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Statistically speaking, drowning was widely considered to be one of the most painful and distressing deaths.
It was a little tidbit of information that Buck had come across too many times in his life. In the earth documentaries he watched, in the infomercials that popped up on TV from time to time, throughout all the information sessions he had to sit through in his training. He still remembered the sinking feeling of that day at Santa Monica pier, that fateful moment that changed his relationship with water forever. It's the thing that made him weary any time they got a call from the beach. He was no longer able to laugh at any stupid hot tub related incident, no matter how much the rest of his team could.
So when that bell went off once more and he had to listen to dispatch explain the situation, he already had a knot in his stomach climbing into the rig.
"Car collision on East Center and Fifth bridge, the driver in the other car is currently unconscious. Caller and passengers seem to be fine," the voice that he vaguely recognized over the radio went. Perhaps Bernadette? Something that started with a B. They had gotten a bunch of newer hires these past few months.
His uneasiness only grew as they got closer to the scene. The last bridge-related incident they responded to led to perhaps the biggest change in his adult life thus far. And bridges were such delicate things, as he had come to learn in his ten years on the job.
"At least they're saying no fatalities this time," Hen said from beside him, snapping Buck out of his funk as she tapped him on the knee.
"Yeah," he unconvincingly laughed out. "For sure."
As they arrived upon the scene, it didn't look too bad, all things considered. This bridge was smaller, closer to the water. It was near the outskirts of the city, which meant there was almost no traffic in the area. That was always a good sign, less chance of interference.
Technically they were still in Los Angeles county, this was just on the border of their station's allotted area. Buck couldn't remember the last call they got from this far out, so many of their calls were centralized to the heavily populated areas. He wasn't even sure he had seen this bridge before.
"Yikes," Eddie said, jumping out of the rig and looking over the railing of the bridge. "Look at how fast it's moving down there."
Leaning over next to Eddie, he really wasn't lying. Buck assumed the water must be pretty shallow for it to be moving that quickly. Or perhaps there was just a steep downward slope somewhere close by.
He sighed, making his way over to the scene instead of dwelling on it. The crash was in the middle of the road, anyway.
Just as dispatch had implied, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been. The other driver had regained consciousness by the time they got to the scene, so now it was mostly just quick checkups and examinations. Altogether, a pretty average call. They could probably respond to something like this in their sleep.
Still, Buck couldn't really shake the feeling he still had sitting in his gut. All he was supposed to be doing was standing by one of the cars to make sure all traffic was redirected, but there weren't any cars around at all. He found his eyes narrowing on nothing in particular, half-focused on the empty road ahead of him.
"Hey," Eddie said softly from beside him. Buck jolted at the sound, having gotten lost in his thoughts once more. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Buck replied all too quickly with a fake laugh. "'Course. Why wouldn't I be?"
Eddie just gave him a look. He always had been able to see right through him. "I know how you get about the water"
His faux look of confidence melted off immediately. "Sorry."
"No," Eddie replied, more sternly than before. "No, don't get like that. You have every right to feel that way, Buck. I mean the whole thing last time, especially with the bridge. A-and with Theo," he trailed off.
Buck tensed up at the direct mention. "It's not even just that, I mean. Nothing good ever happens at these things."
The other man gave him a solemn nod in return. "Well, we're just about wrapping up here, no real harm done. That's a good thing, right?"
He gave Eddie a slow nod and a shrug. "Yeah, you're probably right about—"
A loud screech from a few feet away cut him off, both of their heads whipping in that direction. He hadn't been watching the road.
And then everything happened so fast.
First thing, Buck remembered standing on the bridge off to the side of the cars, his best friend by his side.
Next, Eddie was nowhere to be seen.
Buck's legs were moving expeditiously fast before his mind had time to process anything. The last couple seconds were playing on repeat through his brain as he made his way past the bridge, down by the riverside. He ignored the cries of his name from the rest of the team. That was all entirely unimportant at the moment.
Both of them looking at the car that was now out of control, too paralyzed by the sight to move.
He started blinking through nonexistent tears, heart threatening to give out when he couldn't spot Eddie. The current was pretty strong.
The head of the car coming into collision with the rear of one of the ones from the wreck.
He didn't stop, kept running down the grassy side of the bank. Perhaps he could catch up with how fast the water was moving.
The rear of the car whipping around, knocking Eddie right off the bridge and into the water.
After what must've been at least a couple minutes of running along the water, he finally spotted the all-too familiar shape of his best friend, floating head-down in the water.
Buck dove into the water without a second thought, not paying any mind to how shallow it might be, or the cold bite of the stream. It didn't really matter what happened to him, anyway.
At least to Buck it didn't.
It only took him a couple seconds to grab ahold of Eddie, but that might as well have been a lifetime. He grabbed onto his upper arm, and started kicking with all his might to get back to the bank. He hoisted Eddie up before himself, all but throwing him onto the grassy land.
Ever since his brain caught up with his body, he had pushed aside the possibility that Eddie could have possibly been hurt. If he let himself think about that, his knees would have buckled before he even got off the bridge.
So when he put his fingers up to the side of Eddie's neck and didn't feel the rhythmic beat of a pulse, the whole world went dark for a moment.
Buck was notoriously bad at CPR, as he had been told time and time again. He usually ended up pressing down too hard, or going too fast. It was something he had been working on improving for years. Bobby had once told him he should leave it to the others unless absolutely necessary. Besides Ravi and Harry, he probably had the least amount of experience in anything medical out of the whole team.
Alas, none of the others were here right now, and this definitely qualified as absolutely necessary.
Buck managed to tame his erratic breathing by the slightest bit, pressing down into Eddie's chest on as accurate timing as he could muster. He could see the tears from his eyes falling down onto Eddie's lifeless face, as he rapidly approached thirty.
He hesitated for the slightest second before delivering the first rescue breath.
Eddie's lips were—cold. In all the scenarios he had tried not to imagine, kissing Eddie for the first time was some magical thing. It was warm, it was familiar, it was everything. In an ideal world, it wouldn't have had to be this. But he didn't have time to think about that as he delivered the second one, pressing his fingers back to that pulse point once more.
He choked out an audible sob when his fingers were met with no movement, but didn't waste anymore time before getting right back to it.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed and how many rounds he had completed before he could finally hear the sirens coming from behind, Chim's voice yelling "Buck!" as his footprints got louder.
But that wasn't important. He wasn't paying attention to anything until Eddie came back. Back to him.
"Buckley, you have to move aside, let us help him—"
"Not yet!" Buck half-screamed, quickly swatting Chim's hand away from where it briefly rest on his shoulder. "I'm—he's—it'll be fine, just let me do this," he said, voice growing more frail by the second.
Another minute of a whole lot of nothing passed. Buck could vaguely register the four or five sets of feet surrounding the two of them, but that wasn't relevant to him. None of this was.
"Sweetheart," Hen started, in a soft but broken voice. "He's—"
"He's fine," Buck insisted through a choked up voice. "He's going to be fine."
As he leaned down for what was likely the fifteenth set of rescue breaths, Eddie's eyes shot open. He quickly gasped in a breath of air, before immediately hunching over and coughing.
Buck's whole body stilled, demeanor shifting into something of shock. But he disregarded that almost immediately, pulling Eddie—or more so, Eddie's head—into a tight embrace.
"Buck?" he whispered out hoarsely, still attempting to catch his breath.
"Shhh shh," Buck hushed him, half trying to console himself. "You're alive, you're alive," he whispered quieter than ever before.
"What even—I'm so—" Eddie started, but cut himself off to reciprocate the hug. He could figure out what happened later.
Buck still hadn't really processed much of anything, the only thing in his head being the repeating notion of Eddie'saliveEddie'saliveEddie'salive over and over again.
"Buck," he gasped out again, sounding more relieved this time than confused. He tightened the embrace, hands gripping Buck's shoulders with more force, as if it was his lifeline. And in a way, it was.
It was at that moment everything in Buck's mind caught up. The last five minutes of his life played through in another flash, and his whole body stilled.
I just kissed Eddie. Many times.
It had hardly occurred to him in the moment, just a small blip in his mind.
He loosened his grip on the other man, as much as Eddie would let him. As they finally broke apart, Buck just stared down at the jumbled mess of limbs beneath them. He didn't even want to look him in the face.
He stumbled away from Eddie as the distraction from the rest of the team his attention. He stood up, hesitantly offering a hand to the other man, who was still half lying on the ground.
Eddie took the hand enthusiastically, giving him a bittersweet smile as he stood—stumbling for a minute.
"You okay?" Eddie asked him softly. "I'm still—in a little bit of shock, I guess."
"Yeah," Buck lied, extending the end of the word out far too long. "Just—a little cold from the water, I guess."
Eddie laughed again, slinging an arm around his shoulder. "That makes two of us."
Buck tried to ignore the feeling of wanting to crawl out of his skin. Here Eddie was, blissfully unaware of everything, and he had to stand here, acting like everything was completely normal.
"Okay, I hate to break this up," Hen said after a moment. "But you need to get to the hospital, and we have to make sure the 144 is all good to take over the scene."
In all the chaos, Buck had forgotten that they were there to respond to an emergency.
"Right," Eddie nodded. "Probably should make sure this guy did everything properly," he joked, lightly knocking the side of his head against Buck's.
...
Buck couldn't stop his feet from nervously bouncing against the tiled floor of the hospital. He always did it when he was nervous or just a little out of it, but it was never both feet. He had his hands clasped, elbows resting on his knees as he hunched over the chair. He kept staring at his water-soaked shoes against the tile, not wanting to look up and make eye contact with the man currently sitting on the hospital bed.
"Mr. Buckley?"
He finally looked up to see one of the hospital nurses looking back at him. "Sorry—yeah?"
"I was saying that Mr. Diaz here should be all set to go, as long as he has someone to stay with for the next few nights? Standard protocol."
Buck quickly glanced over at Eddie before looking back at her. "Y-yeah, that's totally cool. I—we have a spare room."
She was satisfied enough with that answer as she walked over to the computer with his charts. "Alright, emergency contact release," she mumbled to herself as she typed. Somehow, Buck had briefly forgotten that they were each other's emergency contacts.
He looked back over at Eddie, who was mouthing a little Thank you, sorry, to him. Buck just shot him back an awkward smile and looked back down at the floor.
As the nurse left the curtained off "room", it left just the two of them once more.
"I—Do you mind if I call Chris real quick?" Eddie asked after a moment. "I haven't gotten the chance to tell him about any of this yet."
"Oh, uh, yeah. Of course," Buck managed to get out. "I—I can," he said, motioning his hand towards the curtain where the nurse had just left.
"No no, you're fine," Eddie quickly exclaimed, motioning for him to sit back down. "it's just Chris."
Hesitantly, he took the spot in the chair once more.
"Hey, kiddo!" Eddie enthusiastically said once Chris picked up the call.
He still felt awkward sitting there, letting himself listen in on Eddie's private conversation with his son. Even if Eddie himself said it was fine.
As he half-listened to the man recount the events of the day to his son, Buck's mind began to spiral again. What would this mean for our friendship? Was it ever going to be the same again? Why was Eddie playing it so cool, as if nothing happened? Am I the only one making a big deal out of this?
"And yeah, Buck pulled me out."
His head snapped back up at the sound of his name. Eddie was still on the phone, but he was looking over to Buck, smiling at him.
"Well, a little CPR may have been needed."
Buck's stomach churned again at the reminder. Eddie looked surprisingly—normal? He was giving almost a bashful look, if Buck were to judge. It must just be the way he's processing, he's still probably a little out of it. Anyone would be after nearly dying.
"No, nothing like that," he laughed. "Well yet."
Hearing only one side of this conversation was making Buck slightly lose his mind. Sure, he could infer what Christopher was saying on the other side of the line, but some of the responses Eddie was giving was making that harder by the second. He was still acting much too normal about this whole ordeal.
"I'll have Pepa drive you to school Monday, and possibly Tuesday, okay? Okay, love you, kid."
He hung up the phone, immediately starting to gather his things up.
"You know, if it's too much of a hassle, I can just get Maddie or someone to watch Theo these next few days and—"
"Buck, it's fine. The kid's sixteen, he can hold his own for a few days. Probably prefers it that way."
And Buck couldn't really argue with that, so he didn't.
"You need help grabbing the rest of your stuff?"
Eddie shrugged. "Not much here. Phone, wallet."
Buck nodded in return. "Should we—" he started. "Stop off at your house? For the stuff you need, I mean."
Eddie shrugged again. "I probably have a few day's worth of clothes stocked up in that drawer at your house. Got a spare charger?"
Hesitantly, he nodded again.
"Then I think we're good."
Buck's eyes widened slightly. "We're good?"
"We're good," Eddie repeated once more.
...
The car ride over felt like an eternity.
Buck had gotten better with going the actual speed limit, but it was taking everything in him to not floor it. To get to his house, out of this truck as fast as humanely possible. Sure, he had to share the house with Eddie for a few days, but they had done that before. He was fairly confident he could avoid him. But there was nowhere to go in the truck, nowhere to hide, to avoid Eddie.
And for the life of him, Eddie did not seem to be getting the hint.
"And then I'm thinking I'll call Chim on Sunday to see when I'm able to be back at work, that's in a day and a half, so it should be fine. What do you think?"
"Uh huh."
Eddie hadn't stopped talking since they got in the truck. Buck didn't know how many low-effort responses he had left in him.
To be fair, he wasn't intentionally trying to blow Eddie off. But the normal, mundane conversations that they shared nearly every day of their lives likely wouldn't be the same, and it was all because of Buck's incessant spiraling.
"So you think I should?" Eddie asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Buck glanced over for a moment before setting his eyes back on the road. "Hm?"
"About calling Sunday?"
"Oh, uh, yeah. I—that's probably a good idea."
Eddie sighed. "Okay Buck. What's going on?"
"What? Nothing's—everything's fine," he tried to pass off as convincingly as possible. It wasn't really working.
"You've been weird since we were at the hospital."
"Eddie, you almost died, need I remind you."
And it wasn't a complete lie. The fact that Eddie lied on that riverbank for several minutes without a pulse was something Buck had yet to fully unpack, to process.
But Eddie seemed to get the memo, giving Buck a quick nod and staying silent the rest of the ride.
...
Buck has been waiting for this water to boil for much too long. Perhaps it was mocking him, making him stay in the danger of the kitchen for as long as possible. He couldn't just go running off to the solitude of his room, no, they still needed to eat. And it had been hours.
"Sorry," a small voice from behind him finally said.
Buck turned around in surprise, he hadn't even heard Eddie come out of the guest room.
"Sorry? You—you don't have anything to be sorry for, it wasn't—"
He cut himself off.
Because it was an odd situation. Most of the times Eddie had gotten hurt, Buck was able to get a little mad at him. When he pulled that self sacrificial bullshit he so often did, Buck's anger was justified. But Eddie couldn't have prevented this one. Nothing he did could have really stopped the truck from moving like that. If anything, it was Buck's fault for not watching the road like he was supposed to. So he couldn't be mad at Eddie. He could only be mad at himself.
"I'm sorry, if anything," he finished.
Eddie took a moment to respond, eyes squinting in pure confusion. "Buck, what?"
He turned towards Eddie again, this time choosing to stare at the kitchen island. He still didn't really want to look him in the eye, couldn't look him in the eye.
"Look, if I hadn't been so careless or whatever when I was supposed to be looking at the road, I coulda—I don't know. Yelled out, or something. Pushed you out of the way."
Eddie just gave him a look. "You can't be serious, right? Buck, you saved my life."
"I wouldn't have had to," he shot back immediately, grasping at straws for this argument. Deep down, he knew this wasn't what he was spiraling about, and he was pretty sure Eddie knew it too. "It would have all worked out, and we'd still be on shift."
"Shit's gonna happen everyday. You can't prevent all of it. I really thought you would've learned that by now. I mean, this can't be what this is all about, right?" Eddie continued. "Because I wasn't looking at the road either. Are you gonna say I'm to blame for that?"
Buck stayed silent.
"No, because you can't even look at me."
And that got his attention, as he finally moved his head up. Eddie raised his eyebrows in amused surprise.
"Seriously, what is it?"
"How are you just acting like nothing happened?"
"I'm acting—" he scoffed. "Do you even hear yourself right now? You—you're avoiding me like the god damned plague, and now you're projecting. Buck, I know what happened out there, so why can't we just talk about it?"
"You don't know what happened out there," he snapped back. "O-or you wouldn't be like this," motioning with his hand towards Eddie. "You'd be—I don't even know, but you wouldn't be standing here trying to talk to me. Hell, you wouldn't even be here. You'd probably have convinced that nurse to somehow let you go home, or lied about something to get out of the same room as me. And I wouldn't have blamed you for it."
Eddie stayed silent, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.
"You didn't break my ribs, or anything. And I would have forgiven you if I did."
Buck gave him a look. "What? That's not—"
"What else could this be about, Buck?" he finally snapped. "Really. I've been racking my brain for hours trying to figure out why you've been so—so off about this whole thing, and that's the only reasonable explanation I've been able to come to."
"You seriously haven't—you were dead, Eddie. You stopped breathing, and I wouldn't let myself believe it. I—I nearly screamed at Chim for trying to take over. And the fucking—the compressions didn't work. I had to—" he cut himself off before he could finish.
Eddie's eyes widened once again, putting together the last of the pieces in his head. He gave Buck a quick nod. "You had to breathe for me."
Buck looked down at the floor again, nodding back. "Yeah."
He sounded defeated. The thousands of thoughts that usually occupied his mind all went quiet, his head was empty. He didn't want to look back up at Eddie, scared from what may come from that. Even if it was inevitable.
Eddie stayed silent too, letting the weight of the moment wash over the both of them.
And then he started to move.
Slowly, he made his way around the kitchen island. His footsteps were so soft, almost as if he was trying to avoid Buck noticing. Once he finally stopped, he found himself within a foot of the man, who was still staring at anything but Eddie.
Eddie hesitantly brought his hand up to the side of Buck's lower jaw, cautiously guiding his face until he was looking back at him. And Buck didn't put up a struggle, he just let Eddie do what he needed to do.
This was closer, more intimate than they had ever been before. Eddie could feel Buck's semi-erratic breathing from here, ever so slightly speeding up. He could see the micro-reflections his face was trying so desperately not to make. He let his hand lightly brush over his cheek, waiting, observing how Buck would react.
Eddie could tell he was conflicted. Conflicted between showing emotion and staying expressionless. Conflicted between acting on something or staying put. He always tried to put up a front, but it never worked. At least not with Eddie.
"You don't know what you're doing," Buck said, quieter than a mouse.
Eddie just tilted his head, staring deeper into the other man's eyes. "What am I doing, Buck?"
"You're making a mistake."
He scrunched his face like he was trying not to cry. "You don't get to be the one to make that call."
"No Eddie, I know. I—I know that you're just doing all of this out of pity or something—I don't know if you feel like you owe me, but it's not worth it. Because this—this would change everything."
"It already did, Buck."
Before he could even start to think of a response to that, he jumped at the sound of water boiling over from behind him, face jerking out of Eddie's hold.
"I uh," he started, both of them still looking at the stove. "I might have filled it a little too high."
So that's why it was taking forever to boil.
And suddenly, everything was starting to make a lot more sense.
It wasn't divine intervention that caused the water to take forever to boil, and it wasn't divine intervention that knocked Eddie off that bridge. The universe wasn't laughing at him by forcing Buck to save him, and this whole argument he was building up in his head was starting to make less and less sense.
He turned back to Eddie, who was now looking at him with watery eyes. Eddie hated crying, Buck knew this.
"It was rescue breaths," Buck started again. "A-and I know that's all it was. But the—the reason that I can't just move on from it is because that isn't all it was to me, Eddie. Whatever it comes down to, I'll stop at nothing to save you—to bring you back. But if that means that what we had before this is ruined, then—" he cut himself off. "Then so be it."
"Is that what you want?" he asked in a shaky voice. "Do you want to just part ways? Never talk to each other again. That would crush you, it'd crush me. I know that."
"Then what's the alternative, Eddie? What, do we just pretend like nothing's changed, like everything will stay the same even though we both know that's not—"
The true died on his tongue as Eddie cut him off, pressing his lips to his own. And it felt so much different than before. So much different than the cold, lifelessness of those moments by the riverbank.
By the time Eddie pulled away, Buck's brain still hadn't caught up to the rest of his body. It was a brief, chaste, press of the lips, but he just stood there for the few seconds, unmoving.
"Right," Eddie said, turning to walk away. But Buck wasn't going to let his lackluster ability to process things win twice.
"I'm just gonna—"
He didn't let Eddie finish that sentence, grabbing his wrist and kissing him once more. Eddie took a moment before reciprocating, grabbing at the sides of Buck's face with both hands now.
It was more desperate than before. Buck had spent too much time avoiding this—avoiding the possibility of it all. They both had.
Eddie let go of Buck's face, opting instead to wrap his arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. Buck slowly started to walk them away from the stove, away from the boiling water that was still spilling onto the burner.
Eddie broke the kiss after another minute, pulling away just a couple of inches to breathe. His tilted his forehead against Buck's, arms still clinging around him.
"Not to stop this," he said after a moment, looking back up at Buck, who was looking at Eddie with stars in his eyes. "But I am really fucking hungry."
Buck just smiled sweetly at him for an instant, before breaking out into laughter. "Yeah, me too."
Eddie smiled back at him, looking over Buck's shoulder at the stove. "Good thing it's just water. I've had starch boil over, it leaves this residue that's a bitch to clean up."
"Oh trust me, I'm well aware."
"Good thing I won't have to be doing much more cooking in my life then," he said with a grin.
...
The conversation was light throughout dinner. Eddie watched lovingly as Buck washed the dishes, both of them just basking in this newfound domesticity.
It wasn't until they were sitting on the couch, nursing beers, when Eddie brought it up again.
"We should probably still," he started. "Talk, about it."
"Yeah," Buck nodded. "We should."
Eddie turned so that he was facing Buck, one leg up on the couch.
Buck sighed. "I guess I can start, I think it—"
"I love you," Eddie shot out, cutting him off.
Buck's jaw snapped shut, eyes slightly widening.
"Sorry," Eddie continued. "You were about to say something, and then I got all caught up in my head, and it just—" he cut himself off, looking at Buck. "You were saying?"
"Uh," Buck laughed. "Kinda lost my train of thought after that. Do you—" he stopped himself, trying to think of the least awkward way to phrase his sentence. "Do you wanna elaborate?"
Eddie just gave him a sigh before he started talking. "I think I've felt this way for a long time, maybe since the well, maybe before. I just—I didn't want to put a word on it. I didn't really want to address that part of myself, that part that has just known something's been different my whole life. I had survived well enough on my own this long without thinking about it."
Buck just gave him a solemn nod. "Eddie—"
"But I realized something, these past few months. I realized that that's no way to live life, to just be afraid of who I really am. So, I was just—waiting, I guess."
"Waiting?"
"I mean, I got my opportunity," he laughed.
"I realized this afternoon," Buck blurted out.
Eddie turned to look at him again.
"I realized about a split second after hugging you. After my brain caught up and I knew you were alive, I just stopped functioning. And I think there was a moment right before I leaned down that first time, right before that first breath. I hesitated for a moment. I'm still beating myself up about it, I really don't think I'll stop anytime soon, but yeah."
He stopped for another moment, pausing to sip his beer.
"But nothing changed, today. At least in terms of how I feel about you. It's always been there, I just needed something to tell me what that feeling was."
"Did you get your answer?"
"Yeah Eddie," Buck said with a smile. "I did."
"And?" he asked with a laugh. "Final verdict?"
"I love you," he said earnestly, finally putting a name to all this. Giving it all a purpose.
Eddie just smiled. He didn't respond, didn't have to.