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Silence settles over the Diaz household.
For the first time all day, the floorboards are still, the pipes have stopped gurgling, and the constant stream of movement between the kitchen and lounge has ended. Darkness blankets the rooms and hallways. Small slivers of moonlight break through the curtains, illuminating small squares of the house in a pale glow. The partially open window in Eddie’s bedroom allows a light breeze to chase away the still-lingering L.A. heat.
Eddie lies in bed with his back to the door, left slightly open out of habit, and his blankets sit low across his waist. The breeze tickles the bare skin of his forearms. He grunts in his sleep and rolls over, the mattress springs creaking under his weight and the blanket slipping a little further down his legs. A single beam of moonlight slips through the far corner of his curtains, cutting across his face.
Groaning, Eddie peels his eyes open. He squints against the light blinding him, pressing his knuckles against his eyes. Eddie’s hand drops back to the mattress, and he stares up at the ceiling, the beam of light casting spindly shadows across the surface. He doesn’t move to fix the curtains.
He doesn’t need to.
It’s not the light that woke him.
Although he’s always been a light sleeper, it was never because of the sunlight. It was always because of the noise. He kept himself on high-alert when Chris was small, listening for any slight cry or noise. The alarm wakes him in the firehouse, but he’s trained himself to listen for anyone moving around when they’re supposed to be asleep. Usually, it’s Buck, and Eddie knows that if Buck is moving around at night, something’s wrong.
Any slight noise can tug Eddie out of the depths of sleep, no matter how comfortable he might be.
Which is why he lies awake now, staring up at the shadows dancing across his bedroom ceiling. He holds his breath, listening for a creaking floorboard or a rustling leaf outside his window.
Instead, he hears a choked sob coming from somewhere in the house.
The sound is muffled, quiet, but to Eddie, it’s like a gunshot. Eddie’s first thought would usually be Chris, but he dropped him off at Hen’s earlier in the day for some video game tournament they were taking part in.
The only other person in the house is Buck.
Eddie sits up and kicks himself free of the blankets. He swings his legs over the side of the mattress and shivers when his bare feet hit the cold floor. The floorboards creak underfoot as Eddie stumbles down the hall to the lounge. Through the darkness, Eddie spies a familiar shape on the couch.
Buck sits hunched over the couch with his elbows pressing into his knees. He holds his phone in his right hand, the screen lit up, whilst the other is tangled in the fabric of his dark gray shirt.
“Buck?” Eddie says, his voice soft, so he doesn’t startle him.
He looks up. Tear stains mark his pale skin, and a single bead of blood sits on his lips where he’s chewed through the skin — no doubt in an attempt to keep from crying too loudly. Buck swallows, his throat working.
“Sorry.” Buck sniffs, his voice thick. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Eddie steps into the room, maneuvering around Buck’s legs and settling himself onto the coffee table. “Don’t apologize. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just a nightmare.”
“This is more than a nightmare, Buck. Come on, you can trust me.”
“I don’t—” Tears continue to stream down Buck’s cheeks, the neckline damp. “—I don’t know what’s real anymore.” Buck’s grip on his shirt tightens, his knuckles a stark white against the imposing darkness. His fingers tremble against the fabric.
Reaching up, Eddie curls his fingers around Buck’s hand and pulls it away from his shirt, his thumb brushing over his knuckles. “What do you mean?”
“The dream I had. After the lightning—”
Eddie inhales sharply. His hand tenses against Buck’s for a second, but he quickly releases it. His stomach clenches, and his heart thumps against his ribcage. He exhales, trying to quell his own fears. It won’t help Buck if he’s struggling, too.
“—Bobby … Bobby was dead. He died, and when I woke up, he … he said I could text him or call if I didn’t feel real. If I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming again.” Buck’s close to hyperventilating, his words coming out in strangled, choked gasps. “I called him. And he didn’t answer. He’s not … he’s not going to answer, and I … I don’t know if this is real. I don’t know if I’m dreaming again, if you’re real, or if I’m real.”
The rest of Buck’s sentence escapes in strangled gasps, becoming less coherent with each passing second. Tears stream down his cheeks, his chest heaving with each gasping breath he manages to draw in.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Eddie says, squeezing Buck’s hand lightly. He moves it towards his shirt and presses Buck’s palm against his chest. “You feel that?”
Buck nods, his breathing still heavy.
“That’s my heart beating. That’s a sign that I’m here. That you’re here.” He tightens his grip on Buck’s hand, trying to keep his own fingers from trembling too much. “We’re both here. We’re in my house. You’re sitting on the couch, and I’m on the coffee table.”
Buck snorts, spluttering through the tears and his still frantic breathing. “You like sitting on the coffee table.”
“I do. It’s more fun.”
Eddie keeps brushing his thumb over the back of Buck’s hand, his palm still flat against his chest. He keeps his breathing steady and watches Buck slowly start to mimic him, inhaling whenever he does until his chest settles back into a normal rhythm. The tears streaming from his eyes settle into a slight trickle, the choked sobs growing quieter.
They sit like that for a little while longer, a silence settling over them that’s only broken by Buck sniffing. Eddie swallows past the lump in his throat.
Buck rarely spoke about the lightning strike, and spoke even less about the coma dream he suffered through afterwards. Eddie never asked. He knew better than to probe into something like that, and would only mention it if Buck decided he was ready. The only person Eddie knew who Buck had spoken to was Bobby. Whenever Buck had a bad day, he called Bobby.
He can’t do that anymore.
None of them can.
It’s been hard for all of them, adjusting to a world without the support and comfort of Bobby. Eddie misses him like he would miss a limb. In those initial few weeks, everything felt wrong. He kept thinking he would wake up, head to the firehouse, and Bobby would be waiting for them. That day will never come. He’s been working through it, talking with Frank and processing the grief still buried in his chest.
Buck suffered the most and, for a while, Eddie thought it was because Bobby was the closest thing to a dad Buck ever had. Now he understood the truth. Bobby’s death made his coma dream real, or as close to real as it was likely to get. He was the only thing helping to keep Buck grounded, even after all these years.
That lifeline is gone.
For Buck, the dream has become reality.
Eddie sighs softly, his thumb still moving over Buck’s hand. “Feel better?” he asks, clearing his throat.
“Yeah.” Buck nods. He drops his phone onto the couch beside him and brushes his left hand over his face. “Thanks. And I’m sorry for waking you.”
“None of that. I’m glad you did, and you can always wake me up if you need to. You know that.” He stands up, pulling Buck to his feet in one swift move. Buck stumbles, and the blankets he’d been using drop on the floor in a heap that Eddie will deal with in the morning. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“First, to the bathroom to get you cleaned up. Then we’re going to my room. I’m not letting you sleep on the couch after that.”
“Eddie I—”
“No arguments, Buckley.”
Buck lets out a small, watery chuckle, but doesn’t try to fight him.
With their hands still interlocked together, Eddie drags Buck away from the lounge and into the bathroom. He forces Buck onto the closed toilet seat lid, refusing to let go. Using a damp washcloth, Eddie makes light work of cleaning off the tears, snot, and the dried bead of blood from Buck’s pale skin. His bottom lip is swollen and shredded where he’s been chewing it, and Buck winces when the washcloth glosses over it.
Eddie throws the cloth in the sink when he’s done. He lightly cups Buck’s cheek, his touch gentle, getting a closer look at the small marks littering Buck’s lower lip.
“It doesn’t look like you’ve done too much damage,” he mutters. “It’ll sting for a few days, though. Did this happen because you didn’t want me to hear you?”
Buck offers him a non-committal nod, refusing to meet Eddie’s eyes, tears welling. “‘M sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Eddie crouches beside the toilet. “But next time, you come to me. Night or day, it doesn’t matter. Okay?”
“Okay.” Buck presses his chin against Eddie’s palm, closing his eyes and letting out a small, shaky breath.
“Come on. Time for bed.”
Eddie reluctantly moves his hand from Buck’s chin and stands up, his knees creaking. His fingers remain entwined with Bucks as he pulls him from the bathroom and towards his bedroom. He leads Buck to the bed and pushes him against the mattress.
“Lie back.”
Buck hesitates for a second, glancing at their hands, but relents. He lets go of Eddie’s hand and swings his legs over the bed, his head sinking against the stack of pillows. Eddie walks around the bed and tugs on the curtains until the small gap is completely covered, knowing Buck can’t sleep if there’s too much light.
Darkness once again settles over the room.
Climbing into bed beside Buck, Eddie drags the blankets up and over both of them.
“Roll onto your side,” he whispers, fingers still curled around the edges of the blankets.
He rolls onto his side, and Eddie finishes pulling the blankets over them. Shuffling forward, Eddie presses his chest against Buck’s back and wraps his arms around him. Eddie’s hand finds Buck’s again, tangling their fingers together. He tucks his chin onto Buck’s shoulder, sighing softly.
“Now, if you have another nightmare, you can feel my heartbeat, and you’ll know that this is real. You’re awake, and I’m here for you,” Eddie mutters, sleep already beginning to reach him under the warmth of Buck’s body. “Always.”
Eddie feels Buck relax against him, the tension he was holding in his shoulders melting away.
“Eddie?” Buck says, his voice soft.
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
“Go to sleep, Evan.” Eddie presses a light kiss to Buck’s neck before he can think about it. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
A small smile creeps onto Eddie’s lips as he lets the warm comfort of sleep draw him into its depths, the man he loves held tightly in his arms.