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'But God is telling you and I that there is death, for all of us,
But then we find that the scriptures also tell us that we have a great promise...'
- title and lines from strangers, ethel caine
“Hello….” Buck’s voice comes out gravelly and foreign, something he imagines mirrors the way his body shakes and feels contorted in all the worst ways.
“Hello Sir, this is the emergency services of 911, we have paramedics on route to you now….”
Oh good.
It’s a deep voice that meets him on the other end of the line.
It’s not Maddie.
Buck wouldn’t want Maddie here for this.
“Josh?” He hears himself speak again in the clogged up voice. What he is sure is symptoms of a crazed concussion unfocused and hazes his every move, and it takes him an extra minute to understand Josh’s voice next time he speaks, “It’s Buck.”
He can’t manage much more, but he thinks he hears a gasp of understanding on the other side of the line.
“M’josh, you need to…. you need to make sure it’s not the 118.”
“Buck- they’re already on route.” Josh speaks slowly, but it doesn’t stop the weight of his words falling just as sharp and heavy.
Because the 118 can’t see him like this. Buck won’t allow it, it’s not fair. They’ve seen him underneath a truck, hanging from a wire, throwing up a litre of blood, they’ve seen it all. Is it so selfish if Buck just wants this one thing? Bobby doesn’t deserve to watch as another kid dies, Chimney doesn’t deserve to try and save him incase his stupid body fails and Chim tries to blame himself again. Hen doesn’t deserve to have another patient die in the field because she’s driving the ambulance, and Eddie-
Eddie and Buck have been hanging onto something more than friends but less than lovers since they have known each other. They’ve always been more but never enough, toeing the lines until you can’t even argue they’re slightly blurred, and Buck just knows Eddie can’t see him like this.
He can’t watch another someone leave him alone on the asphalt, just like Buck had dragged a screaming, cursing, bleeding Eddie across the ground those years ago just to promise he wouldn’t be left there again. He watched Shannon be dragged away from him by a car and Buck won’t let him be inflicted with that pain again. All because Buck wanted fucking french onions. Fucking. French. Onions.
A few years ago he wouldn’t even know or care what they were.
(But then he didn’t know Eddie all those years ago, and selfishly, if it has to end like this, he knows which option he would always pick.)
“Buck, are you still with me?” Josh’s urgent voice filters through the noise of Buck’s thoughts, and suddenly he isn’t so glad it isn’t Maddie on the phone. Maybe that’s selfish too. Maybe this is all some fucking lesson about how Buck needs to be less selfish.
A tear slips down his face, but he’s too caught up in everyone else to notice.
“Josh, you need to…”
“Buck? Buck you need to stay awake for me, your team is 1 minute out, can you stay with me?” The voice gets more urgent, more panicky, “What do you need me to do?”
“You need to-“ A hacking cough escaped him, and great, add that to the list of injuries, “You need to tell Bobby to keep Eddie away. He can’t see me like this, please Josh.”
“Buck-“ His voice is full of sympathy now, and Buck hates it.
“No, Josh, you need to promise me, you need to-“ his eyes are too blurry to ignore the tears now. He’s stressed, in too much pain to try and catalogue for Hen and Chim, tired, cold, anxious, scared, terrified-
He’s so tired.
“Okay-“ the voice on the phone sighs sadly, “Okay Buck, I will, you just stay awake for me until they get there, okay?”
“M’trying.”
He can hear the sirens.
Breathe in.
The sound of tires pulling up somewhere close rings.
Hold.
There’s a thundering of heavy footed boots on floor.
Out.
There’s a- grumble? And now Buck knows for sure he has a concussion because he just be going hysterical to laugh at the grumblings of one Eddie Diaz as he’s ordered to stay in the truck as they don’t need him.
Breathe in.
Someones approaching him.
Hold.
A gasp, and a soft, “Oh, Buck.”
Out.
“We’re here now.” Hen coddles as he feels a warm hand wrap round his face.
“Hen.” He finds it in him to smile up towards her. She needs to know he’s okay.
It’s ringing in his head, he can’t stop it even if he wanted to. You need to survive. You need to stay awake. You need to work through this. Buck isn’t sure he is religious, but if he was he would thank God for creating the 118 and letting him be apart of it.
Hen and Chim make quick work as Bobby and Ravi swiftly move him out of the awkward position he was cramped into, each of them working in perfect tandem to free and save him.
He has to survive for them.
“Stayed awake for you.” Buck says through what he hopes is a toothy grin towards the four of them. And well, if there was one thing to smile about in these god-for-saken moments, Buck wanted to give it to them. He stayed awake to see their smiles, not watch them mourn another loss. He wasn’t going to add another loss to their piles.
“You better have done, sparky.” Chim jokes as they finally get him onto a gurney, the uncomfortable feeling of a c-collar wrapping firmly around his neck.
“Too-“ Another coughing fit enraged his body, “Too soon rebar.”
“Okay, let’s get you loaded up.” Bobby shook his head, giving an expectant look towards the pair, and if Buck’s ribs didn’t shake with the aftershocks of the stupid coughing fit, he probably would have been able to laugh at the ‘go to your room tone’.
“Eddie?” His eyes were getting heavier now, and he was starting to droop slowly as the pain medication started to slowly kick in. He needed to know though. That Eddie hadn’t been privy to that. That Buck had done his job and kept him safe, had his back and protected him always. He could know when Buck was safe, that was what mattered.
“He’s in the rig now, don’t worry.” Bobby’s eyes softened, and became unreadable, “Do you want him to ride in the ambulance?”
“No!” Buck heard himself cry out, just loud enough to tip the scales, “No- no- he should wait till the hospital.”
But Eddie isn’t in the rig.
He’s stood, dead straight and centre, next to the engine. He’s holding onto it like it’s his lifeline, like if he even lets go of the side of the truck for a single moment, the whole world will be pulled out from underneath him and everything will just come crashing down. And that’s not even the worse part, even Buck’s increasingly swimming thoughts register. It’s not even the worse part because Eddie is just stood, staring. He’s staring at the shadows of Buck’s body on the floor. He’s burning holes into the asphalt, the stupid white paint that created the stupid crossing Buck had landed on. There’s a yellow shirt laying there discarded that a passerby had pressed to Buck’s head on the floor, its laying there, and it's covered in blood, and it's yellow on white again.
And all Eddie is doing is staring. The team hold their breath, in some sort of unspoken harmony. They need to move, they need to get Buck to the hospital and get into the ambulance. He’s not so injured he’s broken, but he’s just injured enough for them worried. They need to move. Eddie needs to move.
Eddie feels like all he can do is everything but move.
He’s scared. He’s 19 and suddenly expected to raise a family, he’s 19 and signing up for the army to be a man, he’s 21 and has to step up and save an entire 6 lives when he isn’t sure he’s ever been able to save is own, (he’s 29 and realises he never saved anyone), he’s 23 and Shannon’s left and he has to be a man and provide, provide, fucking provide. He’s 26 and Shannon’s dying in yellow across a white and grey gravel road and now he’s 32 and Buck's the same way.
Buck, who gave Eddie life after all that. Buck, who Eddie won't lose, not in this way, not again.
Moving is accepting- accepting that he might lose Buck. That his breath of fresh air is about to be stolen for him. What would tomorrow even look like without it? Will he wake up and never be able to breath again?
“Eddie-“ Buck’s losing consciousness. His voice is hoarse and dark and Eddie’s lifeline is burning, the switch is turning to dark, and-
Eddie won’t hesitate this time. He won’t hesitate and stop Buck receiving the care he needs. He won’t let Shannon die this-
Buck.
He can’t move his eyes to Buck, but he can move them to Bobby.
“You drive.” He nods, climbing in to the front of the ambulance as Bobby nods, and Hen and Chim rush Buck into the ambulance.
(Later Eddie will curse himself for being stuck in time and hesitating fucking again, and the team will tell him there was barely time to blink in-between him coming out the truck and them getting Buck into the ambulance)
The drive to the hospital feels reminiscent of the one he had to make while Buck was in the back of the ambulance and his heart only beating while someone else does it for him, someone who’s not Eddie. The silence is different. Back then, they were all shuffling and hurriedly begging Buck to hold on to the hospital. Now, it’s the silence greeting him the same way it did when they were transporting Shannon to the hospital. The silence that only ever brings one thing. Muttered apologises and stale hospital coffee as Eddie’s whole life as he knows it becomes crumbling down. With Shannon, it was the possibility of everything he had been hiding behind slowly being picked at. The church, their rushed married, the fact that the first and last woman he’d ever love would forever haunt him. With Buck they never made it to be each others first and last. Eddie would be Buck’s first and last everything if he could, and now some great divine being was possibly stealing that from him too. The rational part of him tells him he can hear the small whisperings of Hen and Buck in the back of the ambulance as they promise to keep Buck alive and awake.
His injuries weren’t even that bad.
He had kept Eddie away anyway. He knew it would destroy him, but the fact that Buck would risk never giving him a goodbye at the mere thought of traumatising him more. Buck was the one bleeding on the ground and all he wanted to ensure was Eddie was okay. He wanted to protect Eddie, and oh. If that doesn’t fracture Eddie’s heart even more.
Then they’re pulling into the ER glass doors. Bobby’s out before he’s properly put the van into park, Chim and Hen moving with such speed it shouldn’t be possible, and Buck. Buck has a ghost of a smile on his face.
He will be okay, he’s Buck.
But Shannon was Shannon and she still died.
And Eddie can’t get out of the fucking ambulance again.
Buck always told him that before him, they wouldn’t go past the glass doors. Suddenly going through the glass doors seem for too intimate, too real.
He manages to move quick enough to make it through the doors just quick enough to see Buck getting carted off. Hen is listing his injuries ‘possible severe concussion with open wound to his forehead,’ and ‘suspected fractured ribs, maybe slightly puncturing organs,’ and ‘open fracture in his right forearm,’.
Buck had survived a fucking 65,000 pound ladder truck landing on him for gods sake, a concussion making him go drowsy and the shock of an open fracture wasn’t going to kill him. Eddie knew that. He knew it.
(It didn’t stop him shouting at them to do more, again.)
The team find a quiet corner to sit in the waiting room, and just like they have had to do countless times, they sit, and they wait, in a fractured silence. It’s not as bad as the lightning strike, but yet it's worse. It's worse because Eddie can see their shared and pointed looks towards him, and if this was back in the days were his response was a punching bag he would have probably told them all to fuck off. But it isn't, and he is too dejected to do anything but sit and stare at the wall, praying to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in.
*
To say Buck was familiar with hospitals, waking up after surgeries, waking up full stop would be an understatement.
It doesn’t stop him scrunching his eyes and nose up tight as the smell of antiseptic and sound of machines wake him up ever so slowly. The memories come back in voices, he remembers being at the store, the wikipedia article that had been open on his phone, the sound of breaks, and then … then he was on the floor on the phone to Josh calling for help.
He had ran through traffic earlier in the year to get a plane to land on a highway, and a wikipedia article was nearly the death of him. Fucking typical.
And it would be stupid to think the universe was going to send anyone else for Buck on the one day he had off after Bobby all but begged him to use some of his PTO he’d been saving up over the years. He didn’t let himself remember the look on Eddie’s face, no, that was too much. Too much when he already had an awful migraine, a healthy dose of morphine pumping into his system, an uncomfortable sling holding a cast arm, and-
He let out a groan, mumbling “Fucking french onions.”
A squeak from beside him let him realise he wasn’t alone as he slowly crept his eyes across the room, only just recognising the weight that had been skimming lightly against his left thigh this entire time.
“Dad!” The voice all but shrieks, the voice of a seemingly very tired 14 year old.
“Christopher?” Buck asked, using his good hand to wipe the sleep away as a large yawn escaped him.
“Hey Buck.”
He looked neutrally, slowly, carefully at Buck. Like he was scared Buck would disappear if he took his eyes off of him for even a second longer, but didn’t want Buck to know.
“Hey, Superman.” His nose wrinkled at that, shaking his head as the curls bounced from his head.
“Hey c’mon, I get h-“ Buck winced, and he knew Chris caught it, “injured and you’re still too cool to be called superman?”
Chris just kept studying him, and then, in a movement only ever preserved for the Diaz boys, he reached over to Buck’s left wrist and carefully tried to find his pulse. And Buck- Buck all but died right again then. Because when had Christopher suddenly gone from the small child he cradled during the tsunami to a teenager who knew what it meant to mirror his Dad’s movements and carefully count someones pulse.
After awhile, he quietly spoke up, so quiet Buck almost missed it, drowning out in the endless sea of white hospital noise, “You got hit by a car.”
Buck nods, swallowing the sudden large lump in his throat, one that was seemingly more painful than any of the injuries he had sustained from it all. “Yes. I did, but-“
“You’re okay.” Chris finishes his sentence for him, nodding before adding, “I knew you would come home.”
The tears in his eyes tell a different story, and Buck- What is he supposed to say? That of course he’s okay, because he had Chris, and Eddie, and the 118 to fight for, because he wasn’t hit that hard and that he would never let anything come between them again? How do you say that to a 14 year old boy who lost his mom to the same thing, when she had all the same things, if not more, to come home to. The little pieces Eddie had gave him weren’t the pieces Shannon got of him, and yet for Buck they were always enough. Loving Eddie wasn’t something that would go away, or that he would move on, he would live with it forever, he was sure, and if that meant loving tiny little pieces and always watching at a distance, hell if Buck wasn’t going to take them.
“Oh yeah?” He settles for in the end, nodding as he wraps his good left arm around the back of Chris’s head, forcing him to fold into his body.
Chris just nods, and Buck lets himself indulge.
Indulge on home. On Eddie, on their son.
And there Eddie is.
Leaning on the doorframe. The news on the small telly in Buck’s room tells him it's 9am the morning after his accident. Between the accident, the 118 arriving, the drive to the hospital, the presumable surgery for his arms, and possibly the setting of his ribs if he remembers Hen’s words about them nearly scraping his lungs, Buck’s probably been out for just over 14 hours. 14 hours, and Eddie is leaning on the doorframe with bags under his eyes as if he hasn’t slept in days, reminants of tears in his eyes and strands of hair curling his forehead as if he had been carding through them. Eddie looks like Buck’s been in a coma reminiscent of the lightning strike. It steals all air from the room.
“Buck.”
“Eddie.”
Buck’s acutely aware of Carla trickling into the room, offering him a small smile as she ushers Chris out the room to go back to the inevitable queue of people he knows will want to see him. Carla, who looks well rested and secure, but Eddie’s here looking two seconds from total ruination. He’s the first to see him, he’s the only person Buck yearns to see, he’s here, he’s here. In front of Buck.
And, well-
“You sent me away.” Eddie says in a small, quiet tone, eyes shifting to his feet as he remains locked to the floor.
(Once again every ounce of him is screaming to move, and once again Eddie can’t. Fucking. Move.)
“I sent you away,” Buck nods slowly, “I didn’t want you to see me like that-“
“That’s my choice Buck!” Its snippier and sharper then he means it, but he can’t help himself. It’s been a long 14 hours, 23 minutes and 17 seconds. Its been so long and-
“It should have been my choice to see you like that.” It’s softer now, Eddie can hear it as he speaks, as can Buck.
“I didn’t want you to think you were losing me.” Buck admits, suddenly finding interest in picking at the threads of the blanket. And boy, did that make Eddie move.
He moves in one sweeping motion until he stood, hovering over Buck’s body as it is consumed by the hospital bed.
“Being told to wait in the engine, seeing you lying on the floor and not being able to do a single thing about it, that’s what made me think I was losing you.” He says it all in one breath, like it hurts to admit, “And I-“
His voice breaks,
“I don’t know what I would have done if I lost you like I lost-“ tears are pooling in his eyes, “And I wouldn’t have got to say goodbye.”
“You weren’t even that badly injured Buck,” he slumps down into the chair Chris has pulled up next to Buck, “You’ve been hit by lightning for god’s sake, and I couldn’t pull you up the ladder-“
“Hey, Eds, that wasn’t your fault-“
Eddie cuts him off. “And here you are, trying to protect me from a bad concussion and a broken arm? I was so scared, Buck. And you were sending me away, and I couldn’t do anything about it, again. If I had lost you, I don’t know what I would have done.”
It feels heavier than it actually is.
“You think you need to protect everyone all the time, like it's your job to shield everyone when you’re the one who’s in pain, and I know, I know you were thinking of Shannon, and last time. Last time I saw the love of my life on the asphalt bleeding out while I couldn’t do anything, but I could have done something for you. I would have been there, keeping you awake, saving you, and you didn’t let me. If it had ended any differently, Buck, I wouldn’t have survived. Chris can’t lose another parent, and I can’t lose another person I love, Buck.” He looks up towards Buck at that point, but makes no move to change where he’s sat in the chair, and Buck doesn’t know what to do.
He knows hospital beds and injuries lead to people caring about you, he knows because he knows that’s what he had to do all his childhood, but this feels different. It feels like- it feels like a spark of hope, light at the end of the dark tunnel, like Eddie loves him.
Buck chokes up on tears pooling in his throat as a strangled gasp escapes.
“You love me?”
“Of course I love you, Buck. I have loved you ever since you took bare hands to mud and I cemented your place in mine and Chris’s life forever.”
“Why now?” It comes out, again, as a whisper. A look flashes Eddie’s features he can’t quite gauge. And Buck, he doesn’t mean it to sound like he doesn’t love Eddie back, but he needs to make sure. Make sure that Eddie isn’t drunk on the thought of losing him.
“Because, Evan, you could have been moments away from death, and all you could think to do was to protect me. And because I won’t let a car take away everything from me. Not again, not ever. If you had died, and I would never have got to tell you I love you like its breathing, I never would have got to tell you that I love the life we’ve built around us, the life you’ve given Chris back, without it, life wouldn't be worth much living. I am so tired of living a life where I don’t get to love you the way I want to.”
His eyes are scrunching up, his face softly pink, and he’s doing the thing were he speaks too much about his feelings and is suddenly too worried he’s said too much, and Buck- Buck loves this man.
He lifts his good hand, slowly, resting it only to find home on Eddie’s cheek.
“I sent you away,” he swallows even slower, “because I didn’t want the only chance I got to tell you I love you so much more to be when I was possibly moments away from dying. You deserve so much more than that, Eddie.”
A sad smile blooms on Eddie’s face.
It's his turn to ask now, “You love me?”
“Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”
And Eddie is leaning in, and their lips are locking in a sad, soul-crushing kiss that’s still so full of love it doesn’t feel real to either of them.
Because to Eddie Diaz, he’s kissing the man he knows he will love forever. The car took away everything he hid behind last time, and this time it’s given him the gift of not having to hide anymore. Last time took away Shannon, and he will never forgive it for that, but this one gave him Buck, and he will always be grateful for that. Grateful that he gets to kiss away the scrapes and cuts as he feels Buck’s pulse beneath his calloused hands. Grateful Buck lived.
And to Evan Buckley, he’s so very grateful he went out for french onions to make a soup he wasn’t sure was going to be successful. As a child, hospitals correlated with care. As an adult he recognises hospitals are blossoms for love. Eddie Diaz loves him with every breath he takes, enough to make him wish he never got hurt in the first place. He didn’t show love because he was scared Buck was hurt, he showed love because he didn’t wish for him to hurt.
When they break apart from their kiss, Eddie pulls Buck’s head in close, their foreheads a constant point of contact acting as a promise.
A promise that no matter what, they always have each other now.
Maybe that’s all either of them need.