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Buck loves Los Angeles, the main reason being that it has given him a family and allowed him to grow and evolve into the beautiful man he is nowadays. To unlock his full potential, if you will.
Today, however, they’re halfway through August, and the temperature has been hovering between 90 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit for days. He is sure that, by the end of the shift, he will have a detailed plan to flee the whole state (not only the city).
“This shouldn’t be– I don’t know,” he huffs, uselessly pushing some drops of sweat off his forehead before giving up and embracing the wetness. “I don’t feel like this is legal.”
Hen and Eddie both snort. “A lightning strike is fine but you draw the line at a power outage?” The man teases him, and if it weren’t Eddie, Buck would flip him off already.
“Shut up.”
Adorable. Eddie thinks.
Hen chuckles under her breath while Buck returns to fantasizing about freezing naked in a lake somewhere in Iceland, or— or, you know what? He is sure he remembers reading that there’s a place, somewhere in Russia, that is the coldest place on Earth. And yeah, he’ll have his bags packed at the end of the day and move there.
“Hey.” He thinks he needs to inform Eddie about his plan, though. “What do you think?” He asks, shoving his phone in his friend’s face, barely giving him the time to react before doing that.
“W– what?” Eddie shrieks, barely noticing Hen and Chimney laughing at them.
“Look, Yakutsk, in Russia,” Buck frowns, trying, and miserably failing, to fake a Russian accent, still hovering over Eddie’s shoulder, waiting for him to evaluate his choice as if they were really to move to this… city. City? Eddie honestly doesn’t even know what he’s looking at. He sees that it’s a TikTok video and that’s enough to make him turn up his nose.
That, however, doesn’t mean he won’t indulge his best friend. If things looked dire when Buck was just his best friend, ever since Eddie realized that Buck is the love of his life, they have taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
“Buck,” he mutters, trying to appear irritated but only managing to sound so hopelessly fond.
“No, no–” Buck needs him to see this, so he snatches the phone back with a dramatic flick of his hand (Eddie had never even gotten close to it, but alas…) and reads aloud. “Look, it says life in the coldest city in the world, minus 71 degrees Celsius, minus 96 degrees Fahrenheit.”
His mouth goes slightly slack with desire. Eddie is a bit bewildered, honestly. “You hear that? We’d be freezing to death!” He excitedly exclaims, and Eddie knows, he knows like he knows that the sky is blue, that if not immediately stopped, Buck could go on forever.
“How incredible, isn’t it?” So he snorts, aiming for sarcasm but failing. Again. The fondness problem. Even Bobby told him. Bobby. Their captain. Not in as many words, obviously, but still he made clear that he sees that whenever Eddie looks at Buck, his eyes go all gooey and mushy — whatever that meant.
“Eddie, I’m so hot,” eventually Buck whines, locking his phone and apparently abandoning his plan to move to Russia.
Eddie tries to conceal his laughter.
“It’s not funny!”
“I know, just…” Eddie moves his hands around a bit, minutely leaning back on his chair, exposing the LAFD tee that clings tightly to his sweaty chest, in a way that doesn’t help Buck. “I was expecting a joke in there.”
Buck grunts again, deciding that he’ll communicate through grumbling only for the foreseeable future, and eventually drops face down on the table, resting on his crossed arms.
Eddie jokingly pats him on the shoulder and Buck would tell anybody else to stop touching him immediately — it’s so hot he’s going to melt, he doesn’t need human contact — but it’s Eddie, so he lets him. Probably he’d let Eddie set him on fire, even now, even in the middle of this crazy heatwave.
Then, the alarm blares, echoing through the station and his fried brain, making him huff in excessive frustration. His cheeks are so red and his skin looks all shiny and sweaty that Bobby eyes him suspiciously while they jump on the engine. “You okay, Buck?” He goes as far as asking, but being man behind has never been an option for Buck so he just nods and plasters himself against his best friend, despite all the gear weighing on him and the hot weather.
Eddie nudges him with his knee, “Hey,” murmurs under his breath, now sincerely worried.
“Hm?” Buck responds, just tilting his head to make eye contact.
“You okay? Really?”
That’s a look that Buck knows. It’s Eddie’s no-nonsense dad look, and Buck loves and hates when it’s directed at him. But he is okay, there’s no reason to worry. He is just annoyed, pissed because of the heatwave and the blackout.
They are on hour eight of this, conserving power while still trying to do their job and it’s so exhausting. He’d rather be fighting non-stop fires instead of… whatever this is. On top of that, this blackout reminds him of the last time they found themselves in this situation, with Eddie’s panic attacks and his own panic that something was happening to his friend and… no, he doesn’t want to think about that. He is just tired.
“Just tired,” so he tells Eddie, trying to muster a convincing smile.
As long as Eddie is okay…
“And hot,” Eddie gently teases, squeezing his knee in the process and worsening his condition by making him feel hot all over.
He chuckles. “And hot.”
Eddie nods. “Tell me if anything changes?”
Something scorching hot throbs in his chest, at the knowledge that Eddie cares about him so much, even if he isn’t in love with him; Eddie surely loves him, and that’s enough for Buck’s heart.
“Promise.”
He can’t do anything else but promise him that he’ll be honest. He’s hopeless like that.
Feeling Eddie’s love doesn’t get him to stop complaining, though. If he weren’t so tired and hot, so fucking hot, he’d probably be ranting about the global warming. Or maybe the over-consumerism? Or the way people in downtown L.A. don’t know how to behave when it comes to air conditioning, because it definitely doesn’t have to be on twenty-four seven? Or he could blame the dated infrastructure that can’t handle the heat? He knows about that because he did research after a day spent at the academy for some mandatory retraining.
Either way, he doesn’t care. He’s just had enough of rescuing people from elevators. Alright? He doesn’t care. All he knows is that they are left without power and he is fucking hating every single minute of it.
That said, as is usually the case, things get worse, because of course, they do, especially when it’s about Buck.
Truthfully, it isn’t even about Buck himself but it’s Eddie. So of course it’s Buck’s business.
They are rescuing two young girls who got stuck in the elevator of a high-rise. One of them is unconscious — probably fainted from the excessive heat and lack of air — and the other one is freaking out. A classic, if you ask any firefighter. Indeed, everything would be perfectly normal, a routine call, almost, if it weren’t for the fact that this building looks like it’s about to fall down at any moment. Buck is grateful that it’s not an earthquake because he’s pretty certain that they’d be under a pile of rubble, if that were the case.
He sighs in relief when they manage to force open the elevator doors but then all hell breaks loose.
The opening is really small, as the wall blocks the access to the cabin and as soon as they make eye contact with the conscious girl, she immediately panics, moving frenetically and trying to slip out of the elevator by throwing herself in the arms of the first responders who came for her.
“No, no– stop, ma’am you have to–” Bobby loudly tries to tell her that they need her help to get her friend out, and then they’ll get to her but she doesn’t hear him, she just jumps into the void, forcing Hen and Eddie to move to catch her.
They rush to position themselves beneath the cabin, to prevent her from falling down twenty-something floors and Buck is already on his way to help them (even more pissed and furious because what the hell? Can this day get any worse?) when he spots a crumbling chunk of concrete falling from inside the elevator shaft and hitting Eddie square on the head.
He screams so hard that his throat feels raw immediately after. The “no, Eddie!” echoes through the floor, bringing everyone to crowd around a collapsing Eddie, and helping Hen lower the girl on the stretcher.
Buck feels his knees buckle under his weight but he is the first one to catch Eddie under his armpits, helping him to the ground. Eddie is unconscious for some seconds, even if that feels like an eternity to Buck who’s already imagining his life without his best friend, but as soon as Chimney helps Buck get him outside, Eddie’s eyes fly open.
Buck takes a breath so deep that he goes dizzy with the amount of oxygen that previously couldn’t reach his lungs, but he ignores his own well-being and crouches down in front of Eddie who’s frowning hard.
“Eddie, hey, hey– Eds,” Buck keeps repeating, in such a frenzy that Chimney can’t even try to get a word in.
Buck gently peels the helmet that’s now sitting askew on his friend’s head and even more gently gets the coat off of him. Then, while Chimney exasperatedly waits for another ambulance to arrive, Eddie finally speaks.
Truthfully, he is smiling, cheekily smiling at Buck and Buck is almost ready to kiss the ground beneath them in thanks. But then… “Who are you?” Eddie asks, going back to frowning.
“Oh fuck.”
“Oh shit.”
Well, at least Chimney’s reaction is in tune with his.
“Is he gonna be okay?” Buck looks up to Chimney as if he had all the answers to every question ever asked, and that’s when Chimney reminds him that he is the paramedic.
So he crouches down and takes Buck’s place, even if Buck simply positions himself on Eddie’s left and starts massaging the back of Eddie’s head with a trembling hand, trying to find a bleeding wound but finding none.
“Guys.” Bobby gets to them and informs them that they got all the victims out and are now waiting for the ambulance that’ll take Eddie to the hospital and Buck has to bite his tongue to not blurt out something unprofessional and disrespectful. Like, come on, they should have sent Eddie to the hospital first, but…
He simply sits beside his friend and eyes him suspiciously. “Hey, Eddie.”
Eddie acknowledges him by nodding and that helps settle the worry in Buck’s stomach, but he can’t stop the underlying panic that spreads along his spine, especially since Eddie looks like a cartoon character with birds circling his head.
“Yeah! You are Buck!” Eddie squints, probably to avoid the light that’s not helping with his headache (Buck is sure his head must be throbbing) and his smile is goofy enough to worry Buck.
He wishes he could see through Eddie’s skull, or rule out the possibility of any internal bleeding by touch alone, but he can’t. He can only sit with Eddie who looks like he’s high on something, or, in other words, dumb as fuck.
“Eddie.” He doesn’t know what to say, how to stomp on the panic that’s gnawing at him. He wants to beg him to be alright but that wouldn’t be useful and he is not sure Eddie is conscious enough to process that.
However, just as he’s internally debating on what to say, some paramedics from the 133 haul him in the ambulance, so whatever he was going to say dies on his tongue. Instead, he follows Eddie up to the ambulance and begs Bobby to let him go with his friend.
He doesn’t care about how that will look. He hops in the vehicle and stays as still as possible, trying not to be in the way of the paramedics, even if he knows that his presence is a burden.
So he also keeps his mouth shut, worrying at his lips until they hurt, feeling his lungs do something funny all the time. Then Eddie tilts his head to look at him, and even though he has an oxygen mask on, he tries to grin. Again? What the hell?
“Where are we going?” He asks Buck, not acknowledging the other people in the slightest. And Buck wants to scream, because this sure as hell looks like a concussion, and a bad one at that.
“To the hospital, Eddie.” He tries to keep his tone as steady as possible, even if he’s on the verge of panic. And it doesn’t help that, after a surprised oh, Eddie closes his eyes. Buck immediately starts freaking out.
“Hey, hey–” the paramedic calls for him. “Buckley, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Let us do our jobs. He’s gonna be fine.”
Buck is partly reassured and partly irritated. “How do you know that? There’s no power!” He blurts out, even if he’ll probably be embarrassed about that later.
“Hospitals have generators, you know?” The woman, Miles, reminds him. Not unkindly, but she’s a bit annoyed. Buck sees it. And he feels kind of dumb.
He huffs, praying for Eddie to open his eyes again, but eventually they reach the hospital before he can ask for another update and risk being kicked out of a moving ambulance, and Eddie’s eyes are open again.
“Oh, thank fuck,” he mutters, exhaling in a huff.
He follows Miles and helps her drag the stretcher inside even if that would be the responsibility of her partner (he’ll send some steaks to the 133 probably) and is relieved when the head nurse lets him stay.
The ER is swamped with patients because of the inconveniences caused by the power outage and Buck’s eyes dart around like crazy, hoping to get someone to look at Eddie. He would scream, say something absolutely insane like “why isn’t anyone examining Eddie? He’s Eddie, for fuck’s sake!” So he just stands awkwardly at Eddie’s bedside.
He feels so hopeless but then Eddie groans and he immediately steps closer to the bed, ridding himself of his radio (still strapped to his chest since the call) to focus on his friend.
“Hey, Eddie.”
Buck guesses Eddie got lucky with the lights because they are all emergency lights and that means the cubicle is barely lit, but he’s been whacked pretty bad, so that can’t be much.
“Buck?”
“Yeah, it’s– it’s me. How do you feel?”
Buck does his best to keep his stuttering at bay but he is still fretting.
“Head–” Eddie murmurs, lifting a hand that seems to be directed at his temples. “Hurts.” He sounds so suspicious, as if he had forgotten the last thirty minutes or so, and Buck, for a split second, wonders if that’s the case.
“I bet,” he chuckles lovingly, before placing the back of his hand, of his fingers, on Eddie’s cheek, for no other reason than needing to touch.
That seems to send a jolt through Eddie’s whole body. He tries to get up but then changes his mind. “Dizzy.”
Well, from smiling like an idiot to one-word sentences… progress, Buck thinks.
“I’ll get a nurse, okay?”
Even if he has to drag a nurse himself to Eddie’s bed, he’ll make sure his friend is looked over. And he doesn’t care about how childish that thought is.
Eddie barely nods.
“Okay, mister Diaz,” the nurse addresses Eddie first, then turns to Buck and adds “Buckley,” nodding, to acknowledge his presence, and he’s ready to fire question after question when Eddie interrupts him.
“Wait, what? Buck– Buckley? Why?”
His face is scrunched up so adorably that Buck has to keep his lips in check to not break into a smile. “What do you mean why?”
The nurse is following the whole exchange as if it were a tennis match but Eddie now looks more and more worried by the minute.
“If I am Diaz, why are you Buckley?” He slurs, sending a jolt of electricity through Buck’s veins.
Oh God.
“I– because, I mean– what do you remember? You remember who I am?” Buck is basically gasping for air at this point, making his voice sound downright funny.
A thousand thoughts stroll behind Eddie’s eyes, and Buck sees them. Buck knows that look, it’s Eddie’s I am concentrating look, so he trusts that something good will come out of that. But then— “I don’t… I don’t know? I– but I know you, I promise!”
Eddie looks so confused and somewhat nervous but he is not panicking. It seems like he’s finding this whole thing amusing while Buck is about to lose it.
“Is this normal? Can you go get a doctor? Now? Please? His head–” Buck physically shakes his head, in a desperate attempt to get his thoughts under control. “A scan? Yeah, he needs a CT scan, an MRI mayb–”
“Sir, I understand your concern but–”
“We work together! Yes!” Eddie chooses that moment to have his epiphany, blessing the cubicle with a blinding grin, satisfied with his deduction.
Buck observes him for a beat before turning back to the nurse, exasperated, begging. “Please.”
“Okay,” the nurse raises both hands, in a placating gesture, “listen, we’re, uh– emergency protocol requires no computers so…”
Trailing off and retrieving a pen, the man turns to Eddie, asking for his name and date of birth. Eddie seems okay with answering the questions until they reach his address.
“What do you mean?” He looks so confused it’s honestly hilarious. If only Buck weren’t scared shitless.
“Where do you live?” The nurse explains at the same time as Buck opens his arms and all but yells “You see this? Oh God, it’s like he became stupid!”
Well, not so smooth, Buckley, he reminds himself a moment later.
The other man chuckles slightly while Eddie looks downright offended. “South Bedford Street, yeah, there we live. Right, Buck?”
He turns his concerned eyes to his best friend, even if he doesn’t exactly remember what their relationship is. He is fairly sure they are dating but he also knows that Buck is the best friend he’s ever had. Either way, he might be confused as fuck but he is sure that he trusts Buck like he knows the sky is blue.
Buck, on his part, looks so defeated, opens and closes his mouth twice before giving up. “Ye– yeah, 4995 South Bedford Street,” he tells the nurse.
“Blood type?” Unimpressed, the man goes on, eyes flickering between Buck and Eddie.
Buck can’t stop observing his friend. Eddie’s skin is flushed, unnaturally so. His eyes, darting around the room are unfocused and dazed, and even though he seems to be coherent enough, Buck can see that he is confused as hell, and would lie if he said that it makes him antsy.
“Blood type,” Eddie repeats and Buck is honest enough to admit that if it were any other person in Eddie’s place, he’d probably laugh. Especially since he looks so serious now, as if he’s concentrating really, really hard.
“Yeah, sir, what’s your blood type?”
“Oh… yeah, I think I know that, yeah.”
The nurse nods, still patient, still gentle, Buck is positively impressed. “Okay?”
“O-negative. O-negative, I think,” Eddie confidently says. At least as confidently as he can, in his altered state.
Buck is sure they must be quite a sight. Eddie looks disheveled and disoriented, he is standing at his bedside with his arms along his torso, face pale with worry. And this poor man, the nurse, trying to do his best.
And it’s so hot that Buck would scream, with no air conditioning at all, but he can’t focus on how he feels, because Eddie looks at him like a deer caught in the headlights, somewhat scared but also so trusting.
“He knows, ask him,” he tells the nurse, while indicating Buck with an uncoordinated finger.
He looks tired and Buck would like to smooth his hair back and kiss his forehead, give him something for the pain, and love the discomfort away. He loves him so much his heart aches.
“Yeah, O-negative. Do you need his allergies?”
He decides to make it easy on both the working man and his best friend, and starts listing Eddie’s allergies like it’s second nature for him to be in this position. Eddie grins, looking at him so dazed, baffled and so in love. “He’s so good, isn’t he?” He says out loud, to no one in particular.
Buck flushes so fast that he wonders how long it’ll take for him to be admitted too.
“Okay, insurance number? Sir, do you happen to–”
He doesn’t let the chuckling nurse finish the question before he’s dictating the number.
“Thanks.”
Buck nods, uselessly drying the sweat off his forehead. “Anything else?”
He’s fully stepped up now, deciding that Eddie can use a bit of rest and Eddie’s only reaction is looking at him dreamily, lips curved in a goofy grin.
“Just… his emergency contact? We might need to call them.”
Buck blushes, but Eddie beats him.
“It’s him!” Cheerfully he exclaims, pointing his whole hand at Buck. “He knows everything,” then he adds but his satisfied smirk is soon replaced by a frown. He suddenly squints, despite the dimmed lighting, turns his face on the pillow to catch Buck’s eyes and even tries to tug at his forearm with a trembling hand.
Buck’s heart rate doubles on the spot. “Hey, what’s wrong?” His hand goes up to stroke a nonsensical pattern on his shoulder.
“My head.”
“What about it?”
“It’s exploding, Buck.”
Eddie’s look is pure pain and Buck hates that he knows that feeling. He knows that Eddie’s stomach is probably churning with every throb of his skull and that he probably feels completely out of it, the mental fog weighing down on his cognitive abilities. And he hates it, he’d switch places with him in a heartbeat.
“I’m sorry, they’re gonna get you something for the pain and you’ll be okay. Alright?” He whispers, in the hope of sounding as soothing as possible.
Turning to the nurse, he musters all of his strength. “Please, can you give him something? He’s in pain, you heard him.”
He would explain to the man that he is a respectful and chill guy but if Eddie is in pain or danger, he stops functioning. Nothing personal. That’s it. He’s insane like that.
Luckily for all the parts involved, they soon give Eddie a small dose of morphine for the pain, and then promise to take him for a CT scan in the next ten minutes or so.
Buck is sure that by now the whole hospital staff knows that a firefighter has been admitted and there’s a madman with him but he doesn’t care. He just wants to get out of the ER, wants Eddie to be okay, wants electricity to be restored, and wants to forget all about today. He’s sweating in places he didn’t think he could sweat, vibrating with worry and something else that makes his heart flutter.
Eddie keeps looking at him with this look, as if Buck were his safe place, his favorite person. As though he could always trust Buck, no matter what, even when he is half out of it, he remembers that he can trust Buck and Buck’s heart is all over the place for that. He doesn’t know how to react. Is it possible that Eddie feels the same way about him? It certainly looks like he does.
“Sit,” a small voice murmurs, and it takes a moment for Buck to realize that it was Eddie who spoke.
“Who needs to sit?” He asks, leaning over the mattress with a pressed knee, despite still having his uniform pants on. He’s lost his turnout coat somewhere between the scene of the call and the hospital. He doesn’t remember.
Eddie tries to lift a hand but he doesn’t seem able, and his eyelids are drooping. “Sit,” he repeats, while Buck frowns. “With me.”
Oh.
“I should sit with you?”
Eddie is so confused. Why shouldn’t his boyfriend sit with him? Or… oh, are they just friends? He needs to fix that. Maybe he should ask Buck. Buck has all the answers! Buck knows everything. He trusts Buck and Buck is beautiful.
But he doesn’t have enough strength to tell him as much. Instead, he nods.
“Buck,” he repeats, barely coherent.
Buck sits on the tiny space on the edge of the bed, just resting his weight so that Eddie feels his presence.
Then his heart aches, because Eddie uncoordinatedly reaches for his hand and “Stay Buck,” mutters.
“O– of c– course I’m staying,” he immediately tells Eddie. “I’m not leaving.”
“How do you feel now?” He asks, despite Eddie being the exact opposite of mentally alert. He indulges his need to touch his friend, to feel his skin under his fingertips, so eventually he just takes Eddie’s hand and gently strokes the back of it casually.
“Nice.”
“Nice?” Buck’s scrunched-up face makes Eddie laugh.
“Like you, nice.” Eddie grins.
Oh. So he’s back to deliriously happy. Great. Buck is fucked.
“Like me,” he chuckles. “They gave you the good stuff, huh?”
“Hot stuff,” then Eddie winks at him and… falls asleep.
One second he was flirting— was he? — with him, and the next his eyes are closed. Just like that.
Okay— so, grade three concussion. That is the worst outcome but as there’s no internal bleeding, Buck will take that gladly.
When Eddie is wheeled back into his cubicle, Buck is outside, standing vigil and alert, worrying at his lips mercilessly. And he wastes no time, rushing back to Eddie’s bedside.
“Hey,” he softly mumbles, mindful that Eddie doesn’t need more noise than the amount the ER can provide, and waits for his friend to acknowledge him.
When Eddie meets his gaze, his eyes are a little more alert but his dopey, lopsided smile tells Buck everything he needs to know. He braces himself for the next embarrassing thing Eddie’s surely going to say.
“Hi, I missed you.”
Buck’s heart pounds against his ribs so hard that they could easily break, for all he knows. Eddie was hit by a piece of concrete and he will be the one who dies, if his friend doesn’t stop acting like he’s in love with him. How could he possibly be?
“I– I– ye– yeah, yeah, definitely.”
Definitely? God. Buck mentally smacks himself.
“Definitely.” Eddie just repeats his words, doesn’t seem to notice how flustered he’s made Buck. How speechless he has rendered him, how warm all over Buck is feeling.
A neurologist interrupts them before Buck can sit back down on the edge of the mattress. She is there to examine Eddie, assessing his symptoms before recommending a treatment plan.
Part of her examination consists of asking about past concussions, and that seems to further confuse Eddie.
He immediately looks over to where Buck is but Buck stepped out when they asked him to so he doesn’t hear anything.
“Eddie?” Doctor Silva, the neurologist, asks again, noticing the faraway look in her patient’s eyes.
It’s still dark outside the cubicle and that doesn’t help ease Buck’s anxiety.
“I think this is the… third one?” Eddie still can’t fully focus. He knows he can’t. He feels crushed by a suffocating fog that prevents his brain from working. He needs Buck to help him. Buck always helps. That’s crystal clear.
“Okay, you are not sure,” the doctor states, even if it sounds more like a question, giving Eddie a minute or two to think about it.
Eventually, he shakes his head. “You should ask Buck, he knows,” tells the woman. “Ask Buck.”
She frowns, looking at the nurse who’s on the other side of the bed. “Buck, as in…” she wonders out loud.
“That man there,” the male nurse tells her, and by pointing at him, he invites Buck to come closer, to get back into the cubicle. “He’s a great boyfriend,” then he comments, teasing but also sweet, genuine, and Buck chokes on his spit, all red and flustered.
Good thing he’s already sweating.
He wants to correct the nurse but Eddie beats him to it. “Oh, gracias, I couldn’t remember,” he exhales, as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders, mouth stretched into a soft, relieved smile.
“Oh,” he stammers, “no, Eddie, I’m really not–”
Eddie fondly shushes him with a flick of his hand. “Come on, Buck, you are,” amusedly he tells Buck.
Eddie feels giddy knowing that he was right, Buck is his boyfriend. He knew he loves him. And he is a great boyfriend, or Eddie wouldn’t trust him so blindly.
Buck on the other hand looks like he’s about to combust.
“I–”
“Tell them that you are, say it.”
Eddie looks so serious, almost offended on his behalf because Buck dares to imply he is not a good boyfriend, and it’s honestly amusing but Buck is about to vomit all over the place, no matter how out of it Eddie is right now.
“Okay, fine, I am.”
What can he do? At least Eddie seems genuinely happy with his admission.
“Buck.”
They are alone in a room that is decidedly more comfortable than an ER cubicle, as Eddie has to stay the night and Buck would never leave his side. Buck was honestly sure Eddie was asleep but apparently he is not.
“Yeah, Eds?” He mumbles around a yawn.
“I don’t remember much,” Eddie whispers, as if it were some kind of secret.
Buck sighs, leans on the bed with his elbows, propped up on his palms. “It’s the concussion, you’ll get back to normal soon, you’re doing better already.”
“Hm…”
“I remember things, people, feelings, but I can’t remember how things happened, it’s… weird,” Eddie tries to explain, then closes his eyes. “Doesn’t make sense I guess.”
“It does. You’re all…” Buck vaguely gestures around, “foggy.” And it’s so cute that Eddie can’t help the fondness that bursts out in his chest. Gosh, his boyfriend is so cute. How did he get him?
He doesn’t remember, right.
“You’re cute.” He’s chuckling when he informs Buck of his opinion and he might be concussed but he sees the way Buck blushes and basically stops functioning every time he praises him.
Buck splutters something, abashed and embarrassed and he decides that he wants to see more of that. So as soon as he notices that Buck is falling asleep, with his cheek squished against the edge of the bed he taps his shoulder to get his attention.
“Love you, Buck.”
Buck, as predicted, goes completely red in two seconds flat, then feigns composure before smiling and going back to sleep.
Then, however, as Eddie is on his way to a peaceful morphine induced slumber, he hears something. He’s pretty sure it’s a “love you, Eds.” Either way, he feels kinda loopy all the same. There’s a contented expression on his face when he does fall asleep.
When Eddie wakes up in the morning, he takes note of several things. The blackout must have ended because all the lights are on and the hum of the generators is replaced by the faint hum of the air conditioning system, and the air is comfortably chilly, there’s an offending weight on his right arm, trapping him to the bed, and he feels so much better, more alert and conscious.
Maybe it’s the last part of his realizations that he should focus on, but the moment he lays eyes on the curly-haired man who’s softly snoring using his arm as a makeshift pillow, the whole world slowly fades away.
Everything is coming back to him. The power outage, Buck complaining about the heat, the call, that bonk on his head, and— oh, God. Oh fuck. Oh. He really embarrassed himself.
Buck is never going to forgive him. Buck is going to leave as soon as he wakes up. How embarrassing.
He basks in the quiet of the early morning hours, the low, almost imperceptible buzz coming from outside his room, far from the usual hospital commotion, and takes a long look at the man he loves. Buck is so good, so, so good that he stayed the night even though Eddie most certainly made him uncomfortable with his assumptions and Eddie’s heart clenches.
He would love to just sink his fingers in the man’s curls, but Buck is heavy on his hand, so he has to settle for looking, wishing he could touch, and kiss, and hold.
And it goes on for some time, a bunch of minutes, ticking by slowly and yet not slowly enough. An eternity wouldn’t be enough, for Eddie. That’s his truth.
Then, all of a sudden, Buck jolts awake, sitting up clumsily and flinching in pain because of the uncomfortable position he slept in. “Oh, Eddie,” he surprised mutters, rubbing the sleep off his eyes with two cute (if you ask Eddie) fists.
“Hey, Buck.” Eddie’s tender smile has a life of its own, but he doesn’t mind. He lets the love flow.
“You, uh, how are you feeling?” Buck hoarsely whispers. “Sorry– I, uh, I was sleeping on your arm.” He flinches, dragging a hand through his unruly curls. And— is he blushing? Eddie is fairly certain that he saw a blush creep up on Buck’s face. But why?
“No worries,” he retorts. “I’m okay. I mean, my head is still throbbing but I don’t feel like someone put my brain in a washing machine.”
Eddie lightly cackles and Buck is hit with the need to kiss that sound out of his mouth. Maybe that’s why he suddenly looks like a gaping fish.
“Buck?”
“Sorry,” Buck clears his throat, “well, that’s– that’s good, I’m getting a doctor, wait a–”
Eddie grabs his wrist before Buck can get up. “Buck… I’m sorry.”
His heart feels simultaneously lighter and heavy, because this is it. But then, as he is diverting his eyes, Buck surprises him by sitting on the edge of the bed. “What?”
Eddie shrugs. “I made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry about that.”
Buck’s eyes double in size. “What? No, you didn’t, I was just worried. Like, I think I’ll be banned from this hospital.”
He tries to sound funny but he can’t really look at Eddie because he has to face the truth, the fact that Eddie wasn’t really alert, isn’t really his.
“Buck, c’mon,” Eddie huffs. “You can’t even look at me, I’m not high anymore, you know?” Teases.
“You’ve never been high,” Buck laughs and his heart stops when Eddie wraps clammy fingers around his forearm.
“Okay,” Eddie tells him calmly. “Will you look at me then?”
When Buck grants his wish, a nuclear-like explosion erupts in his chest, because Eddie is looking at him with such fondness that it’s taking the air out of his lungs.
“Eddie?”
“I was out of it, like,” Eddie chuckles, “completely out of it.”
“Yeah, I know, don’t wo–”
“But I mean it, every word.”
Buck hears the voice echo in his head, his own heart thumping wildly. His hands go clammy and cold and he barely manages to keep them still.
“You…” he squints, “m– mean it?”
He can’t stop the squeak that escapes his lips and he should be offended by Eddie’s laugh but he isn’t.
Eddie nods, drags him down, until Buck has to hold himself up with his other hand to not crush his friend. “Eddie,” he exhales, completely out of breath.
Eddie is so close that he can have a front row seat for the show that the light freckles on his face are, can see the specks of caramel and gold in his brown irises, and can feel the way Eddie inhales and exhales. For a second, he swears they share the same rhythm. Then his heartbeat spikes because Eddie surges forward for just an inch, but it’s enough to feel his breath, hot on his lips.
“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same but I really lov–”
Buck interrupts Eddie’s sentence mid-confession because he can’t go another second without knowing what his lips taste like. He dives headfirst into his best friend’s mouth, capturing it with purpose, pouring all of his love into each kiss.
Kissing Eddie is something incredible, but kissing Eddie while knowing that Eddie loves him? It’s something he couldn’t fathom even in his wildest dreams.
“Buck,” Eddie pants, while one of his hands starts a journey of its own through the other man’s curls, and Buck’s only response is a shower of teeny tiny kisses he lays on his mouth. And then on the corner of his mouth, and then the tip of his nose, and the center of his forehead, and then the hollow beneath his jaw.
“Buck.”
Buck trails upwards, getting back to his lips, while Eddie’s back involuntarily arches, desperately trying to find some sort of relief, but sadly, that’s the moment a nurse comes barging into the room.
“Oh please.” She looks borderline murderous while both Buck and Eddie are so embarrassed they could cry.
Buck pulls away first, sitting up immediately. “Sorry, I– I am so sorry,” he starts stuttering and when he sees the nurse cross her arms and tilt her head, he moves farther away, sitting on the chair.
And Eddie knows he shouldn’t laugh but the whole scene is so amusing, because Buck is a six-foot-two firefighter built like a brick house and the nurse is a tiny young girl and Buck looks terrified.
“Eddie,” Buck literally pouts when he hears him laughing, while the nurse looks nonplussed.
“You must be the boyfriend,” she tells Buck, exasperated, arms wide open for a more serious effect. “You’ve been a nightmare, let me tell you.”
Eddie straight up bursts out laughing. He literally laughs his head off, earning a bewildered look from both the nurse and his friend.
“Please keep the… funny activities down to a minimum.”
With that final warning, the nurse leaves and Buck knows he should be pissed because of Eddie’s guffaw, but he is completely hopeless against the huge goofy grin that breaks free as soon as they are alone.
“Boyfriend, huh?” Eddie suggestively asks, voice cracking from the previous kissing, and Buck goes weak in the knees, blushing violently.
“How did you terrorize the hospital staff this time?”
Buck pretends to be offended, clutching his chest for dramatic effect. “I did not terrorize the hospital staff.”
He is pouting, he is aware of that, but Eddie is teasing him and almost certainly loves him, and his life has never been better.
“Oh I’m sure you did, but why do they think you’re my boyfriend?” Eddie keeps teasing him, grinning like an idiot.
Buck laughs, happy. “That’s your fault, man.”
“Don’t call me man, your tongue was in my mouth ten seconds ago,” Eddie scolds him.
“My tongue was nowhere near your mouth,” Buck playfully retorts. “In fact,” he hops on the mattress again, sliding his fingers beneath Eddie’s head, playing with his hair. “I think we should fix that right now.”
“The nurse said no funny business, Buck,” Eddie reminds him, even if he’s leaning forward already, brushing Buck’s lips with his own.
“When have you known me for following the rules, babe?”
Eddie laughs and Buck drinks it all in.
Buck’s life is good, for once. It’s right there in his arms.