Chapter Text
Eddie had felt smoke in his lungs before. It's a thick, harsh, unpleasant feeling that he wouldn't wish on anyone, really. He had gotten used to the side effects of constantly running into fires, it was his job, for crying out loud. Close calls had came and gone, and he usually was able to escape with minimal damages done. Coughing for a couple hours, a small rash from the heat, it was all things he had gotten used to in his nine years at the 118.
This was not one of those times.
He always hated fires in high-rises. They took eons longer to clear out, and the danger of going into one exceeded that of any other type of building. This one wasn't even that bad, all things considered. Thirteen floors, should have been a quick in-and-out operation.
He had reached the eighth floor before he heard his radio crackle to life.
"Eddie, this building's going down," Chim said. "Get out of there, now."
"Cap, I'll be right there," he sounded back. "There's a sound coming from the end of the hallway, I think I can reach it—"
"Eddie, no! Get back here now, that's an order."
He ignored the demanding pleads of Chim, opting to continue further down the hallway, the cries getting louder with each step he took. It was odd, it almost didn't sound human, like some sort of weird pet or exotic animal. He contemplated going back, but it wasn't worth jeopardizing an actual human life, if there was one. He knew he'd never forgive himself if he knew that there was the chance of saving someone and he didn't take it. It would have been worse than any damages that the fire could do to him.
Continuing to drone out Chim's continued yells over the radio, he opened the door to—nothing?
The room was ablaze, like many of the ones he had passed on the floor, but no one seemed to inhabit the area. Not even a single pet occupied the space. He looked for a second more, seeing an old metal fan that seemed to be scraping along its grate. How someone could do anything with that sound constantly pestering their ears, Eddie hadn't a clue.
"No one here!" Eddie radioed. "Cap, I'm coming back down."
"Eddie, I don't care if you have to jump out the window, you better get your ass down here stat."
He knew he was about to get the beatdown of a lifetime as soon as he exited the building, but that was all he was focused on now: exiting the building. A simple task, in retrospect. All he had to do was fly down eight sets of stairs. Eddie had done many more than that at once in the past.
As he made his way back to the stairwell, the problem presented itself: there weren't many stairs left.
He had run into this problem a few times before. More and more stairwells, especially the modern ones, were starting to be made with flammable materials. Architects had started using some hybrid-steel that had looked "more aesthetic" and somehow, passed building inspection.
"This stairwell's blocked," Eddie continued. "Any alternative routes?"
Chim was silent for a moment, Eddie knew he was sighing at him or something. "Give me a minute, building manager's right over here." A pause. Guess he was joking about that whole jumping out the window thing, though Eddie wouldn't put it past himself to try something stupid like that. "There should be another stairwell towards the elevators. About halfway down the hallway."
Eddie remembered seeing the elevators, they were only a couple hundred feet away. Being careful to avoid any large hazards, he started running as fast as he could back down that hallway. He wasn't treating the situation with the same mindfulness that he was trained to, but his brain had switched into survival mode.
He spotted the door with "Emergency Exit" plastered to the front and barged his way through.
Quickly assessing the stairwell, there wasn't any fire, but a whole lot of smoke. That would have to do.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he started his decent, ignoring that unpleasant feeling that was building up in his lungs. By the time he reached floor five, he tried holding his breath. If he was on a leisurely stroll or sitting down, maybe that would have worked, but this was intense cardio. He then resorted to taking short, quick breaths that seemed to prevent smoke inhalation by a tiny bit.
When he registered the "Floor Three" sign, it was really starting to get to him. He had started a fit of coughing, and a splitting headache had started to introduce itself. He grabbed onto the railing before he fell—he had forgotten about the fun side effect of headaches: dizziness.
He resorted to holding onto the railing to continue his descent—he was bound to fall over if not. The fire was getting hotter, or maybe he was just feeling it more. In the haziness of his mind, he was confident that some of the skin on his face and neck was starting to peel, he'd probably have to get some burn treatment for it when he got out.
If he got out.
By some miracle, he managed to reach the bottom of the stairwell. He let go of the railing, all but falling over onto the ground. Flames surrounded him, but he continued to slowly crawl his way towards the exit. He reached the door to the stairwell, one of the last barriers between him and freedom. One problem: the door was closed.
With all his might, he reached up to push on the handlebar, but it was just out of reach. He slumped himself against the door, trying to push himself up, but it was no use. His body had given out on him.
Vaguely, he could register the sound of his radio again.
"Diaz! Where are you? Can you hear me? The building's got another two minutes at best!"
He flopped his left arm towards his right shoulder, hoping that muscle memory wouldn't fail him.
"On first," he paused, trying to suck in any oxygen left. "First floor. Door—'s stuck."
His mind registered Chim responding, but he was too out of it to comprehend what he was saying.
Was this the end? Eddie Diaz and his thirty four years of life, all ended by a simple fire. Maybe it was always going to end this way. At least he'd go down doing something heroic, he supposed.
He could feel his eyelids getting heavier, the looming threat of sleep growing larger. He had felt that feeling before. He felt it when he got shot, he felt it in that elevator. He knew it was the one thing he had to resist, but it felt tempting to just give in.
He didn't have time to contemplate that anymore, as the door he leaned against opened all of a sudden. With his back support gone, he fell to the floor, looking up at a face he couldn't exactly make out. The face got closer, and even in his current state, he recognized the familiarity.
The helmet read "118", the eyes were a vibrant cobalt. He knew that face, even if he couldn't fully see it.
"Buck," he managed to get out, but for all he knew, it could have just been some mumble of sound.
He vaguely registered the other man's panicked sense, but Eddie didn't have much energy left to pay attention.
"Hold on Eddie, I—I've gotcha," he half heard.
Suddenly, he was no longer on the ground anymore.
That seemed to wake up his sense at least a little. He lifted his heavy head from where it flopped up to see Buck—carrying him?
In his adult life, Eddie had only been carried by one person, which just so happened to also be Buck. He didn't remember it, he was too out of it from the sniper for the action to even register. It wasn't until stories in the hospital began to get relayed to him by Hen and Chim that he even found out, Buck never liked to talk about that day.
This time, he could feel it. He could feel one of Buck's arms under his back, the other under his knees. It was—nice. The feeling slightly concerned him, but he didn't have the stamina to really focus on what, exactly, that meant at the current moment. All he had to really focus on now was staying awake, staying alive.
The rest could be forgiven. Eddie could unpack whatever this feeling was doing to him later on, but he had to survive for that to happen. He wasn't sure about what happened after he died anymore, but he knew for a fact that Buck was going to find some way to haunt him if he didn't hold on.
So with all his might, he did.
...
The harsh lighting of the hospital came to him all at once—as it had many times in the past.
He couldn't make out much, just some simple shapes. As he continued to blink his consciousness back, the shapes became more defined. He could see a TV, a door, the foot of the hospital bed. He could hear the steady beeps of what had to be at least a few different machines hooked up to him. He could smell that distinct scent the LA General Hospital always seemed to have.
But the memory itself—that's the foggy part.
It was some sort of fire incident, he knew that. Fragments of it were still there: the stairs, the door, that fan. But no matter how much he strained his brain, nothing else came.
Suddenly another sound, a smaller one this time, caused him to force his aching neck to the left.
There Buck sat, hunched over in one of those horribly achey waiting chairs, softly snoring. By the looks of it, he hadn't gotten much sleep recently at all. He likely didn't even mean to doze off, Eddie presumed.
Buck's presence caused him to smile. He wasn't exactly sure why he was even there, but he didn't need to. Eddie being in the hospital was reason enough.
He could have woken him up, Buck probably would want him to, but he needed this rest. Eddie just knew it. And staring at his best friend peacefully sleeping beside him was as good a pastime as any.
...
Eddie hadn't realized he had dozed off again until the noise from beside him got a bit louder. He jolted awake, hurting his back by sitting up. Slowly, he leaned back down as he turned to look at Buck. It must've just been a dream that gave him some sort of elevated reaction. He remembered Buck used to get those a lot when they lived together. Some of them were so bad, it woke Eddie up from across the house. Still, this was long enough of a wait.
"Hey," he said softly, coughing as he used his voice for the first time since he came to.
Buck didn't seem to respond.
"Buck," Eddie continued to whisper, lightly bringing a hand to his arm, giving him a gentle shake. "It's me."
He could see his head begin to fall, and his eyes opened a moment later.
"Ed—" he started, groggily, before blinking his eyes wide open. "Eddie? You're awake?"
A part of him sounded genuinely surprised, as he grabbed Eddie's hand that was still touching his arm and smiled sweetly.
"Y-yeah, I think so," Eddie joked.
"The doctors, they, uh, said it might be a few more days until you—" he stumbled all over his words. "How you feeling?"
And—yeah. He couldn't really ignore the giant elephant in the room anymore. His whole body ached. He could feel a burning sensation down his arms and legs, his throat felt scratchy, even the hand that Buck was holding—rather endearingly if he did say so—looked particularly red.
"Not—great," Eddie started. "What, uh, what happened?"
Buck just stared at him for a second before taking a long blink. He was clearly holding back something.
"Look man, you can tell me. Did anyone else get hurt or something."
Buck shook his head. "N-no. It's nothing like that, it's just—" he cut himself off, looking for words that it looked like he may never find.
"Did I do something stupid?" he interjected.
Buck sighed, looking down at the floor. "Yeah Eddie, you really did."
"I guess I Bucked it up, huh?" he joked after a moment, trying to add some levity to the conversation.
Buck just looked up at him with a sad, mournful look on his face. "Eddie, you scared the shit out of me."
And it hit like a ton of bricks. Worse than all the pain.
"For a few hours I—" he paused, collecting himself. Eddie could tell he was trying not to cry. "I really thought we might have lost you. What would I—what would we have done?"
More of the memory came to him. Chim yelling over the radio, the feeling of the smoke in his lungs, and something else. A guardian angel, perhaps, carrying him out of that mess. He didn't believe in all that Catholic stuff anymore, but it truly seemed like some divine intervention. He strained his brain again, but no face came.
"This is the job, Buck," he said quietly. He was staring straight ahead at the door of the room now, avoiding any possible eye contact. "You probably know that more than any of us."
"That doesn't mean that you're just expendable, Eddie!" he finally snapped, standing up from his chair. "I mean, that's what you told me, right? All those years ago?"
"Can we just—"
"No, Eddie, you don't get to do that." Eddie finally turned to look back at him. He had tears streaming down his face, but his voice had yet to quiver. "I was the one who had to carry your almost lifeless body out of that building, clinging onto the inkling of a chance that you would make it. And I know you did, I know you're gonna be okay. But that doesn't change the fact that you stayed in that building longer than you should have. You put your life on the line more than it had to be. And I don't think I could have handled that if you hadn't pulled through."
All Eddie could do was blink. He opened his mouth to speak, but all the words died on his tongue. So Buck was the one that—
"I'm gonna head back to your place," Buck continued, interrupting Eddie's thought. "Make sure he's all set for school tomorrow."
He left the room, doing that half-slam thing with the door that he always did when he was angry. Eddie let out a soft "good night," to absolutely no one.
...
Sleep didn't come easy, as he felt himself tossing and turning in the dark room over the millions of thoughts swimming in his mind. The memories of the incident—a bit more had come to him since. But the one piece that he refused to let himself touch was the one that he couldn't let go of. In all honestly, he didn't even know if Buck meant to tell him. Eddie remembered earlier that day—Buck had left the building with Ravi and Hen minutes before everything went down. Buck wasn't even in the building when Eddie was making his escape.
Did he have to go back in? he thought to himself. For me?
It was then he jolted up, staring into the wall with wide eyes.
That guardian angel he remembered—it was Buck.
And maybe, it always had been.