Chapter Text
Bang!
The sound of a gunshot echoes through the silence of the hospital hallways and makes Buck's blood run cold. Heavy footsteps make their way quickly down the hall, growing further and further away until Buck can no longer hear them from where he's crouched behind the nurse's station.
This isn't how this was supposed to go.
Well, ideally, Athena never would have been shot in the first place, so they wouldn’t even be in the hospital.
But still.
A hospital is a place for healing and recovery, not more damage and destruction.
And in the chaos of an active shooter situation, Buck definitely doesn’t think being separated is the way to go. Maybe in the idea that they can’t all get rounded up at once, sure, but Buck can’t help but worry about everyone else. Are those that were in the waiting room when he left still there? Are they safe? Chimney had stepped out to take a call. Did he ever make it back inside?
And Eddie—where did Eddie go? He’d wandered off before the lockdown had been announced, so Buck had snuck off to look for him.
Which is why he’s now here, on a random floor of the hospital, hiding behind the nurse’s station. He’d fought against every instinct telling him to take action when he’d seen the man with the gun walking down the hallway, back turned. He knows better; he can’t help anyone if he’s bleeding out in the middle of the hospital, and the rational side of his brain quickly reminded him that Man With Gun will likely beat Man With No Weapon Just Muscles every time.
But now someone has been shot, and Buck has to decide between staying safe and trying to help someone who’s likely bleeding out.
Which, well, isn’t really much of a decision.
He strains his ears, wanting to be one hundred percent sure that the shooter is gone before he leaves his hiding spot. The hospital floor is eerily quiet, and Buck’s fairly sure the man is no longer on this floor.
But then—
A new set of footsteps, unsteady, uneven, makes their way down the hall, this time seemingly slowly getting closer to Buck's hiding place. Buck holds his breath. It doesn't sound like the shooter, but he doesn't want to take any chances.
He hears a stifled groan followed by heavy breathing. Something about it makes Buck's ears perk up, waking something up inside his brain.
Smack!
What sounds like a wet hand slaps a wall, as if someone's leaning their whole body weight into it, followed by a rapid clicking noise.
“C’mon,” the person mumbles under their breath, clearly frustrated and strained.
Buck's heart drops. He knows that voice. It might be barely audible over the pounding of his heart in his ears, but he'd recognize that voice anywhere.
It's Eddie.
He doesn’t even think before he does it.
As quietly and as quickly as he can, Buck crouches out from behind the nurse’s station and makes his way over to where Eddie is frantically pressing the elevator button. Buck immediately notices the dark stain blooming across his stomach and the blood smeared across his arm, but he doesn’t let himself think about it. He can’t panic about Eddie being shot—again. He has to focus.
Get Eddie to safety. Stop the bleeding. Make sure he’s stable and alive.
Actions first, emotions later.
“I’m pretty sure they turned off the elevators when they locked down the hospital,” Buck murmurs as quietly as he can. “I don’t hear the buzzing they usually make.”
Eddie hums in acknowledgement, the grip around his middle tightening as his face screws up in pain.
“We need to get that wrapped up, stop the bleeding,” Buck whispers, wrapping an arm around Eddie and draping his arm over his shoulders, bearing most of his weight under the arm around his waist.
“I know,” Eddie grunts before puffing out a few labored breaths.
“Which way did he go?”
Eddie gestures down the hallway. In response, Buck pivots them around and leads Eddie in the opposite direction, taking on almost all of Eddie’s weight as they stumble away from where the shooter just went.
Buck drags Eddie into an empty hospital room, laying him on the bed as gently as possible, though Eddie still lets out a soft groan.
“Okay, gauze, gauze, gotta find some gauze,” Buck mumbles to himself, quietly closing the door to the room just in case.
“Maybe over there,” Eddie breathes, pointing a weak hand toward a cabinet in the room. He has one arm wrapped around his blood-soaked abdomen, and his face is alarmingly pale.
Buck can’t think about that right now.
Actions first, emotions later.
He opens the cabinet and starts searching for gauze or bandages or anything that can help stop the bleeding. Normally, he’d be more careful or considerate, trying to keep things organized, but he can’t be bothered to worry about that right now—if it can’t be used to stop the bleeding, it’s getting tossed aside. He has to work quickly; who knows how long they’ll be stuck in this room with the hospital in lockdown.
Eventually, he finds a roll of gauze and holds it up triumphantly.
“This’ll have to do for now,” he says, showing it to Eddie.
Eddie nods before grimacing in pain.
“Should be fine, just make sure to wrap it tight,” he manages to get out with a wince.
Buck playfully rolls his eyes as he steps closer to Eddie and gently lifts his arm off the bullet hole, lifting his shirt away and quickly placing his own hand over the wound to halt the bleeding. He tries to lighten the heavy mood as he takes in the grim sight of blood covering Eddie’s torso.
“I might not be a fancy paramedic, but I do know the basics, Eddie.”
Eddie huffs out an approximation of a laugh, and Buck’ll take it. Anything to get his mind off the fact that he’s been shot, once again, and they don’t know how long they’ll have to make do on their own.
He opens the tiny box with one hand and pulls out the roll of gauze. His stomach drops when he realizes—this isn’t a fresh box. In fact, most of the roll has already been used.
Buck does his best to wrap the white mesh around Eddie’s wound, but the little that was left behind won’t even wrap around Eddie once, let alone enough times to stanch the bleeding.
“So…this isn’t going to work,” Buck admits, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Eddie retorts, glancing at the sad, thin strip now soaked with blood.
That’s good. If Eddie’s still joking around, he’s still okay. He’s talking, he’s making jokes…it’s going to be okay. They just need to find another way to stop the bleeding.
Actions first, emotions later.
“Um…” Buck looks around, eyes darting to every corner of the room, hoping to land on some sort of medical equipment that can be used. The room is sparse. “I don’t…I could use my shirt?” He says it mostly as a joke, hoping to get another laugh out of Eddie while he thinks of a better solution.
He doesn’t.
“Just use mine,” Eddie says, his tone shifting to something serious, all traces of lightheartedness gone. “It’s already fucked up anyway. Can you—I can’t rip it myself.”
He’s once again covering his bullet wound with his hand, applying pressure to slow the bleeding until they can bandage it. Buck swallows once before nodding.
“Y—yeah, ‘course.”
As gently yet quickly as he can, Buck rips off a strip of fabric from the bottom of Eddie’s shirt, just below the portion already soaked in blood. He makes quick work wrapping it around Eddie, pulling it tight, and tying it off to the side as best he can. It’s not perfect, but it’ll have to do for now.
After he’s sure the pseudo-bandage is holding and the bleeding has been stopped, Buck slumps into the stiff hospital chair next to the bed. They’re not out of the woods yet, but they can at least breathe for now.
Buck pulls out his phone, triple-checking that it’s on silent before sending off a quick text to the group chat to let them know where they are and that they’re safe, with a request for the others to let them know they’re safe when they can.
“You know, if you’d texted me back, I wouldn’t have had to go looking for you,” he ribs Eddie quietly, waving his phone in the air before pocketing it.
Eddie’s head lolls to the side, so he’s looking at Buck. “Well, it’s a good thing my phone was dead,” he says dryly, “otherwise I’d still be waiting for that elevator.”
“It’s sort of like fate that your phone died then.”
Eddie rolls his eyes, but there’s no malice behind it. “Sure, Buck.”
A beat passes between them.
“I’m glad your phone was dead,” Buck admits softly.
“Yeah,” Eddie responds, voice just as soft and gentle, “me too.”
Time seems to crawl past while Buck’s mind wanders. What are the others doing? Are they safe? No one ever got back to him—is that because their phones are off or because they’re in danger?
The longer they sit in silence, the more Buck’s mind keeps making up worst-case scenarios of what could possibly be going on in other parts of the hospital.
“Eddie,” he whispers, no longer able to take the eternal silence.
“Yeah?”
“I’m scared,” Buck admits. He hates how timid his voice sounds. But here, in this room in a locked-down hospital where there’s an active shooter, he knows it’s a safe space to voice his fear; Eddie won’t judge him.
“Me too,” Eddie responds.
It’s comforting, for whatever reason, to know they’re both scared. To know they’re on the same page. The world is scary, and they’re in a scary situation. That doesn’t make him weak; it makes him human.
“How much longer do you think we’ll be stuck here in lockdown?” Buck knows there’s no way of knowing; he just wants to keep talking. If Eddie’s talking, he’s okay. If they’re having a conversation, Buck’s brain has something to focus on other than whatever might be happening elsewhere in this hospital.
“Hopefully not long. Would kinda like to get this bullet out of me sooner rather than later.”
“I swear you’re like a bullet magnet, man.”
Eddie lets out a soft chuckle and immediately winces in pain.
“Don’t make me laugh. Hurts.”
“Sorry.”
He barely utters the apology before Eddie lets out a stifled cough followed by a pained groan. Buck is on his feet in a second.
“Are you okay?” he asks, voice laced with worry.
“Yeah, just hurts when I cough, too,” Eddie tries to reassure him, voice strained as if he’s trying to hold back another cough. “Tickle in my throat.”
“Um…” Buck turns around on the spot, looking around the room in the hopes that there may be a stray water bottle or cup of water lying about. Unfortunately, there’s nothing.
Eddie chokes out another two short coughs before groaning and bringing his hand down to his bullet wound, pressing into it as if that would stop the pain. He furrows his brow and looks down at his hand, pulling it away to reveal that it’s covered in fresh blood.
Buck’s heart drops.
“Buck…”
Spurred into action by that one simple word, Buck presses a firm hand over the wound once more.
“I—it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,” he stammers out, even if he doesn’t quite believe it himself.
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie mumbles, though he doesn’t quite sound like he’s completely coherent.
“We’ve just—we’ve gotta wrap it better, apply more pressure. You’re going to be fine.”
“Buck?” Eddie’s voice is soft, almost innocent.
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you’re here with me.”
There’s—there’s no way—Eddie isn’t—he’s not thinking like that, surely.
Buck can’t let himself think Eddie’s thinking like that.
Actions first, emotions later.
“I am too, but y—you’re gonna be fine, Eddie,” Buck rushes out, voice cracking despite his best efforts to remain calm.
He just has to wrap a fresh cloth around the wound, and it’ll be fine again; it stopped the bleeding once before, so surely it’ll work again.
Except…
Buck glances up at Eddie’s shirt. It’s saturated with blood. There’s no way to easily rip off a portion that’s clean enough to actually work as a bandage.
His own shirt will have to do this time.
“H—here.” Buck takes Eddie’s hand and presses it firmly against the wound so that Buck can remove his hand and tear off some of his shirt. “Just hold on, j—just keep pressing for a second.”
There’s too much blood. Something in the back of Buck’s mind recognizes that. There’s no way for him to calculate just how much Eddie’s lost, but he knows enough to know it’s not good.
Eddie’s hand keeps slipping off the wound, so Buck pulls up his other hand, hoping that maybe the combined weight of his hands, at the very least, will be enough to hold pressure for the brief moment he needs to let go, despite Eddie’s rapidly depleting energy.
Alarm bells are going off in his head.
He was fine just a minute ago, and now he can’t even exert enough energy to press his hand against the bullet hole. No explanation for that is a good one, and all signs point to—no.
Actions first, emotions—
“Buck,” Eddie’s blood-soaked hand lightly grips his forearm, and his eyes look up at him with a sort of unfocused haze that makes Buck’s blood run cold. “I love you,” he says softly.
Buck doesn’t understand.
Something like this should make the world stop around him. Everything should freeze; this is a momentous occasion. Time should stand still while he absorbs the words his best friend let past his lips, gathers his thoughts, and responds.
But it doesn’t.
Instead, too much happens all at once.
Eddie’s grip on Buck’s arm slackens until it drops, limply hanging off the edge of the bed, and his eyes slip closed.
Buck can’t—
He can’t.
He can’t think, he can’t move his hand, he can’t process the words that just slipped into his ears and wormed their way into his brain, he can’t…
He can’t live in a world without Eddie.
Adrenaline kicks into overdrive, and Buck shuts his emotions down.
Focus. Save Eddie.
Buck brings up a hand to Eddie’s neck and checks his pulse; it’s weak, very weak, but it’s there. That’s good. He probably just passed out because of blood loss. That’s probably also why he said—
Nevermind.
Stop the bleeding.
Buck knows he just has to do his best by himself now. As quickly as he can, he rips a strip of fabric from the bottom of his shirt and wraps it around Eddie, securing it even more tightly than the previous makeshift bandage. He lets go and watches for a moment. Eddie doesn’t wake back up, but the bleeding does slow so it’s no longer pouring from his abdomen.
It’ll have to do for now, but…blood. Eddie needs blood.
Buck has no idea where the blood even is in this hospital.
And, even if he did know where it is…he doesn’t know Eddie’s blood type.
What kind of an idiot doesn’t know their best friend’s blood type? Eddie probably knows his blood type.
Wait. Duh.
Buck thinks back to that night over a year ago. Halloween 2024.
Buck’s blood type is O-. He’s a universal blood donor. He can give Eddie some of his blood.
Before he can think about all the reasons why he shouldn’t, Buck pulls out his phone and desperately searches for instructions on how to do a direct blood transfusion. He can’t believe he’s relying on fucking Google to help him save his best friend, the man he—nope. Nope.
Not now.
He just has to save Eddie; that’s what he needs to focus on. And all he can think to do right now is give Eddie more blood, give him more time so that he can make it long enough for an actual doctor to fix whatever internal damage he has going on.
He has to survive. He has to live. Chris can’t lose another parent.
Oh God. Chris.
Not now.
Buck skims the instructions; he remembers the basics, but he just wants to make sure he’s as safe as possible. He might not be a paramedic, but he’s had enough training and experience to be fairly confident that he can do this.
But he needs a way to actually transfer the blood.
He quickly scans the room. He didn’t see any needles or IVs in the cabinet earlier, but that makes sense; those aren’t the sort of materials a hospital would just have in a cabinet that’s easily accessible to anyone.
His eyes land on a metal drawer in the corner, just under an unused monitor. That could be it.
It’s locked, which makes sense, but also presents a new problem.
What was it that Bobby used to say, though?
There isn’t a locked room that, with the right tools and enough time, you can’t get into. Surely that applies to drawers too, right?
Buck might not have much time, but he does have a lot of determination.
He takes out his pocket knife, and after some practiced maneuvering, manages to pry the drawer open. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees what’s inside—he was correct. It has just what he needs.
Buck glances at Eddie and takes note of the slow, yet visible, rise and fall of his chest. Just in case, as if he doesn’t quite trust his eyes, he reaches out and checks his pulse once more. Still faint, still slow, but there. He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
As carefully and quickly as he can, Buck uses some of the alcohol wipes he’d thrown out of the cabinet earlier to sterilize everything to the best of his ability. He steadies his hands and, before he can overthink it, connects his and Eddie’s arms via needles and a thin tube.
For a moment, nothing happens. Buck knows he’s no expert, but he really thought he did everything right.
Did he really just poke a hole in Eddie for no reason? Is Eddie destined to bleed out while Buck stands by helplessly, unable to do anything about it?
Before he can spiral out of control, red emerges from his side of the tube, filling it and flowing to where it’s attached to Eddie’s arm. Nothing happens right away, but after a moment, Buck thinks he notices Eddie’s breathing gets steadier. It could be his imagination, but he also seems to be getting a bit of color back into his cheeks.
Eddie doesn’t regain consciousness, but it seems to be working.
Buck slumps back into the hospital chair by the bed, propping his arm up so the flow continues. It might not be perfect, but he’s not sure what else he can do except for wait and hope.
The first thing he notices is the annoying beeping sound.
Surely, if he were in heaven—not that he’s entirely sure he even believes that exists—there wouldn’t be such an obnoxious sound to greet him in the afterlife.
And yet, it’s not quite bad enough to make him think he’s in hell.
The second thing he notices is that there’s an odd smell—vaguely familiar. Not bad, necessarily, but almost…sterile. Too clean. Unnatural.
Again, not something he would have thought would be a greeting in either heaven or hell.
But, surely, there’s no way he survived getting shot again.
He takes in a deep breath through his nose, hoping to perhaps identify the smell that seems so oddly familiar. This action, though, causes a third thing for Eddie to notice:
A hand squeezing his own.
And then, a fourth thing—a voice, so familiar and so comforting.
“Eddie?”
That’s Buck.
So he’s definitely not in hell. But he’s also not in heaven…right? Buck didn’t get shot, as far as Eddie’s aware.
Which means…
With what seems like the effort of lifting a whale out of the ocean, Eddie opens his eyes. Blinks a few times. Takes in the stark white walls of his hospital room.
“H—Hey,” Buck says softly with a small smile. He’s sitting in the chair next to Eddie’s bed, his hand loosely holding Eddie’s.
“Hi,” Eddie responds with a slight frown. It’s not that he’s not happy to see Buck…he just really fucking hates hospitals. Hopefully, he can get out of here soon.
“Do you remember what happened?” Buck asks cautiously, worrying his lower lip.
He really—Buck really can’t be doing that right now. Eddie just got shot, he can’t be thinking about—
“I got shot. Again,” Eddie deadpans.
That gets Buck to crack a smile.
“Yeah, you should really stop doing that.”
Eddie hums. “When I get out of here, I’ll tattoo ‘please stop shooting me’ across my forehead.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll stop someone with a gun dead in their tracks. ‘Oh? You don’t want to be shot? Well, you said please, so I guess I’ll go find someone else.’”
Eddie lets out a light snort. “Or maybe we can just stop getting ourselves into situations that involve people with guns.”
Buck scoffs playfully. “Yeah, sure, and I’m secretly a ballerina.”
“Well…”
They share a breathy laugh before falling into silence.
Eddie gives in to the temptation to squeeze Buck’s hand gently, chancing a look at his best friend’s face.
Something complicated ghosts across it that Eddie can’t quite place.
“Do you remember anything else? Other than, you know, just getting shot?”
Eddie furrows his brow, thinking back to the events in the hospital. He remembers getting shot. He remembers making his way to the elevator. He remembers Buck coming up to him, and then…
“Not really,” he admits. “Things are kind of hazy…”
Buck’s face falls slightly. Internally, alarm bells are going off in Eddie’s head. Something important must have happened that he’s forgotten. He quickly does his best to push the memories to the forefront of his mind.
It’s coming back in flashes, and it’s all a little blurry, but…
“Wait—”
“Eddie, you don’t—”
“I told you I love you.”
The memory isn’t quite clear, but it’s as if he can almost feel the words slipping from his lips as quickly as blood was flowing from his bullet hole.
He told Buck he loved him while he was bleeding out and then passed out.
Buck’s cheeks turn the faintest shade of pink. “Yeah, you did.” He looks down at their hands, unable to meet Eddie’s eyes.
“Shit.” It slips out of Eddie’s mouth before he can even think about it.
“Don’t worry about it,” Buck is quick to reassure him. “I know you d—didn’t mean it…l—like that. It was just like…‘I love you, bud,’ like, because we’re best friends and you thought you were dying or whatever.”
Eddie shakes his head, mostly to himself. The motion makes his vision swim, and he squeezes his eyes shut.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
Buck’s hand goes limp in Eddie’s.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, man. Consider it forgotten.”
Eddie opens his eyes and catches the look on Buck’s face. He notices the clearly forced smile and can detect the dejection hiding behind Buck’s pale blue eyes.
Does Buck…? Surely, there’s no way Buck actually thinks Eddie didn’t mean it.
Eddie has to fix this. He can’t have Buck looking like that, like a sad kicked puppy that’s just forcing a smile. It breaks his heart, truly.
He squeezes his eyes shut once more, willing the sudden onslaught of vertigo to go away.
“No, no, I meant—shit. Buck, that’s not—I meant that I didn’t want to say—”
Suddenly, Eddie’s tongue feels too big for his mouth. Before he can get the rest of his words out, his arm spasms, an alarm goes off, and then everything goes black.