Chapter Text
As long as I keep my eyes closed I’m safe, as long as I keep these thoughts locked up I’m safe
This can’t be happening
Buck and Eddie have been friends for years, hah, friends, the biggest understatement of the century. They’ve been bound together ever since they took a bomb out of a guy, promising that they will have the other’s back, any day.
His feelings had only grown, like ivy around Eddie’s home, unbeknownst to the both of them. With Eddie’s kid Chris, Buck discovered his heart could hold more love than he ever thought possible. Buck could’ve never imagined that love turn into something that could threaten everything he holds dear.
It’s so stupid too, the reason he feels like his heart is going to beat out his chest. Just yesterday, they were dealing with a fire at an oil facility. A leaking oil pipe had caught on fire, resulting in an explosion that Eddie had pushed Buck out of the way of, the former landing on top of the latter.
In a fragile moment, Eddie’s face, covered in ash, with his hair messed up, is illuminated by the fire behind them. In that same moment Buck realizes he had never seen someone as beautiful as Eddie Diaz. Years worth of budding feelings come to the surface, igniting a fire in his chest almost as hot as the one behind them.
They of course managed to get out safely and rescue everyone from the facility, but not without Buck making a concerted effort to not look at Eddie.
“Phew that explosion was nasty, I forgot how much I hate the smell of oil” Eddie says while patting Buck’s shoulder.
“Yeah it was awful, but hey we made it, thank goodness this shift is over” Buck says while trying not to tremble at Eddie’s familiar touch.
“Hey you ok? You seem a bit off right now” Buck keeps his gaze on the floor “nah, just tired”
“Alright bud, glad I could get you out of there, I don’t know what me and Chris would do without you” Eddie says in a lowered voice that takes Buck off guard. It isn’t often that Eddie reminds him how much he means to him, and it isn’t often that he feels like breaking down at the 118 fire station.
For the first time since his adolescence, Buck feels like he won’t make it through the night, that 3am will pass and he won’t be here. His stomach keeps churning, his heart is burning, he knows he isn’t going to survive the feelings he’s desperately trying to deny.
No amount of scrolling on his phone helps, even with his eyes closed he sees Eddie right in front of him, trying to get Buck to look at him. He wants, he wants in a catastrophic apocalyptic way that makes every injury he’s survived seem like a joke.
He tries to reason to himself that he just feels this intensely because he could’ve died, that anyone could have pushed him from danger and he would feel this way. He was no stranger to bouts of dreadful existentialism plaguing his efforts to sleep.
He tries to explain to himself that these feelings will disgust Eddie, that he’ll never get to see Chris smile, or bake for them, or fall asleep on the couch after playing video games for far too long, again.
No amount of rationalizing his feelings stops them from racing in his mind. Just when he reaches for his pillow to scream into he sees little embers spread across the pillow’s fabric. From the ends of the pillow where his hands are, the embers grow more and more intense with each passing second.
“WHAT THE HELL?!” Buck quickly gets out of bed with the pillow, beelining to his sink downstairs. He hesitates turning the valve with his hand for fear it will be set on fire, so he puts his right hand in a fist to turn the sink on. The steam of the water hitting the pillow dissipates quickly, but Buck is left bewildered at this development.
“No fucking way” Buck leaves the pillow in the sink to be dealt with later, staring at his hands as if they were foreign to him. “This can’t be happening, what’s wrong with me?!” He starts to panic, with his hands pulling his hair until he realizes he might spontaneously catch fire too.
He stands in the middle of the kitchen for a few minutes, trying to collect himself. After going over every possible way his pillow could have possibly been set ablaze, he comes to the definite conclusion that it was of his doing. But why? And how? and most importantly when, because how was he, Buck Buckley about to be a firefighter when whatever he touches goes up in flames?