Work Text:
Immediately, two firefighters are flanking Buck, ready to tackle him if he takes a step towards the rubble. Buck walks over to Bobby, hearing the older man discuss possible plans of extraction as others yell for head counts over the radio, Eddie’s voice never carrying over. Bobby looks at Buck, his eyes begging his pseudo-son to not do anything rash.
“You are not going in!”
“I know.” He says calmly.
“And you- What?”
“I’m gonna work on crowd control.”
“You’re not racing in?”
“Chris needs both of us.” He explains, almost detached from the severity of the situation.
“WHAT!?”
“Someone has to be there for Chris.”
“What?”
“If this goes sideways, I need to be there for Chris.”
“But you guys partner up everyday?”
“Yeah. We do.” He sighs, looking at the collapse. “Most of the time it’s not this dire.”
“For now, Eddie’s still alive. Buck, where are you going?”
Buck starts walking away, “I can take med tent. I have my EMT still.”
“Good. You work with Hen. Chim, you’re with Gutierrez.” Buck continues his path as Bobby explains the duties and new plan to the rest of the crew. “Hen!”
“Yes Cap?”
“Keep an eye on him.”
She nods. “Planning on it.”
They work in tandem for a bit, helping the less wounded while they wait for more ambulances to show. Buck talks with the patients and to Hen, never straying from their current task. There’s no small talk or gentle quips to make the victim feel better, he’s silent unless necesary. It’s even eerier than the scene behind them.
After they’ve bandaged the last soul, they turn back to the smouldering chaos.
“We’re getting into that later.” Hen assures.
“I know.” Buck mutters, the only non-work words he’s said since Eddie went dark.
It’s only a few minutes of quiet/silence later when they hear, “We’ve found Diaz. He’s alive. Bruised to all hell and back, prepare for trauma workup. Conscious but not mobile, will need stretcher, delta side.”
The other crewmembers brace for Buckley to fly into the building to save his ‘friend’ or pass out from relief that he’s ok. He does neither. He walks with purpose, hastily bringing the stretcher to the delta side of the building.
The firemen carry Eddie out upright, Eddie hopping along with one foot. Buck remains stoic while they’re in the ambulance, hooking Eddie up to the monitors. Buck not talking as he strips Eddie out of his gear, connecting pads, doing his own assessment of Eddie before having any hope that he’s truly ok.
Eddie tries to catch his attention, trying to show his bestie that he’s ok. His radio took the brunt of his fall so he couldn’t respond, he twisted his ankle trying to stand up. He’s got some minor scratches from random debris. Overall, he was damn lucky, and he knows it too. His hands a little cut up where the gloves broke through, really that’s the worst of it if you ask Eddie. He’ll be some fun shades of purple but there’s no internal bleeding, he checked. If you ask Buck, he won’t answer; still examining his friend so thoroughly to ensure his wellbeing so he can go home to Christopher.
Eddie ends up with a lightly sprained ankle, a few bandages on his hands that’ll be annoying to change, and an order to not work for the next 2 days minimum with strict orders to not return to full duty until the bruises have healed.
~~~~~
A couple days later, Buck sits down with Hen and Karen, getting very drunk (Hen’s mom has the kids). It all comes out, the will, the shooting, his fears, how he hopes that Eddie feels the same but “Texas repression has that desire buried with the core of the Earth.” Hen and/or Karen text Eddie to come pick up Buck after the third bottle of wine is opened.
Eddie shows up to their house to pick up Buck as he’s waxing poetry about how amazing Eddie is but “Being raised in Texas has smothered his true desires and his ability to figure out what he really wants and it SUCCKsksksksSKSKSKSKSksksksksksKSKSKSKSKSKs.”
“It does. I’ve been working on it. Let’s go home.” Eddie says, making his presence known
“You’re so sweet to me. I wish you liked guys.” Buck makes no move to get up, continuing to daydream about Eddie and what their life could look like together.
“Frank’s gonna have a field day with this.” Eddie mumbles as he helps his friend get up and get out to the car, waving to their friends as he basically carries Buck to the car (thankfully on this good side.) He drives Buck to his house to sleep off the alcohol and relax, knowing they have a lot to talk about.
~~~~~~~~~``
Later that night. “I do, like guys. You know?”
“What?” Buck mutters, still half asleep on the couch.
“How much of today do you remember?”
“Not enough. But it was fun.”
“We need to talk.”
“Can we talk over food?”
“Sure.”
Eddie watches Buck grab the eggs. “Should you be cooking this hungover?”
“Can you make scrambled eggs better?”
“Yes. Sit down. Drink your coffee.” Buck sits down, staring at the mug.
“This is your mug.”
“Buck.”
“It’s your special mug.”
“Buck, just drink the damn coffee.”
They talk over breakfast for dinner. “So, I think the term is demisexual. Really I’m just Bucksexual.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Took a lot of soul searching. But I think you’re it for me.” Buck pinches himself. “You good?”
“Yeah. Had to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
“You’ve dreamt about this?”
“More than you know.”
“Soooo. Is there where we kiss?”
“Let me brush my teeth first and we can.” “Ok.”
They have a sweet kiss after he brushes his teeth. The desire to turn it into more is there but with Eddie still recovering and Chris bound to come home any minute, they don’t escalate their make out, not until their son is out of the house.