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Buck didn’t even hear the first crack. But he did feel it. An instant shift in the air pressure, the kind of wrongness his body recognized a split-second before his brain could catch up. Before he could do anything at all to try and stop it. One moment he and Eddie were rushing through the emergency room corridor they’d been called to so they could assist collapse victims, and the next the ceiling snapped like an overstressed bone.
Someone screamed. Buck didn’t know who. Maybe it was him.
He shoved Eddie instinctively–whether to protect him or get to him faster, Buck wasn’t sure–and then the world dropped. The floor groaned, metal twisted, and the hallway folded like it had simply grown tired of holding itself up. Crushing him and everyone else in the vicinity under the tons of materials they should have been saving them from.
He hit the ground hard. His shoulder lit up in furious pain, and dust smothered his lungs before he could get a solid breath in. Looking through where his mask should be he knew it was cracked, knocked off his face and thrown across the abyss the room had become.
It was dark. Too dark. A ragged, pulsing darkness. The type that felt alive, like there was something just under the surface. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting…
Then–
“Buck.” Eddie’s voice. Rough and ragged, but close. So close. Yet maybe too far. “Talk to me. You good?”
Buck blinked through dust and adrenaline, vision flickering like a dying bulb. Eddie’s silhouette hovered beside him, impossibly steady even in disaster. He reached out, fingertips brushing Buck’s arm, starting his medical assessment like an instinct.
It was a stupid, familiar, grounding touch. The type he hadn't had in months. He finds himself wondering when he's come to count the touches, to remember the last time Eddie's thumb had found a home against his collarbone or fingertips had ghosted over bare skin to check for scratches and bruises Buck would rather hide.
“Yeah,” Buck lied, wincing even as he said it, opting to switch to humor to make it stop. To make Eddie stop. “Totally love being pancaked by a building. Really makes my night.”
A huff of breath. Almost a laugh. “Still dramatic. Good sign.”
Buck pushed himself upright, testing the limited space. They’d landed in a pocket formed by a slab of collapsed ceiling that braced itself against a half-crushed metal cabinet. Enough room to sit. Barely enough to move. Absolutely no room to breathe without knowing Eddie was right there, pressed close by necessity.
“I’m calling it in,” Eddie said, fumbling for his radio. The device sputtered, static clawing through the air. “This is–Diaz, requesting extrication. We’re–” More static. “Damn it.”
Buck leaned back against the slab, letting the weight of the situation sink into him like cold water.
Hours.
He could already feel it.
Hours of dust and darkness and proximity.
Hours with Eddie.
He was screwed.
Safe. Not injured. Not dying. But screwed.
Or maybe he was dying. Maybe already dead. Living this worst nightmare like his own personalized hell.
“So,” Eddie said gently, after another failed attempt at the radio. “We wait. They know we're in here and without any contact they're going to move fast. We know that. So…”
Buck tipped his head back, teeth clenched as he let himself hit the concrete behind him with a full thud. “Great.”
Eddie studied him through the dim, shifting light. “You… seem aggravated.”
“Do I?” Buck snapped. “Sorry if being crushed and buried alive is bringing out my bad mood.”
Eddie just shifted closer. “Yea because I don't have any idea what that's like.”
Buck doesn't answer.
“But that's not it,” Eddie murmured, continuing as if he hadn’t even been waiting for an answer, like he knew he wasn't getting one. “Something else is going on with you.”
“Nope.”
Eddie raised an eyebrow at him in the half-light. It was an expression he'd seen hundreds of times. The one that always meant you’re lying, Buck, and I care too much to let you get away with it.
Buck looked away.
Which was exactly the problem. He couldn’t do this. He's not even sure he could do it at home, he wasn‘t ready. Eddie wasn't ready. He couldn't do this. Not now. Not trapped. Not touching elbows, not breathing the same recycled dust-filled air, not with the lack of privacy. He couldn’t pretend anymore that everything was fine, that he hadn’t spent the entire summer unraveling after realizing he’d been in love with Eddie Diaz for years.
It was Tommy's fault, really. He hadn't ever thought about it before. He could have gone his whole life without knowing. He'd have been fine, maybe even happy. Sure, he's always felt a little lost, a little like there was something missing in the core of him, something he hadn't known how to grapple with. But in more than 30 years he'd dealt with it. And he's been okay. Happy. Content. And then his sister agreed. Had given him that tired sigh and gentle eyes and he dwelled on it. Dwelled on it to the point of no return. And now there's no going back.
Not when every inch of this tiny ruined space felt like Eddie. Smelled like Eddie. Touched like Eddie.
“You’ve been mad at me for months,” Eddie said softly. “Or avoiding me. Or both.”
“I haven’t–” Buck swallowed. Wondered how much truth he could spill. How much of his heart he was willing to offer up to be crushed into tiny shards he'd never be able to recover.
“I haven’t been mad.”
“What then?” Eddie nudged his knee into Buck’s. Not aggressively. Just enough to say I’m here. I notice you. I’m not letting this go. “Talk to me.”
Buck shook his head, fingers curling into fists. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because!” Buck exploded, voice bouncing off the cramped concrete. “Because you–” He stopped himself, breath shaking. “Just drop it, Eddie.”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
They sat in the dark while chunks of plaster occasionally drifted from the ceiling, sounding far too ominous. Eddie kept watching him, eyes sharp even in the dim light. Buck wished he could make it darker, shield himself from the weight of the concrete and Eddie's gaze in equal measure.
“You pulled away,” Eddie said quietly after what felt like minutes but could have been hours since Buck's last outburst. Telling time had become impossible. “You don’t do that to me unless something’s really wrong.”
Buck squeezed his eyes shut. His chest ached worse than his shoulder. “Eddie–”
“Buck. Look at me. Please.”
He didn’t want to. But he did. Always did. Never one to deny a request.
Eddie’s face was too close. Too earnest. Too much.
And Buck broke.
“I realized I was in love with you!” He blurted it out, the words ripping out of him like a confession at gunpoint. “Okay? That’s what’s wrong! That’s why I’ve been distant. I–”
He ran a hair through his sweaty curls, cringing at the feeling against his fingertips. “That’s why being around you feels like I’m swallowing sparks. I’m in love with you, and I didn’t know how to still be your friend without–without giving everything away.”
The silence that followed was brutal.
It stretched. Pulled thin. Threatened to snap.
Buck looked down at his hands, shame threading through him. The immediate urge to explain further, to be angry, to defend bubbling up. “So yeah. That’s why I’ve been acting like an ass. Congratulations. You got it out of me.”
Eddie didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe, as far as Buck could tell.
“And now,” Buck added hollowly, “I guess this is where you say it’s fine and that we can go back to normal and pretend this conversation never happened. And we both know how that ends, Eds…”
Eddie’s voice, when it finally came, was barely audible. “Buck.”
Buck’s throat closed.
“Buck,” Eddie repeated, and there was something cracked open in the way he said it. “You pulled away from me… because you…you love me?”
Buck nodded miserably. “Yeah. And you don’t–”
He didn’t finish, because Eddie moved.
Not sharply or hesitantly.
Just… decisively.
Eddie took Buck’s face in both hands—warm palms, thumbs brushing his jaw, grounding and steady in a way that made Buck’s heart lurch—and pulled him forward.
Buck inhaled sharply but didn’t have time for fear or doubt or shame or any of those feelings he's sure would have come at any other time.
Eddie kissed him.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t something testing the waters.
It was full-bodied need, long-stifled hunger, and years of unspoken feeling finally given oxygen to speak with.
Buck made a sound, not quite a gasp, not quite a moan, and kissed back immediately. Fiercely. Desperately. Eddie was warm and solid and impossibly close, their bodies pressed together in cramped darkness, Eddie’s fingers threading into Buck’s hair and buried into his turnout coat like he needed to touch him everywhere at once.
When they broke apart, both of them breathless, Eddie rested his forehead against Buck’s.
“You think I don’t love you?” he whispered, voice low and shaking with emotion. “Buck, I–God, you think– that I… that I couldn't?”
Buck’s breath hitched, the words punching the air from his lungs. “Eddie–”
“Don’t run from me again,” Eddie said, brushing their noses together. “If you’re scared, tell me. If you’re hurting, tell me. But don’t ever think you’re losing me.”
“I thought you’d hate me.”
Eddie let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh and kissed him again. It was even harder this time, like he was proving a point. Buck grabbed his jacket, pulling him closer, pressing their chests together until their heartbeats collided.
Dust rained lightly from above at the harsh movement, but neither of them cared.
Buck felt Eddie’s hands on his waist, pushing open his coat and sliding up his ribs, anchoring him. Buck’s own hands wandered from Eddie’s shoulders to the back of his neck, pulling him impossibly closer. Every brush of their mouths sparked heat low in Buck’s stomach, a wanting he’d been repressing for far too long.
Eddie broke the kiss only long enough to whisper against Buck’s lips, voice dark and sincere, “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
Buck’s breath stuttered. “Show me again.”
Eddie did.
Time blurred after that. Was it minutes? An hour? Maybe 2? Kissing until the world narrowed to heat and breath and whispered confessions pressed into each other’s skin. The rescue team’s distant voices barely registered.
When the concrete finally shifted above them and flashlights sliced through the darkness, Eddie pulled back just enough to smooth dust from Buck’s cheek.
“You ready?”
“Not even a little,” Buck whispered back, truly not wanting to break the bubble they'd found themselves in. “But if you’re with me…”
Eddie took his hand.
“Always.”
The slab was lifted. Hands reached down. Light flooded their little pocket of survival. But Buck didn’t look away from Eddie until the very last possible second.
And Eddie didn’t let go of his hand.
Not even when the others started to notice.
Not even when Bobby’s eyebrows rose almost to his hairline.
Not even when Hen gave a knowing little smirk.
Not even when Chim went to say something only to be elbowed in the ribs by Ravi before he could get it out.
Later, bruised and exhausted and finally alone in the back of the ambulance while being evaluated, Eddie leaned in again, slower and gentler, and kissed him with the promise of everything that would come next.
Buck melted into it, eyes closing, heart wide open.
For the first time in months, he didn’t feel trapped.
He felt free.