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Eddie Diaz has spent years pretending to fall in love.
It is part of the job, after all. He has stood beneath golden lights and looked into another actor’s eyes until the entire world believed he was hopelessly devoted. He has kissed beneath artificial rain, whispered confessions written by someone else, smiled through scenes designed to make millions of people believe in soulmates. He has played men who fall in love slowly, men who fall desperately, men who take one look at someone and somehow understand that their life has just changed forever.
Eddie has always thought he understood the feeling. That he understood what falling in love will feel like.
He doesn’t. Not until tonight.
The day has been long enough to leave him hollow. Fourteen hours on a movie set, costume changes and retakes and interviews squeezed into the few minutes between scenes, until Eddie finally returns to his hotel room and shuts the door behind himself with a sigh.
For the first time all day, there is no one watching. He really enjoys acting but being around cameras all day does get exhausting sometimes.
Eddie throws his jacket over a chair while his phone goes onto the nightstand. He stands barefoot beside the enormous window, looking down at Los Angeles glittering beneath him, and thinks that perhaps he will order room service, take a shower, and fall asleep before his head even touches the pillow.
Just relax before another full day of shooting. He needs to speak to Chris before he goes to sleep. Shooting on location for a month means he cannot bring him with him this time. He really misses him and it never gets easier to leave with his abeula—
A loud alarm breaks Eddie’s chain of thought.
At first, Eddie doesn’t move. Doesn’t truly comprehend what is happening before he sees the smoke curling beneath his door.
In just a few seconds, everything around Eddie changes.
Within minutes, the hotel becomes a nightmare. Guests spill into the corridors in pajamas and bare feet, smoke swallowing the ceiling as alarms blare overhead.
Someone is crying. Someone is shouting about the elevators. Eddie hears a hotel employee desperately trying to direct people toward the emergency stairs.
Eddie doesn’t stop to think about what he should do. He is an able man who can help. The hotel staff is barely able to manage the chaos. So, he simply starts helping, asks the hotel staff what he can do. They tell him and Eddie gets to work.
Eddie wakes people who are still asleep. He pounds on doors until his knuckles sting. He guides a frightened couple toward the stairs and goes back for the elderly man who cannot move quickly enough.
When he finds a little girl crying with no sight of any adult around her, Eddie crouches down despite the smoke burning his eyes and reaches for her hand.
“Hey, sweetheart, where is your mom?” he asks her gently, squeezing her fingers. She raises her head slightly, tears in her eyes.
“She went downstairs,” the little girl whispers, tightening her grip around Eddie’s hand. “Mommy went to get something, and then the alarm started. I got scared and ran outside.”
Eddie crouches beside her, the smoke stinging his eyes as he gives her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, sweetheart, you did the right thing getting out. We’ll find your mom, okay?”
He keeps her close as they hurry down the stairs, reaching the lobby of the sixth floor just as a frantic woman rushes through the hotel entrance, calling a familiar name.
“Lily!”
The little girl runs straight into her mother’s arms, and the woman immediately pulls her close, checking her over with trembling hands.
Then she looks up at Eddie, recognition dawning through the panic.“Oh my God,” she breathes. “You’re Eddie Diaz.”
Eddie gives her a tired, breathless smile. “Yeah. Hi.”
“Thank you,” she says, hugging Lily tighter. “Thank you for finding my daughter.”
Eddie nods, glancing toward the smoke-filled stairs. “Take care of her. Go, it's getting bad.” He says and watches them both rush down as he starts to follow.
The smoke becomes thicker with every minute.
His lungs burn. His eyes water. His body is exhausted from the day , but Eddie turns back toward the stairs anyway, pulling his shirt over his mouth as he walks down.
He makes it only two floors before the building groans. His heart trembles in his chest at the sound. His breathing is ragged from the smoke already, he cannot…
Eddie sees the exact moment the ceiling comes down.
There is no time to run.
The impact knocks him off his feet, and suddenly there is nothing but dust, darkness, pain, and the terrible roar of fire somewhere beyond the rubble.
By the time, Eddie finally opens his eyes, he cannot move. His shoulder throbs. His head is woozy, there is a metallic taste in his mouth. Something is pressing against his leg and every breath feels like glass. He tries to call for help, but his voice disappears into the chaos around them.
“Help.”
Nothing.
He tries again, louder this time. “Is someone here?”
Still nothing.
Eddie closes his eyes. He has played this scene so many times. In reel life atleast. It doesn’t hurt there. But in real life? It hurts like no pain he has ever felt.
A character trapped somewhere he cannot escape. A character realizing the end is coming so they just stare defeated at the ceiling. A character thinking about the people he loves while the music swells softly beneath the dialogue, that sad one.
He has always been able to make it beautiful.
But there is nothing beautiful about this.
There is no director calling action. No camera and no second take. No one saving him.
For the first time, Eddie wonders if this is actually how his story ends. He thinks of Chris, his kid who has already lost his mother, how he is going to lose another parent. And all because Eddie decided to play the hero. Maybe the hero complex really got to him.
Eddie is nauseous, his vision is swimming and his head really hurts. He tries to cough, tries to move but nothing helps. Is this it? Is this how….
Then he hears something.
A voice cutting through the roaring around him..
“Hey! Is anyone here? Can anyone hear me?”
Eddie’s eyes open at the sound. It is a nice voice. An angel’s voice. He likes the voice, Eddie thinks.
It is to that angelic voice that Eddie answers to as loudly as he can, “I’m here”
“Ravi, someone is here. You check the other side”
A shadow moves through the smoke. At first, it is only a silhouette. Then the figure gets closer.
A firefighter drops beside him, pulling his mask away just enough for Eddie to see his face.
And Eddie forgets everything.
The fire.
The pain.
The smoke.
Even the fear.
Now it may be the dizziness talking or not. Future Eddie will blame the dizziness, thank it actually.
Because the man looking down at him is beautiful.
Not the polished kind of beautiful Eddie sees every day on movie sets. Not something carefully constructed beneath makeup and lighting.
This is real. There is not music playing in the background but there might be in his head.
Soot across his cheek.
Brown curls damp beneath his helmet.
Blue eyes impossibly bright against the darkness.
And a softness in his expression that has absolutely no business existing in the middle of a burning building.
“Hi,” the firefighter says, his voice gentle enough to make Eddie’s heart stumble. “I’m Buck, I’m with the 118, and I’m going to get you out of here, but I need you to keep talking to me so I can make sure you’re staying with me, okay?”
Eddie stares at him. He has never heard his name sound so good in anyone else’s mouth.
“Hi,” Eddie manages, because apparently that is all his concussed brain can offer.
Buck smiles. “Good. That’s good. Can you tell me your name?”
“Eddie.”
“Eddie what?”
Eddie swallows against the smoke. “Diaz.”
Buck’s eyebrows lift slightly and he does a second look before moving back to assessing the situation around him. “Eddie Diaz?”
Despite everything, Eddie almost laughs. “Not how you usually see me.”
A quiet laugh slips from Buck, his name is Buck, warm and surprised, and Eddie has the absurd thought that he would like to spend the rest of his life making that sound happen.
“Not at all complaining,” Buck says, reaching carefully beneath his shoulders.
Eddie blinks up at him. “You are very calm for someone standing in a burning building.”
Buck’s mouth quirks as he adjusts his grip beneath Eddie’s shoulders, careful not to jostle him more than necessary. “Occupational hazard,” he says, glancing briefly toward the smoke rolling across the ceiling. “Besides, you’re the one lying on the floor of a burning hotel, so I’m trying to keep the judgment to a minimum.”
Eddie huffs a laugh, though the movement pulls at his ribs.
Buck puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, calm down. No sudden movements, movie star. I need you to tell me if you can move your fingers.”
Eddie looks down. He wiggles them.
“Excellent,” Buck murmurs, his voice encouraging as he checks him over. “How about your toes?”
Eddie moves them too.
“Perfect. Keep doing exactly what you’re doing.”
Eddie watches him through the haze, and thinks oh he would do anything for him.
There is something almost unfair about how gentle Buck is. “Do you know where you are?” Buck asks, keeping one hand steady against Eddie’s shoulder.
“A hotel.”
Buck’s mouth curves. “That is technically correct.”
“A good one from what I remember.” Eddie tries, groaning just as Buck lifts one of the rubble away from him.
Buck laughs, the sound ringing in Eddie’s head. “Okay, apparently we’re going for detailed answers now.”
Eddie smiles faintly. “You’re cute.”
Buck pauses and for the briefest moment, his expression goes completely blank. Then he clears his throat and looks back at Eddie’s injuries. “Definitely concussed.”
Eddie’s smile widens. “I get that a lot.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“You’d be surprised.” Buck shakes his head, but Eddie catches the tiny smile trying to escape.
“Come on, Eddie. Stay with me,” Buck says, dropping to his knees beside him as another section of the ceiling groans overhead. “Can you tell me what happened? What were you doing before the fire started?”
Eddie tries to shift, but a sharp breath catches in his throat. “Finished filming.”
“Okay. Good. Keep talking to me.” Buck looks over the other rubble pinning Eddie’s legs, then quickly checks the space around him before reaching for a broken piece of debris. “What kind of movie?”
“A romance.”
Buck glances at him, eyebrows lifting despite the chaos around them. “Of course it is.”
Eddie almost smiles. “You don’t like romance?”
“I didn’t say that.” Buck braces both hands against a piece of fallen plaster and pushes it aside. “I’m just saying it tracks.”
“Good,” Eddie murmurs, watching him work. “Because I happen to be very good at it.”
Buck laughs, breathless and surprised, before reaching for another piece of rubble. “You’re really flirting with me while I’m trying to get you out of a burning building?”
“It’s keeping me conscious.” Eddie points out.
“That is possibly the strangest excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“But is it working?” Eddie needs to know.
Buck looks at him for a second, then shakes his head with a helpless smile. “Unfortunately, yes.”
He clears enough debris to reach Eddie properly, sliding one arm carefully behind his shoulders while checking his legs.
“All right, movie star. I need you to help me here. We’re going to move slowly” Buck gets another piece of rubble free, tossing it behind him before reaching for the larger section across Eddie’s hip. He shifts his grip, muscles straining as he works it loose, and Eddie watches the concentration settle across his face.
He slides an arm around Eddie’s back and hooks the other beneath his arm, positioning himself so Eddie can lean against him. “On three. One, two, three.”
They move.
Eddie feels as though he is floating, his feet barely registering against the floor as the dizziness rolls through him again. He lets Buck take more of his weight, trusting the strong arm wrapped around his waist while the edges of his vision blur. Everything around him becomes muffled and indistinct, the muddiness in his head clearing only when Buck’s voice reaches him.
“What were you filming today?” Buck asks, keeping him moving through the smoke. “Something dramatic?”
“An action scene, ironically.” Eddie manages a weak laugh, leaning more heavily against him. “You should try acting. You’d look good on camera.”
Buck glances at him, amusement flickering across his face. “Is that your professional opinion?”
“Very professional.”
“Right.” Buck adjusts his grip when Eddie stumbles. “And here I thought you were just flirting with the guy dragging you out of a burning hotel.”
“I can multitask.”
That earns a quiet laugh from Buck. “You’re really something, Eddie Diaz.”
“You haven’t even seen me on camera yet.”
“Pretty sure I’m getting the full experience right now.”
Eddie smiles, though his eyes slip closed for a second. “You’d look good at my premiere.”
Buck looks down at him. “Are you inviting me?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Eddie opens his eyes, fighting through the haze to find Buck’s face. “You’d look good on my arm.”
Buck’s cheeks color faintly, but his smile turns softer as he tightens his hold around Eddie’s waist. “Trying every move here, movie star.”
Eddie lets out another quiet laugh.
They make it several more feet before Eddie’s knees buckle.
“Hey.” Buck catches him instantly, pulling him firmly against his chest. “Stay with me. A few more steps and we can get you ready to charm some more people on screen”
Eddie blinks up at him.
Buck is watching him closely now, the teasing gone from his expression and replaced by something warmer, something that makes Eddie’s chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with the smoke.
Eddie smiles faintly, leaning more heavily against him as fresh air begins to replace the smoke.
“I think we’re going to get along.”
Buck looks at him for a second longer than necessary before tightening his hold and guiding him through the doors.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I think we might.”
Eddie doesn’t understand why those words make his heart feel so warm.
He doesn’t have time to.
Buck gets him outside and lowers him carefully onto the pavement, keeping one hand against his shoulder as the paramedics rush toward them.
“I’ve got you, Eddie,” Buck says, breathless but steady. “You’re out.”
Eddie looks at him once they are out and not in the orange glow of the fire.
And suddenly he understands that weird feeling in his chest.
He has acted this, has acted this so many times. He has played the moment when a person looks at another person and falls. He has been told to make his eyes softer to do the trick, his smile slower, his breathing quieter. He has been directed to look like the other person is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
But the real thing? It is so much more. He never could have understood the way you fall in love with someone when he comes to save you from a building full of fire.
When the world is collapsing around you and somehow the first thing you see is his face.
When his voice is the gentlest thing you’ve heard all night. When he says hi like he has all the time in the world. When he keeps talking to you because he has decided that you are going to make it out.
When he says, I’ve got you, and somehow Eddie believes him completely.
Eddie should be terrified of the fact that he is concussed.
Instead, he is staring at Buck. At the curve of his mouth and at the tiny crease between his eyebrow.
“You’re very pretty,” Eddie murmurs just as he makes some space for the paramedics to come closer to Eddie.
Buck actually stumbles, looking at him with that blush on his cheeks again, “What?”
Eddie smiles faintly as the paramedic kneels beside him. “I said you’re pretty.”
Buck’s cheeks color, and a surprised laugh slips out of him.
The female paramedic beside Eddie looks between them and shakes her head. “Oh, he is definitely concussed.”
Eddie frowns as she shines a light into his eyes, but he still manages to murmur, “Still pretty.”
The paramedic laughs under her breath and begins checking him over properly. Eddie barely pays attention until Hen, her name is, crouches beside him, her expression settling into something more serious.
“You’ve got a concussion,” she tells him, checking his pupils again. “And your leg took a pretty good hit. You’re going to need that looked at properly, so the ambulance is taking you to the hospital.”
Eddie nods absently, barely listening, his gaze drifting past her toward Buck, who is standing a short distance away talking to another firefighter, Bobby, soot still streaked across his face.
He watches him for a moment before looking back at Hen. “Is Buck single?”
Hen pauses, her eyebrows lifting as she looks at him. “You’ve been concussed for, what, five minutes?”
Eddie gives her a faint smile. “That’s not an answer.”
Hen shakes her head, clearly amused despite herself. “As far as I’m aware, yes.”
“Good.” Eddie’s gaze immediately finds Buck again, and despite the pounding in his head, he can’t quite stop the small smile from forming.
Hen catches it. “Oh, this is going to be interesting.”
Eddie simply settles back against the stretcher, still watching Buck as the paramedics prepare to move him. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I think so too.”
The paramedics begin wheeling Eddie toward the ambulance, and he sees Buck immediately. Buck notices him too and steps away from Bobby and is waiting near the open doors, watching as Eddie is brought closer.
“Hey,” Buck says when Eddie reaches him, his voice quieter now, “Hope you get better soon.”
Eddie looks at him and then his gaze drops briefly to Buck’s hand resting at his side.
Then, without thinking too much about it, Eddie reaches for him. His fingers slip into Buck’s, warm and steady, and Buck’s hand closes around his immediately.
Eddie smiles. “Oh, I’m not letting you go anywhere,” he murmurs, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ll see you soon, Buck.”
Buck’s smile turns softer, a little shy around the edges, and Eddie catches the faint color rising in his cheeks.
“Get better, movie star,” Buck says with a quiet huff of laughter. “And come talk to me when you’re not concussed.”
Eddie’s thumb brushes once over Buck’s knuckles before the paramedics start moving him farther inside. “You better wait for it, firefighter.”
Buck doesn’t let go until he has to and neither does Eddie.
The ambulance doors begin closing, and Eddie keeps his eyes on Buck through the narrowing gap, watching that small, hopeful smile remain on his face until the doors finally shut between them.
EPILOGUE - 15 DAYS LATER
Eddie walks into the 118 with a bouquet so enormous that it is by many standards, an overkill. An extravagant explosion of flowers tucked against his chest as he steps through the doors of the firehouse.
He has spent years walking onto sets with cameras waiting for him, but somehow this feels more nerve-racking. Then he sees Buck across the bay, sleeves pushed up, hands busy with the engine, and every ounce of that nervousness turns into something warm.
Buck looks up and he freezes midstep. “Eddie?”
Eddie lowers the flowers just enough to see him over the ridiculous bouquet and smiles. “I told you I’d see you soon, firefighter.”
For a second, Buck simply stares at him, and Eddie catches the exact moment recognition turns into something softer. The rest of the 118 he recognizes from the scene has gone suspiciously quiet around them, which means they are all watching, but Eddie barely notices. His attention is fixed entirely on Buck.
Buck walks closer, looking from Eddie to the flowers and back again. “You’re not concussed anymore, right?”
Eddie laughs softly. “Completely recovered. Which means I can finally ask you something without you deciding I’ve suffered another head injury which is affecting my decisions.”
Buck’s cheeks turn pink, and Eddie thinks he could get used to being responsible for that.
“You told me to talk to you when I wasn’t concussed,” Eddie says, stepping closer and holding out the bouquet. “So here I am. One very long hospital stay, and an embarrassing amount of time thinking about the firefighter who dragged me out of a burning hotel later.”
Buck takes the flowers, his fingers brushing Eddie’s. “And what exactly have you been thinking about?”
Eddie smiles, letting his gaze linger on him. “You.”
The word lands softly between them. And then Eddie takes a breath, suddenly grateful there isn’t a director somewhere telling him what expression to wear, because this time every word is his. And he wants to make his own.
“I’ve played the charming hero enough times to recognize a good story when I see one,” he says, his voice dropping slightly as he looks directly into Buck’s eyes. “And I think ours deserves a first date.”
Buck’s smile becomes almost shy. “A first date?”
“A beautiful one,” Eddie says. “Just you and me, somewhere I can properly appreciate the man who saved me.”
Buck laughs under his breath, looking down at the flowers before meeting Eddie’s eyes again. “You really did rehearse this, didn’t you?”
“Not once.” Eddie laughs, taking one small step closer to him.
Buck matches him, one step ahead. “Liar.”
“Fine,” Eddie admits with a grin. “A little.”
The 118 is barely containing itself now if the hooting is anything to go by.
Eddie takes one final step closer, lowering his voice as though the rest of the room has disappeared. “So, Buck, what do you say? Let me take you somewhere beautiful, buy you dinner, and spend an entire evening proving that I’m much better at romance when there isn’t a burning building involved?”
Buck’s eyes brighten. “You’re really leaning into the movie-star thing.”
Eddie smiles. “You’d look good on my arm. I have to live up to the reputation.”
Buck laughs, shaking his head as he hugs the enormous bouquet against his chest. “Yeah, Eddie. I’d like that.”
And the 118 erupts.
Cheers bounce through the firehouse, someone whistles loudly, Hen claps her hands, and Bobby laughs as Buck turns bright red beneath all the attention.
Eddie just stands there smiling at him.
Fifteen days ago, he had been carried out of a burning hotel believing he had found the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Now Buck is standing in front of him, holding flowers Eddie brought specifically for him, smiling like he might be thinking the same thing.
Maybe this is what a perfect ending feels like.
Or maybe, Eddie thinks as Buck reaches for his hand through the flowers, it’s only the beginning.