"Eddie," Maddie says, slightly louder and more shocked than she intended. "It's like, 9:30 in the morning, is everything okay?"

Taking him in, he doesn't look okay. His hair is wild, like he's been running his fingers through it over (and over) and over again. His cheeks are tomato pink and he's almost vibrating.

"Maddie. Hi. Hello. Good morning."

"Good morning, Eddie," she placates, putting on her best toddler-about-to-have-a-tantrum voice. "Would you like some coffee? It's decaf."

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Decaf's good."

He grabs his hair (again), pushes it out of his face (it wasn't in his face), and barrels through the front door and toward the kitchen.

By the time Maddie makes it back there, Eddie's standing and staring blankly at the coffee pot.

"Can you let me just--I'll just sneak in here--"

"I kissed Buck."

Maddie flops down on one of the chairs at the island.

"Okay, you wanna run that by me one more time?"

Eddie flings himself around, luckily catching himself with his hands on the other side of the little table from Maddie.

"I kissed him! He was taking Chris to school, and I walked up to Chris and I grabbed his head, like I do all the time, and kissed him on the top of the head, like I do, all the time, but then I just..."

With the patience of every saint in the communion, she waits for Eddie to finish his sentence.

"I grabbed his head. And I kissed him."

"On the lips?"

"No. On the forehead. He's tall. I keep forgetting."

Maddie takes a loud breath. Not as deep as she'd like, but the oxygen is good. At least that's what Chimney says when he has to deal with buckandeddie at work.

"Okay. And how do you feel about that?"

Somehow, Eddie's cheeks go from tomato pink to pomegranate magenta.

"I don't know, I mean. I. I think Buck will be unbelievably cool about it," Eddie rambles, speed increasing while his oxygen is definitely decreasing. "Like he's cool about everything. Christ, what was I thinking just moving back into his house that I abandoned, oh God, Maddie, does he think I abandoned him? I never wanted to, I never meant to--"

"Woah, there, Eddie, slow down." She's pretty sure that her brother's about to feel some kind of way if Eddie spontaneously combusts in her kitchen.

Eddie's breathing heavy, chest and shoulders cascading up and down with the air he's shoving in and out. His eyes are wide and, if Maddie's not mistaken, there are tears growing in his lash line.

"Eddie?" Maddie questions gently, moving her hand over his, a symbol of support in the echoes of his mind. "I think we might need an answer to that question."

"Which question?"

"How do you feel about it? That you kissed Buck on the forehead?"

She watches as he schools his face into something loud, and then quiet, and then dark. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Doesn't open them before he speaks.

"Like I want to kiss him again."

He opens his eyes, big and brown and full of tears. They meet hers, and, by the way his face is swimming in her vision, hers might match.

"Oh, Eddie."

"I know, Maddie," he continues frantically, pushing his free hand in and out of a fist on the table. "I can't ask that of him. I moved back in with him and he's been so unbelievably--"

"Cool," she adds on a laugh. "So you said."

"Maddie," Eddie groans.

"Eddie, Buck has never been cool. Not a day in his life. Especially not about you."

He freezes in his shoes, fist halfway curled open like some sort of claw.

"What do you mean?"

"Eddie. Come on. He's crazy about you. I've known it from the beginning."

His face, wide and open, apparently needs a little more information than that.

"Look, I called his crush on you before he'd even moved out of Abby's house!"

If it's possible, Eddie's mouth is now open wider.

"Maddie... I can't... have this enormous crush on him. Be... in love with him. He's my roommate, and my best friend and I can't lose him. I won't. I refuse."

"Oh," she scoffs, "so you're just gonna swallow this down forever?"

In an instant, Eddie goes smaller than she's ever seen him before. His voice is small too.

"If I have to. He can never know."

"Uh, it's a little late for that," Chimney interrupts from the dining room.

Maddie and Eddie both snap their heads up towards the voice. But instead of Chimney they see, it's--

"Buck?"

Eddie's hand is still in Maddie's, but his voice is now directed to her little brother, standing wide-eyed behind Chimney, shoulders slouched like he used to do when he'd had a bad day at school. She pats his hand and pushes off the table, waddling over to her husband.

"Buck, why don't you and Eddie sit and have some coffee. There's decaf in the pot."

She watches as Buck moves through the room, brushing her across the shoulders as he passes, but eyes never once moving from Eddie.

As she and Chimney back up a little farther into the dining room, she hears her brother's voice.

"Did you mean it?"

"Did I mean what?"

"Well, all of it. Any of it. Did you mean what you told my sister? Did you mean to kiss me this morning before you left the house?"

"Eddie kissed Buck?!" Chimney whispershouts into Maddie's temple, as she brings a hand to his upper arm to slow him down. They're not eavesdropping, no of course not. Just. Enjoying the view from their dining room on a beautiful morning where they each have a few hours together. Of course.

"What if I do?" Eddie starts again.

"What if you do?" Buck questions back.

"Mean it."

"Then I'm gonna need you to kiss me again. And aim a little lower this time, would you?"

“Are we too old to be boyfriends?” Eddie asks, he doesn’t think they are, he’s not that old, no matter what Christopher might think.

“I don't think so,” Buck says. “I want to be your boyfriend.”

It’s so honest it makes Eddie’s heart soar. “Why the face then?"

“What face?” Buck asks, pulling another face, and Eddie feels like pointing dramatically at him and announcing, That one. “This is just my face.”

“You made a face when I said boyfriends.”

“No, I didn't,” Buck says, defensive.

“Yes, you did. It was weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, weird. Actually, can we stop saying weird? It doesn't sound like a word anymore.” Eddie sticks his tongue out like he’s trying to wash the taste of the word off of it.

“Semantic satiation,” Buck says, and Eddie raises his eyebrow at him. Buck continues matter-of-factly, “It's when you say a word so many times it loses its meaning.”

“Of course,” Because of course Buck knows that. “So the face? Not boyfriends?”

“Yes, Boyfriends.” Buck says, “But it doesn't feel like enough.”

Eddie nearly chokes on his next lungful of air. “Buck, we're trying to have sex for the first time, and you're calling it weird whilst simultaneously proposing marriage.”

“I said it was good weird!”

“I don't know what that means! We've literally been making out on the couch for the last half hour,” Eddie gestures towards the living. “But now it's weird ‘cos we've taken our clothes off?”

“No, that was weird too, don't you think it's weird?”

“Yes! Of course it's weird, Buck. Twenty-four hours ago I thought I was delusional for thinking there was any chance you might have feelings for me, the way I have feelings for you, and now you're half naked in my bedroom with hickeys I gave you all down your neck.”

Buck blushes the same colour as the hickeys, and his neck blooms under Eddie’s dull bedroom bulb. “Yes, thank you for that, I'm sure they'll be lots of fun to explain to Bobby at work tomorrow. Hen and Chim will have a field day. I’ll have to play Twenty ‘Inappropriate for the Workplace’ Questions all shift.”

“Just give me some too, and they can all put two and two together themselves.” Eddie shrugs.

Buck's eyes turn dark, and Eddie watches him bite at the inside of his cheek. It’s unbelievably hot but also exciting and novel, and Eddie can't help but tease a little. “As long as that's not too weird for you?”

Buck rolls his eyes. “I said it was good weird.”

Eddie is sick of him being so far away, so he kneels up on the bed and shuffles his way across the mattress until he's on his knees, face to face with where Buck is standing, and can slide both of his hands around the sides of the other man's neck. 

Eddie ducks to make sure he has Buck’s eyes on him when he says, “You're weird. We're good. I love you.”

He runs his thumb along the hinge of Buck's jaw and over the shell of his ear, and Buck turns to putty in his grasp, his bright blue eyes going soft and dopey as he leans his cheek heavily in Eddie’s hand. 

“I love you, too,” Buck whispers reverently into the space between them.

Eddie leans in and captures Buck’s lips with his own and kisses him long and slow, reveling in the feeling of Buck's hands grasping onto Eddie’s hips and drawing him closer. Eddie takes great pleasure in pressing himself as close to Buck as he can get—well, without getting to the thing they came in here for originally. 

Eddie hums happily into Buck's mouth when the other man bites at his bottom lip and Eddie smooths his hands appreciatively along Buck's broad shoulders and over the swell of his biceps, content to finally touch every inch of this man he has spent far too long admiring from an appropriate–for–best–friends distance.  

Buck tugs at the waistband of Eddie's shorts, and in one swift motion, he finds them pooling around his knees before he's pulled firmly in against Buck's crotch again, only Buck's thin boxer briefs between them, leaving very little to the imagination and no question as to how much they both want this.

Eddie fails to bite back a moan, and Buck giggles. Giggles!

“What? Still weird?” Eddie asks, huffing a laugh and sliding his lips down Buck's neck to revisit the rapidly darkening marks he has been working so hard on. 

Buck’s three feet away from him, sluggishly bleeding out on the pavement. Shannon’s six feet under in a graveyard halfway across the city. Buck’s ribs are giving way beneath Eddie’s hands. Buck’s blood is soaking through his jeans. It’s staining him, his skin, his mind.

He—

“Sir!” Someone snaps. “You need to—shit, Diaz?”

No, that’s—it’s not Eddie who’s broken and unmoving on the ground. It’s not Eddie who’s going to die with or without a tube down his throat.

It’s—

It’s—

Two pairs of hands grab him, yank him away.

“No!” Eddie screams, thrashing wildly at whoever it is that thinks they can keep him from Buck.

“Diaz, stop!”

He can’t. He won’t.

“You have to let them help him.”

They won’t do enough. Only Eddie will fight for him hard enough. Only Eddie knows how to bring him back. An animalistic snarl climbs out from his chest.

“I’ve got a pulse!” a paramedic Eddie doesn’t recognize shouts. She’s a floater, probably.

A floater is holding Buck’s life in her hands. Does she even know? Does she know that the world will stop turning if he’s not in it?

Eddie’s knees hit the pavement. Distantly, he feels the sting. Mostly, though, he feels Buck’s blood. It’s on his hands and soaking through his clothes, painting him red, red, red.

Two firefighters carefully roll Buck onto a body board and lift him to the stretcher. For a split second, it’s 2019. Eddie’s watching his wife die. He’s holding Buck’s hand and trying not to stare at his mangled leg.

“Diaz! Now or never, are you coming with us?”

He doesn’t feel himself move, but between one blink and the next he finds himself in the back of an ambulance staring down at his—

His—

Buck’s eyelashes flutter and Eddie can’t do this.

“Please,” he sobs, clutching Buck’s hand. “You—you have to—”

He’s squeezing too hard. So hard he might break Buck’s hand, but he’s terrified that if he lets go, so will Buck.

The floater moves to intubate, but before she can Buck heaves a shuddering breath and opens his eyes.

Eddie thinks he might be screaming again, only this time the sound is trapped deep inside him.

“Eds… hurt?” Buck manages.

He must be. He’s dying maybe, because that’s the only explanation he can think of for the creeping numbness in his limbs.

“He’s fine, Buckley,” the floater says.

She’s wrong. She doesn’t— how could she? She doesn’t know that every piece of Eddie that’s worth anything is dying right alongside his—

“I can’t wait any longer,” she says apologetically before shoving a plastic tube down Buck’s trachea. He chokes on it, and oh, Eddie’s choking too.

The ambulance slows and Eddie’s about to bang against the wall, about to demand they keep going, when the doors are flung open revealing an entire trauma team dressed in pristine scrubs.

The floater rattles off Buck’s vitals and the injuries they know of.

As they pull Buck from the back of the ambulance, one of the doctors catches Eddie’s eye. He nods, and Eddie hopes to God that means he knows that Los Angeles will be swallowed by the sea if this man doesn’t live.

All at once, Buck is gone and Eddie’s left standing next to an ambulance that could be the last place he ever hears Buck speak.

“Diaz, you okay?” The C shift captain whose name Eddie can’t be bothered to remember right now asks.

No.

No.

No.

He doesn’t answer.

…

There’s blood on his face. Buck’s blood. Eddie doesn’t— he’s not sure how it got there, but now that he sees it, he can feel it too. It’s tacky and drying and God, there’s so much.

Gentle hands turn him away from the mirror.

“No,” Eddie says as his sluggish brain recognizes Bobby. “No, no he can’t—“

Bobby was there when—

He held Eddie. Let him weep into his shoulder. Stood steady as Eddie’s world crumbled to pieces.

“He’s in surgery,” Bobby says.

“They don’t know,” Eddie babbles.

Bobby’s face creases in concern. “Know what, Eddie?”

“He’s— he—“ He can’t force the words out.

“Eddie,” he repeats forcefully.

“I love him,” Eddie croaks.

Bobby, steadfast and solid, cracks.

One sob escapes his chest, then another, and soon they’re both sliding to grimy bathroom floor, trying not to shatter entirely.

“I can’t lose another—“ Bobby gasps.

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. Bobby can’t lose another child. He can’t lose another spouse. Not now, not when he’s just begun to understand the depth of what he’s been denying himself for what feels like his entire life. Not now, not ever. Not— not, Buck.

The bathroom door bangs open and Hen steps in. Tear tracks stain her cheeks, but Eddie can’t bring himself to analyze her expression further. If Buck’s— Eddie wants to live in a world that hasn’t quite ended as long as he possibly can.

“No update,” she says quietly.

She grabs a few paper towels and wets them in the sink. She kneels in front of Eddie and brings one to his face. He flinches back.

“Eddie?” she asks.

He swallows past the lump in his throat. “What if…”

What if the blood staining his skin is the last piece of Buck he gets to keep? What if he dies on the operating table? What if he’s already dead? Eddie can’t— he won’t let anyone take the last of him away.

A harsh sob drags itself past his lips.

“Oh, Eddie,” Hen whispers, and why do people keep saying his name?

No one— he’s never heard it so many times from anyone but Buck. He doesn’t want to hear it from anyone but Buck. He shakes his head and presses his hands to his ears.

Hen says something else, but all he can hear is the whoosh of his own pulse, and it’s so unfair. Shouldn’t his heart know not to beat until he’s sure Buck’s will again?

“Eddie,” Hen says, taking his hands. “Let me, please.”

He can’t bring himself to agree, but he doesn’t fight back when she raises the paper towel to his face again. She pulls it across his skin in gentle drags, but it’s cold and Eddie can’t help but think uncharitably that Buck would’ve waited for the water to warm before he wet the towels.

When she’s done with his face, Hen guides him to the sink to wash the blood from his hands too. For a split second, Eddie wonders if Buck washed his blood away in this same sink after Eddie was shot. He wonders if Buck’s hands shook the way his are shaking now.

“That’s good Eddie, there you go,” Hen encourages him softly.

He bristles at her careful tone. Nothing she says can make any of this better or worse, not unless she can tell him with absolute certainty whether or not Buck will survive the night.

“I grabbed your duffle from the station,” she continues, and it’s only then that he notices his own bag slung over her shoulder. “Think you can get changed?”

Eddie nods mutely. Distantly, it occurs to him that this is part of what makes Hen such a good paramedic— her ability to meet someone where they are. He peels off his henley and exchanges it for the long sleeve LAFD crewneck she hands him.

He swaps his pants next, and for the first time, wearing a piece of the uniform feels wrong. He couldn’t— he wasn’t a medic today. If it had just been him and Buck out there, Buck would be dead already. He’d, what? Held his torn skin together? As if that was the wound that was going to kill him. Shannon didn’t even bleed when she died.

“Maddie and Chim are waiting for you,” Hen says, nodding toward the door. “I’m going to sit with Cap for a little while, okay?”

Again, Eddie nods. He stumbles through the door and into the arms of a woman who, for all they share, he barely knows.

He can’t bring himself to look her in the eye. She’ll know, he thinks, know that he didn’t do enough. Know that he failed one of the three people she loves most in this world.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks into her hair.

“For what?” she asks shakily.

“I should’ve— I didn’t—“

“You were there,” Maddie says. “You made sure he knows he’s not alone.”

Eddie swallows harshly.

“He knows what he’s fighting for,” Maddie continues. “Thank you.”

He wants to shake her. He should’ve done more. He’d demanded it once of a different team of doctors, and then he couldn’t even—

He was there and it didn’t matter. Buck’s still dying in a sterile operating room.

Maddie pushes him toward a chair next to Chimney in the waiting room, then sits on his other side. They talk to him, Eddie thinks, but he doesn’t hear a word.

…

“Family of Evan Buckley?”

Eddie’s on his feet before he’s even made a conscious decision to stand. Maddie follows quickly behind him, and— oh, Bobby’s in the waiting room now, too.

The doctor smiles at them, and while Eddie’s sure it’s meant to be reassuring, every second that passes without news is more excruciating than the last.

“Mr. Buckley did well in surgery,” she says.

Eddie’s entire body sags, like a marionette with its strings cut. Hen’s subtle but steadying hand on his back is the only reason he doesn’t collapse to the floor right then and there.

“He’s not out of the woods yet,” the doctor continues, “but his CT was clear and we were able to locate and repair the source of his internal bleeding.”

“He’s going to be okay?” Maddie asks, high and watery.

The doctor nods. “We’d like to keep him a few days for observation, but barring unforeseen complications, we believe he’ll make a full recovery.”

Maddie presses a hand to her mouth and nods, eyes shining.

“The effects of the anesthesia should be wearing off soon, I can take two of you to his room.”

To Eddie’s surprise, Maddie takes his hand. “We’ll—us,” she says.

Eddie looks at Maddie, then Bobby. “Are you—are you sure?”

“Go,” Bobby says. “He needs you.”

Eddie’s not sure that’s true, but he sure as hell needs Buck and he—he thinks this is probably one of those times when he’s allowed to be a little selfish.

“Through these doors,” the doctor says, leading them back with a wave of her key card.

…

He’s pale, unnaturally so. It’s like, despite the massive transfusion he received, there still isn’t enough blood pumping through his veins. Eddie wishes he could wring out his shirt and return every drop he took.

“Eddie, what happened?” Maddie asks softly.

Eddie shakes his head. “I, uh, I wasn’t supposed to be there,” he says haltingly.

Maddie takes his hand with the one that isn’t holding Buck’s and squeezes.

“I don’t think he knew I was there,” Eddie continues. “It was just… God, Maddie, it was a coincidence.”

Eddie closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath.

“It came out of nowhere. They were responding to a fender bender, wouldn’t have even been a call except one of the drivers was stuck in their car, I think. He was helping someone when it—there was a car. And then he was just—I couldn’t—he—”

Maddie squeezes his hand again. “You know, I—” she hesitates, then nods like she’s made a decision. “I’ve never seen him happy the way he is with you.”

Against Eddie’s will, a pained noise escapes his throat. “I don’t know why,” he admits. He looks down at his feet.

“Sure,” Maddie says, blowing out an amused huff.

“He’s so good. He walks into a room and everything gets brighter. He’s the sun,” Eddie says helplessly.

Maddie’s smile turns impossibly fond. “You love him,” she says. It’s not a question.

A smile of his own spreads unbidden on his lips. “How could I not?”

There’s a sharp intake of breath.

Eddie whips his head around and sees Buck, eyes open, lips parted.

“Eddie,” he breathes.

He should be panicking, maybe. Throat closing, heart racing, but—the singular feeling in his chest is relief.

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie says, incapable of and unwilling to keep the warmth from his voice.

“You—” Buck blinks twice, slow, like he’s trying to keep himself awake.

Eddie lays a hand on his ankle and squeezes. “Rest,” he says. “I’ll stay.”

“Stay… s’nice,” Buck slurs as he slips back into sleep.

“For what it’s worth,” Maddie says after a long moment, “pretty sure he loves you, too.”

Eddie watches the slow rise and fall of Buck’s chest. “Yeah,” he says, biting down on a grin that’s far too wide for the ICU, “I think he might.”

“Could take a second for him to work that out for himself,” Maddie says.

Eddie lets out a soft chuckle. “Oh, I know,” he says. “Gives me time to pick out a ring,” he jokes. Kind of.

Maddie laughs and shakes her head. “Is this your way of asking for my permission to propose?”

“Well I’m not going to ask your parents,” Eddie replies, wrinkling his nose.

Maddie’s eyes twinkle with amusement. “Could you imagine if I said no after all of this?”

“I’d ask him anyway,” Eddie admits.

“Good answer,” Maddie says.

Eddie laughs. “Oh, so that was a test?”

“No,” Maddie replies, shaking her head. “But he deserves someone that chooses him no matter what.”

“I do,” Eddie says with conviction. “I will.”

The knife tip drops along with Abigail's mouth.

"You're lying! You had a wife, you have a son."

"I know. Doesn't mean I'm lying. Doesn't mean I'm not.."

He can't say it like this- not outloud for the first time now and anyway he doesn't even know what word to use- queer is the best he's been able to settle on. He just knows he doesn't want to date woman because he's already in love with someone he had learnt long ago that he shouldn't ever admit to being in love with.

He sighs heavily, now really isn't the time but maybe the truth will get him somewhere with this girl.

"Look I'm not lying about that, I really don't want a girlfriend. I haven't wanted a girlfriend for a long time because I have been lying about something."

She frowns at him and he takes a step closer while the danger is pointing towards the floor.

"I think I've been lying my whole life - to my family, to my friends, to myself and to the man I'm in love with."

Her eyes loose focus and he can tell she's thinking, looking back and seeing if she can work it out. Who it is, she does too quickly for comfort. Her voice is hushed but kit angry anymore.

"The other firefighter- the one with the curly hair. He was nice to me too."

So Eddie admits it for the first time to the most unlikely person on earth- a distraught confused and abused teenager looking for a family in all the wrong ways and places.

"Yes. Him. Buck. His name's Buck. He doesn't know."

She sobs, a terrible heartbroken sound that's followed by the sound of his kitchen knife hitting the floor.

Eddie moves quickly kicks the knife away and wraps his arms around her as she repeats a single thing over and over.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

He knows she is, knows it's over now , that it was just a desperate moment of misplaced hope.

"It's not your fault."

He whispers the words into the air as she sobs into his shirt and tries to explain something he already understands.

"I just wanted someone to love me so I could love them back. I'm sorry."

The apology repeats and repeats. It's heartbreaking when the family you're given fails you in so many ways.

"I know, but it's not your fault they were like that."

There's a long path of healing ahead of this child but he thinks she'll be ok if she tries and she lets people help her.

She's still crying when a tear slips down his own cheek and he whispers something that needs to be said.

"Just like what happened to me wasn't my fault either."

She doesn't hear him and she probably wouldn't understand but it feels good to say it anyway. It's something that he needed to say and he might actually belive it too right biw, which is new and it means he's taken another step closer to where he wants to be.

"Eddie!!"

Abigail flinches at the new voice and the panic in it. It's Buck - he must have gotten his 911 text and has just arrived to help.

Abigail steps away from him.

"He doesn't know?"

A moment of fear seizes him as he shakes his head.

She nods, sad but no longer desperate and he relaxes.

Buck is charging through his house, shouting so he calls out some reassurance.

"Maybe you should think about telling him."

He thinks about it everyday actually. Everyday and who knows maybe one day he just might do it.

Buck appears red and wide eyed in the kitchen door- obviously alarmed.

Eddie smiles and tells him everything is fine. He's not sure Buck believes him but he trusts him enough to take his lead.