#911fics

“Mind telling me what’s going on with you and Eddie?”

Bobby’s the first one that clocks it because of course he is, watching over his fire station and his family resting at home with the same brand of concern — Buck’s never known a captain so capable of it. Which is probably why the white lie makes him feel like a criminal.

“Nothing,” he says, a little too convincingly. People never suspect Buck of keeping a secret, not when he blinks up at them and smiles like that. It’s probably how he got away with it for so long. Until…

Well, until Eddie sat him down on that damn hospital bed and told Buck he wasn’t expendable. Fucking hypocrite. As if Eddie’s any more expendable than Buck is. As if Buck isn’t more expendable than everyone else in this-

Something about the end of that sentence feels like a betrayal. He shuts it down fast.

“He’s just tired,” Buck offers, totally unaware that anyone’s in the loft except for him and Bobby. “It’s been a long week.”

Bobby looks like he’s about to say something, but falters as he looks at something by the stairwell. Buck has just enough time to think, oh shit, before Eddie’s gripping his shoulder. “We’re good, Cap.” And god, Buck wants to roll his eyes. “Right, Buck?

Like a child, he crosses his arms and resolutely stares at the floor. The alarm rings and the moment breaks, though Buck isn’t sure which one of them backs down first. 

 He has half a mind to break the tired silence in the ladder truck by telling them about the will, in a vindictive sort of way. Hen’s on her phone and Chim and Bobby are talking to each other through the headset and Buck sort of wants to light something on fire just to watch it burn.

He nudges Eddie’s knee instead, shoots him a look. Buck isn’t quite sure what he sees, but it makes him tap twice on the pulse point on Buck’s wrist. “ We’re good,” Eddie insists, headset resting on his neck.

And maybe that’s what Eddie thinks Buck needs to hear, but Buck’s so far beyond caring about whether or not Eddie’s mad at him that it’s honestly ridiculous. He leaves his hand brushing against Eddie’s, stomach stuttering between longing and frustration, and keeps his voice low “Fuck you. Tell me why you were in the hospital.”

Eddie huffs and nods at Hen when she sends a questioning glance their way. “You know why.”

Buck could hit him. Seriously, he means it. He’d deduced that it was a panic attack an hour after the cardiologist said, “Mr. Diaz? I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon.” as if she wanted to put Buck in the hospital too. He saw the way Eddie froze at that call at the air traffic control center, even if no one else noticed, and he knows Eddie’s working twice as hard to compensate. 

None of that answers his question.

“Eddie-” he tries again, but then they stop and Eddie’s leaping out of the truck like it’s physically painful to sit next to Buck any longer.

He squeezes his eyes shut and sees Eddie lying on the asphalt in a pool of his own blood and feels sick. There’s a fire blazing in front of them and all Buck can think about is how much he hates the color red. Eddie’s leaping out of the truck like it’s physically painful to be next to Buck any longer — but god, maybe it is.

“Alright,” Bobby calls. “Everyone’s been accounted for except two cats. Fire’s not too bad yet. Buck, Eddie, you two have five minutes before I pull you out. With or without the animals.”

There’s a flash of a moment where Buck wants to ask Bobby if he can go with Ravi instead, for Eddie’s sake — so that he doesn’t have a panic attack in the middle of a structure fire. But Eddie’s not an idiot, and everyone knows Bobby always puts them together for the dangerous shit because Eddie’s the only one Buck has ever listened to.

“We got a location on them?” Eddie asks.

“T-they like to hide in the master bedroom upstairs,” a woman around Buck’s age stutters out. She’s got one of her arms wrapped protectively over who must be her daughter. “Under the bed. One’s black and the other’s a calico.”

Calico cats are almost always female, Chris’s voice says earnestly in his head. And what the fuck? It’s like Eddie put Buck on a pedestal for Christopher and is content to stand by while he rusts. He can’t stand it. He can barely breathe around it. Nothing about this makes any sense. He decides he’s moving up his next session with Dr. Copeland.

Eddie drums his fingers on Buck’s upper back, just to the left of his spine, and Buck holds his breath waiting for … something. Something. “Where’s your head at?”

“With you,” he answers.

They wade into the fire together.

 “It was a stupid mistake.”

“Damn straight.”

“I wasn’t paying attention.”

“It was a fire, Buck.” When he’s satisfied with his too methodical wrappings and abundant application of burn cream, Eddie sits on the bench beside him. “You promised you wouldn’t pull this shit anymore.”

Buck glares. Eddie’s wading into dangerous territory and he knows it. “It was an accident.”

“Right,” the other man replies drily, worry lines still stark on his forehead. “Because Bobby didn’t tell us to pull out a good two minutes before that.”

They lapse into a tense silence. It’s late. Most people would be in the bunk room by now: a good shower and a good night’s rest is self-preservation for an overnight shift. Buck’s had a shower, but he thinks the idea of sleep has already slipped away for tonight. 

They sit with about a foot of gap between them but it’s still too close for Buck to get a grip on his sanity. He stands, pacing the locker room. Eddie doesn’t take his eyes off him the whole time.

“Look,” Eddie starts quietly. “Maybe we’re not okay-”

What. The. Fuck.

“Eddie, no,” Buck thinks he should be angry, but he can’t bring himself to the brink when Eddie looks this small in front of him. Not when his hands shake like that. Not when he looks so sad.

Eddie closes his eyes, opens them with his jaw clenched and breathing through his nose. His words come out choked; barely intelligible. “Are we not good?”

“We’re…” They’re honest with each other. That’s their whole thing. “Eds, you’re not okay. Fuck,” his voice trembles and he punches it down. This isn’t about you. “You got shot, Eddie. In broad daylight. You’re not okay.”

“That’s not why it happened,” Eddie mutters as if compelled, like he doesn’t really know what he’s confessing. “I… suit shopping with Ana. The salesman called her,” he’s already speaking slowly, but now it’s punctuated by heavy breaths and Buck has half a mind to grab a disconnected oxygen mask. 

“He called her Christopher’s mom,” he continues with momentous effort. “And I...fuck I lost it. Thought I was having a heart attack.”

“And ended up in the hospital,” Buck finishes, trying to process, well, all of that. “So that was the first one you had?”

Eddie’s voice is microscopic. It doesn’t suit him at all. But that line of thinking is probably what got them here. “The first one in public.” He inhales sharply. “ Chris was there.”

Buck’s heart sinks. The amount of trauma that kid’s had to go through is a dagger straight to his heart. “Hey, that’s not your fault,” he insists. “Chris will be okay. It’s you I’m worried about right now.”

Eddie gives him a half-smile. “You’re always worried about me.”

Buck holds his gaze. “You deserve to be worried about.”

And Eddie crumbles.

He’s not crying, but Buck can hear the low whine in the back of his throat anyway. It’s an intrinsic reaction, to touch Eddie; to hold him; to be there for him when he’s gripping Buck’s arms like a dying man, attempting to parse together sentences about how he doesn’t panic and what his father taught him.

God knows how long they stay like that — Buck murmuring reassurances that don’t mean as much as he’d like them to, trying to coax Eddie into breathing oxygen into his system. Saying shit like, “It’ll be okay,” as if that’s supposed to help when the world is falling apart at your feet.

“I need help,” he makes out finally, somewhere in the ramblings. It reads like an admission of guilt, but Buck refuses to take it as one.

“I’ll get you help,” he replies, staring at him, knees pressed together and Eddie’s hand still gripping his; because that’s the one thing he can promise, like he wouldn’t promise Eddie the world if he could. “We got each other’s back, Eds. That’s the deal.”