Work Text:
PRESENT, XX:XX
UNKNOWN LOCATION
He clutches his dying phone with a trembling hand, letting it ring endlessly. It wails like a banshee, the dial tone echoing in the silence.
He remembers researching wailing banshees once, when he’d called off work with the flu and spent all day staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. The boredom had hit like a brick wall, blunt and unrelenting, sitting against his chest until he finally reached for his phone with a shaking, cold hand. He’d gone down a rabbit hole that day, starting with his favourite animals and descending into old folklore of bad omens.
If he were lucky, though he rarely ever is, maybe this time the wailing banshee won’t be such a bad omen, like all those sites suggested.
“Hello?” he answers. The familiarity and tiredness of his voice warm him all the same. God, he really hopes he didn’t wake him up. That’d be awkward, more than awkward—no, he’d be mortified if that’s the case.
He clutches the phone tighter, breathing heavily.
“Buck? Are you okay?” He's more awake now. He can hear it in his voice, and the way the rustling of the bed sheets as he sits up hurriedly transfers over the phone. There’s concern in his voice. He doesn’t understand why he’s suddenly so concerned.
“Eddie,” he whispers, voice cracking painfully. “I’m sorry, I—” He takes another steady deep breath in. In for four, out for four, just like his sister had always taught him. “I need your help.”
✭✭✭✭✭
TWELVE HOURS EARLIER
STATION ONE-EIGHTEEN
The kitchen is a mess of spilt flour and cooling pastries.
Buck’s elbow-deep into a bowl of cookie dough, grinning at the phone in front of him. Eddie’s face fills the screen, brows furrowed and the corners of his mouth twitched into an expression that is somewhere between laughing and confused.
He blinks. Several times. “Are you baking again?”
Buck chuckles, folding the dough over. It’s slowly coming together. “Yeah, the station's been…q-word all day and I’m bored. What’s the harm in making a few pastries?” he asks, pushing the bowl to the side as he moves the dough to the countertop.
He’d found a new recipe last night, deep in a research rabbit hole, and bookmarked the google search, ready to try it today. It was a simple peanut butter cookie recipe, rated 5 stars on the cooking site he’d signed up to. It couldn’t hurt to try, especially on a day so quiet and long.
“By a few, he means a lot, Eddie,” Chimney pitches in from the dining table where he’s playing around on his own device.
Buck rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Chim,”
Eddie raises a brow. “Why are you really baking so much, Buck?”
“I told you,” Buck says, separating the dough into somewhat equal blobs. “I was bored.”
Eddie isn’t the least bit convinced. “Evan.”
“Okay, fine, maybe it’s also because I’m still a little hung-over how Tommy broke up with me.” Buck admits, carrying the tray of cookie dough blobs over to the oven. “I’m still shocked, you know? I didn’t think it’d end like that.”
There’s a beat of silence. Eddie’s confusion is palpable despite their distance, his expression softening into something alike to worry.
“Talk to me, Buck,” Eddie says gently as Buck finishes setting the timer for the cookies. “Is Tommy really the reason you’re baking for the entire city?”
Buck swallows hard, looking anywhere but the screen.
He’s on a shift. Usually, it doesn’t take much to slip into that happy-go-lucky persona. It’s natural, the person he’d become straight after he left the SEALs. Filling the silence of the space between calls with random facts he’d researched the night before instead of fixating on baking like a maniac.
He’d never meant to fall apart. If that’s what this truly was.
“I thought I was fine, really, I did.” Buck says, beginning to put away the ingredients he’d used for the cookie dough batch. The cupboard doors slam harder than usual in the silence that’d accompanied the loft more often these days. “But, sometimes, it just hits me, all at once, and I don’t know what to do.”
Eddie exhales slowly, a quiet oh that Buck can almost feel through the phone.
“Buck,” Eddie breathes, “why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Buck says as if it’s that simple, still messing around with the cabinets. “He said that he knew how ‘these things end’ and that I’m his first but not his last. It was like he’d already seen the whole story and thought I wasn’t worth the trouble of sticking around for.”
Eddie goes still on the other end. Buck can hear the shift, the way his best friend’s breathing changes when they’re discussing something big.
“Buck,” Eddie says, low and steady, catching his attention, “are you sure that’s what he meant?”
Buck scoffs. “It’s what it felt like. What every other relationship has left like. I’m just temporary, a stepping stone to what they really want.”
Eddie inhales sharply, almost like he’s about to argue, when he suddenly stops himself. Instead, he exhales slowly once more. “Okay,” he acknowledges, “I understand why you’re hurting.”
There’s another pause. It isn’t awkward, the silence filled with Buck shuffling around the kitchen, cleaning up whilst he waits for the oven timer to go off. Putting the ingredients away, wiping down the sides, washing the dishes he’d used by hand in the sink. It’s a routine, comfortable and simple enough to fall back on when he needs it.
“Can I tell you something?” Eddie asks quietly. “Something Christopher wants you to know.”
Buck perks up at that. “You spoke to Chris?” He turns around, hands still covered in bubbles and dishwater. “Is he alright?”
Eddie chuckles. “Yeah, he’s alright. Kind of feels like I know nothing about him, though.” he admits, sighing heavily. “He’s qualified for this big regional chess competition.”
Buck blinks, setting down the half-washed dish. “He’s interested in chess now?”
“I was surprised too.” he says, watching as Buck picks up the dish again. “He wanted you to know about his competition. And he was asking me a ton of questions about you when we finally got a moment alone.”
Buck’s breath catches in surprise, hands fumbling for the tea towel hanging limp over the countertop. “Really?”
Eddie nods. “Really.” he confirms. “You’re not temporary, Buck. Not to Chris, and not to me. Got it?”
“Got it.”
✭✭✭✭✭
PRESENT, 04:19A.M.
EL PASO, TEXAS
Eddie misses the one-eighteen.
He knows El Paso was a conscious choice. He’d been getting desperate to see Christopher, the glitchy zoom calls where Chris barely spoke a word to him and the unanswered texts made him angsty, his skin itching with the need to go to Texas and talk face to face to his son. And confront his parents. His parents who had come to L.A. without warning and whisked Christopher away, talking to him more on the calls more than his own son.
So, he’d turned in his paperwork, asking for a temporary transfer to Texas. He knew some of the firehouses there, and if he was lucky enough, he’d be transferred to one he knew. However, his need to see Christopher, physically see him, overpowered every decision he made.
Buck didn’t take it as bad as he thought. Despite not being together, though some deep forgotten part of his heart wished they were, Buck had grown attached to the Diaz family. By this point, he was over at Eddie’s more than his own loft, often popping over for anything: dinners, helping Chris with science homework, weekly movie nights, rough talks, the list is endless.
He still remembers how Buck had stood there, watching as Christopher packed his stuff, ready to get on a plane and stay with his grandparents in Texas. He didn’t quite understand, only knowing what Eddie had allowed to slip. That his parents were strict, overbearing, and had quite a part to play in Eddie’s previous marriage. Engraved forever into memory is the look on Buck’s face when he saw Christopher leave, that mixture of heartbreak and confusion all at once, an expression Eddie’d seen before on the other man.
They’d hugged after. As empathetic as ever, Buck didn’t relent as he wrapped the man in his tight embrace. He hadn’t spoken a word as Eddie had clung to him as if he could disappear any moment, like Chris had. He hadn’t said a thing when Eddie buried his head in Buck’s neck, and Eddie wished they could stay like that forever.
They couldn’t. Life wanted to move on, and neither had the powers to pause time.
Each day following was a struggle, and Buck was over more than ever. It didn’t matter if Eddie needed a shoulder to cry on, or simply wanted to sit in silence with beers in hand, Buck was there.
Then Eddie left, leaving the keys to his home in Buck’s hands.
Eddie doesn’t miss the early mornings, though. All-nighters on twenty-four hour shifts, running on nothing but fumes and granola bars, were almost always exhausting. He didn’t understand how some of the others could go home with cheery attitudes, even when running on low energy. So, no, he didn’t miss it.
It’s why the ringing of his phone throws him off. It’s the early morning, another night spent in this new and broken down house with leaking pipes and failing heating systems. In Los Angeles, it’d be around three in the morning. Unless they had a twenty-four hour shift or were just crazy in the head, there’s no reason for anyone there to call him up at three in the morning.
He reaches across to his bedside table, fumbling blindly for his phone. He nearly knocks off an empty glass in the process. Relenting, he turns on the lamp, squinting his eyes at the bright neutral light.
Quickly, he grabs his phone, still vibrating and ringing loudly in his hand. Buck’s name flashes on the screen, his cheesy grin smiling up at him. Laying back down, he answers the call.
“Hello?” he answers, throat dry and words coming out raspy.
There’s heavy breathing on the other line. Panting breaths, as if breathing itself is a Herculean task. It immediately rings all the alarm bells in Eddie’s head. “Buck?” he calls, hoping it might strike something. “Are you okay?” The dryness in his throat is going, words coming out clearer. He sits up quickly on the bed, sheets rustling with the rushed movements.
“Eddie,” Buck whispers, his voice cracking painfully. “I’m sorry, I—” he cuts himself off, taking a steady breath that’s audible despite the static of the call. He really needs to get his cell towers looked at soon. “I need your help.” He finally admits, still whispering, as if it’s a secret.
Eddie exhales slowly, gripping the phone a little tighter, afraid it may fall from his shaky hands. “Buck, what’s wrong?” He asks, redirecting his question.
There’s more silence, more heavy breathing that speeds up the rhythm of Eddie’s heart and triggers the alarm bells until all he hears is the fatal ringing of bells. The kind they ring at funerals for first responders.
And, God, that puts things into perspective a little more. Eddie has to stop himself from conjuring images of Buck bleeding out somewhere, too far from home and the firehouse itself, Eddie being his last lifeline before the heart monitor flatlines—
“I think—” he begins to say, stammering. “I think I’ve been in an…an accident? I’m…uh…” Eddie doesn’t speak, not yet, not when he’s so close to figuring out what Buck’s trying to say. “I think I’m in…I’m in the jeep. And, and, it feels weird. I’m floating.” Buck chuckles, then, a childish sort of giggle that he’d only heard once when they’d been drugged with LSD, somewhere around when Eddie first joined the one-eighteen. He’d giggled, pointing out all the ‘teeny, tiny princesses’ to Eddie, mesmerized by their dresses and fixating on the fact that they were smaller than him.
“You’re floating?” Eddie echoes. If he’s right, Buck might be upside down. In his car. After an accident.
Out of everything he’d imagined, the truth seems so much worse.
Buck giggles again. “Yeah, Eds, I’m floating.” he confirms, enunciating the word ‘floating’, as if he believed Eddie hadn’t heard him. “Everything’s tilted, like when I’d go on those rollercoasters and we’d stay in the air for a bit, upside down, waiting for it to drop. That was the…the best part, Eds. Maddie hated it, but I loved it.” Buck rambles, and all Eddie feels is fear.
Eddie clears his throat. “Buck, do you know where you are?”
Buck’s silent for a moment. Eddie scrambles to find his shoes, which he thought he’d left by the bedroom door but it turns out he’d kicked them underneath the bed. Putting the phone on speaker and leaving it on his bedside table, he climbs beneath the bed to retrieve his trainers. They’re hidden deep, laying uselessly under the headboard.
The line is silent and he has to check Buck hasn’t accidentally hung up on him. The call is still open, Buck’s cheesy profile picture staring up at him like an omen. Static fills the silence, as if that’s any better than the silence that’d made him angsty and itching to get out and find his best friend (though he wishes they were more, this isn’t the time to have such thoughts).
“It’s r’lly dark, Eds,” Buck comments, slurred and almost wispy. “It’s dark. Can you see the stars? I can’t…I can’t see the stars. The night sky is m’ssing its stars. Who took them, Eds?” He sounds annoyed and upset, like he’d expect Christopher to be when he ignores his request for twenty more minutes of screentime and instead tells him to go to bed. “The sky needs its stars. Like me and you.”
That catches him off-guard.
“What?” He finds himself asking, pausing where he’s in the middle of getting his second shoe on.
“The sky and the stars. They’re…they’re like me and you.” Buck emphasises. “The sky needs its stars, and we need each other. So, we’re k’nd of like the sky and the stars, r’ght?”
Eddie chuckles weakly, rubbing away the tears that yearn to fall. “I guess we are.” He finishes putting on his shoes, grabbing his phone as he exits the bedroom. Clearing his throat, he asks again, “Buck, do you have any idea where you are?”
Buck hums. “Uh…no. No, it’s…it’s all dark.” he answers vaguely, getting quieter. “I…I was dr’ving to yours. Chris has that b’g competi…competition, right?”
Eddie nods, remembering Buck can’t actually see him. They’re not on FaceTime. “Yeah, he has. It’s tomorrow.”
“I know…I know…” Buck repeats, over and over until his voice fades into an unsettling quiet.
Eddie does not panic, regardless of what any witnessing neighbours might say.
His chest tightens like a vice has it in its strong hold, squeezing out the air he tried to reserve in his lungs. His hands are shakier than before, and his grip tightens painfully on the phone, knuckles turning white. It’s a surprise the device hasn’t snapped yet. He gnaws at the inside of his cheek, worry and concern and anger and panic bleeding into one all at once.
He tries, and tries, and succeeds in remembering what Frank had gone over with him in those emergency therapy sessions. In for four, hold, out for four, repeat until the vice dissipates, or at least relinquishes its hold a little.
He’s fine, he’s okay, he’s going to find Buck and everyone will be okay.
Everything has to be okay.
“Buck?” he calls. Silence is never a good thing, especially if he’s right about Buck having a concussion from the crash. Buck hums in response, not daring to say another word. “Buck, tell me why you were coming to El Paso.”
The other groans. “Eds, I j’st told you. You weren’t l’stening,” he pouts like a little kid.
“I was listening,” Eddie reassures, “but I want you to tell me again.”
Buck sighs tiredly, groaning again. “I wanted to see Chris win the…the competition. He’s pr’bably so good at chess now. He’s gonna smash the competi…tomorrow. I’m sad I’ll m’ss it.” He’s quiet again, sniffling. “Can you…Eds, can you t’ll Chris good luck for me?”
Panic spikes again as he grabs his keys from the rack. “Buck, no, no—” He breathes in deeply, steadying himself. “You’re not dying tonight. You’re going to live and Chris and I will visit you personally to make sure of that.” Buck hums, still not completely there. Eddie sighs. “Buck, you need to call 911.”
Buck perks up. “No! No—” He’s panicking. And fading. Fast. “No, I c’n’t. M’ddie’s working tonight. I c’n’t risk it. She might answer and get worried and—”
Eddie cuts him off. “Okay, okay, I understand. What about if I call Athena?” he offers. “Is that better?”
Buck hums again. “Yeah. ‘thena might k’ll me, though. She hates when I’m h’rt. And when I do things without telling anyone.”
Eddie almost stops in his tracks. “You drove nearly twenty hours to El Paso without telling anyone?”
“Well…” Buck trails off, quieter now. “Bobby knows. I told him because I wanted to use my time off. And he was okay with it. I think. I don’t know, but he let me go.”
Eddie starts the car, turning the key in the ignition. “Buck…”
Buck sniffles. “I’m s’rry.”
“No, no, don’t apologise, it’s okay. Just…people care about you, alright? I’m sure they would’ve liked a heads-up that you’re going to El Paso, even if it’s just mentioned briefly in a conversation.” Eddie assures, pulling out of the driveway.
“Are you calling ‘thena now?” Buck inquires, voice cracking.
Eddie hums. “I’m going to connect her to the call, okay?”
“Mm, okay.” Buck agrees.
It doesn’t take long to find Athena’s contact in his phone. He can only pray she’s not dealing with an arrest right now.
The call rings, and rings, and rings, and it’s like the funeral bells again, but Eddie reminds himself that Buck isn’t dying and shouldn’t be dying any time soon, so there’s no reason for him to even imagine such sounds—
The line connects. “Athena Grant-Nash, speaking.”
“‘thena,” Buck breathes, relieved to say the least.
Eddie rubs at his eyes again. “Athena, Buck’s been in an accident.”
✭✭✭✭✭
PRESENT, 05:20A.M.
THREE HOURS AFTER THE CRASH
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Bobby wouldn’t be sure where to start when describing his relationship with Buck.
They’d gotten off to a rough start at the beginning of his probationary years. His invasiveness and eagerness to ask personal questions scared him, especially when he’d caught on to the notebook Bobby was using to recover from the apartment fire. One-hundred and forty-eight names, one-hundred and forty-eight people he needed to save before he could truly join his family in the high heavens above.
But then Buck and Hen had checked up on him after a bad night, and he’d asked for help.
They’d gotten closer after. Each morning following, Buck would text something casual, asking how his night was or if he was doing okay or if he needed company. And every time, Bobby would reassure the man with positive replies and the occasional want for someone to come over.
Shifts became easier. No longer constantly relying on his notebook, but rather, trying to look forward to a brighter future. Each loss, each win, each time they’d faced an issue on a call, it was just another obstacle, something God put in place to test their resolve.
He remembers when Buck first, properly, opened up to him. It was sometime after Devon’s death, Buck’s first loss on the job, when they’d talked quietly in the locker room. Buck had sat down on that bench, fidgeting with his hands slightly like he didn’t know what exactly to do with them, as he began to explain his background with the Navy SEALs. How he’d signed up originally, searching for somewhere to belong and liking the appeal, recently having left a job around the same terrain. How, after going through some of the training, he’d decided to leave that too, not wanting to become a machine, a robot, someone incapable of feeling when all Buck does is feel.
Bobby can’t remember a time when Buck wasn’t trying out one of his recipes, or crashing at his and Athena’s home.
Whether it’s the way Buck will follow the recipe card step-by-step and still ask Bobby to try it in hopes he’d gotten the taste right, even if they’re in a public setting such as the firehouse, or the way he’ll turn up at Bobby’s home asking if he can crash on the couch that night, his loft too quiet and void of people, or how he started texting Bobby each morning following the lightning strike, needing the reassurance that he was alive.
Buck is his kid in everything but blood, and Bobby doesn’t think he can stand burying any more of his own children.
It’s why a call from his personal mobile throws his off so easily. It’s five in the morning and he’s about to finish the last twelve hours of his shift. It’d been a twenty-four hour shift full of back to back calls, the majority consisting of people learning that forks shouldn’t be stuck in plug sockets, regardless of if the plug socket is “turned off” or not.
Everyone is equally exhausted. Hen and Chimney had booked it to the bunks, yearning to get some shut eye in before another call came in. Ravi had stuck around in the loft, listening to an audiobook whilst he made some hot chocolate, topping it off with the last of the marshmallows.
Bobby sat in his office, finishing off some paperwork. Music plays softly from a record player in the corner, the vinyl some Springsteen merchandise Buck insisted he bought, reasoning that Bobby would love the album Buck’d picked out for him.
It is a good album, but he’d never admit that to the kid.
His personal mobile vibrates in his pocket, the ringtone silenced. Sighing and setting down his pen, he retrieves his phone, worry pulsing when Athena’s name lights up the screen.
Quickly answering the call, he lifts the phone to his ear. “Athena? Aren’t you on a shift?” he asks, praying to whatever gods above that this isn’t a call he’ll regret answering. “What’s going on?”
“Bobby,” Athena answers, almost relieved the fire captain had answered the phone. “It’s Buck. He’s been in an accident.”
With only seven words, Bobby’s entire world is at a risk of collapsing.
Buck had booked the next three days off work, telling Bobby in private that he was planning on driving down to El Paso to support Christopher in a chess competition he’d managed to get a place in. That, and he wanted to see Eddie in person again. It’d been too long since they’d hung out, and Buck was still reeling from a break-up, yearning the comfort of his best friend.
He knows Buck would never admit wanting to be more out loud, though.
He exhales shakily. “Athena, what happened?”
The worst case scenarios feature in a twisted montage, calls he’s answered haunting the narrative. Buck, bleeding out after being hit by a car in the middle of nowhere. Buck, stuck in his car with severe injuries and a dying phone, not sure who he should call first. Buck, dying whilst on the phone with 911, his last moments being spent trying to get help.
Slipping on the professional mask and hiding the worried persona, he pushes those thoughts down, down, down until he can’t remember the storylines anymore. No need to get so worked up over a fantasy he isn’t even sure has come true.
“I’m not too sure myself of what happened.” she admits, and Bobby doesn’t like the sound of it one bit. “As far as I’ve gathered, Buck was on his way to El Paso and a drunken driver crashed into him. Fled the scene and the police station in El Paso can’t seem to find him on any cameras. Buck called Eddie, roughly twenty minutes after he’d crashed, and Eddie concluded he was heavily concussed by his speech patterns and what exactly he was saying. Compared the entire experience to a rollercoaster ride.” she reports, tone clipped and strictly professional.
Bobby chuckles weakly. “That’s Buck, alright.” He stands from his seat, paperwork long forgotten. He thinks of Eddie, asleep in El Paso and not expecting to receive the call that very well may be the last time he speaks to his best friend. The one he can’t bring himself to admit he has feelings for that go beyond platonic. “How is he?”
Some strand of hope prays he isn’t dead.
“Buck’s alright. He had a severe concussion, a couple broken ribs and deep cuts from the broken glass. When the El Paso Fire Department found him, he was upside down in his car, still rambling to Eddie about some mundane topic. His speech was slurred, stemming from the concussion, and he’d been reluctant to even let the fire department help him out of the car before Eddie made him promise he’d let them help him.” Athena tells him. “He’s now in the General Hospital in El Paso. Eddie’s with him.”
Bobby breathes in deep after that, not quite realising he’d held his breath after hearing the news. He fights to keep his hands steady as he holds the phone close to his ear, letting Athena’s words fully sink in. Buck’s okay, he’s fine, he’s not dead.
He’s not going to bury another child. Not tonight.
✭✭✭✭✭
XX:XXA.M.
TWENTY MINUTES AFTER THE CRASH
UNKNOWN LOCATION
Everything is a blur.
Memories come and go in flashes.
Leaving Los Angeles, duffle bag snug in the back-seat, clothes folded neatly inside. It was all casual wear, he’d imagined Christopher wouldn’t want him to show up to the competition in formal clothing and embarrass him. Eddie would laugh, but not one of those mean jeers, more baffled and familiar and domestic. The last time they’d worn formal clothing together, they got drunk at a karaoke bar when Chimney hadn’t shown up for his bachelor party and woke up in Chimney’s hotel room, the place ransacked and messy.
Stopping at a gas station around ten hours in, stocking up on the essentials like bottled water and granola bars and refilling his gas tank. The cashier was tired, almost sluggish, as he counted the change and gave Buck his receipt. He felt bad for him.
Bopping his head to the radio as he drove along long stretches of road. He hadn’t seen the car. It’d crashed into him like a freight train, not slowing down one bit as it hit, full force, the impact throwing him into a sense of vertigo. The car flipped and turned and he hit his head against the steering wheel, then the darkness offered its cold hand and he stepped inside its long, weary tunnel.
He doesn’t remember waking up.
He remembers the rain.
It pounds on the windows as if the heavens themselves are crying, but he isn’t sure why. It’s heavy and relentless, droplets splashing and creating puddles on the glass, running down the side of the panes like a race, except it doesn’t matter who wins. Not really.
And, in a twisted sense, it reminds him of the lightning strike. Despite the vague memories, he remembers the rain. The force of the strike. The coma dream.
It’s vague, bits and pieces more vivid than others, but he remembers.
And it scares him.
It’s dark outside. The clouds gather like looming giants, grey with ash and the threat of death.
His head hurts, pulsing and pounding behind his eyes. A thick, syrup-like substance drips in front of him from the roof of the car. It’s mahogany red. So, so red. It drips and drips in an uneven pattern like unplanned choreo, echoing in the silence of the car.
Only, that isn’t the roof and it isn’t quite syrup.
It’s blood.
He fumbles blindly for his phone. It doesn’t make sense, but something inside begs him to call someone.
He retrieves his phone from his back pocket. He hadn’t used it much, as far as he remembers, as he’d listened to the radio this time instead of hooking his phone up to the bluetooth. His hands are sticky with drying blood, probably ruining his clothes (they were such nice clothes too, he’d managed to get them at a deal in some second-hand store and had loved them ever since) and painting his phone case red, red, red.
Turning his phone on, he frowns. The screen is dimmed, but he can still see the glaring 7% battery.
He can’t reach his charger where he sits, strung up by the seatbelt like a puppet, and his energy is fading by the minute. Adrenaline may be an addictive drug, but it can’t help him now.
Working his way into the phone, fingers shaking as he input the password, he clicks “call” on the first number in his contacts.
✭✭✭✭✭
10:31A.M.
ONE DAY, EIGHT HOURS AFTER THE CRASH
GENERAL HOSPITAL, EL PASO
Buck knows he’s in the hospital before he can even open his eyes.
The antiseptic lingers like fog, clouding the room that smell that always makes Buck’s nose wrinkle from how strong it is. It sinks its teeth in deep and binds to his skin like a ghost that can’t move on to the afterlife quite yet. The sheets beneath his still body are paper-thin and scratchy, matching the duvet, and he yearns to kick them off and rest literally anywhere else. Bandages envelop his chest in its tight embrace, squeezing his chest but not quite depriving his lungs of air.
There’s a faint, annoying beeping to his right. It’s the heart monitor, the EKG, he guesses, loud enough to tell the universe if he’s died or not. Maybe it’s also gloating the fact that he’s survived again, despite everything the world throws at him.
Groaning, he opens his eyes, his vision swaying for a few seconds before white ceiling tiles begin to come into focus.
The room is about as plain as you could get. White walls, white floors, white tiles. The most basic colour, and yet also the easiest to stain with just about any colour. Honestly, Buck does understand the clinical appeal, but would it hurt to add a little more colour?
Nurses shuffle by his room, holding clipboards in relaxed grips and conversing with both patients and fellow colleagues. The door is closed, muffling the outside world. Two chairs live by his bed, one empty and the other occupied.
“Buck?”
Eddie. Eddie’s here.
Buck cleared his throat. “Eddie?” he asks, voice still groggy and hoarse with sleep.
Moving quickly, Eddie retrieves a half-filled cup with a sad striped straw from the bedside table, lifting the cup to Buck’s lips. He takes slow sips, appreciating the much-needed water.
“You scared the shit out of me.” Eddie admits, placing the cup back on the bedside table. “When you called me…God, I don’t even know what I was thinking.” He sighs, taking Buck’s hand, careful of the IVs. “What happened, Buck?”
He blinks. “I..I called you?”
Eddie’s as confused as Buck feels. “Yeah. You don’t remember?” Buck shakes his head ashamedly. “You called me early in the morning, saying you needed help and that you’d been in an accident. You had a concussion, Buck, and wouldn’t even let the fire department get you out of your car until I convinced you to.”
Buck is beyond mortified, sitting up hurriedly despite how Eddie immediately reaches out, trying to get him to lay back down. “Eddie, I’m so sorry—”
“God, stop apologising, it’s okay. You needed help, clearly.” he says, gesturing to his injuries. “Now, lay back down, please. You might tear your stitches and I really can’t stand waiting idly whilst they work on you in surgery again.”
Buck lays back down, resting against the mountain of pillows that’d congregrated by the headboard.
Everything is still a blur, a montage of memories he can’t quite work out just yet.
He remembers leaving L.A. with a packed duffle bag of folded casual clothes, deciding last minute that formal was a no-go.
He remembers stopping at the gas station and stocking up on bottled water and granola bars, feeling bad for the tired cashier working that shift.
He remembers the crash, the car that he hadn’t even seen coming until it was smashing straight into his jeep like a freight train.
“When you called me…God, I don’t even know what I was thinking.”
He remembers calling the first contact on his list.
Eddie.
“The sky and the stars. They’re…they’re like me and you. The sky needs its stars, and we need each other. So, we’re k’nd of like the sky and the stars, r’ght?”
The truth he’d spent so long pushing down, the one he’d never admit aloud, his concussed self decided to speak.
It’s no secret Buck’s relationship with Eddie goes beyond platonic. By the first few months of knowing each other, he’d gotten well acquainted with the other. One of their very first shifts, Eddie had removed a live grenade from someone’s leg, and they’d promised to have each other’s backs on every occasion following.
After Eddie had completed his probationary year, Buck began to hang around more, lingering around the Diaz house long enough that he’d trusted Buck with his own son. Even after the tsunami, where Buck had lost Christopher briefly to the waves and worn himself thin searching far and wide for the kid, Eddie still trusted him and for the longest time, Buck hadn’t understood why.
Then he’d told him about his changed will and everything started to fall into place.
“It’s in my will if I die, you become Christopher’s legal guardian.”
“What happened?” he still asks. He remembers the crash, sure, but everything after is a blur, blocked out against his will.
Eddie breathes in deeply, gripping Buck’s hand a little tighter as if afraid he’d disappear if he let go. “You called, asking for help and saying you had been in an accident. You were upside down in your car, Buck, bleeding from a head wound and struggling to breathe because you had broken a few ribs on impact.” he repeats.
“And…the other driver?”
“Fled the scene.”
Buck deflates. “Oh…”
Eddie chuckles weakly, eyes becoming watery with the weight of everything that’d happened in the last twenty-four hours. “I guess,” he begins, wiping at his eyes, “I guess you were right.”
“What?” he questions, brows furrowed.
“We’re kind of like the stars and the sky. Except, I was the sky, wondering where you were.” Eddie comments. “You’d really disappeared on me. You’re lucky dispatch managed to ping your phone to a cell tower, otherwise I’d still be searching the highways.”
Buck blinks. “Wait, wait, what are you saying? The sky, stars, what?”
Eddie rolls his eyes playfully. “When we were on the call, you’d oh so casually mentioned how the stars and the sky are like me and you. It didn’t make sense at the time, but…I think I get it now.” he explains vaguely, smiling fondly.
“I don’t get it.” Buck admits, dumbfounded.
“I love you, you oblivious idiot.” Eddie confesses. “Well, I’ve been in love with you for…I’m not sure. I just can’t remember a time when I didn’t wish you’d just move in already. You practically lived at our home, and still paid rent at your loft for…what? Ghosts?”
Buck splutters like a broken printer running steadily out of ink. “Eddie, what? You’re—you’re in love with me? Like, romantically?”
Eddie sighs dramatically. “Yes, romantically.”
“Really?” Buck asks, fidgetting absentmindedly with the duvet with his spare hand.
“Do you want me to prove it?”
That’s all the warning Buck gets before Eddie’s leaning in, brushing their lips together in a kiss so gentle Buck almost believes he imagined it.
Eddie rests back against the uncomfortable chair, still gripping Buck’s hand tight. “Do you believe me now?”
Buck nods, touching his lips softly, smiling sheepishly as he tries to preserve the feeling of Eddie’s lips against his own.
“He wanted you to know about his competition. And he was asking me a ton of questions about you when we finally got a moment alone.”
Buck sits up suddenly again, letting Eddie push him back down as he rambles. “Wait, wait, didn’t Chris have that big chess competition today? Please don’t tell me I missed it.”
Eddie sits on the edge of the bed instead, holding Buck’s hand more comfortably. “Yes,” he answers. “But, it isn’t until later. And Chris is here anyway in the waiting room with Athena.”
The smile that spreads wider across Buck’s face could be compared to that of a child’s when they get gifts on Christmas morning. “Really?”
Eddie nods. “He wanted to be here when you woke up, insisting he had to see his Buck. He’s already made it clear he’s more than happy to miss the competition if he can visit you in the hospital.”
“I thought he liked chess.”
“I did too,” Eddie agrees. “But apparently, Chris doesn’t enjoy it. Not as much as he used to.”
Buck nods, processing. “Are you coming back to L.A.?”
“Of course. Chris wants to go home, actual home this time, and I miss the one-eighteen. It’s a win-win situation as far as I can see.”
“Well, that’s good. We were beginning to miss you.”
Both heads snap to the doorway.
Bobby stands there, dressed in casual sweats that look to be put on in a hurry. His hair is messy and hardly brushed, something Athena would definitely have something to say about. And he’s smiling, but it’s not the normal everyday Bobby smile that makes even the most scared probie feel confident. This one is relieved and fond all at once.
“Bobby,” Buck breathes his name as if solidifying the fact that he’s here.
Bobby walks in, closing the door behind him before taking the seat Eddie previously occupied. “Hey, kid. Heard you were in an accident.”
He winces. “‘thena call you?”
Bobby nods. “I was worried. The next time you ask for time off, I’m sending you a care package with lots of bubblewrap.”
Buck chuckles weakly, Eddie grinning at the scene. “Sorry, didn’t see the car.”
The fire captain shakes his head. “It’s not your fault, Buck.” He looks at them both properly, noting their tight hand-holding and Buck’s sheepish smile, red fading on his cheeks. “Are you two a thing now?” He asks fondly.
Buck stammers. “Uh—what? Bobby, um—”
Eddie squeezes Buck’s hand. “Yes, I think.” He raises an eyebrow at Buck who nods in return. “Will that be a problem?”
“I’m just glad you two finally worked it out.” Bobby comments, before standing. “I’ll leave you two alone, then.”
That’s the last thing he says before promptly exiting the room.
Eddie faces him. “Please, don’t scare me like that again.”
“I’ll try.”
“That’s all I can ask for.”