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As much as Eddie can’t wait to get home to Christopher, he’s almost glad Buck wasn’t able to stomach a second five-hour flight. Instead, they rented a cozy SUV with plenty of leg room from a dealership in Nashville and drove it the 30-odd hours back to LA.
30 hours with nothing but Buck, the open road, and this thing between them. It was honestly pretty great.
This thing was supposed to be the topic of discussion on their little impromptu roadtrip, the extra time spent talking logistics, dissecting things a little, getting to the root of it all, but instead they ate too many pancakes at cheap diners and slept on twin beds in seedy motels off Route 66 and sang along to the local dad rock stations with all the windows down and just pretended like the thing has been there all along. Because it kind of has, hasn’t it? It just took an out-of-state work trip and Buck kissing Eddie in the middle of downtown Nashville to realize it.
“You just looked so hot saving that guy’s life, Eddie,” Buck says for the millionth time since the kiss in question. It was his excuse in the moment, but Eddie didn’t let him get away that easily, nor did Buck, when Eddie tried to cry adrenaline when he kissed him back.
They finally made it to LAX, and to Buck’s truck that’s been sitting, neglected, in one of the parking garages for the last week and a half. He wipes away an invisible scuff from the left headlight with his jacket sleeve, smiling to himself like he just can’t believe it. Eddie gets it, he feels like he’s been dreaming since Nashville. Dreaming, or sleepwalking, or floating.
Eddie puts a hand on Buck’s hip, just because he can, and he doesn’t miss the way he erupts in full-body chills.
“I save people’s lives every day, pal. You saying I don’t look hot all the time?” He kisses Buck’s shoulder as he passes him by on the way to the passenger side. Because he can do that now, too.
Buck takes a second to join him in the cab, and when he does, there’s a rosy blush high on his cheeks that bleeds into his birthmark. Their seatbelts aren’t even on yet, but Eddie is already reaching over and putting his hand on Buck’s upper thigh, the place it’s called home for the last few days.
“You’re always hot,” Buck says, sheepishly, like complimenting each other’s looks isn’t something that followed them from friendship into the land of something more. What’s new, is: “The way you looked up on that stupid barcycle thing, and the—the blood on your shirt—” He shrugs, and drums his fingers on the back of Eddie’s hand before starting up the truck. It grinds for a second, then roars to life. “I don’t know. You kind of looked like a superhero.”
Eddie squeezes his thigh, and Buck nearly backs into the Prius parked in the spot behind them. “Are you saying I—”
Buck groans and shakes his hand off. “Okay, yes, firefighters are superheroes, I just mean—”
A hand in Buck’s hair, now. Eddie is always touching him lately, like there are industrial-grade magnets in his fingertips that were only activated back in Nashville. Buck doesn’t mind. Buck loves it.
“I know what you mean, bud,” Eddie says, soft. “I’m just busting your balls.”
Buck leans his head back against the seat, trapping Eddie’s hand, and lets out an explosive sigh. There’s twin bruises beneath his drooping eyes, and he’s digging his knuckles into the meat above his left kneecap, but he smiles. The late evening sun glints off his three-day stubble, awashing him in gold. The night feels wide open, looking at him.
“I don’t think I want to go home yet.”
And Eddie smiles back. “I don’t think I want to, either.”
They should really go home, or at least find a place to stay in the city so getting home in the morning will be a breeze—well, as much of a breeze as getting anywhere in LA is—but instead, they’re in the desert again. As if they haven’t seen enough of it going through the Texas panhandle, into New Mexico, and across Arizona.
Buck pushes his sunglasses to the top of his head and flips his visor up. The sun is just about below the horizon, and the inky blue of night nips at their heels. Without warning, his behemoth of a truck pulls off the dusty road and into the sand. Gravel and rocks kick up into the tires, and dry shrubbery scratches along the doors.
They pass a grove of yucca trees, and Eddie says, “Are we in Joshua Tree?”
Buck looks delighted, and Eddie gets the urge to crawl over the center console and kiss him senseless. “Yeah! I’ve always wanted to go, but I never really had an excuse.”
“What’s your excuse now?”
The truck bounces over the uneven terrain, lifting them from their seats, and all Buck says, laughing, is, “You’ll see.”
It isn’t long before they’re parking near a rust-colored boulder-pile, monzogranite, Buck tells him, and getting out.
The first thing Eddie notices is the silence. It’s heavy and stretches out for miles, interrupted only by the tinkling of the cooling truck and the occasional coo of a mourning dove. The second thing is the sunset.
“Wow,” he breathes. With the creeping night somewhere behind them and the setting sun beating down on the backs of their tired necks, the sky overhead is an array of pinks and oranges, a neon-bright canvas of whorling watercolors. Eddie feels like he can’t breathe.
A heavy arm finds its way across his shoulders, and Buck pulls him in. Eddie is suddenly grateful for every decision he’s ever made that brought him to this exact moment. Including the driving three hours out of their way to get here.
“Pretty, huh?” Buck says. “I’ve only ever seen pictures.”
Not taking his eyes off the sky or the fire-red horizon, Eddie puts one hand on Buck’s back and the other on his stomach, all-encompassing him. Buck squeezes a little tighter.
“You amaze me, Buckley.”
Buck breathes a laugh into his hair. “Come on, before it’s dark.”
It’s all Eddie can do to watch as Buck digs a couple bundled throw blankets from under the back seats and pulls the tailgate down. He feels rooted to the spot, like his shoes have sunk into the cooling sand. He feels at peace.
He takes a deep breath, and before he can exhale, Buck is grabbing him around the thighs and hoisting him up into the unforgiving truck bed. He shoves the unraveling blankets towards him.
“Here, spread these out nice.”
Eddie spreads the throw blankets out, saving one to use as a cushion for their heads. The action is familiar, the setting is, and he’s momentarily transported back to desert nights in El Paso, to a truck a little smaller than this one and a lot more beat up, to a beautiful brunette with too many teeth. He exhales.
Buck stands at the tailgate with his fists on his hips, looking at the truck bed like it’s a problem that needs to be solved.
“What’s up?” Eddie asks, and Buck wrinkles his nose.
“I don’t think I can get up there, actually,” he says. “My knee is killing me from all the driving.”
“Oh, are you trying to guilt trip me, now?” Eddie says. “You’re the one that’s afraid of flying.”
Buck’s jaw hits the ground and Eddie crawls over and grabs him by the front of his jacket.
“Come on, old man, you can do it.”
Buck turns and flops onto his back in the bed with all the grace of a beached whale.
“Who are you calling old?” he says to the pink sky. “Your knee hurts too!”
Eddie rubs the knee in question, still sore and undoubtedly bruised from his little stumble during the games. “Mine is an injury.”
He grabs Buck by the shoulders of his jacket and drags him the rest of the way. His boots get caught on the tailgate and fall off into the sand with two muted thumps.
Flipping over, he makes quick work of tugging Eddie’s shoes off so they match. He throws them over the side. “So is mine,” he breathes, and pushes Eddie backwards with a finger to his chest.
Eddie lays back obediently. “Yeah, an old injury. Remember what your PT said? It would get worse the older you get?”
Buck cuddles up to his side, leaning on his elbow so he can look down at Eddie. His eyes are half-lidded but sparkling.
“You seem lighter,” he says, and Eddie shrugs, reaching up to drag a nail over Buck’s Adam’s apple. He swallows, and it bobs.
“This reminds me of when me and Shannon were teenagers, when we’d sneak out to the desert in my beat-up Ford.” Eddie’s stomach clenches, and he drops his hand. “I’m sorry, I—”
Buck grabs his fallen hand and holds it against his chest. “Hey, hey, no, what are you sorry for?”
“I probably shouldn’t be bringing up my ex-wife to my current partner.”
Buck kisses Eddie’s hand to hide the blush that spreads across his stubbled cheeks. Partner. Neither of them have said it yet.
“You can talk about Shannon whenever you want,” he says seriously, and Eddie’s stomach unclenches. “She’s—she’s the mother of your child, Eddie, and I’m glad this makes you think of the happier times with her. You know?”
“Our child.”
“What?”
Eddie fists the front of Buck’s shirt. “He’s your kid, too. Now, come down here, I’m cold.”
Buck’s elbow collapses beneath him and he lands facing Eddie on their makeshift pillow so close that their noses nearly touch. Legs tangle like intertwining roots, shuffling their blankets all out of place. Their mingling breaths are warm and slightly sour-smelling from too-many shitty roadside coffees.
“I’m a step-dad,” Buck marvels. “I’m a dad.”
Eddie barely gets the chance to tell him that he’s sort of always been Christopher’s dad, before he’s gnashing their teeth together in a kiss so fervent it pulls a surprised noise from the back of Eddie’s throat.
“Thank you,” Buck breathes into his mouth. “Thank you, thank you.”
“For what?” Eddie breathes back.
“For giving me everything I could want.”
They make out like horny teenagers for what feels like an eternity, until Eddie starts shivering in earnest and Buck’s sciatica kicks up into high gear. The sky is jet-black now, and the stars sit heavy above them like a blanket of bright pinpricks.
A growl, low and hungry-sounding, reaches Eddie’s pounding ears, and he detaches himself from Buck’s warm, swollen mouth.
“Jesus, Buck, what are you, an animal?”
He laughs as he says it, but Buck doesn’t. He’s pulling himself up and looking out over the side of the truck bed. The growl comes again, this time a little closer. Too close for comfort.
“Uh, let’s— Let’s hit the road.”
Eddie flops onto his back and puts his hands over his face. He groans. “I wish I could stay out here with you forever.”
Buck drapes himself over him briefly, pressing a kiss to the back of his hands. “Me too, but unfortunately I’m a city boy, and I think you are, too.”
“Ugh, I am.”
“Come on, let’s head back to civilization. There’s a motel a few miles away from here, I think. I’m beat.”
They roll the blankets up together and crawl out of the bed, one after the other. Buck slips both of their shoes on without lacing them up, and they laugh about the sand in their socks.
“Hold on, I have to piss,” Eddie says, already unbuckling his belt.
Buck looks around. “What— Here?”
“Would you rather I piss in a bottle, Buck?”
Buck looks around again, eyes shifty and nervous. “No. Uh, okay, just be quick. I’ll go warm the truck up.”
“You do that.”
Eddie relieves himself successfully, and he’s just zipping himself back into his pants when Buck’s voice comes around from the driver’s side.
“Hey, uh, Eds?”
“Yeah, baby?” A shiver crawls up his spine with the pet name, and it’s not from the desert chill. Eddie wonders what else he can call Buck as he goes around to the cab of the truck.
Buck is sitting behind the wheel, one leg hanging out, and his face is pale. “Uh, you ever hear of the proverb careful what you wish for?”
Eddie puts a hand in the open window and cocks a hip. “Yeah….?”
Buck turns the truck over. It sputters and, ultimately, does not start up.
“Battery’s dead.”
“What? What do you mean, the battery’s dead? Didn’t you just get it replaced?”
Buck twists the key in the ignition, once, twice, harder and harder. Eddie reaches in and grabs his hand to stop him from flooding the engine.
“I did?”
Eddie takes the key out for him and tosses it in the cupholder. “Yes, Buck, when you were helping Harry train for the academy. You left the radio on and drained it.”
“Oh.” Buck stares at the steering wheel for a second, then gets out, squeezing past Eddie. “Wait, yeah! It shouldn’t be dead already!”
He goes around to the front of the truck and pops the hood, propping it open on the rod, and Eddie shines his phone flashlight in for him. Buck disconnects a few cables and carefully lifts the black box out. He peers underneath.
He squints, then huffs. “2022? They gave me a battery that’s four years old? What the hell?”
“What?” Eddie says, and looks for himself. And, sure enough, the battery was manufactured during COVID. “Dude, where did you get this done?”
Buck scratches the back of his neck, cradling the heavy battery against his chest. “I didn’t. Ravi had one of his buddies replace it for me.”
Eddie snorts and helps Buck lower the battery back into its compartment. “Hope he doesn’t half-ass his properties like this.”
Cables reattached and hood latched shut, both of them go to call for help, Eddie dialing AAA and Buck going straight for 9-1-1. Neither of the calls go through.
There’s no service. Of course there isn’t, they’re in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
And they’re stranded.
“Okay, okay, don’t panic,” Buck says. He hops back into the driver’s seat, landing heavily on his pinched nerve and groaning into his teeth, and tries to start the truck again. This time, it doesn’t even grind.
There’s a bird-like chirping somewhere out in the near distance, maybe coming from over by one of the larger rock formations, and it sounds very out of place amongst the crickets and the cicadas. The hair on the back of Eddie’s neck stands on end.
“Buck.”
“Come on, come on.”
The chirping turns into a low-throated snarl, cat-like, and Eddie grabs Buck’s arm. “Buck. That animal is back.”
Buck stops and looks out behind Eddie, squinting into the darkness. “Okay, shit, okay, get in.”
Eddie slams the driver’s door on him and rounds the cab to the passenger side. He’s just about to climb in when his phone, flashlight still on, slips from his hand and lands in the sand.
He crouches to get it—
And gets bowled over, suddenly and violently, like he was just hit by a bus.
”Eddie!”
Hot, stinking breath on the back of his head, his face pressed into the dusty ground until he feels something in his nose snap. Crushing pressure, tons of it, the bus is on top of him—his pelvis, his shoulders, his spine, fuck, his back—
He feels a rib crack and he screams. The bus hisses into his ear, and Eddie thinks mountain lion mountain lion mountain lion.
Buck is screaming too, screaming, pounding on the horn, but it doesn’t deter the giant animal on top of Eddie.
There’s a blinding, searing, ripping pain in his right shoulder—of course that one—and he thinks frantically, It tore my arm off.
A deafening caterwaul. The weight lifts and Eddie groans into the sand. He’s warm and cold all over.
The whole thing is over in just a few seconds.
“Eddie, Eddie, Jesus—”
Buck lands on the ground at his side, having toppled from the open passenger door in an uncoordinated heap.
“Oh, my God—”
“Buck,” Eddie moans, and tries to lift his head. Buck puts a firm hand between his shoulder blades.
“Don’t move, don’t move, you could have a—a broken neck, or—”
“I don’t. I can—can feel everything. Oh, fuck.”
With Buck’s help, Eddie rolls onto his back, biting back another scream when the pain in his ribs flares. Ribs, one or two of them, fractured. Nose broken. Whiplash, maybe, but other than that his neck and spine are okay. Probably bruised, yeah, so bruised. Pelvis, too. That hurts like a bastard. But he’s alive, he’s conscious, and he can move all his fingers and toes.
The only thing that’s numb is his arm. He’s afraid to look.
He looks up at the blanket of stars instead, and Buck’s pale moon of a face that hovers anxiously over him. He looks like he’s going to be sick.
“Where’d it go?” he mumbles, tongue feeling fat and stupid in his mouth. Blood drips down the back of his throat and he swallows it with a grimace. He needs to get up, he—
“I don’t know, I don’t—” Buck looks behind him, then back at Eddie. There’s something spicy in the air, combined with a sickly-sweet chemical odor, like some sort of repellent. It’s so strong he can smell it even through his busted nose. “Bear spray. I had— I keep some in the glove compartment.”
“Bear spray?”
“I go hiking sometimes,” he says, as if Eddie doesn’t know what he’s up to at every waking moment. He never thought of bear spray. He didn’t know that would work.
“Okay,” Eddie says, and he finally looks at his arm.
It’s still there. Thank God, it’s still there, but it’s not a pretty sight. In the light of his forgotten phone flashlight, he sees red-black blood oozing from his shoulder, mingling with the dusty ground in sick globs. His jacket sleeve is shredded to ribbons, and his skin beneath it, too. Muscle and sinew. Bone-deep.
Eddie blows out a breath and heaves himself into a sitting position. His head spins, and he lands in the crook of Buck’s neck. His stomach flip-flops.
A low growl. A warning growl. The thing wants them to know that it’s still close.
“Let’s— Come on—”
Eddie’s entire body feels like one big throbbing bruise, and he thinks he blacks out for half a second when Buck maneuvers him carefully across the back seats of the truck, only coming to when the doors slam shut. Buck has folded up the passenger seat and is sitting on top of it, looking down at him. There’s a smear of blood beneath his jaw.
“Buck.”
Buck shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes and swallows something that sounds like a sob. “I’m so fucking sorry. This is all my fault, oh, my God.”
Eddie tries to reach out with his injured arm, but it doesn’t move. Alarmingly, he realizes that it’s not just numb, it’s totally incapacitated now.
He didn’t get it torn off, but he could still lose it.
“Buck, baby, listen to me. Look at me.” Buck looks at him. His eyes are huge and wet. “It’s not your fault, but—” A pulse of pain like an electrical current surges through him, and he bites his tongue. “We’re stuck, okay? For— Probably for a while. The night, at least. You gotta— My arm—”
Firefighter Buckley’s training kicks in like a sleeper agent’s, and he slides off the folded passenger seat, wedging himself on the floor before Eddie. One of the rolled-up throw blankets gets tucked beneath his head, propping him up a little so he doesn’t choke on the blood from his broken nose, and Buck takes his shoes off so he’s not so cramped. Undoes his belt, too, just for extra comfort. He pulls out a duffel bag from under the seats. His emergency roadside kit. Fully stocked, too.
A plastic red-and-white case is pulled out first, and Buck flips it open with jittering hands. A brown, unused bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a pair of sheers, a bottle of Tylenol. Followed by rolls of gauze, blue nitrile gloves…
Eddie tries to laugh, but it comes out sounding more like a cough.
“Wow,” he says. “Almost as if you’re a first responder.”
Buck grins, wobbly, and brandishes the sheers. “I need to cut you out of your jacket.”
Buck cuts Eddie out of his favorite jacket, slicing it to shreds until it falls away into a pile of destroyed leather. The cool air hits the blood sluicing down his arm and he shivers.
“God, Eddie, I—I can see bone.”
“Mhm. Just do— Do your thing. Just— Get it over with.”
“Okay, yeah, okay.”
Buck uncaps the peroxide and dumps the bottle generously over the deeper wounds in his shoulder, then pours the rest down the shallower gashes along his arm. The pain that follows is bright and burning, a blue flame, and he blacks out again.
Not for long. Not long enough. Eddie snorts awake to find Buck, sweating and gloved up, fumbling with a bottle of water. He pours that next, soaking the seat beneath him. A dry towel, firm pressure that makes Eddie see stars. Buck apologizes for the entire ten minutes he holds it steady.
When the bleeding finally slows, which is something they should’ve made sure of before cleaning the wounds, Buck tears open a pack of surgical-size Steri-Strips and pulls the gashes closed with a crease in his forehead. A butterfly bandage goes over the bridge of his nose. Eddie forces himself to stay awake. He has to stay awake.
Gauze, so much gauze. Eddie feels like a mummy, stiff and hot. Buck digs a fresh T-shirt from the bottom of the duffel and fashions it into a makeshift sling.
“Okay, okay.” Buck pulls the gloves off, slick inside with more pooling sweat. He brandishes a bottle of Biofreeze, which Eddie knows is not typically part of an emergency roadside kit, nor a first aid kit, but it is for them. For a split second when Buck is rolling the gel carefully under his shirt, Eddie is glad that that fire engine fell on his leg all those years ago.
“I think I’m delirious,” he murmurs to no one.
Buck puts the first aid kit away. He takes one of the blankets and tucks it around him, then pulls out another bottle of water and cracks it open.
“As long as you’re awake,” he says. “Here, open up. Three extra strength Tylenol.”
Eddie almost chokes on the water, and the painkillers barely go down.
“Thanks,” Eddie says, and closes his eyes. “You did good. Proud of you, baby.”
The stinging smell of alcohol as Buck swabs the blood away from under his nose. His touch is so careful, so loving despite how terrified he is, they both are. Something warm and huge expands in Eddie’s chest, jostling his busted ribs around painfully, but he makes room for it. It’s a welcome feeling. It feels like unconditional love.
“I don’t know what to do,” Buck says, hushed, like that mountain lion, who is no doubt keeping tabs on them from the shadows, can hear them from in here. “Flares aren’t a good idea, and I don’t— I never got around to getting a radio or—or a satellite phone—”
“Mm, Buck.”
“This is all my fault,” he says again. “All because I don’t like to fly.”
“Buck. Stop. Shut up.”
Buck huffs and runs his hands through his hair, tugging the curls into disrepair. “If it was me, you’d be the same way. Don’t act like you wouldn’t be.”
Well, that gets them both to shut up.
“Fine,” Eddie says. “Let’s just relax for a second.”
“Okay,” Buck agrees, and settles.
Eddie forgot how cold desert nights can get. Shit, did he forget. What’s the use of all this gear if it’s not gonna keep him at least a little warm?
“Eddie.”
He waves Greggs off. He just needs a few more minutes of shut-eye, then he can go back to being Staff Sergeant Diaz. Just a few more minutes and
“Eddie.”
he can pull Greggs’ broken body from the wreckage—
what?
No, Greggs is fine, they’re all fine. He just started his second tour, the crash hasn’t happened yet.
So why is he bleeding?
And where is his medallion? He always keeps it on him—
“Eddie, please.”
They’re not fine, they’re not fine, they’re all dead, he didn’t save them, he never saved them—
”Eddie, you have to wake up.”
Eddie wakes up. He’s not in the Valley of Death, he’s in Death Valley, but the panic follows him all the same. The panic and the stink of blood and death. Always death.
Buck, not Greggs, is looking at him, concern in his face, blood on his jaw. Blood seeping through Eddie’s wrappings and the makeshift sling. His blood in the sand
“Eddie, it— Calm down, it’s okay, it’s okay—”
It’s not okay, because the desert is cold no matter what country he’s in, and death follows him wherever he goes. He can’t outrun it, he can’t outrun it—
“I can’t— I can’t outrun it, Buck—”
“What?”
“This is my fault,” he breathes. Barely breathes. His chest is heaving and yet it’s so, so heavy. “My fault, I—”
“It— It’s not—”
“I figured out I was gay, and then Bobby died, and—and when I realized I loved you, Chris was taken, and— Now that we’re together—”
Buck slaps Eddie, hard and fast, across the face. Clear of his broken nose, gentle enough not to disturb a potential concussion, but with enough force to snap him out of it.
And it does.
They’re left staring at each other, breathing out of sync. Buck’s cheeks are a ruddy red, and he’s still wedged between the seats like a car crash victim thrown out of place. Eddie is suddenly aware of how cold the truck is; they’re both shivering.
“Jesus, Buck!”
“You were panicking, I—”
“Haven’t you ever watched a romcom? You’re supposed to kiss the person to shut them up, not slap them.”
The truck is cold and Eddie is shivering, but he’s sweating, too. Sweating, hot. Cold. Oh, he doesn’t feel good.
“No, I’ve never watched—” Buck puts his hand on Eddie’s face, prodding too close to the throbbing bruise that makes up his entire T-zone, but Eddie is too weak to push him away. “Oh, my god, Eddie, did I just abuse you?”
“I feel sick,” Eddie says to the ceiling. “No, you didn’t abuse me. You’ve done worse to me than slap me out of a nightmare.”
“You were having a nightmare?”
Eddie hums. His pulse is thudding in his throat, too fast. “Thought I was—back in the desert. Afghanistan. Buck, I don’t feel good.”
Buck’s hand moves to his forehead, feeling his temperature, brushing his damp hair away. “You have a fever,” he says in a grave voice. “And—and your arm is bleeding again.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to jump the truck.”
Eddie looks at him. He wants to say no, wants to tell him to sit his ass right here until help comes, but they both know help isn’t coming. Not here, not now. They’ll both be dead by the time someone passes through; Joshua Tree isn’t a popular tourist spot in March.
“Is it—”
“Yeah, it’s still out there. I’ve been listening to it cry the whole time you were out. I think it’s circling us.”
“Mm. Maybe it’s rabid.”
“Rare, but maybe.”
A few seconds of silence, breathing, now, in tandem, then Buck unfolds himself from the floor, slow and groaning, and crawls into the driver’s seat. He reaches back for his duffel, and pulls out a portable jumpstarter. Jesus, the thing is like Mary Poppins’ bag.
He opens the door, then waits a second, then pushes it open further. He has a flashlight, and in the bright white beam stretches the vast and unforgiving California desert. Eddie can’t move much, but from his pathetic vantage point he sees enough to know that Buck will be safe for now.
He reminds him, anyway.
“Be fucking safe. Do you hear me, Buckley? Careful.”
Buck looks in on him and nods. “Yeah.”
He leaves the driver’s side door wide open for a quick escape. The truck hood squeaks when he props it up, and it’s as loud as a gunshot in the quiet, empty night. Eddie finds himself holding his breath. He also finds himself praying, though he doesn’t know to who. Mostly a half-silent repetition of Please please please.
Eddie closes his eyes. There’s some jostling, a few clicks, a squeak. He doesn’t pass out, but he does nod off, sucked under by the fever and his drooling blood, fatigued by his own terror. His muddled, sick head tells him that he’s just napping, that they’re stopped at a gas station on the way home from Nashville, that Buck is just filling the tank.
A distant snarl.
”Buck.”
Buck crashes into the driver’s seat and fumbles with the key in the ignition. Nothing happens, not even a single click from the starter.
“Fuck, fuck.”
He flies back out, fiddles with the jump, and reappears. This time, the truck roars to life after a half-second of grinding, and Buck laughs, loud and crazy. The rumbling engine and Buck’s laugh are like music to Eddie’s ears.
His stomach contracts painfully and he vomits over the edge of the seat.
“Shit, Eddie—”
Eddie spits. “Let’s go.”
Buck tears the clamps from the bay and slams the hood shut, then throws himself into the driver’s seat, followed by the jumpstarter and his flashlight, still on, into the passenger footwell.
Another deafening caterwaul outside the window above Eddie’s head, followed by a thump and the truck rocking as the bastard of a mountain lion tries to scale the side.
“Go before it climbs into the bed, Buck!”
Buck floors it, and doesn’t let up on the gas for— A minute? An hour? Eddie has no idea. Eddie is too sick to know. He vomits two more times before the truck is slowing to a stop.
Suddenly Buck is over him, his panicked face white and haggard. He needs a shave, Eddie thinks. He needs to brush his teeth. They both do. They need to get home, to Christopher.
God, Chris is gonna be so mad at them.
“Okay, baby, nice and easy, come on, Eddie.”
Suddenly Eddie is free from his coffin that was the back seats of Buck’s truck, lifted out into the cold desert night. A neon moon beats down on them, and when Eddie squints his eyes open, he finds a huge, looming MOTEL sign guiding their way.
Buck busts through the nearest door shoulder-first, and the splintering wood that rains on them feels like the sand in their socks. Buck shoulders the light on, too. The room smells musty, old. Abandoned. Like they stumbled upon a rotting movie set.
Eddie is laid out gently on the springy bed atop cold, scratchy blankets. He rearranges the throw blanket that he’s still wrapped in, then briefly feels his pulse.
“Fuck, Eddie,” he breathes.
He disappears from view, to the bathroom, or maybe even back outside, and returns with a dingy plastic cup full of lukewarm water. It’s pressed to Eddie’s lips.
“Open.”
Eddie opens his mouth just to say, “Tap?”
“Yeah, it’s tap water. I forgot to stock more bottles in my emergency kit. Please, Eddie, your lips are so dry.”
His voice cracks like he might cry, and Eddie obliges. He drinks the cup of water, and even the second that’s offered, and manages not to vomit again. A wet washcloth is draped over his forehead, and Eddie can’t bring himself to think about the state of the bathtub that it was found in.
“‘m still bleeding,” he mumbles, testing his arm and finding it able to move a little, but still warm and wet and aching.
“You are,” Buck nods. “But it’s—it’s not bad. It’s better to keep it wrapped up.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to go see if I can find a main office, and a—a phone.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Buck kisses him under his eye, the left one, where that little freckle is. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”
Though the door is halfway off its hinges, Buck closes it anyway, and Eddie is left alone in a strange motel room in the middle of nowhere, feverish, hurt, and so, so thirsty.
He doesn’t stay conscious for long.
Though Eddie has gotten used to waking up in the hospital, he still hears the beeping of the monitors and thinks to himself, Did someone plant a bomb in this motel room?
“Hey partner, you with us?”
He opens his eyes and hisses at the barrage of bright lights and white walls. He’s not in the ICU, he notices first, just a room. He must’ve been out for a day or two.
The second thing Eddie notices is Hen at his bedside, feet up in the plush reclining chair and her cane hanging off the rolling table that holds an untouched lunch. The smell makes his stomach growl.
“Hey,” he says, and clears his throat. “Hey, Hen.”
“Hey yourself.” She reaches forward and plucks the warming lid from his plate. Turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes. “I already ate your carrots. And your pudding cup. Karen got to the lemon ice before I told her to go down and get some real food.”
“Oh,” Eddie says. He looks away from his lunch to his arm. It’s a bulky mess of white wrapping and black bruising that stretches all the way down to his wrist, but it’s all still there. His brain tells his fingers to wiggle, and they actually wiggle. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do with you Buckley-Diazes.” Hen shakes her head as she settles herself back into the recliner. “Never have I met a family more danger-prone than you three.”
Eddie’s heartrate skyrockets, and Hen laughs. She reaches up and hits a button on the monitor to silence the alarm. It does nothing to quiet the alarm bells in his head, though.
Family family family. Buckley-Diazes, like they’re one unit, like they’re a family, like Hen knows.
Oh, God, he’s going to throw up again.
“Hen, I—”
She waves him off. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, I’m not your captain.”
“How…”
“Did we find out?” She kicks the footrest down and throws her legs up on the bed at Eddie’s side. “That was easy, we have eyes.” A shrug. “Also Roxie at the 113 down in Nashville called to gossip after you two left.”
Eddie blinks. “Does every lesbian in the FD know each other?”
“Yes,” Hen tells him seriously. “Now eat your food.”
Eddie eats his food, slowly, and with one hand. A faint ache pounds at the back of his head, just as a reminder. His whole body aches, and he’s so stiff it feels as if he’s been papier-mâchéd.
“Chris is pissed as hell, you know.”
He cringes. “I figured. Where is he?”
“Still at your aunt’s. He refused to come down once he found out you were gonna live.”
“Pepa?”
“Downstairs with everyone. Probably making sure Buck eats something and doesn’t just pace the halls.”
Eddie eats the mashed potatoes but can’t stomach the turkey. Hen opens the carton of apple juice for him.
“He’ll get over it,” she says. “Chris, I mean. You didn’t mean to go and get yourself mauled by a cougar.”
“Mountain lion.”
“Same thing. Either way, he’s a strong kid. He’s been through this before.”
“Yeah, that’s what I hate,” Eddie says. The apple juice is warm. “Can’t even roadtrip home without something going wrong. It’s like I’m cursed.”
“Oh, so now you believe in curses, huh?” Hen watches him for a moment, steadily, in that motherly way of hers. It makes Eddie miss his sisters, suddenly. He misses his abuela.
He’s also suddenly very, very tired.
Hen hauls herself to her feet with the help of her cane. “Get some rest, Indiana Jones. I’ll go let everyone know you’re up.”
She kisses him on the head and goes out, and Eddie closes his eyes, relaxing into his starchy, crinkly hospital pillow.
He counts twenty-three beeps of the monitor when there’s a knock on the doorframe. Eddie expects a nurse coming in to take his vitals, but instead he’s met with both Buck and Christopher, lingering awkwardly in the door.
Buck looks worried. Christopher looks annoyed.
“I went to get him,” Buck says, putting a hand on the back of Christopher’s neck. He brandishes an In-N-Out bag, heavy and greasy. Eddie’s stomach roils at the sight. “And stop for some apology burgers.”
“For me?” Eddie says.
“No, me,” Christopher says, coming in with a determined stride. He throws his crutches across Eddie’s legs and flops down in the recliner. “And Chimney. He’s really mad at you guys.”
Buck huffs and passes Christopher a wrapped burger. “Yeah, I’ve been sort of avoiding him.”
Eddie watches Buck, watches him tuck a sleeve of fries into the cupholder at Christopher’s elbow, watches him steal one. He rolls the bag closed and sets it next to Eddie’s lunch, then inspects the plate and frowns at the untouched turkey and half-drunk apple juice. He’s nervous, Eddie can tell. He’s avoiding his eye.
“Hey,” Eddie says, and beckons him over.
Buck looks at Eddie’s hand and takes it. His hand is warm and calloused.
“Come here.”
Eddie makes room on the bed and Buck sits down gingerly at his side. Eddie tugs him down, until they’re laying side-by-side, sharing the shitty pillows.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers, and it’s almost lost in the crinkling and crunching of Christopher devouring his burger and fries. Eddie, wincing, manages to get himself burrowed under Buck’s arm, just like in the back of the truck.
“You can’t,” he tells him. “I’m okay, because of you. You saved my life, Buck.”
“I brought you—”
“You saved my life. You kept me alive.” He kisses Buck’s chest and finds that he smells like his bodywash, no longer like the sour tang of fear. “Has anyone ever told you you’d make a good boyscout?”
Buck laughs, and Christopher pitches his burger wrapper at them. “Are you guys gonna be flirting all the time now?”
“I told him in the car down,” Buck tells Eddie. “Thought it would make him feel better.”
“Did it?”
“No way. He’s even madder now.”
Eddie snorts, and a shock of pain races through his sinuses. “Mijo, get over here.”
“Ugh, I’m sitting.”
“Tough. Come here, I almost died again, I want my baby.”
Groaning, Christopher gets up from the recliner and climbs into the bed on the side of Eddie’s injured arm. He looks at the plethora of bandages and the mottled skin peeking out and frowns with his whole face. It makes him look like a little kid again.
“Please stop almost dying,” he says, finally settling down. “Both of you.”
“Only if you stop running away from home.”
“Hey— I got taken, okay? That wasn’t my fault.”
“And it’s not your dad’s fault that he was attacked,” Buck says.
“Hen’s right. We are danger-prone.”
“She said that?”
“She’s definitely right,” Christopher says. “You fit right in, Buck.”
Buck looks over Eddie at him. “You think so?”
Christopher looks back. “Yeah.”
He smiles. “Thanks, kid. I love you.”
“Love you too, kid.”
Eddie holds up his good pinky. “Alright, Buckley-Diazes, let’s make a promise. Link up.”
Buck wraps his pinky around Eddie’s, and Christopher around his, like the three of them are monkeys in a barrel. They hold on tight.
“From now on, we’re going to start being more careful.”
“No promises,” Christopher says with an eyeroll that Eddie can practically hear.
“And we’re going to brush up on our stranger danger skills.”
“Uh huh,” Buck agrees.
“And none of us, for any reason, goes out into the desert at night. Amen.”
“Amen,” Buck and Christopher echo, and the three of them kiss their fists and let go.
After a quiet and still few moments, uncomfortably squeezed into Eddie’s hospital bed, Christopher says, “So, did you guys have fun, at least?”
Eddie and Buck catch each other’s eye and laugh.
“Yeah, bud,” Eddie says. “But next time we’re getting Buck a benzo prescription for the flight home.”