Work Text:
A gentle hand on his shoulder pulls Eddie out of a dream where he’s standing on a cliff’s edge scanning the churning ocean waters for something. He can’t remember what he lost, but his heart is racing when he opens his eyes.
Maddie stands over him, hair piled up in a bun on top of her head. She’s wearing a magenta sweater, the same color as the polo she used to wear at the call station, only warmer and softer. Her eyes are tired but kind.
“Eddie,” She whispers, “You should go home.”
He blinks his eyes into focus so he can look at Buck. Asleep, tucked under blankets and curled in on himself a bit so he looks small. But the color is coming back to his face and his curls aren’t plastered to his skin with sweat anymore. Eddie thinks about brushing his hair away from his eyes, and flexes his fingers against the arm of the chair. In New Mexico, he fell asleep in a chair just like it, also pulled close against Buck’s bed. This doesn't feel the same at all.
“Uh.” Eddie rubs his eye with the heel of his palm. He tries to find words. He tries to remember how many nights it’s been since he slept in a bed. His own or any other. “He—”
“Is fine.” Maddie rubs Eddie’s shoulder. “He’s okay. He’s been asleep for hours.”
Eddie shakes his head. “Wait, how do you—”
“Know? I got here a while ago. Thought you could both use the rest.”
Everyone else has gone home. They’re taking shifts now, or they’re supposed to be. Eddie can’t be home for more than a couple hours before he feels a horrible tugging sensation in his gut that drags him right back to Buck’s house. As he registers the sunlight sneaking through the cracks in the blinds, he realizes Maddie must be here to take over.
“I can’t… Ah.” His back twinges as he shifts, begging him to hunt down a horizontal surface to lie down on. He winces, watching Maddie’s lips flatten into a straight line when he does. Buck stirs and groans softly in his sleep, and Eddie holds his breath. He can feel Maddie holding hers too. They both stare at him, like he’s a glass teetering on the edge of a countertop, maybe about to fall and shatter, maybe not. God, he would fucking hate it if he could see them.
Maddie drops her voice even lower. “At least come to the kitchen and have some coffee.” He’s having a hard time tearing his eyes away from Buck. It’s noticeable, he’s sure. That he’s barely keeping it together. “We’ll leave the door open in case he needs anything.”
Eddie takes a breath. Buck is okay. Buck is asleep. He’s comfortable. He’s getting better. He’s breathing. He’s breathing. Eddie pulls together what he hopes passes for a smile. “Okay.”
The smell of freshly-brewed coffee and bacon guides Eddie to the kitchen behind Maddie. He only looks back towards Buck’s bedroom once.
“How do you take it?”
“Huh?”
“Your coffee,” Maddie replies with a small laugh as she grabs two mugs out of the cabinet. One is a plain blue, probably from Target, that Eddie remembers having a small chip in the handle. The other is a Christmas gift from Chris years ago, with a tree that he clearly spent a lot of time painting but eventually gave up on. The colored lights stop about halfway down the branches. Buck uses it every time Chris comes over.
“Uh, cream, no sugar. Please.”
Maddie nods and pulls half n’ half out of the fridge.
“Oh, um, actually,” Eddie shouldn’t even say anything. It’s not a big deal. Except he really needs coffee. “I think there’s a French vanilla creamer in there.”
“Huh. I thought Buck didn’t like French vanilla.”
“He, uh. He doesn’t.”
Maddie raises her eyebrows at him and he feels his ears grow warm. Please. Please don’t. Not right now.
She says nothing. Just pulls his stupid fucking creamer out of her brother’s fridge and pours it into the mug that Eddie’s son made for him.
“Thanks,” he says, and hopes she knows he doesn’t just mean for the coffee.
Eddie makes his way to one side of the table and Maddie sits down on the other side and they both sip their coffee in silence. They’ve never been alone in a room together. The thought hits Eddie like a flash-bang. How is that possible? They’ve known each other for almost a decade now. They share a person. Well, they share a lot of people, but especially one person. A car drives by outside, blasting music loud enough to hear the bass through the walls.
“He looks better today,” Maddie says, and Eddie is relieved. He feels sick when he thinks about Buck, but thinking about Buck is the only thing he feels capable of doing.
“Yeah, he does. It’s been almost a week so he should be—”
“Mostly through it,” Maddie finishes. “This part, at least.” The dopesick part. The dramatic part where his body is betraying him for not giving it what it wants. The predictable part. After this, who knows?
“One step at a time.”
“Eddie, I never…” Maddie picks at the chip on her mug handle. Two of her manicured nails are broken, and he wonders if she bites them when she’s stressed like her brother does. “I don’t think I ever really thanked you. For New Mexico. For bringing him home.”
Eddie scoffs. Fucking New Mexico. She may as well have punched him in the stomach.
“Is something funny?”
“No, I just…” Eddie rubs his hands over his face. The weight of it all is like sandbags tied to his body, pulling him down. “I didn’t. I didn’t bring him home. I brought home a ghost, and I was too fucking blind to even see it.”
“Don’t say that.” Her tone is sharp. Not gentle or comforting, the way he knows her to be, but icy. He jerks his head up in surprise to see that her eyes are just as cold. “Don’t. He’s alive. He’s sick, not dead. Not a fucking ghost.”
“I…” Eddie blinks at her. “Fuck. You’re right, I’m sorry.”
“I get it.” She leans in towards him with a pointed stare. “It sucks. You feel like you’re the person who was supposed to know him best in the world, who was supposed to protect him, and you failed. Like he was drowning right in front of you while you watched, and you just let him. Right?”
All of the tension leaves Eddie’s body. He is such a fucking asshole. Buck feels like his. His person, his responsibility, his family, his. But Buck’s not his. At least, not only his. Buck is his own, of course. And Buck is Chris’s, and Hen’s, and Chim’s, and Bobby’s even now. And Buck is Maddie’s. Was Maddie’s long before any of them even knew he existed.
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“Well, cheers to that.” She holds out her coffee mug, and he clinks his against it.
Eddie runs a hand through his hair. “I just can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
“None of us did,” Maddie says, her voice breaking a little. “Everyone thinks he’s this guy who always wears his heart on his sleeve. And he is, sometimes. But when he needs to be, he’s really, really, good at hiding his hurt. Or at least pushing people far enough away that they can’t see it clearly.”
“But I’m his…” The idea of saying best friend brings the taste of bile to his mouth. “I’m the guy who was supposed to save him.” Once again, he pulled someone out, brought them home, but he didn’t save them. Maddie may understand a lot of how he feels, but she can’t understand that. Eddie’s been in this position before and he barely made it through, but if he lost Buck? If he truly let him be lost for good? There would be no coming back from that.
Maddie covers one of his hands with her own. Her eyes are shiny with tears, and he thinks his might look the same. For a moment, weirdly, looking at her feels like looking in a mirror. “Let’s just be grateful he saved himself this time.”
It’s not just different this time because it’s Buck. It’s different this time because he still has a chance. Buck’s not a ghost. He’s alive. And he has a chance. Eddie clears his throat. “I won’t let this happen again, Maddie. I promise you.”
Maddie sighs, a proper big-sister sigh with a slight eye roll and an exasperated smile. She pulls her hand out of his grasp and sticks her pink out towards him. “We will do our best. To take care of him, and to not be too hard on ourselves. Okay?”
Eddie interlocks his pinky with hers. He’s never had a big sister before. He thinks it might be nice. “Okay.”