Work Text:
Day 7
Hallucinations | Wound packing | Seizures
Pairing: Buck & 118
The call should have been over the moment the ambulance doors closed behind the woman.
Hen and Chimney had gotten her breathing again and the violent jerking of her body had stopped. She had come awake confused and furious, swinging at Hen before the fog had even cleared from her eyes, then shouted when Buck started gathering the scattered syringes from the floor.
They had been everywhere, some capped, some empty, one still with smear of liquid inside its barrel. Buck had been dropping each of them into a sharps container while the woman and, what they assumed was probably her boyfriend kept screaming.
"Those aren't yours!" she had screamed, trying to get off the stretcher. "You can't take those!"
Buck had barely looked up. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can."
There had been too many bodies in too little space, too much shouting, and Buck had sucked in one sharp breath when the boyfriend shoved past him, but he waved him off when Eddie asked if he was all right.
"I caught the counter," Buck had said.
There had been a broken cabinet beside him, its door hanging from one hinge, so Eddie had believed him.
…
Forty minutes later, back inside the firehouse, Buck rubs absently at the spot above his right hip while Chimney complains about the state of the equipment inventory.
The remains of dinner are spread across the table in the loft. Hen stands at the sink with her sleeves pushed up, Eddie is leaning against the counter with a mug of coffee he has already forgotten to drink, and Chimney has Bobby's old clipboard tucked against his side.
Buck's been quiet since they returned.
That honestly should have been Eddie's first warning.
The second comes when Buck reaches for a glass and misses it, his fingertips clipping the rim, sending it skittering across the counter before Eddie catches it against his palm.
"Careful," Eddie says, setting it upright again. "You trying to make Ravi clean up another mess?"
Buck doesn't answer, staring at his own hand.
"Buck?"
Buck flexes his fingers, but they seem reluctant to obey him. The sensation crawling along his arm feels distant, as if the limb belongs to someone else and a strange pressure is building behind his eyes, spreading through his skull with every beat of his heart.
When he tries to draw a deeper breath, a metallic taste floods the back of his mouth.
What...
The loft tilts and he has to grab the counter with both hands.
Eddie's mug hits the surface behind him. "Buck, what's wrong?"
He tries to answer, but the pressure in his head surges, the edges of the room smearing into darkness, and terror rises through him.
He needs Eddie.
The thought comes through with startling clarity even as everything else begins breaking apart.
"Ed—."
Buck pushes away from the counter so hard that the stool beside him overturns, his knees nearly folding beneath him, and then he's scrambling around the table, one hand reaching blindly through the shrinking space between them.
Eddie catches his forearm and Buck grabs at the front of his shirt with both hands, fingers twisting into the fabric.
"Som—ng's wrong."
"I've got you." Eddie curls an arm around his waist. "Tell me what you feel."
He can't.
Buck's eyes lose focus as his grip clamps painfully around Eddie's shirt, his entire body locking.
Eddie has just enough time to feel his muscles seize just before Buck's legs give out.
"Hen!"
Eddie goes down with him, catching most of the man's weight against his chest. Buck's head misses the edge of the table by inches only because Eddie gets his hand behind it, knuckles slamming into the floor beneath his skull.
Buck's back arches as the first convulsion tears through him, making his heel strikes the overturned stool, sending it spinning away.
"Oh my God," Ravi breathes.
Hen drops the dish towel in her hand and Chimney freezes with the clipboard still tucked against his ribs, shock wiping every trace of authority, before he forces it back into place.
"Move the table," he orders, already running for the medical cabinet. "Ravi, clear the space and start timing. Hen, oxygen."
Training drags all of them into motion, but it doesn't erase the horror.
Eddie settles for keeping one hand beneath Buck's head and using the other to pull away anything he might hit. Buck's fingers have curled into rigid claws, jaw is clenched and his eyes rolled upward until Eddie can barely see the blue.
"Buck, I'm right here." Eddie doesn't know whether Buck can hear him, but he keeps speaking anyway. "You're in the loft. You're safe. We've got you."
Hen drops to her knees on Buck's other side with the oxygen bag.
"One minute," Ravi says from somewhere behind Eddie.
It feels like ten.
Buck's head jerks against Eddie's palm. Pink-tinged saliva slips from the corner of his mouth where he has probably bitten his tongue, and his skin is beginning to lose color.
"Come on, Buck," he begs. "Come on, stay with me."
"Keep his head protected." Hen orders.
Chimney returns with the rest of the kit and drops beside Hen. "Has he ever had a seizure before?"
"No."
"Any head injury on the call?"
"No, he was— he was fine." Eddie looks desperately at Hen. "He was talking like normal."
Buck's convulsions grow harsher instead of slowing, his shoulder striking Eddie's forearm, his body fighting something none of them can see.
"Two minutes," Ravi says, his voice breaking around the number.
Hen has medication ready now, while Chimney keeps his fingers against Buck's neck, counting whatever he can feel.
...
Then the convulsions stop.
Buck collapses against the floor with every muscle slack, his head heavy in Eddie's hand and his chest frighteningly motionless.
"Buck?" Eddie leans over him. "Buck!"
Hen rolls him carefully onto his side while Chimney clears his mouth, several seconds passing before Buck drags in a thin, rattling breath.
"Two minutes and thirty-two seconds," Ravi says.
"Get the gurney!" Chimney tells him.
Ravi is already running.
Hen fits the oxygen mask over Buck's mouth and nose, while Chimney shines a light into Buck's eyes, and Eddie sees the moment something else enters his expression.
"What?!" he demands.
"His pupils." Chimney's gaze moves over Buck, taking in the shallow breaths and the pallor. When he speaks again, he does it reluctantly. "Could he... could he have taken something?"
Eddie stares at him. "Don't you fucking dare, Chim."
Chimney flinches in response.
Hen's eyes snap toward Eddie, but her hand never leaves the oxygen mask as Buck lies between them, unaware of the question and the fury it has caused.
Chimney looks wounded.
"It's my job to ask," he says. "I'm his captain, and right now I am one of the people responsible for keeping him alive. If there is a chance— any chance he relapsed, then I need to know because it changes what we give him and what we look for."
"He didn't."
"I didn't say he did. I just asked whether it was possible."
Eddie looks down at Buck's slack features and the faint smear of blood at the corner of his mouth.
He thinks of how hard Buck worked to put his trust in all of them after he had nearly taken the fentanyl from the ambulance, and how much courage it had required to walk away from it and tell Chimney the truth.
He has to ask.
"I'm sorry," Eddie forces out. "I shouldn't have snapped."
Chimney's expression softens. "I know why you did."
Hen runs her hands carefully along Buck's arms, searching for an injury they may have missed. She checks his neck, then pulls the collar of his shirt aside before moving lower.
"Help me turn him a little farther."
Eddie braces Buck's shoulder while Hen lifts the side of his shirt. There, just above the waistband of Buck's pants and far enough around his back that he could never have reached the spot comfortably himself, is a tiny puncture surrounded by an angry circle of red.
Hen bends closer. "This is fresh."
Chimney looks across Buck's body at her. "Needle?"
"That would be my guess."
Eddie's thoughts go back to their last call.
The woman screaming from the stretcher. Buck crouched beside the broken cabinet with the sharps container. The man in the black baseball cap pushing through the narrow space...
Buck jerking away.
I caught the counter.
"He didn't hit it." Eddie says.
Hen looks up. "What?"
"There was a guy at the apartment. He came out of the hallway while Buck was collecting the syringes, and he shoved past him." Eddie can see it now with awful clarity, the man's fist pressed against Buck's side for half a second too long.
Chimney's eyes darken. "You think he stuck it?"
"The woman started yelling when Buck took the needles, and that guy kept saying they belonged to him. He got right up against him." Eddie's hand tightens around Buck's shoulder. "He wasn't trying to get past him. He was getting close enough to do this."
As revenge.
Hen checks Buck's pupils again. "The woman had a seizure too," she says. "Whatever was in those syringes might have caused this, and he's showing signs of an opioid in his system."
"Oh, fuck," Chimney whispers.
Ravi appears at the top of the stairs with the gurney at the same time as Hen pushes in the medicine.
"Ambulance is ready."
Chimney closes the medical bag. "Call dispatch and have LAPD sent back to the last address. Tell them we have a possible assault on a firefighter and a suspect wearing a black baseball cap."
They lift Buck onto the gurney, Eddie keeping one hand behind his head until the last possible second, surrendering him only when Hen secures the cushion beneath him.
"I've got you,"
…
Ravi drives with Chimney sitting beside him in the front, radioing the Hospital.
Hen works beside the gurney, monitoring Buck's breathing and checking his response every few minutes, while Eddie remains planted on the narrow bench.
…
Buck begins to stir halfway to the hospital.
It starts with a faint movement of his fingers, followed by a crease between his eyebrows, his eyelids flutterring without opening, and a weak sound catches behind the oxygen mask.
Hen leans closer. "Buck, can you hear me?"
His eyes open halfway. There is no recognition in them at first, only hazy confusion and fear, and he tries to lift his head before pain forces it back down.
"Easy." Eddie shifts closer until he fills Buck's line of sight. "Don't try to sit up."
Buck stares at him, his lips move beneath the mask. "Ed—?"
"I'm here."
Buck swallows and winces, his bitten tongue making the movement painful. "What… happened?"
"You had a seizure," Hen explains gently. "A pretty serious one. We found a puncture above your hip, and we think someone got you with a contaminated syringe during the last call. Symptoms are consistent with an opioid overdose, so I gave you naloxone."
Buck hears that word and his eyes widen almost instantly, his breathing turning fast and shallow beneath the mask.
"I didn't."
"I know."
Buck shakes his head, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes before spilling sideways into his hair. "I didn't take—" His voice breaks. "I swear, I—"
"Hey, look at me." Eddie tightens his hold without hurting him. "You don't have to swear anything."
Buck's chest hitches as he looks from Eddie to Hen.
Hen rests a hand against his shoulder. "We know you didn't take anything, Buck. Someone put it into you."
"Chim—"
"Chim knows too," Eddie says. "Hen found the puncture, and I remembered the man from the apartment putting his hand against your side. Nobody thinks you chose this."
Buck presses his lips together, but a small, broken sob escapes anyway.
His body is too exhausted to contain the panic properly and he can't turn away with the straps holding him in place, nor lift an arm to cover his eyes, so the tears keep coming while Eddie leans over him and blocks as much of the ambulance from view as he can.
"You knew something was wrong, and you got to me." Eddie tells him. "That's what happened. That's the whole story, okay?"
Buck's fingers curl weakly around Eddie's on the gurney. "I was scared."
"I know." Eddie rubs his thumb over Buck's knuckles. "You scared the hell out of me too."
Hen lifts the mask back into place. "Eddie's right. We believe you."
"All of us, Buck."
Chimney's voice carries through the open partition from the front of the ambulance.
Buck closes his eyes. His grip grows loose with exhaustion, but he doesn't let go completely, and neither does Eddie.