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No matter how much Maddie likes to tease him about it - and the fact that his sister is even around to tease him in the first place is still a strange delight - Buck still doesn’t understand the way he’s been feeling lately.
He just can’t stop thinking about Eddie Diaz.
At first it was jealousy and annoyance, a desire for him to go away. Now it’s the opposite, but it leaves the same sort of restless feeling in Buck’s stomach. He wants to spend as much time around him as he can and make his life easier and make him laugh and… And yeah, he’s never really had a friend make him feel quite this possessed.
He really has no idea why. They’ve only known each other for a few weeks.
If anything, Buck is chalking it up to loneliness. Abby still hasn’t been very responsive to his messages. She’s not answering his calls. And, listen, Buck might be a little slow on the uptake, but he’s not stupid. He can see the end in his rearview mirror, and at this point, he’s equal parts embarrassed to admit it and desperate to not give up on the one person who ever made him feel like more than just a short, good time.
Maybe the reason why he’s been more or less obsessed with Eddie lately is the same reason why it feels so good when Channel 8’s Taylor Kelly pays attention to him. Maybe it has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with Buck just sort of being pathetic.
He’s trying not to reflect on any of this as the 118 - minus Bobby, who is staying behind to give an interview to Taylor for her coverage - head out for a call that Buck thinks he hears someone say is at a beauty pageant. He’s not really paying attention properly. That’s bad. He should be. His head just feels really scattered for whatever reason. More than usual.
Buck’s not the only one feeling off, either.
Eddie seems kind of teary in the back of the engine. Like someone has chopped a bucket of onions in front of him.
“Man, allergies are going crazy today,” Eddie says, rubbing tears from his eyes.
Oh… Well, yeah. That makes sense. Or, Buck thinks it makes sense? Maybe he has allergies, too, and that’s why his brain isn’t working very well right now. But strange for them to be presenting themselves today, of all days, in late October. Buck checked his weather app this morning and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“You too, huh? The index wasn’t elevated this morning. Think it’s a new kind?”
Eddie looks completely lost. His eyes are big and glittery, like two dark gemstones.
“New kind of what?” He asks.
“Of pollen.” Buck clarifies.
“A new kind of pollen?” Chimney asks skeptically as Eddie checks for traces of pollen on his hands.
Oh. Whoops. Buck had actually sort of forgotten he was here. How could he have forgotten that?
Around them, the air fills with a sort of light, twinkling sound. It’s very pretty. Like windchimes or raindrops.
“Are you not feeling this, Chim?”
“No, I do not.”
Chimney might just be hypo-allergenic, or whatever.
“I can see the pollen,” Eddie says.
“I can hear it,” Buck adds.
“What’s wrong with you guys?” Chim asks.
Buck resents that. They’re suffering from pollen-related allergies, after all. This isn’t a joking matter.
When they arrive at the hotel and conference center where the beauty pageant call is being held, Buck hardly has the wherewithal to climb out of the engine. He and Eddie kind of linger behind the rest of the team as they head for the doors, taking small, careful steps forward. Buck feels a little wobbly, and finds himself leaning against Eddie a little as they walk.
“Man, this is the longest walk I’ve ever taken,” Eddie complains.
Buck gets what he means. One time, living in Virginia Beach, he and a friend did shrooms, and Buck can remember the arduous journey to make it from the kitchen to the front door to get the pizza they ordered. He’s not sure why he feels like that now, though.
“I think so too,” Buck agrees. “I think the door keeps getting farther away.”
When they finally manage to reach the building, Buck has a strange feeling when looking at the big glass door. He thinks, vaguely, that he should see some sort of bright lights through the clear pane; something to highlight the fact that the hotel is open and the power is on. Instead, it looks like a dark, grayish void inside.
“That look weird to you?” Buck asks.
“Yup,” Eddie confirms.
But everyone else walked in, and someone in there needs help, so…
Buck opens the door, walks through, and somehow, finds himself standing in the middle of a rainstorm.
⭐⭐⭐
Eddie doesn’t know what to make of the fact that it’s raining inside. Or, wait. He’s not actually sure they are inside at all. In fact they appear to be outside a burning building, in a thunderstorm, nearby that one park with the pond where you can rent rowboats. Once or twice, Eddie has driven by it and thought, miserably, that it would be the sort of place Shannon might like to go on a date.
He hadn’t really taken her on a proper date in years before she left him.
Forget Shannon for a second though.
Why the hell is he here?
“Am I losing my mind?” Eddie asks aloud.
“If you are, I am,” Buck responds.
The 118 appears to be working without them. The ladder truck and ambulance are there, and Bobby is on the ground, giving people orders. Though they’re standing about a hundred yards away, Eddie can tell it's him from the red on his helmet and the echoing sound of his voice.
Strangely enough, Bobby and everyone else are dressed in full turnouts. Eddie and Buck are just wearing their regular uniform polos.
“I thought Cap stayed at the station,” Eddie mumbles.
“So did I,” Buck agrees.
“I thought we were going to an indoor beauty pageant,” Eddie continues.
“That too.”
“I’m so confused,” Eddie complains.
“Same here,” Buck nods. “But maybe we should help?”
As Buck says this, Eddie notices a figure climbing the outstretched ladder up towards the burning building. And listen, Eddie hasn’t known Buck for very long, so the fact that Eddie recognizes the silhouette and movements of the man ascending the ladder as Buck’s has no reasonable explanation. Especially considering that Buck is standing directly beside him. But he does. He just knows.
“Um, I think you already are helping,” Eddie says, pointing to the man on the ladder.
Buck follows his gesture.
“What? That’s not me.” He protests. “That’s just someone who kinda… Has the same shape? Basic man shape.”
There’s nothing basic man about the way Buck is shaped.
Eddie has no idea why he just thought that. Why would he think something like that? There’s something wrong with his brain.
“Well, let’s get closer and see, shall we?” Eddie asks, wiping rain off his forehead.
Buck shrugs. “Why not?”
The closer they get to the ladder truck, the clearer it is that Eddie is right. Not only is Buck up the ladder, working a hose, but another version of Eddie is working the controls from the top of the engine. They’re both there, but they’re both also here.
Freaked out, Buck tries to wave down Bobby. He runs right up to him, gets right in his face, but Bobby just looks right through him. Buck tries to grab his shoulder, but his hand passes right through him. Like Buck isn’t there at all, despite the rain soaking him. Bobby can only see the versions of Buck and Eddie on the engine, and Eddie has no idea what has happened to the them he’s familiar with.
“How the hell is this happening?” Buck asks, eyes bugging out like two bright china saucers.
“What the hell is happening?” Eddie counters.
“Are we dead? Like are we ghosts?”
Eddie pokes him in the shoulder. “Nope. No such thing.”
Buck looks affronted. “What are you talking about? Of course ghosts are real.”
“That’s ridiculous, Buck.”
“We are stuck watching imposter versions of ourselves work a call we don’t remember taking, but ghosts are out of bounds?”
“Pretty much!” Eddie exclaims, though he knows he sounds silly.
They are so caught up in bickering that the sharp, blinding crack of lightning that splits the sky above them comes as a complete surprise to Eddie. He jumps a little, startled.
Eddie looks to the sky, and sees something horrific directly above his head. Other Buck - the one meant to be here - is dangling on a line over the edge of the extended ladder, body limp and motionless. The hose is hanging over the edge of the ladder, dropped so it’s spraying the full blast of water directly down onto Other Buck, but he doesn’t seem to be reacting to it at all.
Almost like… Almost like he’s dead.
“Holy shit,” the Buck beside him gasps, noticing his counterpart.
“You…” Eddie stammers, unable to articulate his horror. “The lightning…”
“BUCK!”
Eddie is interrupted by the sound of his own voice, shouting. He and Buck spin around to look at Other Eddie, who is on the ground somehow, face painted with terror. Eddie feels sick, seeing himself look so distraught. Like a horrific funhouse mirror, where instead of distorting his body, his emotions have been set on overdrive.
Other Eddie seems to take flight. He climbs back up onto the ladder engine from which he has just been thrown. No harness, no rope, no clip, he hurls himself onto the ladder and starts to climb.
“BUCK!” He shouts up at the dangling body.
“Oh, my god,” Buck exhales, watching it.
Eddie finds himself reaching, mindlessly, to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. To remind himself that he is him, standing watching this, and Buck is Buck, beside him. Neither of them are actually up there, as real as this looks and feels.
“BUCK!” Other Eddie screams again.
He throws his torso over the edge of the ladder and grabs the rope to which Other Buck is attached. Eddie and Buck stand open-mouthed in the rain, necks craned up at an awkward angle, watching Other Eddie’s futile attempt to lift Other Buck by the rope alone.
“There’s no point,” Buck whispers.
“Hey, no,” Eddie says.
“He’s… I’m… Dead.” Buck struggles.
“It’s not real,” Eddie says. “It’s not real. I’ll… He’ll save him.”
“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Other Eddie shouts.
It makes Eddie want to cry.
He sounds so broken.
Eddie cares about Buck, for sure. They’re friends, maybe they’ll become really good friends, based on the way Buck has turned up for Eddie and Chris lately. But the way Other Eddie is screaming for Other Buck right now? It’s bone-chilling. Like...
“BUCK!”
Like Buck is one of the most precious things in this iteration of Eddie’s world, and the thought of losing him is simply unacceptable.
“WE NEED MORE SLACK!” Other Eddie shouts down at the rest of the team.
It looks like Chimney has taken over the controls for the ladder and winch.
“Is this the future, Eddie?” Buck asks very quietly as they begin to lower his lifeless counterpart down through the air. His jaw is tight, eyes terrified.
“No,” Eddie shakes his head. “No.”
“Kinda lame,” Buck’s shoulders slump, and Eddie’s hand falls with them. “I always hoped if I died on the job, it’d be doing something heroic. Not just standing on a damn ladder.”
Eddie retracts his hand and glares at Buck.
A few feet away from them, Other Buck’s body is being lowered into Bobby’s arms. Bobby looks terrified.
“Do you know how many people I’ve seen die a hero’s death, Buck?” Eddie nearly spits at him, raindrops rolling over his lips. “There’s no special honor in it. They’re just fucking dead now and it’s horrible.”
A guilty look flashes across Buck’s eyes but he doesn’t say anything.
“Don’t hope to die in a cool way,” Eddie scolds. “Hope to live to see the people you love again.”
“Well,” Buck frowns, shifting to watch Bobby unclipping Other Buck. “I might not have a choice.”
As he says this, the sky lights up with another flash of lightning. This one so bright Eddie has to squeeze his eyes shut. He stops feeling the rain, and feels a thick heat instead. When he opens his eyes again, there’s daylight.
⚡⚡⚡
It’s a strange experience to watch yourself die.
It’s even stranger to then suddenly find yourself standing on a street corner on a sunny day - still drenched from the rainstorm that killed you - only to watch yet another alien version of yourself, completely fine, standing around talking.
“You lived!” Eddie exclaims, relieved, pointing to where another Other Buck, in his civvies, is chatting with another Other Eddie, in his work uniform. They’re across the street from where Buck and Eddie are standing, in front of a fire engine and some ambulances, not from Station 118, but strangely enough, 133.
Buck frowns. How can Eddie be certain they’re moving forward in time? They have no idea how this works.
“Yeah.” He says anyway. “Guess I did.”
As he says it, the sound of gunfire, like the universe snapping, startles him so badly he nearly drops before he remembers none of this is actually happening to him.
“Fuck,” Eddie hisses, staring hard at their alternate selves.
Buck follows his gaze and sees the problem.
Other Eddie is wavering on his feet, shocked, pained look on his face. Other Buck’s face is splattered with blood. It takes Buck a moment to put the pieces together. Eddie’s blood. Other Eddie has been shot.
“Oh shit,” Buck exhales.
Other Eddie looks down at himself, as if taking in the gravity of the wound to his shoulder. Buck thinks it over. He doesn’t have Eddie’s war medic experience, but he knows enough to know this is bad. So many arteries. So much blood. And whoever shot at him, wherever they are, what’s stopping them from finishing the job? Any rescue efforts will be compromised by that fact.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Other Eddie wobbles, falls, and hits the pavement hard. Other Buck is still standing there, eyes wide and glued on Eddie. He looks like a damned NPC in a glitch. He couldn’t be more useless if he was fucking sleeping.
“Do something!” Buck shouts at himself.
At the same time, Eddie shouts, “Take fucking cover!”
Another shot rings out.
“Jesus, Buck, move,” Eddie shouts, grabbing his shoulder so tightly it hurts.
“Hey, I’m not in charge!” Buck complains.
Another firefighter - an older guy, maybe the captain of the 133? - slams into Other Buck just as the next shot hits the engine, directly where Buck would have been. The captain presses BUck down onto the concrete and begins shouting into his radio.
“Shots fired! Shots fired! A firefighter is down! I repeat, firefighter is down!”
“Maybe I’m the one who dies,” Eddie says, miserably. “Poor Christopher.”
“No, no,” Buck shakes his head. “We’ll save you. Come on, just watch.”
Sure enough, Buck watches as his counterpart rolls under the fire engine and begins crawling towards Eddie.
“COME ON, EDDIE!”
Buck hears the edge of terror reflected in his own voice. The thought of anyone he knows dying is horrible, but this is something else.
Another shot hits a nearby battalion truck, spilling gasoline. The ground around it ignites.
“STAY DOWN!” Other Buck hollers. “I’M GONNA COME! I GOT YOU!”
“See,” Buck points at himself, army crawling under the engine. “I’m coming for you. I wouldn’t leave you behind.”
Eddie looks at him, eyes very intense, but Buck doesn’t know him well enough to read them.
Other Eddie is rolled flat on his back, arm outstretched in Buck’s direction. He seems far too still, chest barely rising and falling.
“STAY DOWN!” Other Buck commands. “Eddie, hang on…”
“We, uh,” Buck stammers, voice raspy. “I guess we get close, because it seems like we care a lot about each other.”
“I’m not surprised,” Eddie says, tone low.
Buck kind of is. He doesn’t know how far into the future this incident or the lightning are, but Buck’s not really used to things lasting.
“Y-you’re not?” Buck asks, as the other version of himself reaches the edge of the engine and lets out an anguished cry as he reaches for Other Eddie.
“No,” Eddie confirms. “I can already tell you’re a really good friend and I badly need one of those.”
Buck blinks. “Well, same.”
Other Buck is pulling Other Eddie, limp and bloodied, by the forearm, under the engine, to safety.
“Told you we’d save you,” Buck says, watching their counterparts disappear back behind the engine.
“So you survive a lightning strike, then I get shot, and you save me.” Eddie reflects, eyes glued to the fire engine.
Maybe he only survived to save him…
Buck shakes off the thought.
“Assuming this is, uh, linear,” hereplies.
“Right,” Eddie scratches his chin. “We don’t know it’s real.”
“Exactly,” Buck nods. “We don’t know.”
On the other side of the road, there’s screaming and shouting and commands barked all around. Another shot hits the engine. Other Buck must have gotten Other Eddie into the engine, because its ignition rumbles to life, and it begins the struggle to escape open fire.
“Are you okay?” Buck asks Eddie as they watch the engine tear away, shots plinking off the metal framing of the nearby battalion truck.
Eddie shrugs. “Not the first time I’ve been shot.”
Buck didn’t know that. He’d been put off by Eddie’s Silver Star status, at first. It felt like just another way Eddie was more than him. Now, for the first time, Buck is wondering the cost of such an accolade.
“That’s not what I asked,” Buck says.
Eddie looks at his feet.
“We don’t know that it’s real,” he says again. “Hell, maybe I’m dreaming all of this.”
Well, Buck doesn’t think that last part is true.
“Yeah,” he says anyway. “Maybe.”
⭐⭐⭐
One moment Eddie is watching the fire engine take his bloody, maybe-dying body away, the next he is standing on a roof overlooking what, upon first glance, appears to be an overflowing canal. The water levels are high and flowing fast, and for a moment, Eddie thinks this isn’t like any of the photos of European canal systems he has ever seen.
It takes him maybe ten seconds to realize it’s a flood.
A flood, that, by all means, seems biblical in proportion. Eddie is on a roof and the water is not even ten feet below them. Lamp posts are half-covered. Debris is being pushed downstream with horrifying speed; parts of wooden and plastic structures Eddie can’t easily identify broken and bobbing.
“So I get struck by lightning, you get shot, then we drown?” Buck grumbles. “Maybe we need to leave Los Angeles.”
Eddie looks for himself amongst the chaos, but comes up short.
“I don’t see-”
“CHRISTOPHER!”
The sound of Buck’s voice from below, broken and terrified, screaming out Eddie’s son’s name sends a flood of its own across Eddie’s nervous system.
“CHRISTOPHER!”
Eddie looks in the direction of the voice and sees Buck, scraped and waterlogged, holding a line made from heavy-duty string lights hanging above his head.
What the fuck happened here?
“Oh, my god,” the Buck beside him gasps. “Eddie, look.”
Buck points far downstream from where they’re standing, and Eddie sees it. Christopher, waterlogged and struggling, clinging for dear life to a lamppost.’
Now it’s Eddie’s turn to scream.
“CHRIS!” Eddie shouts for his son, at the same time that Other Buck lets out another scream.
He is about to hurl himself off the edge of the roof, into the water, and even takes a lunging step forward to do so, when Buck grabs him, arms holding him back by the torso.
“Let go!” Eddie seethes, struggling against Buck’s grip, pulling him backward.
“Eddie, no!” Buck insists, as his counterpart below screams again for Christopher.
“BUCK!” Christopher’s frightened voice rings across the chaos, and Eddie feels the agony of it in each one of his nerve endings.
That’s his baby out there. His baby who is scared and hurt and close to dying, if he doesn’t get help soon.
“Eddie, you can’t save him. Remember?” Buck pleads. “W-we can’t touch him!”
“BUCK!” Christopher screams.
“I have to try!” Eddie protests.
“You could still drown! The rain got us wet!”
Eddie contemplates the tragedy of drowning trying to save someone you can’t even touch. He sees the speed of the current. The steady barrage of debris. He stops fighting Buck.
“Good,” Buck pants.
“CHRIS! CHRIS, JUST-JUST STAY DOWN THERE! DON’T MOVE!” Other Buck calls.
“Where am I? Did I drown?” Eddie asks miserably. “The shooting…”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Buck shakes his head. “Why would Christopher and I be together if you were dead?”
“Good point,” Eddie says. “If I was dead, I-I’d hope Shannon would come back for him.”
“Shannon’s his mother?” Buck asks.
Eddie nods.
“See, yeah. So you must have made it through and we’re, like, best friends or something, and I take your kid to wherever the hell we are right now, but sadly there was a cataclysmic flood.”
Buck says all of this without so much as taking a breath.
At the same time, Other Buck lets go of his safety line of string lights, letting the current pull him forward, towards Christopher.
“If this is linear,” Eddie says again.
“If this is linear.” Buck agrees.
“Grab my hand!” Other Buck shouts as he’s about to pass Chris, struggling against the water to control the positioning of his body. “Christopher, reach out!”
Eddie leans forward and holds his breath.
Chris stretches out his arm towards Buck, but can’t quite cover the distance.
“Grab my hand!” Buck begs, moment before being dragged past Christopher.
“NO!” Eddie cries.
“NO CHRIS! CHRIS!” Other Buck is hollering so frantically his voice is raw.
“I’ll get him, Eddie,” Buck promises - an impossible promise to make, given that he has no real agency. Eddie looks at him. There are tears in his eyes. “I wouldn’t give up. I wouldn’t!”
And Eddie, who just saw another version of this man he hardly knows crawl through gunfire for him, finds that he believes him.
Eddie takes a step closer to Buck and resumes watching.
Other Buck is fighting the current valiantly, but is no match for the elements.
“Chris, stay over there!” Other Buck begs him.
“I can’t hold on!” Christopher wails.
“Just hold on, Christopher!”
The current sends Other Buck careening into the remains of one a wrecked, wooden structure. He pulls himself onto it, and looks back to Chris, face twisted with panic and an attempt at strategy. Eddie doesn’t have time to wonder what he’ll come up with, because within seconds, Chris’ grip on the post finally breaks and his tiny body is dragged under the rushing water.
Eddie gasps and Buck grabs his arm.
With zero regard for himself, Other Buck launches himself back into the water. There is a brutal, agonizing moment where Eddie can’t see either of them. They’re both beneath the surface. Buck’s hand is doing a stellar impression of a blood pressure cuff on Eddie’s bicep.
Then, like a miracle before his very eyes, Other Buck breaks through the surface, Christopher bundled in his arms. They’re both gulping air, breathing frantic and unregulated. But they’re alive. Eddie’s eyes spill over with tears.
Below, Other Buck holds Christopher tight to his chest. He holds his head like he’s an infant, tender and protective.
Eddie spins around and, without thinking, pulls his version of Buck into a tight hug.
“Thank you,” he exhales.
“Whoa, h-hey, I didn’t actually do-”
“But you would.”
“‘Course I would,” Buck rasps. “We’ve got each other’s backs, Eddie. I meant that.”
“So did I,” Eddie promises. “I swear, so did I.”
⚡⚡⚡
As Eddie pulls away from Buck - a pressure the loss of which Buck immediately grieves - the environment shifts again, and they’re suddenly indoors. Unfortunately, not a conference center beauty pageant.
Buck looks around. They’re standing at the bottom of the stairs in an apartment he’s never seen before. All open concept, big windows, and exposed brick. It’s nice and spacious, if not a little too industrial to feel homey.
“Looks like you moved out of Abby’s,” Eddie says, pointing across the apartment space, to a large kitchen space, where another Buck and another Eddie are chatting.
And, whoa. Eddie’s hair!
“Looks like you had fun with a razor,” Buck points at Eddie’s buzz cut.
“Ha, ha,” Eddie says. “But, uh, maybe this means we all survive?”
“We must!” Buck concurs. He looks around the other side of the staircase and sees Christopher sitting on a black faux-leather couch, playing video games.
“Wait, what are we talking about?” Eddie asks.
Buck tunes into Other Buck and Other Eddie’s conversation.
“How’s your sister taking it?” Other Eddie asks Other Buck.
“It’s, uh - it’s kind of rough on her,” Other Buck replies, opening two bottles of beer as Other Eddie leans against the kitchen counter. “You know, I think she thought she could save Tara from Vincent, but, you know, she’s realizing that you can’t save someone from themselves, not if they don’t want it.”
Wait a second… What is going on with Maddie and who are Vincent and Tara?
“Ain’t that the truth,” Other Eddie says, taking a sip of his beer.
“Especially if you aren’t around to see that they need saving,” Other Buck says.
“I hope your sister is okay,” Eddie murmurs, as his counterpart shoots Other Buck a strange, uncomfortable look.
“Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Eddie,” Other Buck continues, sounding genuinely mournful.
Buck’s heart sinks. What did he do?
“You and Chris needed me, and I had my head so far up my own behind with that stupid lawsuit-”
“What?” Buck and Eddie ask in unison.
What the fuck happens after that flood?
“We’re way past that, Buck.” Other Eddie tries to wave him off.
Other Buck crosses the kitchen to stand closer to Other Eddie.
“I’m not. I should have been there. Maybe I could have talked some sense into you.”
Other Eddie snorts. “You talk sense into me? That’d’ve been interesting.”
“Guy’s not wrong,” Eddie observes, nudging Buck. Buck thinks he’s aiming for some levity, when it’s clear his future self’s failures are eating him up, before he even knows what they are.
“I literally just convinced you not to jump off a roof,” Buck reminds him.
“I could’ve told you not to buy that truck.” Other Buck says, in a similar tone.
“Yeah? You’d have talked me into buying something more expensive.” Other Eddie says. There’s something bubbling up in his tone that Buck can’t quite read.
“Yeah, fair point,” Other Buck admits.
“Look, things got a little out of hand for both of us. Don’t beat yourself up about it.” Other Eddie says.
“Why, ‘cause you’d rather do it?” Other Buck asks, angling his body towards Eddie more.
Beside Buck, Eddie starts coughing.
Buck’s cheeks go a bit red.
“Uh…” Buck drones, unsure what to say.
“Excuse me?” Other Eddie asks.
“Come on, Eddie. If you’re not gonna be honest with Frank, at least be honest with me.”
“Who said I wasn’t being honest with Frank?” Other Eddie demands.
“Who’s Frank?” Eddie asks.
“I still don’t know who Tara and Vincent are,” Buck shrugs.
“You said you two weren’t clicking.” Other Buck answers
“Maybe I’m just not a therapy kind of guy.”
“Right, right, you - uh - you prefer to work it out in the ring.” Other Buck mimics showing off his muscles.
Eddie coughs uncomfortably once again.
Buck’s cheeks heat even further. “I have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Neither do I,” Eddie says.
“There was no ring, Buck,” his counterpart intones. “There was a fence.”
Other Buck smirks. “Come on. You don’t think, while you were going through your phase , just maybe, you were throwing your punches at the wrong guy?”
“Oh, god, shut up!” Buck begs himself.
“Seriously? You’re gonna make it about you? Again?” Other Eddie scoffs.
“Look, I’m just saying, you were pretty pissed.” Other Buck continues to press. “Now, I thought for sure that day in the grocery store, you were going to take a swing at me.”
“Not that you didn’t deserve it,” Other Eddie says. “But I wouldn’t do that. You’re on blood thinners.”
“I don’t hit people in grocery stores,” Eddie says.
“I’m not usually on blood thinners,” Buck offers. “I-I’m not right now!”
“Are you asking me to hit you in a grocery store?” Eddie frowns.
Then something mortifying and, well, curious happens.
Other Buck’s eyes narrow. His mouth curls just a titch. He raises his beer bottle to his lips, and out of the side of his mouth mutters, “Well, I’d still take you.”
“You’re hitting on me,” Eddie accuses, less angry and more baffled.
“No,” Buck corrects. “No, no. I’m not doing anything, and also, I’m straight. So… Not hitting on anyone.”
Other Eddie takes another sip of his beer and kind of avoids Other Buck’s gaze.
“I’m also straight,” Eddie says.
“You think so?” Other Eddie teases.
Right. This isn’t looking good for either of them.
But… There’s no way Buck is hitting on Eddie in the future, right? Because Buck… Buck is straight. Buck… He’s not… Well, he wouldn’t. Would he?
“I know,” Other Buck says, all mock seriousness. He saunters across the space between him and Other Eddie, hand on his fucking belt, looking devilishly smug. Buck is so fucking embarrassed. “You wanna go for the title?”
“Yeah, okay, Mr. Not Hitting On Me.” Eddie chuckles as his counterpart smiles, amused, and lifts his beer bottle to his mouth.
"Well, if I were, why are you blushing?” Buck accuses.
Eddie looks at his counterpart, who indeed looks a little flustered.
“Uh… Alcohol makes my cheeks rosy,” Eddie shrugs.
“A quarter of a beer?” Buck raises an eyebrow.
Eddie’s lip twitches. “Well, we’re both straight, like you said, so what does it matter?”
Buck opens his mouth to reply, but the scene shifts again, materializing Buck and Eddie in a very loud, very crowded room.
⭐⭐⭐
Eddie went from high school, down the aisle, into the military, and then straight into full-time fatherhood. So he’s never really had a party phase, in any way, shape, or form. Or at least not yet. Because right about now, in what appears to be a jam packed, trashed hotel suite, another Eddie - in a pink fucking suit like something out of Miami Vice - is partying.
No one in their right mind could look at Other Eddie’s face and accuse him of being anything but drunk. Drunk in a way Eddie doesn’t usually get drunk, on account of having a seven year-old to think about. Maybe he’s never been this drunk. Probably not.
He’s drunk and he is dancing. And he’s dancing with not only a collection of strangers but also… But also with Buck.
Oh, Buck looks different.
Not just that he’s dressed in white pants and a white undershirt, wet with wine spillage that is sticking to the skin of his stomach. But, also… But also he’s, well, bigger. From firefighter to Marvel superhero.
Eddie feels a little woozy.
It would be easy to accuse Drunk Buck of being all over Drunk Eddie - especially when he starts ripping his shirt sleeves off at the shoulder like some depraved beast - but that isn’t exactly accurate. Eddie seems to be giving as good as he gets. His hands find Buck’s waist an unreasonable amount and he seems obsessed with getting Buck to lay flat on the furniture, leaning over him in a way that makes them press together a tiny bit, and pouring alcohol down his throat.
And Eddie feels…
Eddie…
He feels envy.
He wants to be himself right now. This other version of himself. This freer, bolder version of himself that is draped all over Buck.
He…
He wants Buck’s undivided, forward attention, just like this.
But that doesn’t make any sense because Eddie is straight and Eddie has a wife and Eddie… Eddie can’t want what he’s feeling that he wants. This whole fever dream with the near deaths and the flirting, it must be driving him insane.
For the first time in minutes of standing and watching Drunk Buck and Drunk Eddie act very intimate in a crowd of what appears to be strangers, Eddie turns to look at the real Buck for the first time.
“Buck,” Eddie says, loud enough to be heard over thumping music.
Buck looks at him. His eyes are wide and panicked, an impossible blue even in the low lightning. Eddie has never thought pretty about them before, but right now he is.
“Yeah?” Buck asks.
“What are we to each other?” Eddie asks. “Or, what will we be?”
Buck makes a choked, helpless sound. “Eddie, I have no idea.”
As if specifically meant to clarify for them, Drunk Buck lurches to his feet, claps Drunk Eddie on the shoulder, tips his head back and hollers, “BEST BACHELOR PARTY EVER!”
“Oh,” Eddie exhales.
“Wow,” Buck gulps.
“I didn’t see that coming, to be honest.”
“Because we’re straight?”
“Yep,” Eddie nods.
“Are we sure about that?” Buck asks, voice shaky. “You know, if we’re uh, getting married and all.”
“I’m already married, Buck.”
“I thought she…”
“Yeah, but we aren’t divorced.” Eddie says. “The thought of that terrifies me honestly.”
Buck sighs. “Well, I might be biased, but at least we seem pretty happy?”
Eddie looks back at Drunk Buck and Drunk Eddie. They’re laughing, arms looped around each other’s shoulders. They do seem happy.
How did they get here? They kept surviving and supporting each other? Buck kept not giving up on Eddie and Chris, kept not leaving them behind? What did Eddie give Buck in return? He has no idea what he even has to offer, considering everything he tried to give Shannon wasn’t enough. Eddie can see so clearly what might make him choose Buck, if he can indulge the thought of choosing a man at all. But why would Buck choose Eddie?
No sooner than he thinks the question does the scene shift again.
They’re still inside, but this time, in a more spacious, finely decorated lounge-type space. Eddie sees himself and Other Buck seated around a large poker table, dressed in suits. Buck is wearing red velvet of all things, and Eddie’s thoughts get carried away again.
This is starting to become a problem.
There are some other familiar faces there. The captain who was there in the vision of Eddie getting shot. Battalion Chief Williams, who Eddie met during the earthquake. Others he doesn’t know, all dressed to the nines.
“Oo, poker,” Buck muses. “I suck at poker.”
“Really?” Eddie points at the fat stack of chips in front of him. “Those beg to differ.”
“Huh,” Buck shrugs. “Maybe I improve my game.”
Other Buck reveals his cards and wins the hand, pulling in another sizeable winning. Eddie watches himself beam at Other Buck. Like really truly look at him in a way that catches him off guard. It’s such an easy, warm smile. The kind Eddie usually reserves just for Chris. Not even Shannon ever got it, Eddie thinks.
Oh.
Eddie is in love with Buck. Sometime in the future. It’s not just a marriage. It’s not just thinking he’s in love. Eddie loves him.
“No one has ever looked at me like that before,” Buck whispers, seeing what Eddie is seeing. “I didn’t really think anyone ever could.”
“Not even your girlfriend?” Eddie asks.
“She won’t even answer my calls,” Buck laughs bitterly.
Before thinking better of it, Eddie reaches to the side and grabs Buck’s hand.
“You deserve a hell of a lot better than that, Buck.”
And, oh.
Maybe that’s why Buck chose him. Maybe that’s who Eddie could be for someone… For a… Huh.
“Eddie, is this real?” Buck asks.
“I don’t know,” Eddie replies. “But maybe we should talk about what it-”
⚡⚡⚡
“Just hold still,” Athena Grant is telling Buck, standing in front of him as an officer cuffs his hands behind his back.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Buck demands. Beside him, Hen, who is also cuffed, has a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes.
“The three of you have been dosed with a hallucinogen,” Athena says. “We’re just trying to keep you safe.”
A hallucinogen? Like acid or some shit? Buck hasn’t done anything like that in a few years, but it never… Well it never made him witness the future and spiral into a sexuality crisis. It never made him feel…
But wait…
If this was all a trip, then…
Buck turns to look at Eddie, who is being cuffed a few feet away. There is a steady stream of tears running down his cheeks. Shit. Maybe he didn’t experience what Buck experienced at all. Maybe he just had a really bad trip. That can happen.
Buck tries not to think about a way a future - or perhaps hallucinated - version of Eddie had looked at him at that poker table. If he does, he thinks it will break his heart.
Buck lets the officers guide him to the back of a squad car without any resistance, and finds himself biting back tears the entire drive back to the station.
⭐⭐⭐
Eddie shows up at Buck’s apartment - well, Abby’s apartment - the next day, while they’re off and supposed to be recovering from apparently being dosed with LSD. It’s the middle of the day, and Christopher is at school. Hopefully one of his last weeks where he’s at now. Buck could be doing anything, seeing as Eddie didn’t exactly announce his intentions via a courtesy text or call.
Hey, can I come over and discuss an insane LSD-fueled hallucination I had where you and I were in love, and hope you shared in the experience?
Nope. Eddie can’t do that.
So, instead, he just kind of shows up to jump into it.
“E-Eddie?” Buck answers the door with big, sad eyes that Eddie can tell he’s trying hard not to make look big and sad.
“Can I come in?” Eddie asks.
“Yeah, of course,” Buck says, stepping back to let Eddie through.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Eddie says, walking through the front hall towards the living room.
“Nah,” Buck shrugs. “I’ve just been, uh, thinking about yesterday.”
Eddie tries not to feel too hopeful - or terrified - by that statement. It could be about anything. Likely, Buck has been thinking about Bobby nearly walking off the ledge of the fire station on film. God, Eddie has thought a lot about that, too. So he can’t assume Buck is thinking about what he is thinking about, which is…
“I had a really weird experience yesterday,” Eddie says, sitting on the couch.
Buck’s expression perks up at that. Eddie’s heart thuds in his chest.
“Uh, you did?” Buck asks, sitting next to him.
“I did,” Eddie nods. “And I guess I’ve kind of been wondering if you did, too?”:
Buck swallows. “Eddie, did we both…”
“I’m kind of hoping,” Eddie whispers.
“Okay, s-so when I was high we saw the future,” Buck blurts. “A-and, Eddie, it felt important and we were going to talk about it, and I don’t want to forget about it, so if you remember that, too, then-”
“I remember,” Eddie nods.
So it was real. It was all real. Should Eddie be relieved or scared?
Buck grins. “Thank fuck.”
“I just, uh, don’t know what to do about it.” Eddie admits. “I don’t exactly know what I want to do about it. But you’re right, it felt important.”
“O-okay, that’s fair,” Buck says.
“Honestly, Buck,” Eddie finds himself making a surprising admission. “I’ve never been a very good partner or husband. The thought that I’m doing it better, in the future, is really enticing. But, the thought that it’s not with Christopher’s mother? Also feels… Not good.”
Buck nods. “I can’t say I understand, because how could I? But, I can, uh, empathize.”
“And then I’ve never even allowed myself to wonder if I’m…” Eddie trails off, unsure what word to use.
“Right,” Buck nods. “Uh, me neither.”
“So, that’s complicated,” Eddie says.
“Well,” Buck shrugs. “Maybe that’s… Uh, maybe that’s… We can start there in terms of figuring all this out?”
Eddie tenses. “Uh, how?”
“Well, we could… Try?”
Eddie likes the idea of that a surprising amount. So much that he absolutely can’t do it.
“You have a girlfriend and I have a wife,” Eddie reminds him, like a good person ought to do for a final moment of resistance.
“I haven’t seen Abby since March,” Buck says. “That’s seven months, Eddie. Not to mention she gave me the proverbial hall pass I never use. When did you last see Shannon?”
Well, fair…
“Uh… It was January of 2016.”
“Okay, so I think you could kiss one person, one time, just to help yourself figure it out,” Buck suggests, and Eddie wonders if he’s ever considered a career in sales.
Right.
There’s gotta be some sort of statute of limitation.
Okay, fuck it.
Eddie shifts to be facing Buck a bit more head on, and without another sensible thought, brings his hand to cup Buck’s jaw. Buck leans into it freely, letting Eddie bring their mouths together very gently.
Buck’s lips are soft against Eddie’s, but send a jolt of energy through his nervous system all the same. Heat pools in Eddie’s stomach. He wants more. He feels a sudden, novel appetite, and all he can think of is how much more he wants and how good he feels. He traces the line of Buck’s jaw with his thumb. He feels completely weightless.
Wow.
It’s Buck who ends up pulling away, when it becomes clear Eddie might violate their agreement of one kiss, and turn one into a hundred or something.
He exhales shakily, eyes glittering like running water when he meets Eddie’s gaze.
“So, uh, yeah. Yeah, I liked that just as much as kissing women,” Buck announces.
The next thing out of Eddie’s mouth escapes without permission or forethought.
“I didn’t.”
Buck’s face falls. “Oh. Well, hey. Uh, that’s okay. We tried, but that solves it, then-”
“No,” Eddie cuts him off. “No, not like that.”
Eddie can practically see the lightbulb go off over Buck’s head.
“Oh.”
“I…” Eddie covers his mouth with his hand.
“Oh, Eddie…”
“I don’t know why I didn’t know,” Eddie’s words are muffled by his palm. “I just thought… I thought it was enough.”
Buck’s hand rests on his shoulder, thumb rubbing small, comforting circles.
“Neither of us knew.”
“I don’t know what to do now,” Eddie says, dropping his hand and leaning lightly into Buck’s touch.
“Uh, well I should probably break up with Abby,” Buck says.
“It’s not that simple for me, Buck,” Eddie says.
“I know,” Buck nods. “Listen, I know that, and I don’t… You do what you need to do, Eddie.”
Eddie takes a deep breath. “Will you give me some time?”
“Of course I will.”
“I hate asking you that,” he sighs. “Like Abby…”
Like him and Shannon, too. Unable to give each other the time they needed.
“No,” Buck shakes his head. “I don’t see it the same way.”
“Are you sure?” Eddie asks.
Buck squeezes his shoulder.
“I saw the future,” Buck reminds him. “You’re worth the wait.”