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The first time it happened, it was weird, but they were bound to get similar calls every once in a while. It was LA, afterall. There were a lot of people in a not so small area. Of course, there would be similar emergencies every so often. It wasn’t even really rare. They had similar car accident calls all the time. Similar house fires. It wasn’t rare. So it was odd, sure, but it wasn’t really notable. Another kid was bound to end up trapped in a tight, underground place at some point, needing someone to go down and get them, it didn’t mean anything. But his nerves were on fire, screaming with every bump in the road on the way to the call, because even though it had been years, even though it didn’t even rank in the top three worst things to happen to him, they had to save another kid from a pipe in the ground. And Eddie wanted to scream.
Buck’s knee pressed into his from where he sat across from him, a grounding pressure that could only be purposeful, and he drew in a shuddering breath, trying to focus on it, on Buck. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, once, twice, before he exhaled as slowly as he could manage. It had been months really since Frank had to talk him through any kind of breathing exercises—the panic attacks hadn’t lasted much beyond the first month of Chris being gone, giving way to what was more a feeling of numbness than anxiety and fear, but he tried not to think about that too hard. But this– this was something different. He’d thought he was past this particular thing, and he was, technically, but his chest felt tighter the closer and closer they got, like a vice slowly constricting around his lungs. It felt almost like the wet mud was weighing down on him again, slowly crushing him from above as rain seeped through the earth, filling it with water and stealing the air from his lungs. He could breathe, but only barely. He was–
The truck jolted to a stop beneath him, almost throwing him forwards out of his seat, but instead Buck’s hand was there, pressing against his chest, palm directly over his heart, holding him steady. He leaned down a few inches, tilting his head slightly until he was directly in Eddie’s line of sight, blue eyes shining with something like warmth. There was a hint of something else in there, something Buck was clearly hiding, cracked and pained like Eddie’s insides, but on top of all of that was just pure warmth, sunlight cutting through the storm raging in the back of his mind. Buck inhaled with a bit more exaggeration than was strictly necessary and then slowly exhaled as Eddie had tried to do before. He didn’t say a word, didn’t tell him to follow his breaths, didn’t say it was okay, nothing, but something in Eddie calmed, the waves of anxiety soothing down to ripples, barely there.
Buck’s fingers curled into his shirt, clutching at the material of his uniform for a brief moment as Eddie copied his breathing, before he nodded and pulled back. He missed the touch the second it was gone, ached for the grounding feeling of it to return, but he shoved it back, back into the depths of where it’d snuck out from. Not now. He couldn’t think about that now. Buck had Tommy, Eddie– well, Eddie wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t lose Buck to that ache for more, he wouldn’t let himself.
Eddie followed Buck out of the truck, the sunlight beating down from above, harsh and bright, so unlike that night almost five years ago. For a brief moment he just stood outside the doors, letting the heat of the sun wash away the bit of cold lingering in his bones, feeling the slight breeze push the strands of hair that had fallen against his forehead back, a gentle caress, in sharp contrast with the billowing winds that had torn through the night last time.
This was different .
He clung to those words almost desperately as he knelt next to Bobby and asked what the plan was. Clung to it when Chim joked about him being too big to go down into the hole this time, nudging him gently with his shoulder, some mix of reassuring and teasing. Clung to it as they lowered the kid’s older brother down into the drain pipe to pull him to safety. Clung to it as the parents held their kids close once they were safe. Clung to it as they got back into the truck and drove away, leaving behind a slightly traumatized family but no lasting damage on any of them or the 118.
It was different.
But it was also the same. It had been just one step away from being the exact same. And Eddie couldn’t cling to his own son when he got home this time, couldn’t reassure himself that Chris was safe and warm and protected from things like that, because he was in Texas and Eddie was here. But Buck clung to his side, hand grabbing his wrist the second they were back in the truck and not letting go, fingers to his pulse point, and that shattered look was back, and maybe Eddie wasn’t the only one that needed something to cling to.
The second time was… well, it was different, notable. Because this was rare. And it also wasn’t reminiscent of when he almost died, but Buck , and somehow that changed everything about it. There hadn’t been any time to prepare for it either, they had no idea what they were walking into when they pulled up to the scene. Then again, Eddie wasn’t sure he’d have understood what it was they were walking into even if they had been more informed than someone being hurt on the set of Hotshots and needing just a bit more than medical attention. Because nothing about this call was even remotely the same as that night—there was no fire, no rain, no lightning, no stopped heart, no slick ladder still humming with electricity. Except. Except. Except.
Every muscle in Eddie locked up the second he was out of the truck and rounding the corner they were being led towards, gaze drawn immediately to the ladder truck standing in the middle of the recreated street, its ladder fully extended, and– and there was Buck again, hanging from the end by nothing but the harness Eddie had pulled tight on him before telling him “Alright, cowboy, go get em,” words that had almost been the last thing he ever said to him. There was Buck, limp and strung up like a marionette puppet. There was Buck, water pooling on his turnout coat and falling to the ground below in splashes like some morbid, gruesome version of the cones at waterparks. There was Buck and he wasn’t breathing, his heart wasn’t beating, he was gone . Again . Rain seemed to sting his skin, cutting his face, his hands, his arms, his neck like small needles falling from the sky, and there was a scream, a desperate call of a name pushing at the back of his tongue, begging to escape, and–
A hand landed on his shoulder, firm and warm and familiar , and Eddie breathed for the first time in– was it seconds? Minutes? The air burned in his throat, shuddering, painful, and real. The sun beat down from above again, not a cloud in the sky, and it was hot and dry and– and Buck was in front of him, head tilted in that same way as he had just a couple weeks before, eyes concerned and warm and so, so blue, shining with a life he’d almost had stripped of him not even two years ago. He was here , on the ground, safe, not up on the ladder, not hanging from a string just one wrong move from snapping. It was someone else on that ladder, someone who hadn’t been struck by anything, but had just fallen, who wasn’t dead, but was just out cold.
“Eds? You with me?” Buck’s tone was soft, softer than he’d normally use in the field, than he’d normally use outside the Firehouse or home. He squeezed Eddie’s shoulder as he asked, thumb digging just a tad into the space between his neck and collarbone, the same place Eddie remembered placing his hand with the words There’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you.
“Yeah, I’m good. Let’s go.” Buck’s lips twisted down into a small, worried frown, but he lowered his hand from his shoulder and took a half-step back. His lips parted like he was going to say something else, but before he could get a word out Bobby’s voice called them from the base of the ladder truck and Buck’s mouth snapped shut.
“Buck, Eddie, you’re going up. Let’s bring him down, let’s go!”
Eddie pulled in a sharp breath and tried to force his mind blank in a way he hadn’t done in nearly a decade, letting autopilot take over as he fell into motion with Buck to bring the ladder of their truck up to the show’s, just low enough to reach the stuntman whose name Eddie hadn’t caught. Buck climbed the ladder he hung from like it was nothing, like him being on a ladder again was no big deal, like nothing had ever happened, hands reaching through the bars to help Eddie stabilize the man to wake him up. And Eddie– Eddie tried to ignore the anxiety thrumming in his veins like electricity because they rarely sent Buck up the ladder anymore. It was just acknowledged that it shouldn’t happen unless absolutely necessary, a silent agreement between every member of the 118, unspoken but undoubtedly there , because each of them remembered that night, remembered the terror, the desperation, the pain, because Buck had been dead .
Except it was necessary this time and Eddie knew that. He knew that Hen and Chim didn’t ever go up the ladders unless it was absolutely vital for a medical emergency during a fire or a structure they couldn’t enter normally. He knew that it was extremely rare and that it definitely wasn’t the situation now. He knew it had to be Buck on the ladder opposite him.
But the stuntman had looked so much like Buck the night it felt like Eddie’s world stopped turning for three minutes and seventeen seconds, and Eddie– Eddie just wanted Buck safe, back on the ground, as far from the ladder and the truck and all of this as he could be. At least then Eddie would know he wouldn’t be hurt again.
None of that mattered now, of course. They had a job to do, it wasn’t like they could just stop doing it because Eddie couldn’t get a damn grip on himself. The man was not Buck, he was not dying, but he wasn’t safe either and that was what he needed to focus on. This wasn’t Buck again. The similarities could not take over. Eddie couldn’t let them, so he pushed forward and pushed the memories back and hoped that by the time they forced themselves back out he was back home already in the silence of his empty house and there’d be nobody to see him cry.
The third time, well, Eddie didn’t really know if it counted as the third time. Because really, there was nothing similar in the call besides the water covering the street and filling the car and the widespread panic it all was causing. Except every aspect of it seemed horrifically reminiscent of that day, that terrible, haunting day that Eddie knew still startled Buck awake in the middle of the night and had up until everything with Kim still pushed Chris into his room to crawl into his bed beside him when nightmares struck. None of it was the same, and yet– and yet.
It wasn’t the ocean flooding everything, it was a destroyed fire hydrant and built up pressure in the pipes below. It wasn’t swept-up cars and debris, it was a massive pile up of what seemed like at least a hundred cars like what Eddie knew had happened in some corners of the city that day. It wasn’t a natural disaster, it was the horrific consequences of human error. And Buck was there with him, at his side, in his turnout gear instead of a blood stained white t-shirt and ripped jeans. And Chris– Chris was safe. Not here, not with him— like he wasn’t then —but safe. At least, El Paso should be safe.
It wasn’t the same.
But– But– But there was water everywhere . And even though it wasn’t the ocean, it was drowning people, trapping them, pressure rising and rising until it was nearly a geyser beneath the car that landed on a fire hydrant. It sprayed up around him and Buck, falling back down on their backs, their shoulders, their helmets like rain, and it wasn’t a tsunami or a storm waiting to strike them, but– but– but–
Buck slid in through the skylight, helmet abandoned next to Eddie as if he wouldn’t need it inside the car, as if he couldn’t smash his head into the ceiling, as if the pressure of the water wasn’t the entire reason they hadn’t simply broken the windshield and pulled them out that way. He looked up at him from within, lips twisted in determination, but there was something in his eyes, something akin to the fear coursing through Eddie’s chest, and he wanted to pull Buck as far away from this call as he could. Except Buck wasn’t like that. And so for his sake, Eddie needed to get a hold of himself too, needed to force down the image of Buck stumbling through the field hospital covered in blood and mud, face haunted, needed to force down the image of Buck collapsing to the ground the second he saw Chris was okay. Because no matter what the calls evoked, they had lives to save and just because they seemed to survive things, that didn’t mean others did.
Getting the couple out was easier than they’d expected it would be, Buck quickly cutting their seatbelts and pushing them up towards Eddie as the water level rose steadily until it was near full and Buck was nearly submerged. He gasped once before going under and even though Eddie should have been focused on handing the two over to paramedics nearby, panic stabbed at his chest and he scrambled back up towards the skylight. His hands were reaching for his own helmet and turnout jacket before he’d even made it up there, ready to slide in next to Buck to at least get him out, because he wasn’t allowed to go in there to save those two only to replace them, but before he’d even finished unclasping his helmet Buck grabbed at the roof of the car and started pulling himself up out of the car. The water was pushing and pulling him from within, the pressure uneven but strong, and Eddie grabbed instinctively for Buck’s hands, using all his weight to pull Buck from within.
They landed on the hood of the car, water raining down on them, the windshield cracking from the pressure of the water, and all Eddie could manage to think was that at least he didn’t lose him again. At least the water hadn’t quite managed to take him this time.
The fourth time, Eddie was starting to feel just a bit insane. Because how could this all possibly keep happening, so close together at that? Maybe, maybe if there had been more than two months between the last time something like this happened and this one, he wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Maybe, if all of them had been spread out, if they’d happened long enough after each other for Eddie to forget about the strangeness of the previous time, he wouldn’t have even noticed that it was the fourth time. Maybe, he would have forgotten it all in the face of Christopher’s call, saying he was ready to at least hear him out. Maybe, he would’ve forgotten it all when they started planning when he’d come back. Maybe he would’ve forgotten it all and this time would have been like a jolt to his system, frying some of his circuits and rebooting parts of him.
But no. No, this one happened barely two months after the pile up, and it– it felt like something was mocking them somehow. Because this was beyond simply a similar call, this was a visual taken straight out of Eddie’s memory and nightmares, missing just the one small smudge of Buck pinned beneath the ladder truck laying smoking on its side. It wasn’t a bomb, no, that would at least be too much similarity for even whatever this was, but a ladder truck was on its side in the middle of an intersection, it was pitch black outside, and the truck hadn’t been empty.
The semi that had barreled into its side, sending it nearly rolling, smoldered on where its hood was caved in, the driver already extricated by the 133, who had arrived first. Emergency lights lit up the night, casting red and blue flares across the streets and harsh shadows across people’s faces. Blockades stopped people from getting any closer. And the 123’s ladder truck had barely been approached yet because how were they even meant to? It was all so daunting and horrifying and god, it was so, so similar.
Eddie almost couldn’t believe they’d been called to it, even with it being a call to all available units, because this– this was not something they of all houses could really handle. Their own truck was the only thing fully keeping Eddie on his feet, the only thing keeping his legs from giving out under him at the sight of something he’d somehow almost forgotten, buried under layers and layers of other things and forced distraction. His gaze slid away from the smoking trucks, the destruction, and landed instead on Buck just a few paces over. Buck, who was the whole reason the sight made him feel as if his world was imploding again. Buck, who had been the one throughout each of these calls to drag him back to reality when he was spiraling even though he shouldn’t have been. Buck, who was his anchor. Buck, who looked like he was going to be sick, eyes trained unblinking on the overturned ladder truck, face paler than Eddie had ever seen, hands shaking, knees quivering ever so slightly. Buck, who seemed so small all of a sudden, 6 years younger, and fragile and cracking.
Eddie felt himself drift towards him without so much as a thought, slotting himself into his side, grabbing his closest wrist in his hands as both a solid, grounding touch for Buck but also to feel the thrum of Buck’s pulse beneath his fingertips. Buck didn’t look away from the ladder truck though, and his body didn’t move at all, staying frozen where he was. There was something blank and shuttered and broken in his eyes, the blue of them almost dimmed with it, and he stepped into Buck’s line of sight just as he’d done to him. He squeezed Buck’s wrist, sliding his hand down to grip Buck’s fingers, and forced Buck’s eyes to meet his, finally .
“Buck, this is not then, you hear me? You’re okay, you’re safe, I swear to you. This is different, okay? It’s a different night. There are no bombs. You’re with me. Evan, look at me. ” Eddie pressed his other hand into Buck’s shoulder, trying to use the pressure to get Buck to at least pay attention, to stop snapping his gaze past Eddie at the most likely still smoking ladder truck. “ Evan Buckley, look at me. ”
An unfocused gaze met his, blue eyes glazed and uncertain and terrified , and Eddie wanted to wrap this man up in a blanket and hide from the world forever because why did it keep trying to hurt him? Buck didn’t deserve this, not one bit. He deserved it less than any person Eddie knew, because it was Buck , and nothing should ever happen to him because Buck was good .
Bobby appeared around the corner of their truck, eyes crinkled with concern and pain that immediately shifted into something like guilt when he saw them. And Eddie knew that he understood, that he could see it, and– well, Eddie was sure he wasn’t doing a whole lot better himself. It wasn’t just Buck traumatized by that night. It was no wonder that Bobby’s voice had a slight edge to it, a barely continued tremble as he stepped closer to them. “You both are sitting this one out. We’ve got this, get back in the cabin.”
Eddie almost wanted to protest, because it was his job to help, but all it took was one glance at Buck, at the trembling overtaking his body and the terrified look in his eyes, to know that right now, Eddie could give less of a shit. Because for whatever reason, they could not catch a break from past traumas, and Buck– Buck had some of the worst. So he led him back into the back of the cabin and pressed him into the seat and just hoped that it was enough, that he was enough to drag Buck back like he was for him.
The fifth time—the fifth time didn’t start as the fifth. It wasn’t a call they’d had a terrible experience with before, wasn’t a call any of them had ever even gotten slightly hurt on in the past. Hell, it shouldn’t have been much of a call at all because it was supposed to be a situation that had long been resolved by the time they arrived. It was nothing but a break-in at some Youtuber’s house with just one armed suspect that was arrested well before they’d even been the one’s dispatched to the scene. The house had been cleared already, the area deemed safe by the officers roaming around to find any other pieces of evidence scattered around. They’d been informed there were three people in the house at the time of the break-in, just a couple and their baby, all largely unharmed, and that was all the call should’ve been. Eddie and Buck hadn’t even really been needed at all, the black eye and concussion sported by the husband small enough that Hen and Chim deemed him okay not to go to the hospital unless he wanted to. It was a minor call in all but name, and really, that should’ve been Eddie’s first warning. Because they were never that lucky.
Maybe if he’d dwelled a bit more on the call itself, on the situation they were treating the outcome of, he would’ve been more prepared. Maybe he wouldn’t have brushed it off as just something that was the LAPD’s problem quite so quickly. Maybe his instincts would have been more than a faint itch at the back of his mind.
But he’d ignored it, because it was an easy call and even though everything had felt calmer since Chris came home just a couple weeks prior, his mind still seemed to race in circles whenever given the chance. Because now that Chris was home and Eddie had finally accepted that maybe, just maybe, Father Brian had been right about more than he’d thought, he couldn’t slow down the thoughts, couldn’t brush aside the warmth that filled his chest every time Buck brushed shoulders with him or fell asleep on his shoulder or cooked dinner for him and Chris.
“Well, that wasn’t something you see every day. Like, of all people to rob at gunpoint, why some adorable Youtube couple with a baby ?” Buck bumped his shoulder against Eddie’s as he threw the extra med bag he’d grabbed just in case back into the ambulance. There was a glint in his eyes, some emotion that Eddie couldn’t quite place but that seemed to be aimed at just him, on him, and god, Eddie felt like a teenager again with his heart rate rising at the simple quirk of Buck’s lips. The sun bore down on them, making the April warmth feel just on the verge of hot , like summer couldn’t quite wait to make an appearance, and Buck’s eyes seemed to shine with it like the clear sky above.
Some part of Eddie wanted to reach for Buck, pull him close and just let himself drown in those eyes for a moment. Because he just looked so soft, so– so Buck , and that alone seemed to send a wave of calm through every fiber of Eddie’s being. Buck’s lips curled into a small smile before parting, the start of some word rolling off his tongue and–
The crack that echoed off the front of the house and the ambulance took too long to register in Eddie’s brain, cutting Buck off mid-syllable. Eddie just barely registered the way his body flinched back at the splatter of something , something warm and wet and thick, hitting his face, his lips, his tongue. The taste of iron burned at his throat, sudden and biting and familiar and for a split second he was sure that he must’ve been hit again and relief coursed through his veins because if it was him then it wasn’t–
Buck.
Buck slumped forward within the same second that Eddie’s mind processed that the blood in his mouth wasn’t his own, wasn’t his to lose. And Eddie– Eddie felt frozen in that moment, every single bit of training he’d ever had for this, every single time he’d already responded to scenarios like this, flying instantly from his mind, barred from his reach. Because it was Buck . It was Buck whose blood was pooling around his shoulder on the concrete below, whose uniform was slowly growing a deep shade of purple, whose curls were growing wet with red, red, red.
Eddie crashed to his knees at Buck’s side, shaking, trembling hands reaching for his left shoulder and pressing . Blood oozed up between his fingers and coated his hands, scarlet gloves of what should be flowing through Buck’s veins and keeping him alive instead of spilling out of him, draining him. Buck blinked blearily up at him, blue, blue eyes unfocused and half-lidded, cheeks growing paler with every passing second even as Eddie pressed harder on the bullet wound, trying, trying, trying.
“Eds–”
“Just– Just stay awake, Buck, you hear me? Don’t– Don’t talk, just– just keep looking at me, okay? Just–” A sob cut through the frantic string of words spilling from Eddie’s lips and Eddie knew he had to keep Buck alive, knew he had to do his job , but it was Buck . “Stay with me. Stay with me, Ev. Just hold on for me, okay? Please, please.”
Buck blinked again, movements slow and sluggish and so unlike Buck and Eddie couldn’t– he couldn’t–
A hand pressed to his shoulder, firm even though he could feel the slight tremble in it, and he looked up to see Hen above him, the gurney behind her. He had no idea when she’d come back outside, had no idea when the cracks echoing around the house, the neighborhood, had stopped so that she could, but she was here and if Hen was here then it would be okay. Because she could save Buck when he couldn’t. She could get them to the hospital. She opened her mouth to say something, but Eddie couldn’t–
He didn’t even think about if he could do it or not—because it was Buck and he had to—before he looped his arms under Buck’s back and knees and placed him as gently as he could onto the gurney. Red instantly stained the pristine white of it and Eddie scrambled to press against Buck’s shoulder again even as the gurney was shifted and it was lifting and Eddie could barely keep level with it until he was scrambling into the ambulance after it. Everything seemed to blur around him, distorting, twisting, all except for Buck, Buck who was still blinking blearily up at him, lips moving but no proper words escaping.
Eddie knew he should let Chim and Hen work to keep Buck alive, knew that was their job, but he couldn’t just sit still, he had to help him. Because it was Buck, his partner, his everything. There was no way that he could just sit there and let him bleed out and die in the back of an ambulance like Shannon. Pressing gauze to a bullet wound was familiar, the feeling of frantic energy buzzing under his skin screaming at him to move faster, move faster, bullets can do more damage the longer you don’t do anything about them, keep him alive, all familiar. Because this had been his job for years—working on gunshot wounds surrounded by blood and fear.
Except this time it was Buck and that changed everything. It was Buck and so instead of just trying to keep the man under him awake so he could get through surgery and make it home to his family, he was begging him, pleading with him, to just– just hold, just hold on so that he could come home to Eddie , to Chris . Tears blurred his vision but he couldn’t stop, even as Buck’s fingers wrapped around his wrist as he was trying to put an oxygen mask over his mouth, he couldn’t stop, because if he stopped then Buck would die, and Eddie could not live with that. He could not.
“Are– Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
The words hit Eddie’s chest like a thousand knives, ripping at his insides, because how– how could Buck possibly be asking him if he was hurt? The look of wide-eyed horror on Buck’s face when he’d asked him the same thing nearly four years ago made sense suddenly, with a vivid sort of clarity, and he couldn’t stop the sob that escaped him. They were bubbling up inside of him, threatening to escape with every passing millisecond that they weren’t yet at the hospital, because Buck was dying and no matter what he did, Eddie didn’t feel like he was saving him at all.
“I– I’m okay. I– Evan, you gotta stay with me. Just– just a few more minutes, we’re almost there. Please, please, just hang on. You cannot leave me. Not when–” Not when he hadn’t told him he loved him yet . Except he couldn’t tell him now, the first time those words passed his lips could not be in the back of an ambulance, could not be while one of them was bleeding out. It couldn’t . So Buck couldn’t die. Eddie wouldn’t let him. “You promised you’d bake with Chris on Saturday, remember? You promised that you’d stay after movie night and you’d teach– you’d teach him how to make those cookies he likes so much. You can’t leave him. He cannot lose another parent, you hear me?”
Buck’s eyes were barely open, eyelids fluttering, but somehow Eddie could still make out the glint that seemed to appear in them at his words. Because if Buck was going to fight for anyone, in this entire world, it would be Chris. And Eddie needed him to fight . “Love–”
Whatever Buck was going to say, whatever words were about to cut through Eddie’s chest and rip out his heart, were cut off as the ambulance jolted to a stop and the back doors were thrown open. Sunlight streamed in, cut by the shadows of nurses and doctors scrambling to help get Buck out of the ambulance and onto the ground. Eddie got shoved back, someone’s hand pressing him away from Buck, away from the lifeline he was clinging to, away from half of his entire world, and by the time he’d regained enough of his footing to stumble after them into the hospital, the doors to the inside were swinging shut behind them and Eddie couldn’t see Buck anymore. Like all those years ago, standing in the same exact place, Eddie felt the strength leave him in one giant rush and he was falling, falling. Hands grabbed his arms, holding him steady, holding him away from the floor of the hospital’s lobby, away from the linoleum, but he just– It was Buck and every single particle of his being screamed at him to run after him. But he couldn’t and everything seemed to fracture and break and shatter .
Eddie’s text messages with Chris were open on his phone where it hung loosely in his left hand, the only light in the dark room beyond the monitors proving that Buck was alive, most of his son’s texts left unanswered. It wasn’t that Eddie didn’t want to tell him what exactly the situation was—he’d sworn he would never hide anything from him ever again—but he just couldn’t figure out how to put any of it into words. Calling Chris to tell him that Buck was in the hospital and that he wouldn’t be able to see him until after school the next day because visitor’s hours were a nuisance—especially when someone had to go through hours of surgery—was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. In the years since Shannon died, Eddie hadn’t found a single way to tell his son that his other parent was hurt, dying, without the words feeling like ash in his mouth and the air around him too thin to breathe. Because nothing, not even experience, could ever prepare you for having to tell your child that kind of information. The concept of putting everything that happened into words for his son, his precious, sweet, young son, even when he was asked about it, was simply– Eddie didn’t have a goddamn clue how to say any of it.
Chris probably hated him just a bit more for it, but there was some part of Eddie that just knew that somehow Chris understood , even at the age of fourteen. Because this was Buck, and because this had happened to Eddie before and Chris had to experience that too. Because he’d seen how Buck was when he was shot, and even though Eddie couldn’t remember much of that beyond a fuzzy but devastated Evan Buckley, he knew that Buck hadn’t handled the situation any better than he had. It was a slightly horrific realization to have—that his son didn’t just have an idea of what it was like, but had seen it happen frequently enough to understand .
A night in their kitchen from years ago flashed before his eyes, Chris’s voice echoing how he was scared, how Eddie might not be alive the next year, fear and understanding seeming to tinge the air with their desperation, and somehow it hit him then, that maybe some of that fear had come because he’d seen Buck ’s fear. Because if Buck was scared, then it was a real thing to be scared of, because to Chris, Buck had always been one of the bravest people he’d ever known. It was one of the few things he’d said about the tsunami after it happened.
Eddie forced himself to inhale once, slowly, and then release it, his heart rate lowering just a tad with the action. His gaze drifted to the monitors framing Buck’s bed, forming what almost felt like an arch around him, beeping on as Buck’s heart kept beating, his lungs kept breathing, his brain kept working. The continuing beeps and their steady rhythm had an odd sort of soothing feeling to them, like a gentle reassurance that Buck was alive, he was alive, alive, alive. But it wasn’t enough, couldn’t be enough, because even though it showed his heart beating, Eddie had to really feel it to believe it. He’d felt too much of Buck’s blood slip away beneath his fingers, felt how cold his skin was, to believe what the monitor said, even if he knew it wouldn’t be wrong. The only thing that kept the fraying edges of his sanity together was the thrumming of Buck’s pulse beneath his fingers where they circled around Buck’s wrist and his palm.
Just tell me if anything changes. popped up the last message from Chris before his phone screen darkened and shut off, leaving Eddie in the dim room again with nothing but the monitors and Buck’s pulse to keep him company, to keep him tethered to reality. He couldn’t quite bring himself to care, though, his gaze sliding up to Buck’s face. His skin looked almost white with the moonlight shining in through the gaps in the curtain, pale and ghostly, but his hand was warm in Eddie’s and there was a faint flush high on his cheeks. He was alive, alive, alive.
It’d been stupid for them to ignore this, them, for so long, even with everything that had happened. Eddie wasn’t sure how long it’d been there, wrapping around them and tugging them closer and closer to each other without either of them really noticing, but some part of him felt like maybe it was always there, maybe it was from that shift when they pulled a bomb out of that guy’s leg. They’d almost lost each other so many times since then—why had they always just pushed past it and ignored it? Why had they never really talked about any of it? Everything that had led up to this over the past few months felt like some cruel joke. Some horrific twist of fate. Some prank by the universe to–
“It’s like the universe is screaming at you, and you refuse to listen.”
As much as Eddie didn’t believe in the universe, he did believe in Buck, and maybe– maybe he was right, somehow, this time. Because how else could you explain all those things happening again , bringing back with them vivid and haunting memories? Eddie didn’t believe in the universe, but maybe this time it was screaming at him, at them. And maybe he had to listen to it for once.
Buck’s hand twitched in his hold, fingers curling softly, gently, around Eddie’s and his gaze snapped down to their hands before looking back up at Buck’s face, something like hope and fear all wrapped into one in the back of his throat. He blinked slowly at him, tiredly but so, so differently to how he’d blinked at him before, not fading, but waking, and his head turned to face him. The action pressed his cheek against his pillow, squishing it just a tad, and he looked so incredibly soft and alive that something in Eddie seemed to overflow with warmth like the soothing flames of a campfire had embedded themselves in the depths of his chest. A small smile tugged up the corner’s of Buck’s lips, his eyes glittering with something like home and a soft, “Hey,” was breathed into the air between them.
And Eddie– Eddie didn’t even think before saying, “I love you,” because he’d waited so long and he just– He couldn’t go another second without saying it, without Buck knowing with absolute certainty. And the words were rushed and a bit frantic, his voice a bit rough from everything about the day they’d had, but it was them .
Buck’s eyes widened a fraction, lips parting in what might’ve been surprise, before he let out a sort of laugh, soft and sweet, and somehow, almost an “Oh,” like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d said, couldn’t believe he’d actually said it. “I love you too.”
–and something just settled deep in Eddie at that. Because that was– that was everything . Buck was everything. And maybe the universe was real, because Buck was here, and he was everything.
Eddie pressed his lips to Buck’s fingers, the taste of iron clinging to the back of his tongue finally fading, and it felt like—for the first time in maybe ever—things would actually be okay. Chris was home, waiting anxiously for when he could come in and tell Buck how he couldn’t go and get hurt anymore because that wasn’t allowed and then hug him with all the strength a fourteen year old had. Buck was okay, alive, breathing. And he loved him . Maybe things wouldn’t have to stay unspoken anymore, hidden in the spaces kept between them. Because they would be okay now, together. They’d figure it out, whatever else the universe decided to throw at them. Even if the universe was nothing but where they lived.
Because even if there was no universe to believe in, to cling to, there was Buck. And for Eddie, that was enough.