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This one had been called in as they were sitting down to dinner. Buck shoved a forkful of loaded baked potato in his mouth and raced down the stairs with a cloud of steam billowing behind him like some kind of vegetarian dragon. The team rolled their eyes, but Hen had a carrot held between her teeth and Eddie hadn’t finished chewing the single bite of steak he’d torn off the bone before leaving the table. There was no knowing how long they’d be gone, but they could count on at least a couple of hours if it wasn’t a false alarm.
Nearly ten years in and Buck still never hoped for a false alarm. So much of the job was made up of medical emergencies and accidents and rescues (which often had their own merits especially when they got to put the big equipment to use). They spent the most time of all endlessly waiting and even more endlessly cleaning up. A fire–a structure fire–spilled adrenaline into his blood like nothing else. The chance to put one out and maybe save a life was more than worth a late, cold dinner.
“Neighbors say we’ve got as many as three inside,” Chimney said, when they all reconvened on the front lawn after conducting an initial reconnaissance of the scene. “Parents and a kid. They’ve been calling but no one’s been picking up.”
It was a grim pronouncement. The initial call had come from the neighbors as well and Buck hadn’t caught any sign of faces in the windows of the house as he and Bobby had circled around it and made note of entrances, exits, and escaping flames. The fire was already active on both floors of the two-story house, taking full advantage of the head start it had been given and doing its best to chase them off the field before the game even got started.
Bobby nodded and added, “I want a ladder on the east side of the house if there’s room to maneuver. If the stairs inside aren’t already compromised, we can’t count on them to stay that way. Buck, Eddie, you know the drill. Be fast, be alert, be ready to get out if I call you out.”
Another engine was already pulling up behind them, other firefighters climbing out who would handle the hose lines and try to beat back the fire with water outside and in. Buck strapped his mask in place and took ten seconds of his forty-five minutes of air to shut his eyes and breathe calmness into his body. When he opened them again, he was looking into the mirror of Eddie’s face, reflecting all the confidence, determination, and reassurance that Buck hoped to project himself.
“Ready?” Eddie’s arm asked as he held it in familiar position in front of his chest.
Buck answered with a solid press of his own forearm against Eddie’s, wordless affirmation and starting gun, before they strode to the door and burst inside.
Every fire was different and every fire was the same. It was hot. It was dark. And it was smoky. Beyond that, the scene was a mystery that would unfold as they walked through it and they could only hope that they stayed observant enough and reactive enough to make it through with their lives.
As they crossed the threshold of this one, a moving shadow suddenly tore away from the stationary ones. “Watch out!” Buck shouted, shoving Eddie hard, trying to create a path for the huge muscular dog who did not bother to slow down when it reached them. It barreled first into and then through Buck’s legs, snarling as it got snagged on the bulky fabric of his pants, and Buck’s heart had just enough time to jump into his throat before the dog wiggled through and threw itself out the front door.
They waited, frozen in place but no other lifeforms followed the first down the hallway and Buck finally nodded to Eddie (All good; Keep going) who led them up the stairs.
Heat rose as they did. The smoke grew thicker and blacker and heavier as the fire continued to consume and transform from within the walls. Their flashlights worked more like fog lights when it was like this, useless for seeing the road but giving them half a chance of being seen by each other and any potential victims in the dark.
“LAFD!” Eddie bellowed.
“Anybody here?”
“Hey! Firefighters!”
“Make some noise! We’ll come find you!”
They cleared a bedroom to the immediate right of the stairs, finding no one as they poked under the bed and tore open closet doors. The bed was made and there was no mess to step over or around on the floor, but Buck couldn’t tell if that meant the occupant was neat or if no one used the room regularly at all. That was always the problem with talking to neighbors. Even neighbors who knew each others’ names. They couldn’t tell Buck which room was which or who slept in what bed. Was there a woman in a home office, working with noise-cancelling headphones and a focus that wouldn’t break until smoke was already running like a river under her door? Another dog in a kennel whose whine sounded too much like the creak of floorboards that were weakening every minute?
Smoke was technically air, but it clung onto his boots like muddy terrain, slowing him down, and Buck could feel the movement of the little arrow on his oxygen monitor without seeing it. Sweat dripped down his neck. His radio crackled against his chest, documenting other movement around the house and no other successes had by any other firefighters and tried not to think about the last time he’d been in a house so quiet where a fire had been burning for so long.
It got hotter. Two doors stood opposite each other in the hallway. Eddie found the one on the left first and was already tapping Buck’s arm to get his attention when Buck found the second and met him in the middle. Under no circumstances were they supposed to split up. But there was no harm in opening both doors and seeing which were rooms worth searching and which were tiny closets hiding no more than dirty laundry.
It was a plan they'd executed together often enough that there was no need to discuss it. They turned away from each other and turned their knobs at the same time, pausing for a quarter beat at the open doors to see if the fire noticed their movements and would rise up in a roar at the changing air flow.
“LAFD!” Buck shouted once he was sure he wasn't about to be chargrilled. “Anybody here?”
The room was dripping with orange and red flame. It traveled up from the floor and the original ignition point below–kitchen, probably–and was climbing up the walls and the drapes around the windows. Buck saw it all in a single snapshot, the fire, the smoke, the man on his hands and knees screaming as he swatted at the flames with a blanket.
“Hey!”
The man turned toward Buck's voice and his soot-blackened face was contorted in pain and fear. He raised a hand to point at the wall Buck couldn't see around the door and tried to swallow a scream to say something, but he didn’t stand up. As the smoke swirled, Buck saw a red canister lying discarded on the floor. A fire extinguisher.
Of all the things that Buck saw on the job–blood and bone, final breaths, pain and suffering and filth and horror–it was these moments that slipped between his ribs and threatened to build a permanent ache there in his chest. It came in the form of frantic cpr done on blue and stiff bodies, of hands trying to stem the flow of blood from a wound that had already emptied and unrecoverable number of liters onto the ground, and desperate attempts to suffocate flames that had already stolen too much oxygen from the room. Sometimes the person knew that their cause was lost. Other times, they couldn’t see it for themselves and Buck had to be the one to gently pull away the last bit of hope and stand there as the full weight of the tragedy finally crashed down on them. It was as evil as he ever felt.
However much this man understood about the hopelessness of his situation, Buck didn’t have time to be gentle or ease him through it. He was losing his home, but he was alive and, if Buck had any say in it at all, he was going to keep it that way.
“Come on, get up; we’ve gotta go! Eddie!” Buck turned back to the doorway to wave at Eddie waiting in the hall. “I’ve got one!”
Buck never saw what caused the explosion. It was a little funny the way being blown off his feet felt almost familiar.
In the fuzzy in between of consciousness, Buck lay in a bathtub. His ears rang so loud that everything around him was silent. His head was never silent, not ever, and so the non-sound scared him, a fear clawing painlessly into his mind. He was bent somehow over the edge, his shoulders slumped toward the floor, and he could see his helmet like an upside down turtle spinning in the rubble.
He reached for it as he frowned and his fingers seemed to spin too, wobbling and whirling in the too-dark room. Had he fallen asleep? Was he drunk? Where? Buck squeezed his eyes shut tight and pain shot through his temple. It was the first sensation that felt awake and he chased it, pressing his hand against the spot until a groan rumbled through his chest.
“Buck!”
Only the sensation of exclamation broke through his cobwebbed head. Otherwise Eddie’s shout was soundless, consonants and contractions getting tangled up somewhere in the air.
He landed hard on his knees, carefully, cautiously, quickly, grasping Buck’s shoulders to lift and turn him enough to see his face. Buck met his eyes only to be instantly startled by the raw fear waiting there. He grasped for something to say, but his throat burned around the sound. Words wouldn’t have gotten out even if his lips had been able to move to say them.
A flashlight in Eddie’s bare hand illuminated the way his lips were moving rapidly as he spoke words Buck couldn’t hear. He paused as if waiting for the answer to a question and Buck tried to reply, tried to hear, tried to move. Eddie was terrified and something was very wrong and Buck wanted to raise his arm and reassure him that he was okay, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t move.
The fear burrowed deeper. A strange cold slid down his spine like the tip of a finger tracing each vertebrae. His chest tightened, refusing to allow air in and Buck managed to thrash his head from side to side, willing a cough to clear his lungs.
With his hand still on Buck’s shoulder, Eddie said something clipped and decisive into the radio. The words had the determined calm that Eddie reached for when panic began to creep up on him and, as sound started to return to Buck’s ears, he could make out the tightness in every vowel. Buck ought to be standing beside him, leaning in close so Eddie knew he wasn’t alone, but even his attempt to push himself upright just resulted in pain shooting through his elbow and his body collapsing again against the tub.
Past Eddie and out the door, a rolling field of orange was all Buck could see. Memory fell into him sideways and he was suddenly sure that someone was on the other side of that flame, someone helpless and hurting.
“Ed-,” he rasped, swiping through the air for his attention. “E’ie.”
Abandoning the radio immediately, Eddie’s focus leapt back to Buck, rapidly scanning over his face for anything that had changed. His eyes lingered on Buck’s forehead, in the spot that ached and Buck noticed for the first time that there was a dark spot in his vision that he couldn’t clear with blinking.
“You’re alright,” Eddie promised, catching his wrist. “Just stay awake for me, okay? Don’t close your eyes again.”
No. Buck shook his head again and fought for enough control over his limbs to point out the door. Words wouldn’t come and he felt a whine try to kindle to life in his throat in place of them. He was there. He was right there. All Eddie had to do was cross the hall and instead he was speaking lowly to Buck, soothing him with a squeeze of his hand.
Get him! Go get him. He’s right there! The words which were so clear in Buck’s head came out garbled and abbreviated past the point of recognition. He ripped his hand free from Eddie’s at last and pointed, throwing every last bit of strength into gesturing where they needed to go. Sound continued to come back to him and under the rush and crack of fire, Buck was sure he could hear a scream.
Finally, Eddie turned his head to look over his shoulder and relief spread through Buck to the places where air still couldn’t reach. Eddie had it handled. Eddie would get the man out of the house and into the ambulance. It was going to be okay. In another minute, Buck’s coordination would come back and he’d get up and follow him.
Still, when Eddie stood, an unexpectedly sharp stab of fear cut through Buck’s ribs. It was one thing to know that Eddie needed to leave. Another to be resigned to waiting behind when the fire was growing hotter and thoughts were moving slowly and disjointedly around his aching head like the goo in a lava lamp.
The shadows on the wall shifted as Eddie clipped his flashlight to one of the utility rings on his coat. He picked his gloves up off the edge of the tub where Buck hadn’t even realized they were laying and Buck’s head lolled to the side, worn out from the sharp angle that looking up required. Eddie’s face was solemn and focused, the weight of the rescue on his shoulders alone now that Buck couldn’t help.
“I’m sorry,” Buck tried to say. “I’m trying.” But the words didn’t sound quite right in his ears.
Shutting his eyes against the effort that it took to concentrate, Buck tried again to move. He squeezed the edge of the tub with his arms and leaned into it, his knees sliding and struggling for purchase at the bottom. Broken tile shifted and clattered, but that was the only evidence that Buck was moving at all. He didn’t get anywhere close to lifting himself out and frustration slipped through his lips in a growl.
Then, Eddie was kneeling in front of him again, picking Buck’s helmet up off the floor, setting it gently on Buck’s head and clicking the strap tight beneath his chin.
His eyes were so big, so safe and familiar even while shaded with concern, that they took the edge off Buck’s growing agitation. The smallest of forced smiles tilted his lips up and Eddie said something that Buck missed while staring at his mouth and then he clasped a hand tightly on top of the helmet, making sure it was in position.
Stay safe, the gesture said.
“Eddie,” Buck tried to reply, but his tongue was heavy and his eyes were heavy and he couldn't fight them both. “Ed-” He tried anyway, lifting a hand as high as he could and grabbing for one of Eddie’s sleeves. It’s okay and don’t go warred in his heart and Buck tried to make his eyes say only the first part. He really didn't want to be alone. He wasn’t going to stop trying, but he couldn’t remember why he was stuck or why he couldn’t move and he had the lurking suspicion that it might be really bad. If Eddie walked away, he might not- Buck might- But it couldn't matter. Not when-
Next thing he knew, Eddie was grabbing the front of his coat and lifting. Buck’s arm and head and back screamed, but he was dead weight and he couldn’t stop his own momentum. Before Buck could kick or flail to try and catch his balance, Eddie caught him first, hoisting Buck higher until his top half flopped over Eddie’s back. They both wobbled for a minute while Eddie stabilized them both and stars strobed in Buck’s vision as he fought against the headrush that threatened to knock him out again.
They were clear of the door before Buck understood what was happening. He slapped a hand on Eddie’s back and tried to call out, “Hey. Hey! Wait!”
Eddie didn’t stop or reply. He carried Buck through the hot, dark, smoky hallway and didn’t turn back. The last thing that Buck heard before darkness swallowed it all was a long, loud scream.
It was a long, slow slog back to consciousness. The familiar scratch of the hospital blankets beneath Buck’s palms was the first sign of where he was. Then the uncaring glare of fluorescent lighting on the backs of his eyelids. The unnatural flow of oxygen into his open mouth. Then pain. It wasn’t hard to guess where he was when agony squeezed and burned and throbbed across his body and refused to be lulled back to sleep.
Once he recognized his surroundings and opened his eyes, the memories of how and why swooped in.
Everyone smiled when Buck’s first smoke-scorched words after waking up were, “Where’s Eddie?”
Reassurances flowed in immediately. Bumps and bruises. He was in way better shape than Buck. He’d stayed in the waiting room as long as he could, but Bobby ordered him home to shower and change and try to get some sleep. They’d call him and let him know Buck was awake. He was probably sitting up and waiting to hear the news.
Eddie smiled too when he burst into the room a few hours later. It bloomed over his face like a sunflower unfurling, broad and bright, and it would have hit the same tender spot in Buck’s heart that it always did when aimed directly at him, but, this time, there was too much smoke and debris in the way.
“Hey,” Eddie said, holding himself back from running across the room and closing the space between them gradually instead. “It’s about time you got up.”
Behind the smile, exhaustion hung from his features. A faint crease from his pillow was red on his forehead and his hair was limp and flat on one side like he’d slept on it wet from the shower. Buck couldn’t see any bruises beneath his long sleeve tee, but Eddie was moving stiffly despite his best efforts to hide it.
He was evaluating Buck too, taking in the sling holding his broken arm, the softly hissing nasal cannula under his nose, and the vicious bruising that was still holding his left eye mostly closed. Each wound registered with the flicker of a flinch in Eddie’s expression and if Buck hadn’t already known he was in pitiful shape, the lack of further teasing would have made it painfully obvious. He nearly instinctively said, I’m okay, the reflex to comfort others and to minimize himself too well-ingrained to be fully suppressed.
Instead he swallowed and what came out of his mouth was, “Did he die?”
Buck’s voice was rusty and muted after hours of dry air. When his half-mummified vocal chores vibrated it burned like he’d been gargling battery acid and a coughing fit overtook him almost before he got the words out.
Eddie heard him anyway. His body went still and his expression shuttered, locking down a reaction that Buck didn’t have time to interpret. Tightening his hands on the water bottle that he was carrying with him, he drew in a long breath and finally answered, “Yeah. A couple hours ago.”
It wasn’t a surprise, but the finality of those few words was heavy enough to knock the air from Buck’s lungs. Dead. And Buck was alive.
Working his jaw around the questions that he hadn’t fully been able to form even after hours of thinking about them, Buck swallowed again and winced.
“What was his name?”
“Mark. Holbrook.”
Mark Holbrook. Buck expected his name to feel like a blow too, but it was just a stranger’s name and his body didn’t react.
“Was anyone- Did anyone else-”
“No. He was the only one home except the dog and she’s fine. Mostly. They started a Go Fund Me for some vet bills.”
The memory of a shadow nudged Buck’s legs. He’d forgotten about the dog.
He waited for more, but Eddie didn’t elaborate. Didn’t offer any excuses or explanations. The silence hung around them and then, seeming to realize he was still holding it, Eddie held the water bottle out toward Buck. “I, uh, brought you this. I didn’t know if-”
“Is that really all you have to say?”
Pausing at the heat in Buck’s voice, Eddie slowly pulled the bottle back and set it on the bedside table. “What else do you want me to say?”
“He was alive,” Buck snapped. “He was trying to put out the fire with this shitty fucking kitchen extinguisher and he was alive! I told you he was alive!”
The words tore out of his throat and set off another round of coughing that ached through his ribs, but it wasn’t the lack of oxygen that had Buck’s fingers starting to tremble. Hours ago he and Mark Holbrook had both been alive and now Buck was sitting up in his hospital bed while the other man was destined for a closed coffin.
The incongruity of that was too big and too unfair and Buck hadn’t wanted to die, but he didn’t know how to be grateful for his outcome–for the choice that Eddie had made without asking or consulting him–when it meant that Mark was dead. A ferocious storm of emotions rolled over him, too quickly and too violently for Buck to recognize them as anger or guilt or grief, but betrayal was hot and shining and easy to grab.
“Did you hear him?” Buck asked as clouds of smoke started to crowd his vision and ringing like a siren took over his left ear. “You had to’ve. You knew exactly who I meant when I asked you if he died. Were you hoping I wouldn’t remember?”
It was only then that Eddie seemed to hear the accusatory tone of Buck’s voice. He tilted his head to the side and frowned as he asked, “Are you… actually mad at me right now? For saving your life?”
“Who says you did? I might have been fine!”
The force of Eddie’s replying scoff hit Buck like a slap. Rolling his eyes up to the ceiling, he added, “No, you wouldn't.”
“Well, I would have had a better chance than Mark!”
“You just spent twelve hours unconscious. What do you think another twenty minutes in that heat with that shit in the air would have done to you?” Eddie reminded him with a jab of his finger punctuating every point.
No one else had said it quite like that. Even when they explained the cause of the explosions and the injuries Buck was now carrying, they’d kept the story light–safe–the way they always talked about the times when they tiptoed close to death. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t supposed to matter. “Did you even try to get to him?”
“I called it in. You wouldn’t remember because you were knocked out at the time, but I did actually do my job.”
“But you didn’t look! You didn’t go see if he was worse off than me. You didn’t try to get him out!” Doubt crept in as he said it. Buck had no idea how long he’d been out for or what Eddie had done during that time for Mark or for him.
But Eddie didn’t deny it. He shook his head as an utterly humorless smile contorted his face and his hands clenched at his sides as he spat his reply, “I’m sorry. I was a little preoccupied with making sure you could breathe after an explosion from the cans of paint thinner he was keeping in a spare bedroom blew your mask off your face and threw you into the next room!”
“That’s not a reason to leave him behind! We-we-we don’t get to pick who we save. You’re just supposed to start with the person in front of you and go from there.”
“Yeah, well, you were the person in front of me.”
“I’m not the job. Mark-”
“Oh fuck the job! And fuck Mark!”
Both of their breaths trembled as the aftershocks of Eddie’s shout rippled through the room. Buck’s ears were ringing with them. He couldn’t speak as he stared wide-eyed at Eddie whose expression was as dark as Buck had ever seen it.
As he clenched his jaw and his fists, rapid, furious exhales that he didn’t bother trying to calm puffed from Eddie’s nose. His body seemed to ripple like shutters in a hurricane, barely holding back the brutal power of the storm. Then, when he spoke, it was with the careful, controlled cadence that meant Eddie was fighting to keep his sharpest words trapped in his mouth and only let out the ones he really meant.
Looking down and away from Buck, his voice was low and crystal clear as he said, “Do you think I don’t know what you look like when you’re dying? Do you think I could ever see that again and walk away from you? Do nothing?”
Eddie shook his head as his face contorted with the memory. It played out in tiny flickers across his face, a twitch in his jaw, in his cheek, a twist of his lips; a heartbreaking symphony of emotions. Then, when he took another sharp breath and opened his eyes again, he fixed Buck with the full weight of every one of them.
“I am sorry we couldn't get him out. And I don’t care if he was a priest or a heart surgeon or some innocent guy with the worst luck in the world. I don’t care if he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. It’s you, Buck. There was never a choice.”
It was a confession. Or, at least, as close to one as Eddie ever let himself get. Buck’s heartbeat pounded in his ears and the hospital room seemed to tilt and sway around him. Past and present bent on top of each other as Buck remembered another confession at another hospital when Eddie had handed him another piece of his heart as easily as he passed over a halligan. Trying to pretend like he didn’t know it would push Buck’s entire world off balance even though hiding it in the first place made it clear that he did.
“Wh- What are you saying?”
It’s you, Buck. It’s you. It’s you. It’s you.
This time Eddie’s smile was sad and he hid it with a rub of his hand over his face. “Nothing,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to matter.”
“Eddie-”
“I’m going to get out of your hair. I need- I can’t believe a nurse hasn’t busted in here already to yell at me for messing with your recovery.”
Fully prepared to chase him if he tried to leave, Buck flung his blankets to the side and started to swing his legs out of the bed. “Ed-” he said and choked on the word as his inhale hit a particular tender spot in his inflamed esophagus and he started to cough. Curling in on himself as the dry hacking rattled his bruised ribs, Buck breathed in a drop of spit and gasped pitifully for air.
“Here,” Eddie said, coming immediately back toward him from where he’d almost had one foot out the door. He picked up the water bottle again and unscrewed the top before handing it to Buck and watching on as he took a sip.
The water was exactly the right kind of bitterly cold that Buck always longed for in the hospital where the air was so dry he felt it like a never-ending itch on his skin. It made him thirsty in a way that couldn’t be satisfied by IV hydration and he complained about it every time he was admitted. Buck drank deeply thinking that of course Eddie had somehow found the time between showering and resting his own battered body to fill and chill the bottle that Buck kept at his house. Because Eddie seemed somehow built to take perfect, effortless care of Buck.
That revelation more than the cold water made Buck shiver as he drank. He could feel Eddie’s eyes on him and he had the feeling that they were teetering together right at the edge of something. One push and they were both going to fall; Buck could already feel the plummeting drop in his stomach and, if neither of them reached out, they were going to tumble right past each other.
When he couldn’t go any longer without air, Buck lowered the bottle and took a shaky, frosted breath. Eddie was right there, his hand on the bed beside Buck’s knee, closer than he needed to be, more serious that he should look after a tiny coughing fit, and giving away more in his expression than Buck knew he wanted to. Concern and regret warred in his eyes, uncertainty in every plane of his face. Eddie wanted to run from the building, wanted to shut down and protect himself from whatever was coming, but he thought Buck might need him. And so he stayed.
It wasn’t easy or pretty or noble or admirable. Leaving Mark hadn't been either. But it was simple. Almost too simple. And somehow that simplicity was the answer to everything.
His voice was so rough that his words were barely a whisper over the rush of blood in his ears as Buck flicked his gaze up from the bottle and said, “It matters.”
His heart hammered so loud that he couldn’t even hear the sound of his own breath as his chest rose and fell in panicked expirations. This was the door he never dared to open, the truth that Buck knew but could never name. A desperate clawing scratched at his ribs as his body begged him to take it back before the backdraft reduced his entire world to ashes with the oxygen he'd just fed it.
But he didn’t stop. Wetting his lips, Buck said, “I never asked if anyone else was hurt.”
Eddie’s brow furrowed. “What? You just-”
“Not today,” Buck said. He kept his gaze on Eddie and his hands tight on the cool metal of the water bottle even as his memories threatened to pull him back into the past. It was rare these days that he fell into that moment without warning–bloody emergency calls and gunshot victims kept their own faces instead of transforming into Eddie’s empty-eyed visage–but when the days got long and bloody and death felt closer than normal, Buck was never far from that city street.
“When you got shot, it was like everything else stopped. For days. And when I try to remember what happened, it’s like it’s all blank except for you. I had no idea if anyone else was hit or if they fell or they needed help. I didn’t even know if Charlie had gotten out of there. And I didn’t care. Because it was you.”
For a minute it was like Eddie hadn’t heard him. The panic he was wearing was a look Buck had only seen on his face a handful of times. Times when control had slipped through Eddie’s fingers and he’d pleaded with Buck to help him fix what was wrong. This time, Eddie’s expression was a mirror for Buck’s own. This time, they were both spinning, falling suddenly through the air when they’d been standing on solid ground and not knowing if they had parachutes to catch them before they crashed.
When Buck couldn’t find any more words, Eddie looked down. His brow furrowed and his jaw twitched and he flexed his hands as he processed Buck’s echo of what he’d been the first to say. It took everything in Buck to let him, to not break the quiet. His left hand itched to cover Eddie’s where it rested beside him, but a sling held it close to his chest and all he could do was wait. Eventually, the panic was overwhelming and the monitor tracking his pulse trilled an anxious whine that filled the room from floor to ceiling.
“Shit.” Between the bottle and the swing, Buck didn’t have a free hand and the monitor just kept ringing out all of the turmoil that was threatening to erupt from inside him. He lurched toward the side table and slammed the water bottle down beside the digital clock and then flapped his right hand frantically in the air until the sensor fell away from his finger and the room went silent again.
Eddie had looked back up at the sound of the alarm, but hadn’t said anything. He just looked at Buck, eyes shining and slightly terrified. And then he lunged forward and their lips were meeting in a rushed, impossible kiss.
There had barely been enough oxygen in the room before Buck started hyperventilating and his lungs started to burn after only a few seconds of Eddie’s mouth on his. As he started to get lightheaded and his body protested from a thousand crushed and bruised places, Buck only clung on tighter, throwing his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and tangling his fingers in the soft cotton of his t-shirt.
On a gasping, messy inhale, Eddie pulled Buck even tighter against his body, trying to meld them together as Buck’s broken arm stubbornly stayed in the way. Even so, they finally ended up chest to chest and Buck could feel Eddie’s heart slamming back against his own, knocking together like their forearms always did before every call.
“I couldn’t leave you,” Eddie said, kissing down Buck’s jaw. “Never.”
“I know. I know.”
“Don’t ask me to.”
“Never,” Buck replied and Eddie sealed his mouth to his.
There would be more to say later. When Buck’s wounds healed and Eddie stopped instinctively brushing his fingertips over his pulse to make sure it was still there. They’d both confess separately to Bobby who would take the news much more nonchalantly than Buck had been expecting, saying, “I’ve always told you that the most important person to keep alive in a fire is yourselves. If I couldn’t convince you to do that, this is a pretty good compromise.”
In the meantime, there was this moment: the two of them pressed together, holding each other up, carrying each other home.