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"You look terrible."
Buck looked up from where he had been staring blankly into his mug of coffee to meet Ravi's eyes. Ravi was staring at him with a slight frown, a hint of concern behind his teasing tone.
"Good morning to you too, Rav," Buck muttered, dropping his gaze and taking a sip of his coffee. It wasn't how he usually liked it, with enough cream and sugar to satisfy his sweet tooth and get him teased by his teammates. No, lately he'd started drinking it black. He didn't really like it, but he was drinking it for the caffeine, not the taste.
It was the start of another long day in an endless stream of long days. Every day had felt horrendously long since the lab.
Since Bobby had died.
"Have you gone home at all since our last shift?" Hen asked as she joined them in the kitchen, starting to pour her own mug of coffee.
"No, he hasn't," Eddie huffed, coming in right behind her. Buck rolled his eyes as Ravi laughed.
"You sound like a disgruntled housewife," Ravi said, making Hen laugh too.
"Ha ha," Eddie said flatly. "Keep laughing, Panikkar. It's your ass on the line if he's exhausted and off his game."
That shut Ravi up, but Buck gave Eddie a scowl. "I am not off my game. Picking up extra shifts doesn't mean I'm not sleeping."
He hadn't been sleeping, but none of them needed to know that. He just couldn't bear the nightmares. Every time he fell asleep, he was right back at that lab, watching his loved ones die. It wasn't always Bobby, sometimes it was one of the others on the 118. Sometimes it was even more irrational, with Maddie or Christopher behind that glass. It was only when he passed out from sheer exhaustion that his subconscious stopped torturing him.
"I think he said that because of those bags under your eyes, Buckaroo," Hen said, tone a little more gentle than it usually would be. "You do look pretty tired."
"I'm fine," Buck snapped, and he felt a flash of guilt at the startled look on Hen's face. He knew it wasn't fair, how irritable he was lately. It just got worse with every sleepless night or back to back shift, but he couldn't stop. Staying still wasn't an option.
He was like a shark. If he stopped moving, he'd suffocate. Well, technically only some sharks had to keep swimming to breathe, like great whites and whale sharks and—
Buck's wandering thoughts—which were always worse when he wasn't sleeping enough, since lack of sleep exacerbated the symptoms of what was definitely undiagnosed ADHD—were interrupted by the bell ringing, signaling they had a call. He downed the rest of his coffee, trying not to frown at the taste, before hurrying downstairs to gear up with the others.
-
The first half of their 24 hour shift goes by quickly, a steady stream of calls keeping them busy all day. Buck is glad for it, glad to be kept distracted and out of his head. Glad that his team is kept busy, too busy to pay close enough attention to him to see the way his own sharp edges were making him bleed.
It was late now, everyone else having retired to the bunk room to catch some sleep between calls. Buck knew better than to try and sleep yet. Despite the fact that he was going on a little over two full days without sleep, he knew he wasn't exhausted enough yet to avoid the nightmares.
He sat in the loft instead, sprawled out on one of the couches and reading an article on his phone. It wasn't one of his usual pointless research binges, where he started with a random subject and let himself go down a rabbit hole. Those were fun, he usually ended up learning about some weird animal or obscure historic event.
His current obsession was decidedly less fun. Lately, all of his sleepless nights had been spent researching different viruses. He had started with Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, naturally.
Buck was so deeply focused on the article he was reading about Rift Valley Fever—something that hardly affected humans and was more of a livestock issue, but was interesting nonetheless—that he didn't hear the footsteps coming up the stairs or pausing and then coming towards the couch. It wasn't until a hand fell to his shoulder that he noticed Eddie's presence, almost jumping out of his skin.
"Don't sneak up on me like that," Buck huffed, one hand pressing to his chest as if to calm his now racing heart as his other hand went to pick up his phone from where it had dropped into his lap.
"Why are you up?" There was an accusatory edge to Eddie's voice that had Buck tensing immediately. If he was a little more present and rational, he'd shut this down. He didn't want to argue with Eddie, he never did.
"Could ask you the same question," Buck shot back, tone entirely too snippy. He straightened where he sat on the couch and looked at Eddie, who was frowning at him with poorly hidden irritation.
"You don't have to be a dick," Eddie muttered, apparently also trying to avoid an argument but unable to keep himself quiet. Buck's shoulders slumped slightly, because he knew he was being a dick and it wasn't fair, just like when he'd snapped at Hen earlier. "I came up for some water. Can't sleep."
"Can't sleep either," Buck mumbled, looking back down at his phone.
"You never tried," Eddie pointed out, and even in his miserable and half-dazed state of sleep deprivation, Buck could appreciate that the other man was trying to soften his tone a bit. He let out a heavy sigh, trying to tamp down the automatic flaring of his temper.
"Yeah, I uh… I know how it goes by now," Buck tried to explain, looking away as he let out a yawn.
"So you've just given up on sleeping?" Eddie asked incredulously, moving to sit beside Buck on the couch. Buck straightened up a bit so he wasn't taking up as much space.
"No, I just…" Buck sighed again, knowing what he was about to say was going to sound bad.
"Nightmares," Eddie guessed, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned into the back of the couch comfortably. "If you don't sleep, you can't have nightmares."
It was annoying, sometimes, the way Eddie just seemed to have an innate understanding of Buck's brain. "Yeah, nightmares," Buck muttered, looking down at his phone so he didn't have to meet Eddie's gaze. "They don't happen if I get myself good and exhausted."
"This isn't sustainable, Buck. Not sleeping, overworking yourself—"
"I'm fine," Buck insisted immediately, earning himself an eye roll.
"You're not," Eddie snapped quietly, clearly failing to push down his temper.
"I really don't wanna argue, Eds," Buck said quietly, too tired for his own temper to even flare again in response. Buck could see the way Eddie softened—everything from his eyes to the tension in his shoulders.
Eddie let out a soft sigh. "You need to sleep, Buck."
"I know." Buck hated how small his own voice sounded. "I just… I can't." There's something pleading to his tone, begging Eddie to understand. He does, of course. No one had ever understood Buck the way Eddie seemed to.
"What were you reading when I came up?" Eddie asked instead of pressing the issue, leaning into Buck's side to look down at his phone.
Which is how Buck ended up quietly reading Wikipedia articles out loud until Eddie slumped against his shoulder, asleep, and Buck himself followed not long after.