.

Things were dwindling down to a calm, late afternoon lull when Christopher found Eddie in the kitchen, quietly packing away some of the day’s accumulating garbage. 

“Have you told him?”

Eddie didn’t need to ask what he meant, obviously. That unspoken truth had never been more tangible.

“Not yet.” Eddie answered, washing his hands and moving back towards the island. 

Christopher sighed, quiet and impatient, and Eddie knew that it was a good thing. That Christopher wanted Buck to know because he wanted this. Their family.

“When are you going to tell him?” 

Eddie glanced out into the living room, where Buck sat with Jee-Yun in his lap, putting on a silly high pitched voice and weird accent to play the Barbie doll he’d been cast as by his niece. 

He loved Buck so fully, so viscerally that it sometimes felt overwhelming. Never more so than seeing him with children. All six foot two and muscle, he was practically a marshmallow, or a character from a Disney movie. For all his sharp edges, Buck was made up so entirely of love, and all Eddie wanted was to be able to love him how he deserved.

He wanted Christopher and Eddie to be Buck’s the way Buck had always been theirs. He’d always made it known that he was theirs, and Eddie was sick of pretending otherwise. They were a family because they chose to be. If given the chance, Eddie wanted to make it clear just how resolutely he’d chosen Buck. 

But they had time, and Eddie didn’t want Buck to fear that he was doing it out of guilt or obligation. He wanted Buck to truly know that Eddie loved and chose him, and lived a better life for doing so.

Buck glanced up, met Eddie’s smile, and grinned. Bright and alive and beautiful. Eddie grinned right back, and an ease settled over him.

Life would never be easy, but it was easier with Buck.

“Soon. I’ll tell him soon.”