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The universe, Eddie decides, has a terrible sense of humor.
"This is starting to feel personal," he says, sweeping the beam of his flashlight beneath the concrete belly of the parking garage.
Beside him, Buck turns his helmet toward him.
"What is?"
"Concrete."
Buck's laugh comes quietly through his mask, breathless from the four levels they have already searched, and Eddie has to concentrate very deliberately on the abandoned Audi to his left rather than Buck's shoulders moving beneath his turnout coat.
"You think concrete has a personal vendetta against you?"
"I think you and concrete have some kind of agreement."
"An agreement?"
"It injures me, you carry me out and everybody gets what they want."
Buck nearly trips over a fractured wheel stop.
Oh.. wait-
"That sounded different in my head," Eddie mutters.
"It sounded great out here."
"Forget I said anything."
"I don't think I will."
A deep groan rolls through the garage before Eddie can come up with an answer, vibrating through the soles of his boots and sending dust from the ceiling in pale streams. Both of them stop instantly, every trace of amusement vanishing as they lift their heads.
The sound continues for three long seconds, steel twisting somewhere deep inside the walls, followed by a series of sharp cracks.
Buck's gloved hand catches Eddie's elbow.
"We need to move."
"Dispatch still doesn't have a confirmed number of victims," Eddie reminds him.
The original caller had reported seeing several people running into the garage moments before a delivery truck struck one of the support columns, but no one knows if those people came back out.
That uncertainty is why the 118 is inside while half the structure folds in on itself one support at a time.
It's also why Bobby's voice comes through their radios a second later.
"Buckley, Diaz, evacuate now. Engineers say the northeast corner is shifting."
Eddie touches his radio.
"Copy that, Cap. Level four is clear. We're heading down."
"Make it fast."
"Always do," Buck answers, already moving.
Eddie follows him toward the ramp, their lights cutting across concrete pillars, abandoned cars and the maze of cracks spreading beneath their feet.
Buck stays half a step ahead, like he's been doing since they entered.
Every time something falls, Buck positions himself between Eddie and the sound without seeming to realise he's doing it, which would already be infuriating enough without his brain dragging up the memory of Buck carrying him through smoke, arms locked beneath his knees and shoulders while telling him that leaving him behind had never made the list of possible choices.
He had promised he would never ask again, and meant it.
He also spent the weeks since then discovering that promises made while Evan Buckley is shirtless and standing too close should perhaps require a mandatory twenty four hour consideration period.
Buck glances over his shoulder.
"You're staring at my back again."
"I'm watching for falling debris."
"On my ass?"
Eddie almost walks into a pillar.
"I wasn't staring at your ass."
"Okay."
"That sounded sarcastic."
"It was meant to sound trusting."
"It failed."
Buck's eyes crinkle behind his visor, and Eddie's heart gives an uncomfortable thud that has absolutely nothing to do with exertion.
"Residual fire?" Buck asks.
Eddie points toward the ramp.
"Keep walking."
Buck laughs, the sound following them into the turn.
—————
There is no warning beyond a crack so loud Eddie feels it inside his teeth as the garage ceiling finally drops.
The floor bucks beneath them, throwing him sideways as every car alarm on the level erupts at once, a deafening chorus swallowed almost immediately by the grinding roar of concrete.
Buck shouts his name and Eddie reaches for him through a sudden wall of dust, but something slams into his shoulder and spins him around.
A massive section breaks loose above them, jagged concrete and rebar dropping through the darkness.
Buck is ten feet away.
Then five.
Then he's directly in front of Eddie, hitting him hard enough to drive him flat onto his back.
No.
Buck's body covers his.
One arm hooks behind Eddie's helmet while the other braces against the ground, turning his face into his chest just as the world comes apart around them.
The impact is everywhere.
Concrete crashes down with a force that punches the air from Eddie's lungs, and something clips the side of his helmet, driving a burst of white across his vision. Buck makes a sound against him, low and strangled, but Eddie cannot tell whether he says his name because the roaring inside his skull swallows everything.
For one fractured instant, Eddie feels Buck's weight over him.
Then everything goes black.
—————
He comes back to pain.
It pulses behind his right eye, hot and sickening, while something warm crawls past his temple and disappears into his hair. His ears ring loudly, and when he tries to breathe, dust catches inside his throat.
The body above him jolts.
"Eddie?"
Buck's voice is shredded by effort and Eddie forces his eyes open.
At first, the world refuses to align. His vision doubles, turning Buck's face into a pale blur floating above him, and Eddie blinks until the two images drag themselves together.
Buck is braced over him.
His hands are planted on either side of Eddie's head, arms locked so tightly that every muscle beneath his turnout coat trembles, while his knees press against the ground on either side of Eddie's hips.
He's straddling him.
Under any other circumstances, Eddie's brain would have immediately resigned from service… but now it takes him less than a second to understand why Buck is holding himself like that.
A slab of concrete rests across Buck's shoulders.
It's wider than both of them, one end caught on the base of a support column while the other angles downward across Buck's back. Twisted rebar hangs from its fractured edge, and every time the structure moves, the slab grinds lower.
Buck is the only thing keeping it from crushing Eddie's chest.
"Hey," Buck says, attempting a smile that twists into a grimace.
Eddie's heart stops.
"Buck."
"You hit your head."
"Get off me."
Buck's eyes sharpen despite the sweat pouring down his face.
"That's your first sentence?"
"You have to move."
"Not happening."
The words strike Eddie harder than the concrete did.
The same tone and refusal. The same impossible certainty Buck had used when Eddie's leg failed beneath him while the building had been burning around them.
Eddie's hand searches blindly for his radio.
"Buck, listen to me. The slab is caught on the column. You might be able to crawl out before it shifts."
"And then what happens to you?"
"That doesn't matter right now."
"It matters to me."
"Buck, this isn't like last time."
"I know."
His voice cracks on the second word, and that's when Eddie sees the blood.
Buck's turnout coat is ripped open along his right side, the heavy fabric shredded from his ribs to his hip where a jagged piece of metal must have torn through it during the collapse. The material surrounding the gash is already dark.
Oh God.
Eddie's stomach drops so violently that nausea climbs into his throat.
"You're bleeding."
"I noticed."
"How bad?"
"I can't exactly check."
"Let me see."
"Eddie, don't move too much."
"Let me see it."
Buck's jaw clenches as Eddie slides his right hand between them, fumbling over layers until his fingers find the torn edge of the coat and the moment he presses against Buck's side, his arms buckle, the slab dropping half an inch.
Buck catches it with a broken gasp, elbows straightening again as concrete scrapes across the back of his coat.
Dust rains over Eddie's face.
"Jesus Christ," he breathes.
"I said don't move."
"You're holding up a ceiling, Buck. I'm allowed to be concerned."
"It's technically only part of a ceiling."
"Don't joke right now."
"Sorry. Coping mechanism."
Eddie presses his palm more firmly over the wound and Buck inhales through his teeth in Response, blood immediately pushing warm and slick between his fingers.
His radio is trapped beneath his shoulder, but he manages to wrench it free with his left hand, nearly losing his grip when dizziness turns the ruined garage around him.
The display is cracked, but presses the emergency button anyway.
"Mayday, mayday. Firefighters trapped after structural collapse. Diaz and Buckley, level four, we need backup!"
Static answers him and Eddie tries again.
"Cap, this is Eddie. Buck is injured and supporting a concrete slab. We need immediate extraction!"
For three terrible seconds, there is nothing except Buck's ragged breathing and the quiet patter of blood hitting Eddie's coat.
Then Chimney's voice breaks through the static.
"Eddie, we hear you. We're coming in from the east stairwell. Can you identify your position?"
Eddie closes his eyes in relief.
"Approximately twenty yards west of the ramp, near support marker four-C. The access corridor collapsed behind us."
"Copy. We're close, Eddie. We're bringing Airbags. Keep the channel open."
"Chim, Buck's bleeding heavily."
Buck gives him an offended look.
"I wouldn't say heavily."
Eddie presses harder against his side and Buck's face drains of colour.
"I would,"
Hen's voice joins the channel.
"Eddie, keep direct pressure on the wound. Is Buck conscious and breathing normally?"
"He's conscious. Breathing is fast and shallow."
"I'm holding up several hundred pounds of concrete, Hen," Buck says, each word forced out between breaths. "I feel like some allowance should be made."
"Buck, save your air."
"Everyone keeps telling me that today."
The radio goes quiet again, leaving the promise that they are close suspended inside the darkness.
…
Eddie looks up and sees Buck's arms are shaking.
He has seen Buck's strength before. He's been carried in those arms through heat and smoke while the guy still had enough breath to make jokes, has watched him haul victims twice his size from wrecked vehicles, and throw himself against every impossible obstacle the universe puts in front of him.
Eddie knows how strong Buck is, but that knowledge only makes the fear worse, because Buck is trembling now.
The muscles in his shoulders jump uncontrollably beneath the weight, and his fingers flex against the concrete next to his head. Blood continues soaking through Eddie's glove, too much of it, and his breathing has developed a faint hitch at the end of each exhale.
This may kill him.
Buck may save him from being crushed and die doing it.
"Move," Eddie says.
Buck's eyes snap to his.
"I already answered that."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"You're losing too much blood."
"Keep your hand there."
"Your arms are giving out."
"Not yet."
"Buck."
"Eddie."
The slab shifts again and Buck cries out this time, a raw sound torn from somewhere deep in his chest, and his back bows as he forces the concrete upward.
His helmet slips forward, nearly striking Eddie's face as Buck's breath shudders over him.
"Get out from under it," Eddie pleads. "I can roll when you move."
"That's such a terrible lie."
"I'll have a chance."
"No, you won't."
"You don't know that."
"I can feel where the weight is, Eddie."
Buck's voice lowers, stripped of humour, and that terrifies Eddie more than the blood.
"The column is taking some of it, but not enough. If I move, the angle changes and the whole thing comes down.
"Then let it."
Buck goes completely still.
He hears his own breathing, too fast and too thin, while Buck stares at him as if Eddie's just driven a knife through his chest.
"Take that back," Buck says after a moment.
"You can still get out."
"Take it back."
"I'm not watching you die for me."
"And you think I'm going to crawl away and listen while this crushes you?"
"At least you'd be alive!"
Buck's expression changes. The fear remains, naked and enormous, but anger moves through it now, fierce enough to hold him upright even when his body is beginning to fail.
"You promised me."
Eddie's throat closes.
"Buck—"
"You stood in the locker room and promised you wouldn't ask me to leave you behind again."
"I didn't know this would happen."
"What did you think the promise was for?" Buck demands, his voice breaking under the strain. "Easy calls? Safe buildings?"
Eddie's eyes burn.
"I thought it meant I wouldn't make you carry me again."
"That wasn't what I asked."
"I know what you asked."
"Then stop doing this."
Buck's right arm jerks.
The elbow bends suddenly, dropping his shoulder several inches before he forces it straight again, but the movement drives the torn edge of his coat against his wound and fresh blood floods beneath Eddie's hand.
He feels terror tear through him, wild enough to destroy every wall he has spent months reinforcing.
"You can't keep holding it."
"I can."
"You're lying."
"I learned from you."
"Buck, please!"
"Stop asking me to choose to live without you!"
The words echo through the pocket beneath the rubble, louder than the Alarms and the shifting structure.
Buck stares down at him, horrified by his own admission, but there is nowhere for either of them to retreat.
Eddie's hand remains against Buck's side and he can feel his heart, even through the layers, fast and desperate.
"Is that what you think this is?" he whispers.
"What else am I supposed to think?"
Buck's face twists with pain as the slab settles another fraction lower.
"You keep asking me to go. For fucks sake, you act like surviving without you would be the better outcome because at least one of us would walk away, and I don't know how to make you understand that there is no walking away from that!"
"Buck—"
"I'm holding this because I can't let it take you. I'd do it every time, Eddie, and I know that's messed up and reckless and probably something Frank would want to unpack for six months, but I don't know how not to."
Eddie can't breathe.
He can't possibly mean—
"I love you," Buck says, the confession coming out forced by concrete and blood and the brutal possibility that this may be the last thing he'll ever get to say. "That's the whole damn problem."
Something inside Eddie breaks open.
It's not a revelation. This has lived inside him for years… buried beneath friendship and family and fear, growing roots through every part of his life.
He thinks of Buck in his kitchen, Buck beside Christopher, Buck's hand on his shoulder, Buck's body wrapped around his as the garage fell.
"I know," Eddie says, tears slipping into his hair. "God, Buck, I know."
Buck's mouth trembles.
"That sounded like a rejection."
"It isn't."
"Then your timing could use work."
"I love you too."
Buck's arms nearly give way.
Eddie feels the slab descend, sees Buck's eyes squeeze shut as he drags strength from somewhere his body should no longer have access to, and panic rips a shout from his throat.
"Buck, look at me!"
Buck's eyes open again, unfocused.
"I'm looking."
"I love you," Eddie repeats,
"Eddie."
"You're my home. You're Christopher's home. You are in every part of my life, and I kept thinking that wanting more would ruin it, but losing you would ruin me."
Buck releases a breath that sounds dangerously close to a sob.
"Then stop telling me to leave."
"I'm sorry."
"Promise me."
"I'm not leaving you, and I will never ask you to leave me again."
Buck nods weakly.
"Good."
His left hand slips and the slab drops hard enough to drive him down until his chest presses against Eddie's. A cry tears from him, muffled against Eddie's shoulder, and for one horrifying second he thinks Buck's arms have failed entirely.
Then Buck plants his palm again, and pushes, the concrete rising less than an inch, but it rises.
"Chim!" Eddie shouts into the radio. "We're running out of time!"
"We're here," Chim answers immediately. "We can hear you. Eddie, keep talking."
A metallic impact sounds somewhere beyond the rubble.
Then another as voices filter through the wreckage, close enough now that Eddie can distinguish Bobby barking instructions and Hen calling Buck's name.
Buck laughs faintly against him.
"You're not allowed to pass out." Eddie pleads.
"I wasn't planning on it."
"Look at me."
Buck lifts his head with visible effort. His pupils look wrong, too wide in the dim light, and his lips have lost nearly all their colour.
Eddie increases the pressure against his side, wishing he could stop the blood, take the weight, or literally do anything except lie beneath Buck while the man he loves tears himself apart to keep him alive.
"Tell me something," Eddie says.
"Something."
"That doesn't count."
"You should be more specific."
Eddie swallows around the terror clogging his throat.
"Tell me what you're going to do when we get out."
Buck's gaze drifts toward his mouth.
"Well, apparently we need to discuss your feelings."
"You already dragged them out of me."
"Concrete dragged them out of you. I assisted."
"What else?"
Buck's arms shudder again.
"I'm going to make you buy me dinner."
"I'll cook."
"But you're a terrible cook."
A wet laugh escapes Eddie, breaking helplessly through the tears still burning in his eyes.
"Asshole," he whispers, lifting his left hand into the narrow space between them.
His palm settles against Buck's cheek, thumb brushing carefully over dust streaked Skin and Buck leans into the touch.
"Diaz," he breathes, "you're gonna ruin me."
Eddie's thumb brushes slowly across Buck's cheekbone, wiping away a streak of dust.
"Yeah?" he whispers. "What're you gonna do about it?"
Buck's mouth curves into the smallest smile.
"I'm going to kiss you."
The answer hits Eddie with enough force that warmth flashes through the fear.
"Only once?"
"Depends how good you are at it."
Idiot.
"Evan."
"Fine. More than once."
"Keep talking."
"I'm trying."
Concrete scrapes against concrete somewhere beside them, and a narrow beam of light pierces the darkness through a new gap.
"We see them!" Chim calls through the dim light.
"Buck's holding the slab!" Eddie shouts back, dropping his Hand from Buck's face "Don't move it until you have support underneath!"
"We've got you," Bobby calls. "Buck, stay exactly where you are."
Buck's laugh is weak and breathless.
"Wasn't going anywhere, Cap."
The rescue team moves around them in a blur of sound. Metal groans as hydraulic tools press against the slab. Hen crawls close enough for Eddie to see her helmet lamp, but the opening remains too narrow for her to reach them.
Her Expression goes tight when she sees the blood.
"Buck, I need you to stay with me."
Buck's forehead dips until it touches Eddie's.
"I'm staying."
"Airbag is set," Chimney calls. "We're inflating slowly. Buck, tell us when you feel the weight change."
The bag hisses.
For several seconds, nothing happens.
…
Buck continues shaking above him, breath catching each time the concrete grinds against his back.
Then his eyes widen.
"I feel it."
"Hold position," Bobby orders.
"I'm really tired of that phrase."
The slab lifts.
Only an inch at first, then two, the terrible pressure easing from Buck's shoulders as the airbag expands beneath it.
Firefighters shove more cribbing into place, stabilising the concrete, and Buck's arms immediately begin to fold.
"Buck," Eddie warns.
"I know."
"Don't fall yet."
"Getting kind of bossy now that we're in love."
"You can complain later."
"Hah, That sounds nice."
The slab rises high enough for Chimney and Ravi to crawl beneath the edge.
"We've got the load," he says. "Buck, ease down slowly."
Buck tries, but his body has nothing left.
The moment the weight is of, his arms collapse completely, and he drops onto Eddie with a broken gasp.
Eddie wraps both arms around him, keeping one hand pressed against the wound while the other cradles Bucks helmet.
"Buck!"
No answer.
"Evan, open your eyes."
Hen reaches them first, hands finding Buck's neck as Chim and Ravi support the slab overhead.
"I've got a pulse," she says. "It's fast and weak. We need him out now!"
Eddie refuses to release him until Hen physically peels his blood-soaked hand from Buck's side.
"Pressure dressing," she orders. "Ravi, take his shoulders. Chim, control the hips."
"His back," Eddie says, fighting against the hands checking his head and neck. "The slab hit his back."
"We know."
They drag Buck through the opening.
The absence of his body leaves Eddie freezing despite the heat trapped inside his gear while he lies beneath the newly supported slab, blood drying across his glove, listening as Hen calls out Buck's vitals and Chim requests two trauma transports.
He barely feels the Hands that secure a collar around his neck. His entire focus remains fixed on the flash of Buck's coat disappearing through the rubble.
"Stay with him," Eddie tells Hen.
"Eddie, you're injured too."
"Stay with him."
"I'm not leaving either of you."
They carry Eddie from the Garage, every movement sending pain through his skull, and when they finally emerge into the open air, the night assaults him with sirens, floodlights and the shouts of dozens of responders retreating as another section of the garage collapses behind them.
Buck is already on a stretcher.
His coat has been cut away from his side. A pressure dressing covers the wound while oxygen hides the lower half of his face and Hen walks beside him with one hand against his shoulder.
"Buck." Eddie calls weakly, panic sharpening his voice when Buck doesn't immediately move. "Buck, hey—look at me."
Buck's head shifts weakly toward the sound, dragging across the stretcher pillow. His eyelids flutter before opening halfway, unfocused at first, and then slowly searching.
Eddie reaches toward him because their stretchers are pushed close enough for his fingers to catch his hand.
For one terrible second, there is no response.
Then Buck's fingers close weakly around his, their hands intertwining between the stretchers.
His grip is barely there, but Eddie feels the violent tremor running through his fingers and up his forearm.
Hen notices it too.
"Buck, don't squeeze too hard," she says, reaching down to feel along his arm. "Your muscles suffer from severe overexertion. You held that position for too long, and they're already starting to spasm."
Concern twists sharply through Eddie.
"Is there damage?"
"Probably significant strain," Hen answers, still examining Buck's arm. "Maybe some torn fibres. We won't know how bad until we get him scanned, but he's not using these arms for anything strenuous for a while."
"Worth it," Buck whispers beneath the oxygen mask.
Eddie's throat closes, but before he can answer, Chimney appears beside the stretchers, helping guide them toward the ambulances.
"Okay, lovebirds," he says, breathless and covered in concrete dust, "you can stare soulfully into each other's eyes after we make sure neither of you is internally bleeding."
Eddie doesn't look away from Buck.
"You heard him. You're not dying before I get to yell at you properly."
Beneath the oxygen mask, Buck's mouth moves, but he can't make out the words.
"What?"
Buck tries again.
"Residual fire?"
A laugh tears out of Eddie, tangled with something dangerously close to a sob.
"You almost died, and you're still making that joke."
Buck's thumb moves across his knuckles again.
"You're flushed."
"I'm in love with an idiot."
Buck's eyes close, but the corner of his mouth lifts.
"Yeah, me too."