Archive of Our Own

Eddie doesn’t mean to fall asleep in the waiting room, but it’s been a long fucking night.

After watching Buck get wheeled away, Hen had insisted he get checked out by cardiology, taking every precaution since he’d been indirectly struck by the lightning that had killed—

Eddie had technically been hit too.

Time crawled as he waited to get an EKG done, and once that was over and he was cleared by a doctor, he just–he needed to take a beat out of the way of all the other warm bodies.

(He tries not to think about how Buck runs cold. How cold he’ll be if—)

So he found a free chair in a lonely corner and closed his eyes to get a momentary break from the harsh fluorescents every hospital waiting room seems to use for whatever reason and promptly nodded off.

Eddie jolts awake a few minutes later as his head falls off of the fist he’d been leaning it on. At least, he thinks it’s only been a few minutes, until–until he sees—

Buck?

Eddie rubs his eyes, trying to somehow clear his disorientation, but he clearly sees Buck walking towards the exit with Maddie and a man he’s never seen before but still looks vaguely familiar.

The two men leave through the sliding glass doors and Maddie turns around to go back down the hallway. He squints into the distance to try and get a better look, but all his nap-addled brain will focus on is Maddie wearing scrubs. Why is she wearing scrubs? Hen had come to let him know that she and the Buckleys had arrived while he was still waiting for the electrodes to be placed for his eval—maybe she had gotten caught so badly in the rain that she had to get a change of clothes in the gift shop to lower the risk of catching a cold?

But that doesn’t explain why she wouldn’t be walking out with Buck as he’s leav—

Eddie jolts awake—only this time, instead of seeing Buck on the far side of the waiting room, he’s got Athena standing over him with her hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Athena says gently. “Saw you as I was on my way to drag my husband out of here. Figured we could walk back to get eyes on Buck together.”

“Buck? Is he–I saw…” He shakes his head, clearing his throat to hesitantly ask, “There an update?” He’d left his phone in the rig when they got on the scene so God only knows how much he’s missed in real time, but he knows someone would have–would have come and let him know if–if—

Someone would have come to break the news, surely.

“Induced coma to help his body rest,” Athena says. “Which means you all should go home and pretend to get as much rest as you can before you hole up here in the morning.” She pointedly raises an eyebrow.

Coma.

Fuck.

I guess a dream would explain Maddie’s clothes and the random guy, Eddie thinks. Kind of a weird thing to dream, but deep down he did know it would’ve been too good to be true, seeing Buck walk out of the hospital so soon after–after—

But for a few moments he felt… hopeful.

Hopeful that the lightning had been a dream itself. Hopeful that he didn’t actually watch his best friend die for three minutes and seventeen seconds, which he knows because he counted. From the second he started running up the ladder to the second they started compressions to manually keep Buck’s blood pumping through his body.

The worst three minutes of his life, on par with–with his last few minutes in the back of the ambulance with—

Athena pats Eddie’s shoulder, startling him once again back to the present, and nods her head in the direction of the ICU. “C’mon now. The sooner we go back there, the sooner I can drag my husband home for the night. And don’t think I won’t drag you out too.”

“Athena…”

“You know damn well if your boy found out you all were neglecting your basic needs to stand over his sleeping body, he’d have some choice words to say,” she says as she plants a hand on her duty belt.

Eddie raises his hands in surrender and stands up. “You’re probably right,” he acquiesces, “but I don’t think I’m going to get better sleep tossing and turning in my bed than I could right here in this chair.”

Athena shakes her head as they begin to walk. “Well, you can certainly let me know either way in the morning.”

“Yeah, I already called Carla to see if she could take Christopher to school from yours in the morning, and he’ll probably just think it’s like any other time shift ran long, so…”

“And you’re sure you don’t want to tell him what happened to Buck yet?” Pepa asks, uncertainty in her tone clear enough through Eddie’s phone speaker to the point he can imagine the exact way her eyebrows are tilting towards the middle of her forehead.

He knocks his own forehead against his steering wheel a few times before straightening back up and scrubbing a hand over his face. He’d called her as soon as he’d parked in his driveway, knowing that having this conversation after crossing the threshold of his home—on the couch he plays video games and watches movies with Buck and Chris, or in the kitchen where they’ve cooked countless meals together, or in the bedroom where Buck stayed with him after his own stint in the hospital from getting shot on the nights when both of their nightmares got too bad for them to be apart—would make this all feel real in a way he didn’t want to deal with yet.

Eddie blows out a long breath then quietly says, “I just wanna be a little more sure of what to expect before telling him–before telling him that another thing has happened to one of his parents.”

“Oh, Eddie.” Pepa sniffs once and then clicks her tongue. “Evancito is going to be fine. Mejor que bien! If I have learned anything about him these past few years, it’s that he will do whatever it takes to put a smile on Christopher’s face. Lord knows he’ll wake up just to say some ridículo thing like his electric eel Halloween costume got delivered early just to hear the two of you laugh,” she says with amusement in her voice. “And besides, that boy has angels watching over him, I am sure of it.”

Eddie gives her a small chuckle in response, relieved that she’s giving him an easy out to gloss over him calling Buck Christopher’s other dad, and nods despite knowing Pepa can’t see him. “From your lips to God’s ears.” His relationship to the church might be complicated at best, but he’ll take whatever he can get right now. “I’m gonna try and get some sleep. I’ll let you know if I hear anything tomorrow.”

“Te quiero, Eddito. Give our Buck my love as well when you see him.”

“I will, tía. Te quiero, good night.”

Eddie hangs up and finally makes his way into the house, kicking his shoes off at the door and going straight to his room without bothering to do any part of his nighttime routine. The sooner he gets to sleep, the sooner morning comes and he can go back to the hospital, right?

He shucks his socks and pants, gets under the covers, and just… waits. He’d already fallen asleep at the hospital from how exhausted he’d been. Why was he suddenly so awake with only his own thoughts for company now?

Eddie rolls onto his front and covers his head with his pillow in the hope that blocking out most of his senses and counting to a thousand will do anything.

It must work because—despite feeling like it’s only been a few restless minutes—when he glances towards the blinds he can tell dawn is much closer to breaking.

He can definitely feel that he didn’t get much real sleep, but enough that he can remember barely slipping into dreams of random glimpses of places he knows—the hallway leading to Buck’s apartment, Chimney and Maddie’s driveway—and as someone who hasn’t been able to remember dreams he’s had two sleeps in a row since childhood, he’s a little vexed that his waking mind is holding on to these scenarios now when all he wants to do is feel like he’s skipping right from falling asleep to waking up so it’s like he’s getting back to the hospital quicker.

Maybe he got a little more knocked around when he got thrown from the truck than he’d originally thought, but he’s not about to ask Hen for a concussion assessment.

Knowing trying to get any semblance of sleep will be futile now that the sun is on its way to rising, Eddie heaves his legs out of bed and decides to get ready to face the day.

A day where he didn’t wake up to any of Buck’s middle of the night existential thoughts, or a fun fact about whatever research rabbit hole he went down at 2AM, or a screenshot of a meme they’ll both probably be misinterpreting—because the most important adult in his life is in a coma.

Eddie takes a deep breath, ignoring the way he can feel his bottom lip quivering.

Might as well wait in the parking garage for visiting hours to start. Less memories there for him to choke on as he inhales some gas station coffee.

Eddie opens the door to Buck’s room in the ICU as gently as he can despite knowing it wouldn’t make a difference to his best friend lying supine in the hospital bed. It would, however, likely disturb the man who’s been praying the Rosary at his bedside for the past hour. “You’re going to wear those beads down to nothing if you keep going like this, Bobby.”

Bobby huffs out a brief, mirthless laugh. “Have you been talking to my wife?”

“No,” Eddie says with a shake of his head, “but I just listened to Hen tell Chim to pace himself before he ends up rooming with Buck, so there is a chance Athena had a hand in the thought process.”

Bobby hums. “They head out?”

“Chimney and Albert, yeah, but Hen just stepped outside to call Karen. She’s planning on staying until Maddie can get back without her parents.”

“You off to pick up Christopher?”

Eddie purses his lips and nods. “Still don’t know what the hell I’m going to say to him. I wouldn’t say it was easier to tell him about Shannon, but it was simpler, you know? He was so little, and she was just gone, and she wasn’t–she wasn’t going to come back this time. But Buck…” He tries to take a steadying breath, once again ignoring the way it feels like it’s stuttering in his chest. “We don’t know what’s going to happen yet. And I don’t know how to tell our kid that.”

“Our?” Bobby asks with a slight raise of his eyebrows.

Eddie flinches. He knows he should probably, eventually, talk to someone about all the feelings he has about Buck—because, yes, somewhere between Buck taping his knuckles up after he took a bat to his belongings and his fists to his walls and watching Hen and Karen reaffirm their love for each other in a picturesque vow renewal while Buck was dressed in a suit that made his eyes sparkle in a way that mesmerized Eddie to his core, he finally shed the notion that there was anyone else he’d be able to spend the rest of his life with till death do them part—he just really hopes that person will be, well, Buck.

So instead of answering any of the questions hiding inside the Our?, Eddie sends a quick prayer to Bobby’s God that he’ll move on in the same way Pepa did, and then says, “I was referring to me and Shannon?”

Bobby narrows his eyes in response, clearly not buying what Eddie is trying to sell, but seems to let him get away with it. “You just tell Christopher the truth. That’s really all you can do.”

“The truth kinda sucks right now.”

Sighing as he pushes himself to stand, Bobby replies, “Sure does, kid.”

Eddie knows he’s dreaming this time.

Picking Chris up from school had gone okay until they got home and Chris asked Eddie if their shift had been tiring since Buck hadn’t responded to his last text asking if he knew that sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins.

Eddie couldn’t fix his face in time for Christopher to not pick up on something being wrong.

The aftermath was… grim, to say the least. Trying to explain why he couldn’t take Chris to see Buck—(“I’m not a kid!” “A pre-teen unfortunately counts to the hospital, mijo.”)—led to a slammed door, the silent treatment, and an apparent hunger strike.

It had gotten better when, about an hour after his normal school-night bedtime, Christopher came out of his room and reheated the plate of food Eddie had tried to bring him earlier. They talked about what happened, and Eddie answered as many questions as he could with the limited information that he had. They hugged each other tightly as Chris went off to bed, but to Eddie’s surprise after he finished washing the last of the dishes and went to change out of his jeans, he found his son fast asleep on the side of Eddie’s bed Buck takes on the occasion the two of them have been too tired or have had one too many beers to care enough to properly make up the couch.

He’s just grateful right now that sometimes your almost-teenager still gets to be your baby.

So he remembers brushing his teeth, getting into bed, pressing a kiss to the unruly mop of bedhead already forming on Christopher’s crown before flopping onto his back and staring at the ceiling. He remembers counting Chris’s breaths to help himself finally drift off.

He remembers, which is why Eddie knows without a doubt that he’s in bed asleep.

He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly having a series lucid dreams for the first time in his life or why his dream-self is standing in the hallway in front of the apartment Chimney no longer lives in, but after the emotional rollercoaster he was on this afternoon, he’ll take this momentary respite from reality despite how contrary it feels to his desire to speed through his nights.

Might as well see what dream-Chim is up to.

He’s raising his fist to knock on the door when it suddenly opens, and making his way out is—

Buck.

Eddie’s breath hitches as he lays eyes on the version of his best friend his subconscious has made up. The outfit is as much of a mystery to him as their location is; he doesn’t think he’s seen Buck wear that shade of green in any of the years they’ve known each other.

“Eddie? Wh-what are you—” Buck glances back into the apartment but quickly closes the door. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”

Ouch. Okay. It’s his dream and he’s not even wanted. “Damn. Quite the warm welcome there, Buckley.”

Buck heaves an exasperated sigh. “No, not like that,” he says as shakes his head. “I mean—sorry, I don’t know dream etiquette.”

And—what?

“Hen and Chim basically told me that they don’t really know you in here, whatever this dream-thing is, so I just–I just don’t know how you’re here all of a sudden.”

Eddie’s so confused. “You know you’re in my dream?”

Now Buck looks just as confused as Eddie feels. “No, man, this is my dream. I’ve been here for a few days, I think? Time moves kinda strange though, so I’m not completely sure.”

What kind of odd game is his mind playing with him? “This can’t be your dream. How can this be your dream? This is my dream.”

Buck looks inquisitive as he scratches the back of his neck. “Well, Chimney said it sounds like I got struck by lightning? So if that is true… either I’m dead and this is a weird version of the other side the universe decided I deserved for some reason and you’re a figment of my imagination that I created to help cope with being in an alternate timeline where neither of us are firefighters with the 118, or I’m—well, asleep. Most likely in a coma.” His posture suddenly straightens as he points at Eddie. “I saw this, like, memory flash earlier after I woke up here of you clipping my harness before I went up the ladder. If I got struck up there, the current definitely would have travelled down to you,” he says, poking Eddie near his shoulder. “Secondary strikes are the most common way to get injured by lightning, actually.” Buck shrugs. “Maybe that’s why we’re both here now.”

“You… think we’re sharing a dream because we were hit by the same bolt of lightning?” Eddie asks incredulously.

“I know you don’t believe in stuff like that, but I’m sure I got here before you, and on top of that—I just don’t know why Daniel and Doug would be in your dream and they’re definitely here somewhere. So I do think this is actually my dream? But however you’re here, I’m just–I’m just glad to see you right now.” Buck gives him a small smile. “It was nice for a bit after I woke up. Daniel took me back to the loft and my parents were there but they were the version who worry about me, and apparently live across town, and watch football games with me on a couch I didn’t remember picking out, b-but then we went to Maddie’s for ‘family dinner’ and instead of Jee and Chimney, there was Genevieve and Doug and I couldn’t–I didn’t want to go along with it all after that, so I came here to ask Chim if he dreamed while he was in his rebar coma.”

And as ludicrous as it sounds—if this is Buck’s dream, and he’s been here the whole time, and Eddie’s just been, what, popping in each time he’s fallen asleep since Buck was hit?—it really would explain all the random things Eddie’s remembered each time he’s woken up.

Buck leaving the hospital with Daniel, not some random guy. Buck likely inside his apartment with his body-snatched parents while Eddie was right on the other side of the wall. If Eddie had gotten more than a momentary glimpse of the Buckley-Han residence during his previous restless night, would he have knocked on their door to find an evil imposter where his friend should’ve been?

“Okay, let’s pretend I’ve gone temporarily insane and I believe you, that I believe that I keep falling asleep into your dream ever since–ever since you—” Eddie shakes his head, clears his throat. Fuck.

“I think I can prove it to you, actually,” Buck says.

“How?”

“By telling you something I know you don’t know that you can check when you wake up.”

“What could you possibly be sure that I don’t know?”

Buck smirks. “There’s a box of mixed vegetables in the back of your freezer that I know you won’t touch because you only eat fresh green beans—”

“They’re just so squishy,” Eddie interrupts with a shudder.

Buck nods. “Which is why it’s the perfect place for me to hide the fun-sized 3 Musketeers bars I give you when you say you don’t need dessert but you’re actually a liar who still wants a little sweet treat.”

And Eddie just has to blink at that. Blink, and dig his fingernails into his palms so he doesn’t do something irrevocable, like grab his best friend’s face and kiss him on the mouth for the first time in this fake reality.

Because he definitely does not know about any secret stash of chocolate in his freezer. He didn’t usually think much past yay candy thank you every time Buck seemed to pull one out of thin air.

But for the sake of his inherent skepticism—“How do you know I don’t know about your hiding place?” he asks.

Buck chuckles almost smugly in response. “Because I count them every time I come over. If you knew, I’d know.”

“Okay, wise guy, then how many are there?”

“Nine.”

Eddie mimes jotting that down on his hand. “I’ll be checking.”

“I know you will, skeptic,” Buck replies, smiling fondly despite shaking his head.

At this point, Eddie supposes that regardless of whose dream it is… it’s just nice enough to see Buck that maybe it doesn’t even matter. Maybe he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and should just be glad that, while neither of them know what’s actually going on, it’s him and Buck together.

“So did Chimney dream during his coma?”

Buck shakes his head again. “Nah, not that he can remember. He did kinda suggest that maybe I’m here to learn some kind of lesson? I don’t know what though, but hopefully I figure it out so I can get out of here.” The light in his eyes dims a little as his gaze dips to the floor. “I liked the idea that I had a nice childhood here for a second, but the other things I’ve learned are different…” Buck looks back up at Eddie with a frown. “I don’t want to stay here, Eddie.”

“Whether or not you wake up isn’t going to be determined by learning some lesson your subconscious makes up, Buck. That’s definitely not how medicine works.”

“Well this isn’t exactly real, is it? It’s me and these NPCs pretending to be the people I know. I made a plan to retrace my steps, go back to the hospital, and the Chim and Hen on the other side of this door are supposedly coming with me,” Buck says as he motions towards dream-Chimney’s apartment door. “You and I have been standing out here for whatever amount of time that passes in this place and they still haven’t come out. I think maybe when I closed the door behind me, it put them into some kind of stasis since I wasn’t actively engaging with them.” He spreads his arms wide on either side of him. “But that’s just a wild guess. We don’t know what’s going on, Eddie. Maybe I’ll wake up anyway, maybe I won’t—but I’m not going to risk not fixing whatever it thinks needs fixing in case it does matter.”

Eddie forcefully shakes his head. “There isn’t any other option, Buck. You’re going to wake up, I need you to—”

Eddie startles awake, his alarm blaring next to him on his nightstand.

He hears Christopher groan on the other side of the bed. “Five more minutes,” Chris grumbles into the pillow.

Yeah.

Five more minutes would have been nice.

Eddie’s halfway to the hospital after taking Christopher to school when he remembers what dream-Buck said about the freezer.

He definitely doesn’t make an illegal U-Turn, he definitely doesn’t roll through any stop signs, but he does make it back home in record time.

He finds nine tiny chocolate bars right where Buck said they’d be.

“Do you think he’s dreaming?” Eddie asks Hen a little bit after Carla came and snuck Christopher back out of the ICU, one last-ditch attempt to refute that anything out of the ordinary is going on inside his own brain.

Hen hums as her eyes scan over Buck’s sleeping form. “Honestly, there’s really no way of knowing. Coma sleep is different to a regular REM cycle. Some people have said they had one long dream, or several dreams, or even the same dream on repeat, while others have said they didn’t have any.” She shrugs a shoulder and says, “If he is, I hope it’s a nice one.”

Eddie thinks about what Buck said in his—their? Buck’s?—dream last night.

“I don’t want to stay here.”

He swallows thickly around the lump forming in his throat. “Yeah, me too.”

Eddie rushes through the bare minimum of his nightly routine so he can get to bed early. Drinks warm milk with honey, takes half a melatonin gummy, does 4-7-8 breathing—any leg up to help him get back to Buck.

This time when he comes to, he’s… in some sort of closet?

He might have to concede that the universe, perhaps, might sometimes scream.

Eddie cracks the door open to take a peek at his wider surroundings—hospital? Likely part of the plan Buck mentioned last night—when, of course, Buck comes around the corner. Eddie wrenches the door all the way open and jogs the distance between them before throwing his arms tightly around his best friend.

“Eddie!” Buck squeezes him right back. “Oh my god, you flashed out of existence right in front of my eyes like a fucking Marvel movie.”

“My stupid alarm went off,” Eddie mumbles into Buck’s neck before letting go and taking a step back.

“Sure took you long enough to fall back asleep,” Buck teases.

Eddie slowly shakes his head. “I didn’t fall back asleep, Buck. It’s been a whole day for me.”

“Shit.” Buck’s shoulders slump forward as he closes his eyes. “I can tell things move differently here but…” He looks back to Eddie. “The sand is really slipping through my hourglass, huh?”

“No. No.” Eddie gets a grip on Buck’s trap muscle, squeezing harder than he means to but he needs to be sure Buck is listening. “You’re on ECMO right now, and you’re going to be fine. The 118, Maddie, Jee, Christopher, me—we need you, Buck.”

Buck gives Eddie a sad smile. “And hopefully it works—I’m not saying it won’t, I’m just saying it feels like I’m running out of time to find a way out of here.”

Eddie covers his face with both of his hands and groans before dropping them back down to his sides. “You know what? Fine. Let’s start opening doors and see if any of them will take us to Narnia.”

“Thank you!” Buck beams, then motions forward with a flourish of his hand. “After you, Eddie.”

The two begin walking down the hall, taking turns opening each door they come across.

“It was a little uncanny after you disappeared, actually—the apartment door opened within seconds and the NPCs came out. I think whatever’s going on in here,” Buck says, tapping his temple, “they won’t show up while you’re here. I bet we could check every room in this hospital and not run into them once, but when you wake up again I’ll walk around the next corner and they’ll pop out of random doorways.”

Eddie swats at Buck’s shoulder. “Don’t call them that. They’re still our friends.”

“Okay, so what do I call them?”

“I thought of it as ‘dream-Chim’s apartment’ last night. Technically you’re ‘dream-Buck’ too but I’ve just decided to upgrade you to ‘dreaming-Buck’.”

“So you do believe me now!” exclaims Buck with a shit-eating grin.

Eddie takes a deep breath and then says, “There were nine 3 Musketeers, Buck. That I’m sure I didn’t know anything about.” He shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t really care anymore as long as you wake up.”

Buck’s smile softens, but he remains looking self-satisfied as he clarifies, “‘NPCs’ is just faster than saying ‘dream-Chimney and dream-Hen’. I really am glad that they’re here though because I would be lost right now trying to figure anything out with no one to talk to.”

“What about Bobby? Well, dream-Bobby.”

“Mm,” Buck hums. “He’s, uh,” he starts, then blows a breath out. “He’s dead.”

Eddie abruptly stops walking. “What?”

“Yeah,” Buck says with a sigh. “That was when I knew I really gotta get out of here. I could figure out a way to get Doug sent packing, I could go find dream-you and Chris in fake-Texas, but can you just… wish someone back to life in a dream?”

“Texas?” Eddie asks, floored and frankly a little nervous at the idea they never left El Paso.

Buck grimaces. “Your parents fought for custody after you moved to LA… and won. I can’t imagine you’d stick around here very long without him if that were the case, if you knew for sure they would keep him there.”

Oh, so even worse. “Your dream sounds more and more like a nightmare with each detail you give me.”

“Yeah, but that’s why I’d want to find you both. Get you back under the same roof no matter what your dream-parents would say. Seems like I’d definitely have the time to do that here.”

“Okay, but it wouldn’t be us,” Eddie says, a hint of anger creeping into his voice. “They would be more ‘NPCs’, Buck. Made-up versions of us while the actual Christopher and I, what, mourn you in the real world?”

Buck shakes his head emphatically, eyes turning glassy. “I still don’t even know if I’m making you up, Eddie! You could’ve only agreed with me about the freezer chocolate because I’m the one that knows about it! This could be the afterlife and I wouldn’t know.”

“Don’t say that,” Eddie pleads softly, feeling his face scrunch as he tries to hold back a rush of emotions. “You are alive. You’re the most full-of-life person I’ve ever met! Maybe you’re just here for the ride and you’ll wake up regardless.” He steps forward and circles one of Buck’s wrists with his hand. “Maybe the reason I’m here is to remind you of that.” He sighs as he stares into Buck’s ocean eyes, his favorite shade of blue. “But since you believe you’re here to fix something, or learn something, and that whatever it is will work—I will do whatever I can to help you while I’m h—”

“Dad!”

Eddie sits straight up in bed. Nononoshitshitshit!

“Dad!” Christopher calls again.

Eddie clears his throat before getting up and going to Christopher’s room. “What’s up, bud?” he asks, proud of himself for keeping the waver at bay.

“Carla’s going to be here in a few minutes but I can’t find my math worksheet.”

Eddie sighs, fond with the tinge of exasperation that any parent knows well. “It’s on the fridge, because the last time this happened—”

“—we said that would be our new system. I remember now, thanks Dad!”

He gives Chris a hug as he passes to retrieve his homework. “Have a good day at school, mijo,” he says, then walks as normally as he can back to his room, quickly but quietly shutting the door before getting back in bed.

He lies there for over an hour before calling it.

Days pass. Eddie does his best to nap whenever he can while he’s at the hospital, between helping Chris with his homework and making dinner, after every call they have during the 118’s first miserable shift without Buck. He takes more melatonin, drinks more warm milk, tries more breathing exercises.

He doesn’t dream once.

“I’ve got to head out now if I’m going to be on time for my study group, but mom’s on her way with coffee,” May says, squeezing Bobby’s shoulder as she heads for the door.

“I’ll walk with you,” Eddie says, pushing off from his spot on the wall. “Gotta grab Chris from school and take him to my tía’s.” He turns to Bobby. “I’ll be back after dinner if y’all need anything.”

Bobby nods in acknowledgement, turning back to Buck as Eddie and May leave the room, already slipping his rosary beads out of his pocket.

“It’s good, you coming to get him to breathe some fresh air,” Eddie says as they get on the elevator. “The only reason he hasn’t become one with the chair is because he gets up when Marge and Phil show up.”

May just raises an eyebrow at him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“What? I’m just extending them the same courtesy they give Buck every time they’ve purposefully called him ‘Evan’ despite knowing everyone who cares about him has called him ‘Buck’ for years,” Eddie says with faux innocence.

She hums, sounding more disbelieving than acquiescing, then moves on. “From what my mom said, you’re all just as bad as Bobby is about how much time you’re spending in that waiting room.”

“I’ve got a built-in reason to leave. You’re at school, and Harry’s in Florida.”

“So he sits at the hospital all day waiting for his other kid to get better,” May replies with a soft nod.

Eddie thinks about what dreaming-Buck had said, about Bobby being gone being the thing that essentially made staying in there non-negotiable. He nods back at her. “Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a small stretch, walking through the sliding glass doors and breathing in the afternoon air when Eddie breaks the silence. “Remember that conversation we had about—FOMO, I think it was called?”

“Sure,” May answers. “What about it?”

“I just—” He pauses, trying to put his fast-moving thoughts in order. “Maybe I’ve been wondering what it would be like to make different choices.”

“Yeah?” She links their arms together as they walk through the parking lot, a move that reminds him so much of Sophia and Adriana when they were younger that his eyes nearly start to sting.

Nodding, he says, “Things got put into perspective in a grim way, you know? Maybe it’s not worth wondering anymore.” He shrugs. “Maybe it’s worth doing.”

They reach May’s car and she lets go of his arm to give him a side hug. “I think being brave is always worth it. What’ve you got to lose?”

And that’s really what it comes down to for Eddie. Buck already died and Eddie survived that, if only barely.

What worse could there be to live past in their relationship as long as Buck is alive?

The 118 are gathered together in the waiting room, knowing that at any moment they could learn whether or not Buck is out of the woods or worse, when Maddie bursts in declaring, “He’s breathing on his own!” as she rushes into Chimney’s arms.

Eddie finally feels like he is too.

He knocks on the open doorway of Buck’s recovery room, bag of contraband in his other hand. “Am I interrupting?”

Buck tosses his cards down onto the overbed table. “Nope, you’re saving me from getting beat in every card game imaginable.”

Bobby chuckles. “You won that game of Go Fish we played.”

“I’m pretty sure that was a purposeful pity loss,” Buck replies, the scowl on his face betrayed by the crinkle of his crow’s feet.

“I plead the fifth.” Bobby raises both of his hands in surrender as he gets up. “I’ll see you soon, kid,” he says with a clap to Buck’s shoulder, giving Eddie a knowing smile as he heads out.

“Whatcha got over there?”

Eddie takes the to-go box out of the bag and places it on the tray as he takes the seat Bobby vacated. “They ran out of ham for some reason? So I asked them to throw some pineapple on top of a couple slices of pepperoni.”

Buck’s face tips towards Eddie, smiling wide in delight. “You got pineapple pizza? Just for me?”

“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it, but I thought it was the least I could do for my best friend who just got out of a coma.”

As Buck eats, they shoot some of their normal shit: neighborhood gossip, calls from the shift Buck missed, what homework Christopher’s been working on. Eddie’s been trying to figure out how to broach the subject of the dream with Buck—if it was even real, if Buck even remembers—but there’s not exactly a sane way to ask if there’s any chance a lightning strike caused them to have some kind of brief telepathic connection.

Buck, the unwitting savior that he is, finishes the last bite of his food and takes the reins from Eddie’s hands. “So… I had a pretty interesting dream while I was under.” He looks hesitantly at Eddie. “Have any of those yourself recently?”

Eddie rolls the table out of the way. It would be weird to have this particular conversation with a barrier between them after—well. “Interesting enough that I had to itemize the contents of my own freezer.”

Buck’s face lights up with excitement. “So it really happened? We shared a dream?”

“Seems like we did, yeah.”

Buck blows out a breath. “That’s–that’s crazy, man. Do you think we’ll still be able to do that now?”

Eddie clenches his jaw. “I tried to sleep whenever I could after that last time, but days went by, Buck, and I couldn’t get back in there with you. Maybe it was something you were supposed to do on your own and I really wasn’t supposed to be there, so when I gave in to the batshit powers that be and said I’d help…” He rubs a hand over his mouth. “It was a little terrifying, actually. Not being sure if you were going to come back. Sure, it would have been the same state of not knowing if you were going to wake up if I hadn’t magically ended up in your subconscious, but knowing there was even a moment where you wanted to stay?” Eddie shakes his head, trying to clear the tightness in his throat. “Every time I woke up without dreaming, I was scared something had happened to make you change your mind,” he finishes, growing quieter with every word, eyes darting to the ground.

“Hey, look at me,” Buck says softly. “You told me once that no one would ever fight for Christopher as hard as me if you were gone, and I did hear you when you said the version of you in there wouldn’t be you.” He cringes sheepishly. “In the home stretch, whatever was trying to keep me in there turned up the volume and the NPCs started coming out of nowhere with reasons I should stay, and one of them was a Chris asking me to help him find his dad.” Buck moves to rub at the back of his neck, grimacing as he says, “I actually told him he wasn’t real and turned and ran.”

Eddie exaggerates a shocked gasp. “You left our son in the lurch?”

Buck lets out an exasperated sigh. “You’re the one that made it clear that the NPCs—wait.” His head tilts in stunned disbelief. “Our son?”

Shit, Eddie thinks as he squeezes his eyes shut. Certainly isn’t going to get away with that a third time, is he? He peeks at Buck, sees that his expression has changed to a playfully annoyed eyebrow raise, and throws his hands in the air as he says, “Yes, our son! Buck, you stepped up the minute you met him without me even having to ask. You’ve changed both of our lives for the better several times over at this point—of course he’s just as much yours as he is mine.”

Buck’s eyelashes flutter as he takes in Eddie’s words. After a minute or so he looks up at Eddie, smile almost shy but eyes full of what Eddie can only think to describe as determination. “So if we’re both Christopher’s dads… wh-what does that make us?”

And Eddie swears he sees hope in Buck’s eyes. Enough to make him brave.

He stands, moving into the space between Buck’s knees. He cradles each crook in his hands, thumbs rubbing on the sides of Buck’s sweatpants-covered kneecaps as he says, “Honestly, I don’t know what that makes me, but I think that makes you the love of my life.”

The way Buck shines at Eddie’s words makes his earlier excitement look like an Edison bulb next to the sun, but Eddie only gets a moment to be in awe of how beautiful he is before Buck is pulling him down into a bone-crushing hug, nearly toppling them both over into Buck’s hospital bed. “It makes you mine too. I love you. I love you so much,” he whispers into Eddie’s neck. “I was a goner the minute you told me there was no one else you trusted more with Chris than me, even after the tsunami.” He squeezes Eddie even tighter around his middle. “I was just—scared. Scared that my feelings kept growing even as our friendship stayed the way it was with no sign you’d ever reciprocate my feelings. So I didn’t do anything about it.”

Eddie lightly huffs, regrettably dislodging Buck’s arms to stand back up properly as he gives Buck a cheeky smile, still leaving his own hands hanging loosely over Buck’s shoulders. “There wasn’t any sign because I was already in love with you. No change to show of because it was already my modus operandi.”

Buck blinks at him blankly a few times before yelping, “What?”

“I was all-in the moment you introduced me to Carla. Hell, I probably started falling the night you drove us home after the earthquake.” He shrugs. “I didn’t think you would ever feel that way about me so I just… lived around it. Tried to make it work with Shannon and Ana, which wasn’t fair to any of us—I know that now—but it’s what I thought I needed to do.”

Buck’s hands find Eddie’s waist, thumbs slipping under his shirt to draw circles on his skin with such tenderness that it makes Eddie’s eyes prickle. Buck looks up at Eddie, eyes soft, corners of his mouth ticked up, and there’s no way for Eddie to be prepared for what he says next.

“Marry me.”

Eddie barks out a laugh. “Are you serious?”

Buck’s smile grows wider. “We have a kid, I’m over at your house all the time, it’s clear now that we both know this is it for us—what do we need to wait for?”

Eddie is so incredibly endeared by this man’s crazy logic. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Buck says with a grin as he lifts his finger to his ear.

Eddie places his hands on either side of Buck’s neck as he leans down, hovering his lips a hairsbreadth away from Buck’s own. “Yes,” he whispers as he finally, finally closes the distance between them.

The kiss is chaste, but full of a reverence Eddie never thought he’d find.

Buck lets out a whine as Eddie pulls back after only a few moments and tries to pull him closer by his beltloops.

“You’re not allowed to do anything strenuous right now, Buckley,” Eddie says with a chuckle. He rubs their noses together before laying his forehead against Buck’s. “We’ve got a long, beautiful life ahead of us. We can take our time.”

Eddie’s standing at Buck’s island the next morning spreading cream cheese on a plain bagel before sprinkling it with everything bagel seasoning just the way Buck likes it—(“It’s the best way to have the flavors of an everything bagel without getting shit all over your hands, Eddie!”)—when the door opens and all four Buckleys file inside.

Maddie looks unfazed to find Eddie in Buck’s apartment, joining him in the kitchen to grab a bagel for herself, while the Buckley parents both look slightly baffled.

Phillip gives him the approximation of a polite smile then turns to Buck and says, “Let’s get you set up on the couch so you don't have to walk up and down these stairs.”

Margaret’s bafflement turns to bewilderment as they make their way deeper into the loft. “You don't have a couch. Why don't you have a couch?”

“Oh, that story is, uh, too long to tell while standing,” Maddie quips as she sticks her bagel in the toaster.

“Are you planning on getting one?” Margaret asks Buck. She starts shaking her head before he gets an answer out. “I’m getting you a couch. Phillip, help me find the measuring tape.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Eddie says, plastering his best Helena Diaz fake smile onto his face as he sets Buck’s bagel aside and grabs an asiago one for himself. “The place he’s moving to already has one.” He sees Maddie mouth Moving? out of the corner of his eye and turns to give her a wink.

Buck rushes into the kitchen and starts tugging Maddie away, but not before he gets a good pinch on Eddie’s ass. “Mads, can I talk to you in the hall real quick?”

Eddie turns to his perplexed future in-laws as the door closes behind the siblings. “Bagel, anyone?”