9-1-1 FIC: Live and (Don't) Let Die

[xylodemon]

Title: Live and (Don't) Let Die
Pairing: Buck/Eddie
Rating: NC17
Words: ~28,000
Summary: "My best friend is going to die. I want that to… not happen."
Notes: What happens when you're down so bad that you have your "best friend" brought back from the dead


[AO3]


Live and (Don't) Let Die

"Buck, Eddie. What's your status?"

"Rear bedrooms are clear, Cap," Eddie reports. "We're coming to you."

"Copy that."

As they head back down the hallway, Buck feels the floor buckle. He signals to Eddie and gestures to the weak spot. Eddie nods and steps around it. He—

A window explodes. The blast sprays shattered glass everywhere and nearly knocks Eddie on his ass. Scorching heat rushes over Buck's head—a flameover engulfing the ceiling. Smoke starts billowing up from somewhere, black and thick. The house groans so loudly that Buck hears it through his helmet and BA.

Buck grabs Eddie's arm and moves for the closest door. Visibility is so low that they have to grope along the wall to find it. Another window explodes; the house groans again, slip-sliding as the foundation buckles even more. They make it outside just before the entire Delta side collapses. The wall mostly falls inward, but the heavy slant of the back porch's roof comes down at an angle. Before Buck can even think about shoving Eddie aside, he's buried under a mountain of plaster and charred wood and Spanish Revival roof tiles.

"Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!" Buck's knees give out; he practically has to crawl across the grass to reach Eddie's side. "No, no. Eddie! Eddie!"

"Cap!" Chimney shouts. "Eddie's down!"

Buck digs until he finds something—Eddie’s hand. He grabs it and squeezes, hard. He lets out a thin, pathetic noise when Eddie squeezes back.

"He's alive! He's alive!"

The others start shifting the rubble—Chimney first, then Hen and Bobby, then Ravi and Ramos, then a couple guys from the 133. Buck knows he should be helping them, but terror has him frozen solid. He can't make himself move. He can't imagine letting go of Eddie's hand. He squeezes it again and holds his breath until Eddie squeezes back.

As soon as Eddie's head is free, he mumbles, "Buck?" in dull, slurred voice.

Distantly, Buck hears Hen asking Chimney to run a line. He tells Eddie, "Yeah, I'm here." He brings his other hand up and touches his thumb to Eddie's cheek. "I'm here."

"Buck." Eddie winces as Hen shines her penlight in his eyes. "Buck."

"I'm right here."

"I'm—something's wrong."

Buck doesn't look at Chimney or Hen. He doesn't need them to tell him how bad it is. He can see the chunk of wood spearing Eddie’s abdomen, the massive blood stain spreading across his uniform, the grayish cast to his skin, the way his eyes aren’t really tracking anything. He can feel the warmth leaving Eddie’s hand.

He clears his throat and says, "You're going to be fine."

"Buck." Eddie tries to turn his head, but Chimney grabs his chin and snips, Don't move, Diaz. Eddie's face spasms with pain. "Buck. You… Christopher."

"Eddie, no. No. You're going to be fine."

Behind him, Bobby is radioing Cedars and telling them to have a hemorrhage protocol and thoracic surgeon on standby. Eddie makes a soft, distressed noise and digs his fingernails into the back of Buck’s hand.

He says, "Christopher," again. "You. Promise me."

"Eddie—"

"Evan. Promise me."

Everything Buck’s kept buried for the last few years comes rushing to the surface. Hiding it doesn’t really matter anymore. He chokes out, "Yes," and gives into the impulse to touch. He rests their foreheads together, holds Eddie's cheek. "I’ll take care of him. I promise."

"We have to go," Hen says. Buck hears her, but he doesn't let go of Eddie's hand until she tugs at his wrist. "Do you want to ride with him?"

Buck hesitates, glancing at Bobby. He should stay here. The fire's a four-alarm and still going strong; they need every hand on deck.

But Bobby says, "Go," and it feels like an order.





+++





At Cedars, a surgical team is waiting at the entrance. They work as they wheel Eddie inside—checking his vitals, swapping his IV bag, removing his boots, packing more gauze around the wound. A nurse asks if the transfusion is set up. Another shouts for heavy-duty shears so she can cut through Eddie's turnouts. Buck trails after them on autopilot, his chest tight and his legs shaky.

One of the doctors thumbs at Eddie's eyelids. He asks Buck, "How long has he been unconscious?"

"Four minutes. I tried—I couldn't wake him up."

The doctor nods and directs the team to take Eddie back to the OR. Buck starts to follow them, still on autopilot, but a nurse from reception intercepts him before he reaches the doors.

"Young man," she says, her voice kind but firm. "You can't go in there."

"I don't want to leave him."

"Of course you don't." She's wearing pineapple-print scrubs and has her steel-gray hair swept into a bun. She smiles as she continues, "But the doctors need room to work. Just like you need room to work when you're fighting fires, right?"

Buck's still in his turnouts, helmet and all. He has soot on his hands, probably has it on his face.

She urges, "This way," and starts steering him toward the bright-white floor and mud-orange chairs of the waiting room. "Right over here."

"He," Buck starts. I love him. "He's my best friend."

"And they're going to do everything they can for him."

She leaves him standing beside a potted fern and a corkboard papered with community notices and instructions for the hospital's sharps disposal program. Near the bank of tinted windows, a man is reading a magazine. A few chairs down, two women who look alike enough to be sisters are slumped against each other—one dozing, the other staring off to the side. Above them, a pair of TVs are slightly out of sync as they show the afternoon news.

Air. Buck needs air. He walks back outside and sucks in a deep breath. It doesn't help, so he sucks in another. And another. And another.

His stomach lurches. He hunches over and pukes into the planter beside the door.





+++





Bobby arrives about two hours into Buck chewing his fingernails to the quick. He's wearing a clean uniform, and his hair is shower-damp. He has Buck's go-bag slung over his shoulder.

He says, "I drove the Jeep over," and hands Buck the keys. "It's on the second floor, near the elevators."

"Thanks."

Bobby studies him for a moment, then gestures for him to stand. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up."

"I'm fine."

"You're probably scaring the nurses."

Buck shrugs.

"You don't want Eddie to see you covered in soot and blood, do you?"

That reminds Buck of Eddie getting shot—of Eddie asking if he was hurt as they raced to the hospital—and that's enough to get him on his feet. He lets Bobby herd him into one of the gender-neutral bathrooms across from the seating area. It stinks of pine-scented air freshener, and the fluorescent hum from the overhead light sets Buck's teeth on edge. He blinks at his dirty face in the mirror. He only remembers to turn the water on because Bobby points at the sink.

He's wetting a wad of paper towels when Bobby asks, "Have you called Chris?"

"No," Buck admits, shaking his head. Christopher is still in El Paso, so calling him would mean dealing with Eddie's parents, and he's not sure he can handle that yet. "I figured I'd wait until I know something."

Bobby hums agreeably and opens the baby-changing table. He sets the go-bag on it and leans one shoulder against the wall. He watches Buck in a way that feels anticipatory—like he wants something, or maybe is expecting something. But Buck's too exhausted and bled-out to play guessing games, so he just shrugs out of his turnout coat and washes his arms and face. When that's done, he peels off his sweat-soaked uniform shirt and does the best he can with his chest and neck.

He's scrubbing a fresh wad of wet paper towels through his filthy hair when Bobby finally breaks and asks, "How long have you and Eddie been together?"

"We're not."

"Are you sure about that? Because back there it really looked like you are."

"We're not."

Bobby must hear Buck's regret, because his voice is softer when he suggests, "Maybe that's something you two need to talk about when he wakes up."

"What if," Buck starts, but he can't say it. He can't. "What if…"

"You know how I feel about borrowing trouble. But if that's the case, then you'll find a way to keep going. I know he gave you a very important job to do."

"Maybe he shouldn't have," Buck mutters. He lost Christopher during the tsunami. He couldn’t stop him from going to El Paso. He couldn't even keep Eddie safe on the job. "Maybe it's too important."

After a pause, Bobby asks, "You trust Eddie, right?"

"With my life."

"Then trust that he made the right decision about this."

Buck closes his eyes. "What if I can't do it?"

"You already are doing it," Bobby counters. "You're that kid's father in every way that matters and have been for years." Buck opens his mouth to argue, but Bobby just talks over him. "You and Eddie might not have acknowledged it, but that doesn't make it any less true."

And that—that—that rips a thick, ugly noise from Buck's throat. Because he loves Christopher. Loves him more than he can even put into words. And he wants to be Christopher's father. He does. But he doesn't want Eddie to die for it to happen.

He ends up hunched over the sink, sobbing, gulping air like he's drowning because his lungs have folded up inside his chest. Once it starts, he can't stop it, and it only gets worse when Bobby wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into a hug.

Distantly, he hears Bobby murmuring reassurances—You're okay, kid. You're okay.

But he isn't. He fucking isn't.





+++





The waiting room fills up over the next few hours—first Chimney, then Pepa and Abuela, then Hen and Athena and May. Maddie arrives about seven-thirty with Jee-Yun and a tray of sandwiches from Buck's favorite deli, which boils into an argument about Buck needing to eat. Ravi comes in close to nine, having finished the shift everyone else abandoned. Tommy shows up sometime after that. Buck didn't call him; either Chimney did or he heard about Eddie getting hurt through the LAFD grapevine.

Buck should be grateful for the support; he knows he should. And he's glad that Eddie has so many people who love him. But the longer it goes on—the noise, the questions, the pats on the shoulder, the offers of coffee and food, the suggestions that he should go home and get some sleep—the more it rubs his nerves raw. He ends up pacing in front of the door, setting off the automatic sensor so often that one of the nurses eventually redirects him to an empty stretch of floor in front of the restrooms.

Finally—finally—the doctor comes out. He consults his file before asking, "Evan Buckley? Evan Buckley for Edmundo Diaz?"

In the corner of his eye, Buck sees Tommy's head whip around, but Buck ignores it and tells the doctor, "I'm Evan Buckley. How is he?"

"He made it through surgery, but he suffered a massive trauma. We're still considering him critical."

Massive trauma. Critical.

Nausea rises in Buck's throat, but he doesn't puke. His stomach doesn't have anything left.





+++





It's after midnight by the time Eddie's wheeled out of recovery and into the main ICU. Visiting hours ended at seven, but Buck uses his stubbornness and his status as Eddie's medical proxy to bully his way into Eddie's room. In the end, it comes down to a standoff between Buck, the overnight charge nurse, and a security guard who isn't too interested in backing hospital policy against a firefighter nearly a foot taller than him. He's escorted back by an orderly who's put out enough not to offer him a cot, but he doesn't care. He doesn't think he'd be able to sleep anyway.

He pauses in the doorway, listening to the soft hiss of the ventilator, the constant beep of the heart monitor, the slow pulses from the pneumatic anti-clot compressors on Eddie's legs. He's been a first responder long enough that hospital noise tends to blend into the background. But it's different now. Those machines are the only things keeping Eddie alive, so they're the only thing Buck can hear.

Eventually, he makes himself walk inside. Looking at Eddie feels like a knife between the ribs. He's less gray than he'd been in the ambulance, but he's still far too pale. He has faint soot smudges on his throat and behind his ear. His hospital gown is folded down from the shoulder at one side, exposing both his bullet scar and the bulky bandage around his abdomen.

Buck moves the chair closer to the bed and takes Eddie's hand. It's clammy, blood-loss cold, but Buck can't imagine letting go.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles. He looks at the bandage, then the bullet scar. "I thought we were clear. I thought… I should've—" His throat is closing up. "I should've had your back."





+++





Eddie codes around three. Buck's dozing when the alarms go off; he jerks awake from a nightmare about Eddie dying and Christopher blaming him for it, hating him for it—You were supposed to keep him safe! He shakes all over as he scrambles to the door to shout for help, feels like he’s landed in someone else’s skin.

The crash team rushes in, along with a tall, red-haired nurse who evidently drew the short straw and got saddled with the job of dealing with Buck. She coaxes him into the hallway like she's placating a wild animal, and Buck's just exhausted enough to go along with it. Once there, he watches through the window as they give Eddie compressions and jolt him with the LIFE-Pak, his hands twitching with an uncomfortable combination of muscle memory and panic.

It takes them two minutes to get Eddie's heart started again; Buck can't stop himself from counting.

"He's bleeding internally," the red-haired nurse explains, as Eddie's wheeled away. She has a strawberry birthmark like Buck's, high on her cheekbone instead of over her eyebrow. "They're taking him back into surgery."

Once she's gone, Buck grabs his phone from where it's been charging on Eddie's meal tray. He slumps back into the chair and scrolls until he finds Chimney's number.

He expects the call to go to voicemail, but Chimney picks up after two rings and says, "Hey, Buck. What's going on?" a little too brightly for three-thirty in the morning.

Buck mumbles, "Sorry," and rubs his eyes. A dull headache is beginning to throb behind them. "Were you sleeping?"

"No, I'm at the station," Chimney replies, which explains the buzz of noise in the background. "I came in early to cover a few hours for Voyta and Molloy, since they covered for us yesterday. How's Eddie?"

"His heart stopped."

"Shit. Shit. Is he—"

"No," Buck says, ragged. "No, they got him back. But he's in surgery again. Internal bleeding."

"Do you want me to come down there? Or I can call Maddie. She's—"

"No. It's fine. I just… I wanted to let you guys know."

"Buck, come on."

"It's fine. They won't let you in until eight anyway."

"I will hang out in a parking lot a four AM if you need it."

"I can't—" Buck bites back a noise. "I don't want to leave him."

Chimney pauses. Over the phone, Buck hears voices and a distant, muffled beeping—an engine backing into the bay. If he and Eddie were working right now, they'd be side by side on the loft couch, infomercials droning in the background as Eddie nurses a lukewarm cup of coffee and Buck rambles about his most recent Wikipedia rabbit hole. Or they'd be in the bunk room, sleeping on the pair of cots along the west wall that they long ago claimed as "theirs."

They've never shared, exactly, but they came close a few times in that first month after Eddie transferred back from dispatch. He'd still been raw from losing his Army buddies and turning himself inside-out for Frank twice a week, and he'd had trouble falling asleep. On those nights, Buck had moved his cot beside Eddie's, close enough that Eddie could grab his arm or his wrist if he needed it. Buck wishes now that he's just crawled in next to Eddie, fit himself between Eddie's back and the wall and wrapped his arm around Eddie's waist.

Eventually, Chimney says, "Buck," in a low tone, like he's trying not to broadcast their conversation to the whole firehouse. "You know this wasn't your fault, right?"

Another noise catches in Buck's throat. He closes his eyes and mutters, "I should've pulled him clear."

"You never would've had time," Chimney insists. "None of us knew the house was that unstable. We really didn't know the roof was going to pull a kamikaze trick."

"Sure."

Chimney says, "Listen, Buck," but Buck hangs up.

He drops his phone on the meal tray and waits for Eddie to come back to him.





+++





Buck hears footsteps outside the door and says, "I already told you, Bobby, I'm not hungry," without looking over.

"I'm not Bobby."

That does make Buck look over. It's Tommy, one shoulder leaned against the door frame. He has his arms folded and an expression on his face that Buck's too tired to try and read. They study each other for a moment—or, Buck studies Tommy. Tommy is staring at the death-grip Buck has on Eddie's hand.

The silence is awkward, thick. Tommy speaking only makes things worse; he says, "You're in love with him," like it’s being dragged out of him, and it isn't a question.

Buck doesn’t bother trying to deny it.

"You know, I suspected it sometimes," Tommy continues, voice clipped. "It was hard not to, with the way you talk about him, all the time you spend with him. You never told me you're his medical proxy."

"I," Buck starts, but he knows there's really no way to soften this. "It never came up."

"I mentioned it to Chimney, and he told me Eddie's yours. He also said you're the legal guardian of his kid."

"I am, yeah."

Tommy laughs—ugly, hard. "And you think you two are just friends."

Buck isn't sure what he thinks anymore.

"I really should've known. I mean, you nearly broke his ankle just to keep him from talking to me. But I kept telling myself you weren't the type of guy that uses people."

Buck's been telling himself that too. But the truth is, he's been doing it for years—dating to take the edge off because having Eddie in almost every way drives him crazy, never committing past good-natured affection because Eddie takes up all the space in his brain. He'd come close, with Taylor; he really had loved her in some way. But she hadn't been Eddie, so it hadn't been enough. It hadn't been worth trying to fix things after that bullshit with Jonah.

"I never meant to hurt you," Buck says quietly.

"I'm sure you didn't."

Buck adds, "I really did like you," like that will take some of the sting out of it, although he's not so sure anymore. Maybe he'd just wanted to. Maybe he'd hoped dating a man would scratch the Eddie-itch Taylor and Natalia hadn't been able to touch.

"Right."

Buck doesn't watch him go.





+++





Eddie codes again in the early afternoon. Buck's awake this time, more aware of his surroundings, so it feels like forever before the crash team hustles in. A different nurse is tasked with wrangling him—a guy with a buzzcut and plain maroon scrubs who is way less gentle about it. It takes them four minutes to get Eddie back. Buck spends all of it chewing his lip until he tastes blood.

This time, he isn't taken to surgery.

Dr. Choudhary tells Buck, "It's too risky," about an hour later. He has a surgical mask hanging from one ear and a stack of files tucked under his arm. "If we open him up again now, there's a high chance he won't survive."

"He won't survive bleeding internally either," Buck points out.

"We're going to give him another transfusion. Hopefully, that will buy enough time for his vitals to improve."

"But you're not counting on it."

"I don't like to make promises, Mr. Buckley. Nor do I like to make dire predictions."

"But…?"

Dr. Choudhary sighs. "But, if I were you, I would consider making the necessary arrangements. If his heart stops again, I'm not certain we can save him."





+++





Buck's hands shake as he starts the Jeep and backs out of the parking space Bobby had wedged it into. He so upset and sleep-deprived that he probably shouldn't be driving, but if he tried to order an Uber right now, there's a good chance he'd end up in another state. Every muscle in his body aches, and his head hurts so badly that he's practically blind with it. As it is, he barely gets his PIN right at the hospital's self-pay parking kiosk.

He leaves the hospital with a list. He needs to call Christopher. He needs to man up and talk to Eddie's parents. He's sure Helena and Ramon know by now—Pepa would've called them last night—but that doesn't let him off the hook. He's supposed to be Christopher's best friend. But he's been too afraid that Christopher will blame him, or that he'll break down in front of him again like he did when Eddie got shot.

He also needs to contact a funeral home. The department has one it recommends, a family-owned place that's familiar with the protocols for first responder services. They'd done a beautiful and respectful job for Red. Bobby probably has their number in his desk.

He does none of these things. After driving aimlessly for about an hour, he finds himself outside the West Hollywood crystal shop where they'd rescued Felisa Valdez for the third time in a truly bizarre day. Some completely insane impulse has him climbing out of the Jeep and walking up to the door. He doesn't know what he's looking for. He doesn't even know if he believes in this shit. But Eddie is dying. He'll never forgive himself if he doesn't try.

The shop greets him with tinkling music and the nose-tickling smell of incense and herbs. He moves past a display case full of impressive geodes and a table piled with tie-dyed tapestries on his way to the counter. A different woman is behind it—shorter, older, her long hair so black it has to be dyed. She's sorting stones and crystals into little baskets when she spots him approaching.

"Can I help you?" she asks.

Quickly, Buck pastes on a patented Buck 1.0 smile. He leans his elbows on the counter and says, "I really hope you can."





+++





The woman at the shop—Courtney—doesn’t dabble in dark magic, whatever that means. She also insists that what he wants isn't possible. But when he presses her, she sighs and grabs an old receipt and jots down the number for a guy named Liam.

Liam refers him to another guy, who refers him to another guy, who refers him to a woman that rants at him for fifteen minutes about meddling with forces you don't understand. When she's finished, she reluctantly refers him to another guy, who gives him the number for a colleague named Marcus and tells him to text, not call.

Buck texts. A few minutes later, Marcus replies with an address for shabby block of studio apartments near Pershing Square. Buck walks up to the second floor on a staircase that's definitely not up to code. He knocks on 208 and waits. And waits. Eventually, the door creaks open—apparently by itself, since no one is standing on the other side. Inside, the apartment has the same incense-and-herbs smell from the crystal shop, only mustier, stale. A clock is ticking somewhere to Buck's left.

He finds Marcus waiting in an armchair beside the only light in the apartment, an ancient-looking standing lamp giving off a sickly-yellow glow. He's in his sixties, with shaggy gray hair and rings on every finger and a symbol of some sort tattooed under his left eye. He frowns at Buck for a long moment, then beckons him closer with a nod of his head.

He gets straight to the point, asking, "What do you need?" in a dull, bored voice.

"My best friend is going to die. I want that to… not happen."

"No small feat, bringing back the dead. And it comes at a cost."

"I can pay you."

Marcus waves that off. "I don't mean money, although it's true that my services are not free. I'm talking about consequences. Your friend might be… different when he returns."

"Different how?" Buck asks. "Like… zombie different? Serial killer different? Murder-clown-in-the-sewers different?"

"Nothing like that," Marcus replies. He smiles like Buck amuses him. "Just different. Death tends to… strip away certain niceties and barriers. He'd be himself, but more. Slightly off-center, if you will. Is that a risk you're willing to take?"

It's Eddie. Buck says, "Yes," without a second thought.





+++





When Buck gets back to the hospital, Eddie's door is closed and the red-haired nurse—Martina—is waiting outside.

Gently, she tells him, "We called it six minutes ago. I'm so sorry."

Buck nods, caught between a pressing sense of grief and the impossible hope that whatever Marcus cooked up will actually work. Right now, grief is winning out over the possibility that fucking magic is real, and it's so crushing and bone-deep that he can't speak.

Martina takes pity on him; she opens the door and asks, "Why don't you spend a few minutes with him before we bring him downstairs?"

"Okay," Buck says, clearing his throat. "I should—yeah."

The privacy curtain has been drawn around Eddie's bed. Buck has to take several deep breaths before he can make himself duck through the split. The ventilator isn't hissing, and the heart monitor isn't beeping. The pneumatic compressors are still on his legs, but they've been disconnected from the pump. After nearly three days of awful but familiar noise, the silence feels like a cinderblock to the gut.

He takes another deep breath and moves closer to the bed. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the syringe Marcus gave him. The stuff inside is a disgusting purple-brown and about half of it is his own blood. He pinches the back of Eddie's arm like he's giving a vaccine, then jabs the needle in and pushes on the plunger. The stuff goes in smoother than he expects, considering how thick it is.

Heart in his throat, he trashes the syringe in the sharps container on the wall. Marcus had said it could take anywhere from one to ten minutes, so he drags the chair back over to the bed and sits.

He whispers, "I love you," and grabs Eddie's hand. "I hate that I never told you. I really hate that I'm telling you now. But I do. I love you. I love you so much.

"This is totally insane. I know it's insane. But I… uh. I just bought myself ten more minutes of you maybe not being dead, so I'm going to pretend like it isn't. I'm good at that. Pretending. Been doing it my whole life. You're pretty much the only person I haven't had to pretend with. Not—" A wet laugh catches in Buck's throat. "Not after that first shift, anyway.

"You have to come back to me. You have to come back to Christopher. I'll raise him by myself if I have to, but I don't want to. I want to do it with you. I want everything with you. I want—fuck."

Pain sears on the inside of Buck's left wrist, right at the shallow cut Marcus made to draw his blood. He watches, wide-eyed, as the thin scab melts away and a dime-sized mark takes its place. It's an infinity symbol, white and raised like a burn scar. From what Marcus told him, that means the magic has settled. Eddie should have a matching one right where the needle went in.

Before Buck can check, Eddie's whole body jerks and he gasps like he's been trapped underwater. The color starts rushing back to his face. He lies there for a few seconds, panting, then sits up a little and looks around. When he sees Buck, he relaxes back on the bed. A rough, hacking, rattling noise catches in his throat. It's probably raw from the intubation.

It's the best thing Buck's ever heard.

He says, "You're alive," and wipes his wet eyes with his sleeve. "Fuck. You're really alive."





+++





"I guess it was miracle," Buck quips.

Dr. Choudhary doesn't laugh.

The hospital has run every test they can think of in an attempt to figure out what happened—how Eddie's wounds are healing faster than expected, how his heart shows no signs of damage after multiple cardiac events, how his brain shows no damage after nearly ten minutes without oxygen. How he's even alive after a crash team very conclusively declared him dead.

But it's been five days, and they haven't found anything. They're finally willing to admit defeat.

Privately, Buck also thinks they just want Eddie out of their hair. It's a known fact that first responders make bad patients, but Eddie has been particularly terrible—demanding real food, kicking off the compressor cuffs, complaining about his IV placement, insisting they let him walk around by himself and pee standing up. He's also pitched a few fits that Buck has diplomatically not called tantrums to his face because the staff wouldn't let Buck accompany him to his tests.

They did let Buck tag along for his last MRI, but only after he explained that Eddie was buried alive once and has claustrophobia-related PTSD and would be more likely to lie still in a small metal tube if he wasn't alone. The technician had been less than thrilled, even though Buck didn't do anything but sit quietly at the foot of the machine with his hand curled around Eddie's ankle.

"I'm prepared to release you," Dr. Choudhary says, his tone making it sound like a threat. "Provided you promise to be a better patient for Mr. Buckley than you've been for us."

Eddie glances at Buck and smiles. "I will."

Dr. Choudhary clicks his tongue like he's not convinced before continuing, "No physical activity for two weeks, which I’m trusting Mr. Buckley to monitor. Only mild-to-moderate physical activity for two more. After that, you may begin physical therapy to rebuild your core strength. You will not rush into using heavy weights."

"Fine."

"And do not think about returning to work for at least three months."

Eddie sits up a little. "Three?"

Dr. Choudhary clicks his tongue again. "I am willing to reevaluate in two months, based on your physical therapist's recommendations. And," He pauses to give Eddie a flat look. "I want you back here in three weeks and six weeks for a cardiac workup and a full set of brain scans. Mr. Buckley may attend the MRIs. Only the MRIs."

"Fine."

"Fine," Dr. Choudhary echoes. "I'll have the charge nurse start your discharge paperwork."

As soon as he's gone, Eddie snorts and teases, "A miracle? Really, Buck?"

Buck's tempted to blurt out the truth—tempted enough that he can almost feel the words sitting on the tip of his tongue. But he doubts Eddie would believe him anyway, even if he showed him the marks. More importantly, he's afraid that saying it out loud will ruin it somehow, that making something so unreal real will break the spell and he'll end up losing Eddie all over again.

He bites the inside of his cheek to shut himself up and walks over to the wall cabinet to grab his go-bag.

Eddie makes a soft, unhappy noise and says, "Hey, come here."

"I'm getting you some clothes."

"In a minute. Just… come here."

Buck moves over to the chair, which at this point has a permanent imprint of his ass, but Eddie makes another noise. He pats the bed with a smile tugging at his mouth. Buck hesitates—that’s closer than they usually get, even with their nearly complete lack of boundaries—but Eddie just pats the bed again. His eyes are very big and very brown, and that's enough for Buck to give in. It's not like sitting on the bed is a chore. He lowers the safety rail and wedges himself into the space beside Eddie’s hip.

Eddie reaches for him. His hand overs in the air for a second, then comes to rest on Buck's bent knee.

"Did you," he starts, frowning like he's not sure he wants the answer to whatever he's trying to ask. He curls his fingers slightly, nails scratching at Buck's jeans. "You were holding my hand."

It's not a question this time. Buck admits, "Yeah," through a hot-cold spike of anxiety. Because he shouldn't have. They're not like that. He let his grief push for something that wasn't his to take.

He's working up to an apology when Eddie turns his hand over, opening it like he—

Oh. Oh.

Buck takes it.

Eddie says, "I remember it," as their fingers slot together. "You talked to me too, yeah?"

"Yeah. Do you, uh—" Buck's heart is beating so loudly that Eddie can probably hear it. "Do you remember what I said?"

"No. Just your voice."

Buck tries not to look relieved. He wants Eddie so much. But if they're going to do this—and it's starting to feel like they are—he doesn't want the first time he tells Eddie he loves him to be a chickenshit confession he blurted out while he thought Eddie was dead.

Smiling, he says, "You really do need to get dressed."

Eddie's thumb brushes over his. "Yeah. In a minute."





'+++





Cedars is just around the corner from Eddie's place, but it's after five by the time Eddie gets discharged and wheeled out to the Jeep. Rush hour traffic drags a four-mile trip down Robertson into more than twenty stop-and-go minutes. Eddie holds Buck's hand past the Cadillac dealership and the gold-domed Coptic church and the random patches of juice bars and vegan restaurants and yoga studios that bridge Beverly Grove and Crestview. Halfway down, he switches off Buck's Apple Music and tunes the Jeep's radio to a Spanish station, one playing the kind of music he likes when he's feeling lonesome for Texas.

Or in this case, lonesome for Christopher.

Like he's reading Buck's mind, he says, "I'm going to FaceTime Chris when we get home," while they're waiting to turn onto South Bedford.

"Yeah," Buck replies, caught between guilt that didn't call Christopher right when Eddie got hurt and relief that he fixed things before he had to give his favorite kid the worst possible news. "Maybe don't tell him about how you died."

Eddie snorts. "I wasn't planning on it."

When they get home, Buck makes a beeline for the kitchen to see if there's anything salvageable in the fridge. There isn't—the smell alone nearly knocks him on his ass—and Eddie's on a restricted diet until the end of the week anyway. He texts himself a reminder to Instacart shit like yogurt and pudding and cottage cheese in the morning. The smell hits him again, and he adds baking soda to the list.

Giving up on the fridge, he moves over to the cabinets. He can probably swing a semi-decent pot of soup if Eddie has enough canned goods. There isn't much—mostly peas and corn, and for some fucking reason, lima beans. He finds a carton of chicken broth and sets it on the counter as a solid maybe. He's frowning at an out-of-date can of diced tomatoes when Eddie comes up behind him.

He rests his head on Buck's shoulder and tucks his hands under Buck's shirt. They settle at Buck's waist, big and warm, and Buck makes a noise he only half-manages to swallow. His heart kicks into overdrive; he's almost certain this means what he wants it to mean, but he's terrified of fucking it up by being the first one to talk about it.

Just as he starts leaning into it, Eddie ruins the moment by sticking his nose too close to Buck's armpit and complaining, "You really need a shower."

"Yeah," Buck says, laughing. Eddie took one right before leaving the hospital so he could get a fresh bandage on his way out, but Buck's been living off bathroom-sink birdbaths for over a week. "I'll go do that. You FaceTime Christopher before it gets any later over there."

"You want to talk to him?"

After a pause, Buck decides, "Next time. You've been hurt. He's going to want you all to himself."

Eddie tenses against his back. His nails dig into Buck's skin a little as he mutters, "I'm not so sure about that."

Buck twists around in Eddie's arms and pulls him into a hug. The last time Eddie and Christopher talked, Christopher had sounded like he might be willing to come home, but then he'd changed his mind when Helena suggested that it might be better if he finished the school semester in El Paso. The bitch of it is, she's probably right; transferring now would just put him behind. But if Eddie isn't going to admit it out loud, neither is Buck.

He says, "Hey," and skims a hand through Eddie's hair, smiling to himself when Eddie leans into it. "I'm hitting the shower. I really am rank."

As he's heading for the bathroom, Eddie calls out, "What are we doing about dinner?"

"No idea. You're still on soft foods for four more days."

Eddie mutters, "Fuck off, I'm not a toddler," but Buck just stares him down until he sighs. "Fine. What about Thai? I'll get coconut soup and put it in the food processor."

"Okay."

"And larb."

"No larb."

"Fuck off."





+++





Buck stays at Eddie's often enough that he has his own products in the shower. But Eddie wearing his clothes unearths a weirdly possessive impulse that has him using Eddie's instead. He soaps himself three times to counter whatever funk he's built up over the last week, but he hurries through the shampoo and conditioner. If he takes too long, Eddie might snap and order Tommy's or Everest and then bust his intestinal stitches on a chili-cheeseburger the size of his head.

In Eddie's room, the same possessive impulse has him bypassing the bottom drawer full of his own clothes. After digging through Eddie's stuff for a few minutes, he settles on a worn-soft Rangers raglan that's a little too tight across the shoulders and a pair of basketball shorts. He towel-dries his hair as he walks into the living room—treatment his curls don't deserve, but it's been a long week.

He finds Eddie standing in front of the TV as he scrolls through their Netflix queue, holding the remote about an inch from the screen because he swears it works better than way. Something warm unfurls in Buck's gut when he realizes Eddie's still wearing his clothes. They're clean, but they're probably a little stiff and stale from being in his go-bag for weeks. Eddie kept them on anyway.

Buck grabs his usual spot on the couch, right against the arm. A beat or two later, Eddie joins him. He drops the remote on the coffee table without choosing a show and sits down so close to Buck that they're pressed together shoulder to hip to thigh. Warmth blooms in Buck's gut again, and he wraps his arm around Eddie's shoulders. His hand has barely settled on Eddie's arm when Eddie reaches up and cups Buck's cheek.

He runs his thumb over Buck's lips, then tugs Buck in for a kiss. It's easy and soft, but there's the barest—barest—hint of teeth, an invitation to make it dirtier if Buck wants to take it. And he does, God he does. But he forces himself to pull back.

He asks, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Buck. Of course I'm sure."

He looks confused and hurt that Buck's even questioning it, so Buck continues, "I just… you died. And I want—I can't do this if it's, like, some FOMO freak-out or—"

Eddie pushes his thumb into Buck's mouth—presumably to shut him up, but the way his eyes darken when Buck sucks on it a little sure is something. He leaves it there for their next kiss, which should be awkward but is unexpectedly hot. Buck can't get enough of it—the slick heat, the pressure, the barely-there flashes of tongue.

When Eddie finally eases back, he asks, "Are you done?"

Buck nods.

"This isn't about me dying." Eddie slides his thumb free, but leaves it, spit-wet, at the swell of Buck's lower lip. "I've wanted this for a while. Since I got shot, at least."

"You never said."

Eddie mutters, "You were with Taylor," in a tone that's unaccountably bitter for someone who'd also been dating someone else at the time. "And I—I wasn't in the best place then, even before my breakdown. I didn't want to pull you into all that."

Buck sucks Eddie's thumb back into his mouth, leaves it tucked against his teeth as he insists, "I wouldn't have cared."

The Netflix screen fades from one promo to another. Eddie says, "I know," as it washes his face in soft reds and blues. "That's why I never told you. You deserved better than a guy who was so fucked up he scared the shit out of his kid and could barely get out of bed."

"Eddie." Buck shifts closer, letting Eddie's thumb slip out of his mouth and bringing his hands up to cradle Eddie's face. "I love you, good or bad. Movie marathons or zoo trips or you destroying everything you own with a baseball bat. Although, I hope you'll talk to me before something like that happens again."

"You," Eddie starts. He fists his hand in the front of Buck's shirt. "How long?"

Buck pauses before admitting, "The well, probably."

"Buck. That was years ago. You—" Eddie knuckles Buck's ribs, hard. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"I didn't know," Buck defends. "I mean, looking back, yeah, it's pretty obvious, but at the time, I just—" Sighing, he slides one hand down to the hollow of Eddie's throat. "When all that mud came down on you, I realized you meant more to me than any friend I've ever had. Like, a lot more. But it didn't really occur to me that it might be something else until you got shot."

"Buck—"

"But even then," Buck goes on, because now that the dam's broken, there's no plugging it back up. "Even then, I never really let myself think about it. There was so much at risk, and I—" He lets out another sigh. "It was a lot, so I just…"

"Started dating another guy?"

"Yeah. It was… easier, I think."

Eddie leans in and presses a kiss to Buck's jaw. "I love you too. As for Tommy," he adds, his tone going sour again, "I hope this means you two broke up."

"Oh. Yeah. He, uh… he dumped me."

"When?"

"In your hospital room."

Eddie pulls back a little, eyes narrowed. "That was a dick move."

"Sort of," Buck agrees. The Netflix screen changes again, casting everything in shades of green. "I mean, his timing sucked, but it probably wasn't easy for him, watching his boyfriend act like a grieving widow about someone else."

"Buck."

"You died," Buck mumbles, his voice suddenly thick. He's ruining the moment, he knows, but this dam isn't getting plugged up either. "You died, and I wasn't okay."

"Hey, I'm here." Eddie grabs Buck's hand and presses it to his chest, right where his heart is beating. And Buck feels it, but he can't just shake off the three times it stopped, or the two times he watched it happen. "I'm here, and I'm fine."

The truth wells up in Buck's throat again—that Eddie hadn't been fine, that he wouldn't be here now if Buck hadn't pulled something wholly unbelievable. But Eddie distracts him by laying him out on the couch and sliding on top of him. He tucks his hand under Buck's shirt and pushes his knee between Buck's legs, and then they're kissing again, slow and lush and deep. He gets his thumb on Buck's nipple and rubs, quick circles and a hint of nail that have Buck shivering. The noise Buck makes should be embarrassing—would be, if Eddie wasn't already half-hard against his thigh, if Eddie's other hand wasn't already hooked in the waist of his shorts.

"I hate that he had you first," Eddie mutters, rough. He dips his head and grazes his teeth over Buck's throat. "I hate that he got to hold you and touch you and kiss you and—"

"Hey," Buck cuts in, putting his hand over Eddie's mouth. It's a mistake; Eddie just tips his head back and sucks three of Buck's fingers in, tongue wet and curling, and Buck's dick throbs so hard almost forgets what he was trying to say. "He dumped me, remember? Because I'm in love with you."

Eddie spits Buck's fingers out and says, "Good. You're mine."

"Yeah."

"Say it."

Buck shivers again. "I'm yours."

Eddie makes a dark, pleased noise and rolls his hips. It drags their cocks together, long and slow, and it's so fucking good that Buck nearly knocks them off the couch because his whole body jolts into it. They're so stupid; they could've been doing this for years. Except, they really shouldn't be doing it now. This definitely counts as physical activity.

"Hey." Buck catches Eddie's wrist so he'll stop pulling at Buck's shorts. He wants to kick himself as he says, "We have to stop," but they have to stop. "You're supposed to be taking it easy."

Eddie murmurs, "Really?" and arches one eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure I can jerk you off without popping a stitch."

"Fuck," Buck hisses. The sudden flare of heat in his gut has him grabbing at Eddie's shoulder and hip. "You—"

"Oh, you like that?" Eddie teases, smug as shit. "Me telling you I want to jerk you off? That I want your dick in my hand so I can—"

Buck kisses him, which is pretty effective at shutting him up, but it doesn't help with how close Buck is to coming in his fucking shorts. Eddie rolls his hips again and sucks on Buck's tongue and gets his hand Buck's hair and tugs. He slides his other hand down the back of Buck's shorts—palming Buck's ass, slipping his fingers down just shy of Buck's hole. Buck's closer to the edge than he'd like to admit when Eddie sits up a little and tugs at his own sweats.

He says, "Wait," and shifts them around until Eddie's the one laid out on the couch. "Try not to move too much."

"Yeah?" Eddie asks, smiling up at him. "You want me to just lie here and take it?"

Jesus Christ.

Buck mouths at a spot below Eddie's ear. "I want you out of these pants."

Laughing, Eddie lifts his hips so Buck can pull his sweats off. He's not wearing underwear, which is hot beyond belief. His cock is perfect—big and flushed and wet at the tip. Buck wants to suck it so badly that his mouth fills with spit as he shoves at his own shorts.

As soon as his dick is out, Eddie's hand is on it. He trails his fingers up the length and says, "Fuck, you're so wet."

"Yeah, sorry."

Eddie arches his eyebrow again. "Why are you sorry?"

"It's a lot," Buck replies. "Some people don't like it."

"It's fucking hot," Eddie insists. Another bead of precome wells up and he smears it around with his thumb. "I want to see you come all over yourself. All over me."

"Eddie, fuck."

Eddie laughs again and guides Buck's hand down until it's wrapped around both of their cocks. He rocks his hips, probably more than he should, but it feels so good that Buck can't help meeting him, grinding down each time Eddie pushes up, everything slippery and hot. Eddie slides his hands down to Buck's ass and urges him to move harder, faster. It isn't long before Buck is panting into Eddie's hair and clawing at the back of the couch.

"Come on," Eddie coaxes, his mouth open and wet against Buck's throat. "It's mine. Let me have it."

A few more strokes and Buck is giving Eddie what he wants, coming all over his hand and both of their shirts and Eddie's dick—mostly Eddie's dick. He barely has to touch Eddie before Eddie's joining him. He's gorgeous doing it, his throat bobbing and his eyes fluttering shut, a warm flush in his cheeks.

Buck loves him so fucking much.





+++





Buck's drifting in that slow, hazy space before falling asleep when Eddie squeezes his hip and whispers, "I lied at the hospital."

That wakes him up. He asks, "About what?" but suspicion has him slipping his hand under Eddie's shirt and skimming his fingers along the edge of Eddie's bandage. Eddie's notoriously bad about admitting to injuries or truthfully communicating his pain levels; Buck wouldn't be surprised if he's more hurt than he's been letting on.

Eddie squeezes Buck's hip again, but he doesn't continue. As the pause drags on, it starts to feel weighted, like Eddie's struggling to find the right words. The bedroom is dark enough that Buck can't really see Eddie's face to read it. The only light is the faint glow from the nightlight in the hallway.

Eventually, Eddie says, "I told you I didn't remember what you said to me while I was out." He slides his hand to the dip of Buck's spine and holds it there, pressing like he wants Buck closer, even though Buck's already stretched out along his side. "But I did. I do. Maybe not all of it, but enough."

"Oh," Buck says quietly. He said a lot of things at the hospital, before Eddie died and after. For a split-second he worries this means the cat's out of the resurrection bag, but he dismisses the thought just as quickly. If Eddie had any idea, it would've been the first thing out of his mouth. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"I didn't want to talk about it at the fucking hospital."

"Yeah." Buck gets that—hospitals are the worst. "What, um… what do you remember?"

"You," Eddie starts. He toys his fingers in the hem of Buck's shirt. "You thought it was your fault."

Bringing Eddie back has allowed Buck to bury some of the guilt, but it wells in his chest now, up and up until it's burning sour and hot at the base of his throat. He makes a noise against Eddie's shoulder, and Eddie reaches his other hand up and touches him—his hair, his face, his arm.

He insists, "It wasn't. We didn't know the house was going to go down."

"I—"

"No. Bobby and Mehta told us to go in. And they wouldn't have—not if they had any idea the house was that unstable. You know that."

And Buck does know that, somewhere. He knows neither captain would've knowingly sent them into a deathtrap. But he doesn't feel it. He feels like he should've moved faster, like should've tried harder. He should've let Eddie go out the door first. He should've had Eddie's back.

He doesn't want to talk about it, so he asks, "What else?"

Eddie pauses again before saying, "Right before I woke up, you were talking about Chris. You said you wanted to raise him with me. That you wanted… everything with me. Is that—" He clears his throat. "Did you mean it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course. I want that."

"I want that too." Eddie tugs Buck even closer and kisses his temple. "I want you to move in."

"You—" Buck leans up on his elbow, squinting like that will help him see Eddie in the dark. It doesn't; all he can make out is his nose and his chin and part of his ear. He puts his hand back under Eddie's shirt so he can feel the rise and fall of his chest. "What?"

Eddie huffs out a noise and hauls Buck on top of him. He presses a kiss to Buck's jaw before saying, "I want you to move in," again. "I want you around. Here. Every day." He shifts so that his thighs are cradling Buck's hips and fists both of his hands in the back of Buck's shirt. "I want—"

"Eddie." Buck wants that too. He wants it badly. He'd meant it when he'd said everything. But: "We've only been together, like, four hours."

"So?" Eddie asks. He kisses Buck's jaw again, and this time it's more teeth than lips. "We wasted a lot of time. Do you really want to waste more?"

"No. I guess not."

"Then move in."

Buck says, "Okay," and Eddie smiles against his cheek.





+++





Buck wakes up to sunlight streaming through the window. It's muted a little by the curtains, but still bright enough that he feels heat on his face and sees a whitish flare behind his eyelids. He squints through the groggy moment of confusion—it's only been a few days, so he still wakes up expecting to be at the loft. According to the clock on Eddie's nightstand, it's just before eight, which is way earlier than he needs to be up. He closes his eyes again for a few minutes, but he can't fall back to sleep. There's too much light in the room. He'll have talk to Eddie about getting blackout curtains.

Eddie. Buck runs his fingers through Eddie's hair, then strokes his hand down Eddie's body until he finds sleep-warm skin where his shirt has ridden up. Eddie's sprawled across Buck's chest, a hand at Buck's waist and his legs tangled with Buck's. He's not snoring, exactly, but he's whistling softly on each exhale, probably because his nose is mashed into Buck's collarbone. He's beautiful like this, his mouth parted and his face slack. Since they have nowhere to be until mid-afternoon, Buck just lies there for a while, skimming light touches over Eddie's shoulder and side and back.

Eventually, his bladder starts nagging him. He gives himself five more minutes to appreciate Eddie being here and alive before moving. He slips out of bed without waking Eddie and pads over to the bathroom. It's colder than the bedroom; he hisses quietly when his bare feet first hit the tile floor. He pees and brushes his teeth and scrubs last night's sweat off his face. He needs shower, but he decides to wait until Edde's awake so they can take one together. Buck swore off shower sex in his third year as a firefighter; too many concussions and broken bones and—one time—a genuinely sprained dick. But his second morning at Eddie's, he discovered that there's something surprisingly intimate about just sharing a shower—standing close to each other, touching each other all over, washing each other's hair.

Eddie's finally off the restricted diet—not that he's really been sticking to it—so Buck spends about ten minutes poking around the kitchen in search of something to make for breakfast. Mostly, he realizes that they need to go to the grocery store. There's no milk for the cereal, and no cottage cheese for the tomatoes. The only fruit they have left is watermelon, which doesn't really go with oatmeal. He considers pancakes, but then he opens Eddie's sad bag of flour and finds that it has pantry moths in it. The blueberry Eggos disappoint him by being freezer-burned beyond recognition.

After digging through the freezer some more, he turns up a package of sausage links that aren't iced over and decides to fry those up with the last of the eggs. He's whisking the eggs in a bowl while the sausages brown when Eddie shuffles into the kitchen, bedheaded and yawning and scratching his side. He must have burrowed into the pillows after Buck got up; he has a faint crease on his cheek that wasn't there before. He trails his hand over Buck's hip and back on his way to the coffee maker. Buck's finally convinced him to start using the Hildy, but he's still suspicious of it. Even though it's pre-programed, he watches it work like he thinks it's going to launch its takeover of the universe from his kitchen counter.

Once the coffee's finished, Eddie walks both cups over to the stove. He holds onto Buck's until Buck's done moving the sausages to one side of the pan to make room for the eggs. They drink in silence for a moment, hip to hip, Buck facing the stove and Eddie with his back to it. It's surprised Buck a little, how quickly he and Eddie have fallen into a routine, because living with Taylor had been frustrating more often than not. They'd spent the first couple of months catching on each other's sore spots and rough edges, and Buck knows a lot of that was his fault, between his bonkers work schedule and the shit with Lucy, but even after they got back from Oklahoma and things turned more serious, they never really found a rhythm. Not like this.

As Buck is giving the eggs a scramble, Eddie says, "I can't wait to eat real food."

"What makes you think you are?" Buck teases.

Eddie bumps Buck's hip with his. "You wouldn't be cooking all that if I'm still on yogurt and mashed bananas."

Buck wouldn't. In fact, he's been eating soft foods in solidarity all week, except for the morning he sneaked one of Bobby's breakfast burritos while he was at the station, filling out the paperwork for his emergency leave.

Still, he quips, "Don't be so sure," as he transfers the sausages to a plate. "Maybe I'm just hungry."

"Hungry enough for eight eggs?"

"Six. They're extra-large. And I'm a growing boy."

Eddie snorts, then snatches a sausage off the plate. It's still hot enough that he hisses when he picks it up, and again when he bites into it. Buck muttering that's what you get only goads him into popping the rest of it in his mouth. As he's chewing, he tugs Buck closer and wraps him into a hug. He presses his face to Buck's neck, and he tucks his hands under Buck's shirt and slides them up his back.

After a moment, he reminds Buck, "We have to be at Pepa's at three."

"Okay." Buck shifts them so he can reach the stove and turn off the heat. "We really need groceries. You want to do that before Pepa's or after?"

"Before," Eddie decides. "I'm going to be exhausted after. She's… a lot when she's doing her worried tía thing. I already know she's going to make me eat three bowls of menudo."

Buck would bet good money on it being four. Eddie lost some weight in the hospital—not a lot, but enough that Pepa will definitely notice. "I'll make a list, for the store."

"Put those chocolate muffins on it." Eddie pauses for a long moment before continuing, "I want to tell Pepa and Abuela. About us."

Buck blinks a little as he asks, "Yeah?" because Eddie usually doesn't share that easily. He didn't tell his family about Ana until they'd been dating over a month, and he later admitted to Buck that he would've waited longer if Christopher hadn't mentioned her to Abuela in passing. "Are you sure?"

Eddie hides a kiss below Buck's ear. "Yeah, I'm sure. I know it's kind of soon, but—" He shrugs like he doesn't care, which Buck has learned means he absolutely fucking cares. "I'm in this."

"Me too," Buck says. He slides his hands into the back of Eddie's sweats and pulls him closer. "I love you."

Apprehension must come through in his tone or on his face, because Eddie arches an eyebrow and nudges, "But…?"

"There's no but."

Eddie huffs. The kiss he presses to Buck's jaw is nearly all teeth. "You want to try that again?"

"I," Buck starts. He hates bringing them up, but it's unavoidable now. "They'll tell your parents, won't they?"

Eddie tenses slightly before venturing, "Probably. If I say I want to tell them myself, they might keep it quiet for a week or two. But—" His shoulder hitches with another suspicious shrug. "They've got to find out sometime. I'm serious about this."

"Eddie," Buck breathes, eyes stinging. When Eddie came out to him, not long before the roof accident, he'd said he hadn't told his parents because he knew they wouldn't react well. And now he's going to tell them anyway, because of Buck. "You…"

"I love you," Eddie says firmly. "I want you. I'm not going to pretend I don't so Pepa can find more nieces to set me up with and my mom—" He lets out a strangled laugh. "The last time I talked to her, she mentioned a woman at church who would be perfect for me when I come to my senses and come back to Texas."

"I love you," Buck murmurs. "So much."

Eddie says, "I love you too," and reaches for a plate. "Come on. I'm ready for something that isn't baby food."





+++





Eddie's appointment is at nine-thirty at one of Cedars' numerous outpatient complexes—specifically, a hulking glass and concrete eyesore a few blocks south of the hospital. They make surprisingly good time up Robertson, despite missing the lights at both Olympic and Wilshire. Apple Music keeps bringing up depression songs, so he flips on the radio. He tunes it to Jack FM, which is doing a cheesy 70s rock set. He sings the wrong lyrics to shit like Canned Heat and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, tapping along to the beat with the hand he has on Eddie's thigh.

Everyone in Los Angeles must also have a doctor's appointment, because the complex's subterranean parking structure is full. Eddie has a temporary disabled placard that’s good for another two weeks, not that he's been using it. Buck mentions it just in case, but Eddie waves him off, insisting that he's not in any pain. They end up parking so far underground that Buck cracks a joke about meeting the dwarves from The Hobbit—a joke Eddie should've laughed at, since he's the one who showed Buck those movies. They make out a little in the tiny elevator that carries them back up to the surface. Well, more than a little. But they're alone, so Buck figures it's a victimless crime.

At the office, a nurse in flamingo-print scrubs informs them that Dr. Choudhary got called into emergency surgery. Eddie agrees to meet with his partner instead of rescheduling—a short, no-nonsense woman named Dr. Sanchez. She pauses when she walks into the consult room and finds that Eddie brought Buck in with him, but she doesn't comment. She just points Eddie to the exam table and tells him to pull down his sweats.

She removes his stitches, then pokes his abdomen in ten or fifteen places, checking his face for a reaction each time. When she doesn't get one, she makes about a paragraph of notes in his chart.

"Any pain?" she asks.

Eddie shakes his head. "No."

She hmmms like she's not sure she believes him—like he's not the first tough guy she's met and won't be the last—but she doesn't push. After making a few more notes, she directs him to a room down the hall for an ultrasound. Buck isn't allowed to join him, so he stays behind and plays with a 3-D model of the large intestine and reads a frightening pamphlet on ulcerative colitis. He's second-guessing every gas pain he's ever had when Eddie comes back, grimacing as he scrubs at the gel residue on his skin with a handful of wet-wipes.

Once Eddie's cleaned up, he sits down beside Buck. He takes Buck's hand and leans his head on Buck's shoulder. Buck reaches up and strokes his fingers through Eddie's hair, which is so soft he wishes he could touch it all the time. They're not exactly kissing when Dr. Sanchez walks back in, but she clears her throat anyway.

"You're completely healed," she pronounces. Like Dr. Choudhary, she manages to make good news sound like a threat. Buck suspects it's their go-to tone for talking about things they can't explain. "Sooner than expected. Much, much sooner."

Buck tries, "I guess it's a miracle," again.

Dr. Sanchez doesn't laugh either.

Eddie huffs, "Buck," in exasperation, then turns back to Dr. Sanchez. "That means I can start PT, right?"

"I want to wait another week, just in case. If everything still looks good, we'll discuss PT. Until then, moderate physical activity is fine."

Between insurance stuff and scheduling next week's appointment, it's almost eleven by the time they're back in the Jeep and heading south on Robertson. It's the quiet stretch between morning rush hour and lunchtime, so traffic is pretty thin. Jack FM has moved onto a late-80s block—Depeche Mode, maybe. Echo & the Bunnymen. Duran Duran. Buck vaguely recognizes it as the stuff Maddie listened to growing up.

As they're coming up on Dripz, the only decent coffee shop near Eddie's house, an asshole in an Escalade pulls away from the curb and darts in front to the Jeep. Buck manages not to hit the guy, but it's close; he slams on the brakes so hard that he and Eddie bounce around in their seats. Once he's breathing normally again, he decides to take the near miss and the open parking space as a sign that they should grab something to eat.

Dripz is a hipster sort of place, all unfinished floors and peekaboo bricks and exposed ductwork and beams. The mismatched tables and chairs look like they spent their first lives in farmhouse kitchens. Buck's so hungry that he practically sprints for the line. Inhaling the warm coffee-and-pastries smell makes his stomach growl, loud enough that Eddie snorts and nudges his side.

He teases, "That's what you get for skipping breakfast."

"That was your fault."

"You started it."

"You started it." Buck had been working on breakfast when Eddie walked into the kitchen shirtless, his sweats slung low on his hips. In that moment, it had seemed to Buck that swallowing his cock was more important than cracking eggs or putting bread in the toaster. "I finished it."

Eddie flushes a little—hopefully remembering how he'd moaned Buck's name, how he'd clutched at Buck's shoulders and hair, how his thighs had trembled when he came. Buck smirking at him makes it worse, the color spreading down toward his jaw. He huffs, but he's saved from finding a comeback because his phone rings.

"It's Pepa. I'm going to…" He waves his hand—you know what I usually get—and steps away from the line.

Buck turns back to the register to find that he's next. The cashier, Harlan, tilts their head and says, "C'mon, Buckley. Let's go."

"Hey," Buck greets, grinning. Harlan is probably his favorite Dripz employee. "I love the new hair."

"Thanks! I wasn't sure about it at first; green's kinda hit or miss. But I'm digging it. So's my partner." After a pause, they note, "Haven't seen you in here in a long minute."

"Yeah. Just—" Buck shrugs. Even if he wanted to explain, he wouldn't know where to start. "Work stuff."

"For sure. I bet the crazy people in this town keep you real busy." The toaster oven dings; Harlan wrestles a bear claw into a pastry bag as they ask, "So, were you at that gonzo fire in the Garment District the other week?"

"No, that wasn't us, but I heard it was bad. You don't still live out that way, do you?"

"No, Kip and I found a place off Pico last month." Harlan passes the bear claw to another employee and glances over Buck's shoulder. "Lemme get your order before this line starts stacking up."

"Yeah, I'll do a large iced coffee with oat milk and a hazelnut latte, hot." Buck glances at pastry case before asking, "Bagel or cheese croissant?"

"Croissant, for sure."

"I'll take two. Warmed up."

Buck's tapping his card when he feels a tug at his waist—Eddie's fingers hooking into his beltloops. Harlan spots him and says, "Diaz! I hear work's been keeping you busy."

"Yeah," Eddie replies, his voice weirdly flat. "Something like that." He nudges Buck toward the pick-up counter, his fingers still caught in Buck's beltloops.

As they move, Buck asks, "How's Pepa?"

Instead of answering, Eddie wraps his arm around Buck's waist and pulls him close. He noses at Buck's jaw until Buck turns his head. He kisses Buck's mouth—once, twice—then moves down to Buck's throat. He only lingers there for a second, but his teeth graze Buck's skin as he pulls away.

Buck shivers. Something feels off.

The thing is, he loves how much Eddie touches him. He fucking thrives on it. He's never had a partner this attentive and affectionate. He's never had someone make him feel this wanted and needed and loved. But in all the years he's known Eddie, he's never seen him be demonstrative in public. He isn't sure about Shannon; he only met her once, and that was before she and Eddie had reconciled. But he can't remember Eddie kissing Ana or Marisol in front of people, or even holding their hands.

Himself, but more. Slightly off-center, if you will.

Buck swallows hard and asks, "Hey, are you okay?"

Before Eddie can answer, Harlan leans over the pick-up window with their croissants. They say, "Drinks'll be right up," and hand Buck the bags. "I meant to ask you earlier… if you're free next Saturday, my cousin's having an art showing over in Silverlake. It's mixed-media stuff, probably not your bag, but there's gonna be wine and vegan charcuterie, and she could defo use the twenty-five bucks."

"Sure."

"Sweet. I'll send you the link on Insta."

Eddie slides his hand to Buck's hip and grips it, hard. All at once, Buck realizes that he's jealous.

Buck shouldn't be into it—he knows he shouldn't. But the idea that Eddie wants him that badly has something sharp-toothed and wild buzzing under his skin.

He tucks his mouth against Eddie's ear and murmurs, "I love you."

Some of the tension bleeds out of Eddie's shoulders, but he doesn't really relax until they're back in the Jeep.





+++





"Eddie," Buck pants, clawing at the sheets. His whole body is shaking. "Eddie, please."

Eddie makes a low, dark noise and pushes Buck's legs apart. Slowly, he bites a line of stinging kisses up the inside of Buck's thigh. When he reaches the crease of Buck's hip, his cheek brushes Buck's spent dick, and Buck jerks, whining behind his teeth. He's already come twice—first on Eddie's fingers, then on Eddie's cock. He doesn't have anything left, but Eddie won't fucking quit.

"Eddie." Buck's arms feel like water, but he manages to get a hand in Eddie's hair. He mostly just pets at it; he doesn't have the strength or coordination to tug. "I can't."

His hand slips down to Eddie's face. Eddie turns into it, his breath warm against the inside of Buck's wrist. He scrapes his teeth over the heel of Buck's hand before sucking Buck's fingers into his mouth—two, then three. Buck moans at the unexpected spike of arousal, hot and knife-sharp. His dick aches as it tries and fails to fill again. Nothing left.

Eddie slowly—slowly—moves up Buck's body. He tangles both hands in Buck's sweat-damp hair, not-quite pulling as he kisses Buck's forehead and birthmark and cheek. He tips Buck's head up and slides one hand down to the hollow of his throat. He holds it there as he kisses Buck's slack, open mouth, tongue slick and curling. Somehow, Buck gets one arm around Eddie's waist. He does his best to kiss back.

The bed creaks as Eddie sits up on his knees. His cheeks are flushed, and his hair is hanging limp at his temples. He studies Buck for a moment, his eyes nearly black, then leans down and sucks Buck's nipple into his mouth. Buck arches under him, whining again. His toes curl so hard a cramp twinges in his calf. Eddie hums into his skin and soothes a hand down his heaving side. Buck claws at Eddie's shoulder, the only thing he can reach without asking his arms to move. Eddie hums again, and then he's dragging his tongue over the other nipple, everything hot and soft and too much, too much. Buck's pretty sure his heart is going to stop.

"Eddie."

"Come on," Eddie murmurs. "You can give me one more."

Buck can't. He can't. But Eddie is moving again: down, down. He pauses at the sticky-wet stretch of above Buck's navel—where Buck came all over himself twice, where Eddie licked him clean both times. Eddie presses a few kisses there, sloppy and open-mouthed. He palms Buck's still-soft cock, no movement or friction or pressure, just there. It gives a feeble little twitch, and the sensation's so intense that Buck squirms and gulps air. His entire body is on fire.

Eddie sets his teeth to the crest of Buck's hip. "Buck. One more."

Buck mumbles, "Yeah," because as much as Eddie's turning him inside-out, he doesn't want him to stop. No one has ever done this for him before. No one has ever stripped him down to nothing and taken him apart piece by piece. No one has ever touched and kissed every single inch of him. No one has ever wanted to watch him come over and over and over.

But Eddie—Eddie. He palms at Buck's cock again, then shifts down and sucks a slow, aching bruise into the inside of Buck's thigh. He noses into the crease of Buck's hip and sucks another one there. Carefully, he lifts Buck's body a little. He gets his shoulders under Buck's legs and tucks a pillow under his ass. Buck's brain is so foggy and wrung-out that he doesn't realize what Eddie's going to do until he's doing it—until he's spreading Buck open with his big, warm hands and pressing his mouth to Buck's hole.

"Eddie, fuck."

It's gentle—so gentle—just soft kisses and teasing flutters of tongue, but Buck's still sensitive and fucked open, so he feels cracked down the middle, exposed, like Eddie's touching secret places that never existed before, discovering things that shouldn't be seen. Every movement has Buck jolting and writhing. His heart is pounding and his blood is roaring in his ears. By the time Eddie starts working his tongue in—working Buck open again—Buck has tears in his eyes. He's making ugly, throaty, gasping sounds because he can't seem to get enough air.

"Buck?"

"Don't," Buck slurs out. "Don't stop."

Eddie palms Buck's dick again, making a smug little noise when he realizes it's half-hard. He says, "Come for me," in a low, coaxing voice. "Buck. Come in my mouth."

"Yeah," Buck mumbles. He's going to die. "Yeah."

Buck braces himself for it, as best he can when his limbs feel like they belong to someone else, because Eddie—Eddie usually sucks cock like he's fucking starving for it, and that's more stimulation than Buck thinks he can take. But when Eddie draws Buck into his mouth, everything is light and easy and slow. It's more wet heat than suction, just sliding lips and not-quite flickers of tongue. It's still so much that Buck feels completely delirious. An impossible heat starts building inside him—in his gut and his chest and his balls, but also behind his knees and in the soles of his feet and at the base of his throat. It's consuming him. He nearly jackknifes off the bed when Eddie slips two fingers into him. The teasing pressure against his prostate has all that heat burning bigger, brighter.

Eddie pulls up and curls his tongue over the head of Buck's cock. He says, "Give it to me. Give me what's mine."

And that. That. Eddie wanting it so badly is what finally tips Buck over the edge. It's nothing like the first two orgasms—no rising and ebbing pleasure, no glowing warmth. Something scorching and liquid jags through him. His ass clamps down on Eddie's fingers, and every other muscle in his body locks up. It must be dry or close to it, because Eddie barely swallows around him. Buck makes a noise he's never heard before.

Before he can catch his breath, Eddie sits up on his knees. He climbs over Buck's body with his hand on his dick and a wild look in his eyes. He's jerking himself tight and quick, and he's a gorgeous sight doing it—chest heaving, muscles flexing in his arm and thighs. Buck tries to reach for him; he wants to hold him, touch him, stroke him, something. He gets a hand on Eddie's hip and grips it, hard, letting his nails scratch at Eddie's skin.

It's the best he can do when his arms still feel like water, but it seems to be enough. Eddie moans as his cock empties, spurting come down his knuckles and all over Buck's chest. Once he's shuddered through it, he slumps onto Buck's chest and murmurs Buck's name into the curve of Buck's neck.





+++





Buck's first shift back is a full twenty-four. His sleep schedule's so screwed that a twelve probably would've been better, but it hadn't seemed fair to ask, not when Bobby's already been so accommodating. He found coverage for all of Buck's shifts while Eddie was in the hospital, and he gave Buck a two-week emergency leave for Eddie's recovery. And somehow, he managed to get Chief Alonzo to sign off on a paid leave, even though Eddie technically isn't Buck's immediate family. On top of all that, Buck feels a little guilty that he didn't go back to work once it became clear Eddie didn't need full-time care.

A little. He won't pretend he hasn't enjoyed having Eddie all to himself. He's probably enjoyed it too much. Leaving Eddie sprawled out naked in their bed this morning had been a fucking hardship. He'd nearly been late because he spent fifteen minutes he didn't have watching Eddie sleep while skimming his fingers over Eddie's shoulders and back and ass.

The crew is halfway through breakfast when Buck gives in and pulls out his phone. He keeps it in his lap as he types out a good morning text, but Chimney—who has a sixth, seventh, and eight sense for potential gossip—notices immediately.

"Aww," he coos, French toast hanging from his fork. "Are you texting your boyfriend?"

Buck feels himself flush—enough that there's no point denying it. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"I miss him."

Hen leans back in her chair and cocks an eyebrow. "Buck. You've only been here an hour."

"So? I can still miss him."

Hen huffs like she thinks Buck's ridiculous, and Chimney starts making fake gagging noises. Buck throws a grape at him, but he just mimes clutching his throat and gags louder. Buck grabs the fruit bowl and reloads, this time with pineapple.

Bobby barks, "Hey," from the head of the table. "You." He points at Buck. "No food fights. And you." He points at Chimney. "No more teasing."

"Come on, Cap," Chimney wheedles. "We had to watch them make moon-eyes at each other for years. It was torture. And when they finally get together, it's a genuine life and death thing. Straight out of Days of Our Lives. They deserve some shit for that."

Bobby winks at Buck before conceding, "Some. Not too much."

Chimney immediately starts badgering Bobby for a strict definition of too much. Hen rolls her eyes at him, then looks at Buck and asks, "How's Eddie doing?"

"Good," Buck replies. "He'll probably be cleared for PT next week."

Hen gives him the eyebrow again. "So soon?"

"Yeah," Buck says, clearing his throat. Eddie's speedrun recovery is another resurrection-related thing he's refusing to examine too closely. He's too terrified of jinxing it. Right now, he's also afraid of Hen's med-school brain engaging and making her suspicious. She'll start asking questions Buck can't answer, and he's not a great liar. "He's, uh… he's healing up faster than expected."

The alarm goes off before she can ask anything else. Relieved, Buck fork-stabs the last of his French toast—what should be four or five bites. He shoves it in his mouth whole and dashes down the stairs. He's still chewing it when he climbs into the engine.

They end up taking a long streak of calls, beginning with two back-to-back kitchen fires, both accelerated by someone panicking and throwing water on burning grease. After that, it's a woman who broke her arm falling off a ladder, then a man who sliced his thigh open running his bike into a hedge, then a car accident that's thankfully bloodless but has plenty of concussions and sprains to go around. After that, Buck rope-rescues a guy who lost his phone down a drainpipe and got stuck going in after it. Chimney keeps a steady hand on the winch, but Buck can't help wishing Eddie was running it instead.

It's after three by the time they get back to the station. Lunchtime came and went without them, so Bobby sends Ravi to the bakery for fresh rolls and lays out the fixings for sandwiches. He has very specific ideas about how tomatoes should be sliced, which Buck already knew but rediscovers when he offers to help. While Buck's doing that, Bobby disappears head-first into the fridge for a while and comes back with jars of pickles, olives, pepperoncinis, and roasted red peppers. It's a pretty good spread, even if Buck's been craving baked macaroni. After the morning they've had, Bobby probably doesn't want to tempt fate by putting something in the oven.

He loads his sandwich with prosciutto and provolone and eats it at one of the stools. His phone buzzes as he's brushing crumbs off his hands: Maddie asking about his first day back. He shoots off a quick reply—busy but ok—but instead of dimming his phone, he opens his photo gallery and pauses on his most recent picture of Eddie. He isn't doing anything special, just standing in the kitchen in a tank-top and sweats, all messy hair and perfect ass. He has a small hickey, barely visible, right at the base of his throat.

Hen, of course, catches him. She snorts, then nudges his arm and says, "Buck, just call him. I'm sure he'll be happy to hear from you."

Buck shakes his head. "Not yet. He said he was going to FaceTime Christopher this afternoon. I don't want to interrupt."

"Right." She pauses before asking, "How's that going?"

"Not great," Buck admits. "We're pretty sure he wants to come home, but Eddie's mom is pushing him to stay until the semester is over."

"That—" Hen winces like she doesn't want to say what she's about to say. "Finishing the semester might not be the worst idea."

"No, yeah. We know. It's just… I hate that she's right. Eddie hates that she's right. And—" Buck sighs and rubs his hand over his face. "Eddie's worried that she'll just find another excuse when the semester is over."

"So, what's the plan? I know you guys have one."

Buck scrolls through his pictures until he finds a selfie he took with Christopher during their last trip to the zoo. It's slightly off-center—their smiling faces near the bottom-right corner and a snow leopard in the background, perched on a rock. Buck's chest aches; he misses Christopher so much he can barely put it into words.

He says, "The semester is over the second week of December. We're planning on going out there for Christmas, and if he's ready to come home, we're bringing him back, whatever Eddie's parents want."

Hen squeezes his arm. She notes, "You really are all in," in a soft voice—not surprised, proud.

"I love that kid. I'd go to Texas and help Eddie fight for him, even if we weren't together."

The alarm rings shortly after that. They climb into the engine and roll out to a car accident in the Mid-Wilshire District that's barely a fender-bender. Buck pries open one dented door with the jaws, but after that, he mostly stands around chatting with Ravi and Molloy while Chimney splints the only real injury—a pair of broken fingers.

They make it back to the station without another call out, but they've barely hopped out of the engine when the alarm goes off again. Before Buck can get back in, Bobby stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

He says, "We got this, if you want to head home."

"Are you sure?"

"It's a med call, and you're off in an hour and ten anyway." A smile tugs at Bobby's mouth. "Don't pretend you aren't anxious to check on Eddie."

Buck grabs his go-bag from his locker and heads straight for the Jeep, not bothering with a shower. He can take one at home, and hopefully Eddie will join him. It's the tail-end of rush hour, so traffic isn't great, but Buck makes pretty good time by taking backstreets and California-rolling through at least three stop signs. Once he gets to Eddie's place and parks beside the Sierra, he practically sprints for the door.

It opens while he's still fumbling with his keys. Eddie's shirtless and bed-headed, gorgeous even though his skin's washed out by the yellowish glare of the porch light. There's a tight set to his mouth, like FaceTiming Christopher turned into a fight with his parents.

He yanks Buck inside by the arm and says, "Hey," with his face tucked against Buck's throat.

"Hey."

"I missed you."

"I missed you too."





+++





Buck hears raised voices in the living room as he's getting out of the shower. He doesn't think anything of it at first; they've been marathoning old episodes of Hell's Kitchen all afternoon, and shouting is that show's entire deal. But in the next rise and fall of sound, he recognizes one of the angry voices as Eddie's. That has him scrambling into his sweats, a task that takes longer than it should because his skin is still wet. He runs out of the bathroom without bothering to grab a towel, shirtless and dripping water all over the place.

He can't imagine why Eddie would be yelling, unless his parents called and provoked him into an argument about Christopher. Of all things, he doesn't expect to find the front door open and Tommy standing on the porch. He's so surprised by the pure, unmasked rage on Eddie's face that he stops dead in his tracks.

Eddie snaps, "What the fuck are you doing here, Kinard?"

"I'm looking for Evan. When I went by his place, he wasn't there. I figured he'd be here with you."

"Why are you looking for him?"

Tommy holds up a plastic Pavilions bag and gives it a shake. "I found some of his things in my closet and thought he might want them back."

The floor creaks as Buck moves closer. In the tense, sudden silence, the noise is loud enough that Eddie and Tommy both look over. Immediately, Eddie takes a couple of steps—toward Buck and to the side. It occurs to Buck that Eddie's trying to block him from Tommy's line of sight the same time it apparently occurs to Tommy. Tommy scoffs, low and mean, and gives Buck a once-over that lingers on his naked chest.

Eddie catches him doing it and snarls, "Don't fucking look at him."

"Relax, Diaz. I didn't come here to poach your territory." Tommy gives Buck another once-over—slower, more deliberate. "You got the guy. Don't be such a sore winner."

"You can't have him."

"I wouldn't want him. Not when you clearly have him wrapped around your dick."

Eddie makes a furious noise and tenses like he's about to take a swing. Buck's not interested in Eddie going down that road again, so he carefully—carefully—puts his hand on Eddie's arm. Eddie makes another noise: unhappy, but there and gone too quickly for Buck to really read beyond that. He's shaking. He glances at Buck, and the look in his eyes is dangerous, wild.

Buck tells Tommy, "Thanks," and takes the bag with his other hand. There's not much inside it, just a couple of shirts and Buck's spare pair of Nomex gloves. "See you around."

Tommy snorts. "Probably not."

Eddie has Buck pinned against the door before it's even really closed. Buck's shoulders hitting it is what knocks it into place. Eddie grips Buck's hips. He jams his thigh between Buck's, hard enough that his knee bumps the door. He drags Buck into a kiss—frenetic, all curls of tongue and flashes of teeth. Buck reaches up to touch his face, but he growls and grabs Buck's wrists. He yanks Buck's arms down and holds them at his sides.

Buck can't breathe. Eddie is kissing him like he can't get close enough, like he wants to crawl inside Buck's body and stay there. His thumbs draw circles at the insides of Buck's wrists, a confusing counterpoint to how rough he's being everywhere else. He works his thigh up until it's rubbing Buck's cock—not enough friction to get Buck off but enough pressure to have him whining in the back of his throat. When Eddie finally pulls back, Buck slumps against the door, light-headed and gulping air like he's drowning.

"He can't have you," Eddie says—urgent, low.

"He doesn't want me."

"He was looking at you like he wants you."

Buck tugs his wrists free and slides his hands up to Eddie's shoulders. "He was just doing that to fuck with you."

"And you." Eddie taps two fingers at the base of Buck's throat, then slowly trails them down Buck's chest and abdomen. He stops just below Buck's navel and scratches his nails through the hair there. "No shirt, no underwear."

Buck says, "Eddie, come on." He's so hard he can practically taste it. "I didn't even know he was here. I heard yelling and—"

"He came here looking for you," Eddie stresses. He skims his fingers up to Buck's nipple and rubs at it, his mouth falling open when Buck tips his head back and chokes out a noise. "He wanted to see you."

"He brought me my stuff."

Eddie ducks his head and pulls Buck's nipple into his mouth, all plush lips and hot, slick tongue. He sucks it until it's stiff and aching, until Buck is clutching at his shoulders and tugging at his hair. Buck could come like this, if Eddie would just touch his cock. He's close to begging for it when Eddie licks a wet line up to his neck and bites down.

Squirming, he hisses, "Fuck." He tries to rut against Eddie's thigh, but he can't quite get the angle right.

"You," Eddie says. "You had stuff at his house." The dark edge to his voice has heat humming under Buck's skin. Unbidden, it also has him remembering things like different and slightly off-center and himself, but more. "You never told me it was that serious."

Buck pulls Eddie closer and kisses the angry twist at the corner of his mouth. "Because it wasn't. I spent the night a couple of times and forgot to grab all my shit in the morning."

"Spent the night," Eddie echoes. He shoves Buck's sweats down and teases his palm over the sticky-wet head of Buck's dick. "Did he make you feel good?"

"Not—not like this." Sex with Tommy had been fine. But he never touched Buck the way Eddie does—like Buck matters, like he means something, like he's precious. Loved. "It wasn't—" Buck gasps as Eddie gives his cock a couple quick strokes. "Eddie, Eddie."

"Yeah. Me." The next stroke is a slow twist down the length of Buck's dick. At the base, Eddie squeezes a little and says, "No one else gets to have this. It's mine."

"Yeah," Buck agrees. Different different different. "Yours."

Eddie leans in and breathes out against Buck's ear. He says, "He can't have you," with his lips dragging against Buck's skin. "You're not his. If he ever touches you again, I'll kill him."

Heat snaps through Buck all at once, so vicious and bright that his knees give out. He pitches into Eddie and slumps to the floor, his cock spitting come on Eddie's hand and shirt, then on his shorts and thigh. Eddie tries to catch him under the arms, but he ends up on his ass anyway. He clutches at Eddie's legs as he gasps and shakes and waits for his blood to stop rushing in his ears. Eddie pushes a hand through Buck's hair and tugs, urging him to look up. The wild light in his eye has barely dimmed; he's still watching at Buck like he's starving.

Maybe it's the magic that's starving.

Eddie tugs Buck's hair again. "Buck."

Gripping Eddie's waist for balance, Buck gets himself on his knees. He leans in and buries his face in the crease of Eddie's hip. Eddie showered earlier, about an hour before Buck, so he mostly smells like laundry detergent and clean skin. That doesn't stop Buck from closing his eyes and breathing Eddie in. He stays there until Eddie starts shoving at his shorts.

"Buck."

Eddie won't need much; his dick's already flushed and straining and wet. Buck just wrapping his hand around it has him hissing and jerking his hips. He's big enough that swallowing him down is something Buck usually warms up to, but he doesn't wait now. He just takes Eddie all the way in, not caring when he coughs and gags, or when so much spit floods his mouth that it starts leaking out. His throat flutters, and Eddie lets out a noise so hungry and hot that Buck's cock twitches despite being spent.

"That feels so good," Eddie murmurs, running his thumb over Buck's stretched lips and spit-slick chin. "You always feel so good. I love you. I'm going to keep you forever."

Buck shivers. He wants Eddie to keep him forever—wants it more than anything. But he can't bear the possibility that Eddie only wants it because some fucked-up resurrection magic is making him think that he does.

Eddie slides his hand to the back of Buck's neck and digs in his nails. He starts rolling his hips, not enough to really fuck Buck's throat but enough to fill Buck's whole mouth. Buck knows what he needs—or that the magic needs. He eases off Eddie's dick until just the head is in his mouth and pumps it with his hand, quick and tight. Eddie sucks in a trembling breath and Buck pulls back, letting Eddie's come stripe his cheek and jaw and mouth.





+++





Buck's shift is a twelve—five to five. That's short compared to the insane hours he usually works, but it seems to drag on forever now that his brain is fixated on whatever's wrong with Eddie. He fidgets in the engine as it crisscrosses Los Angeles, chewing his nails down to nothing and bouncing his knee so much that Chimney starts throwing gum wrappers at him. During a garage fire in Koreatown, Bobby grumps at him for grabbing the wrong gauge hose. At a bike-on-bike accident in Atwater, Hen shoos him away because he isn't helping so much as hovering over her shoulder and apparently blocking her light.

Two minutes after five, he makes a beeline for the Jeep. He almost gets away clean. As he's hurrying across the motor pool, Bobby catches his arm and herds him back toward the locker room's window-walls.

He asks, "Do you want to talk about it now? Or do you want to stew some more and come by my place for dinner?" Ravi and Ramos walk by, chatting about an earlier call as they go; he waits for them to pass before continuing, "I finally got the kitchen unpacked at the new place, so I'm making actual food."

"I can't," Buck replies. Even if he could find a way to explain this, there's nothing Bobby can do or say to fix it. "I have to handle this one on my own."

Bobby gives him a long, appraising look before squeezing his shoulder and saying, "You've got forty-eight off. Use some of that to get some sleep. Then talk to Eddie." He pauses there like he's expecting Buck to deny that Eddie is the problem, then presses on when Buck doesn't bother. "If you love each other half as much as I think, you'll work out whatever's got you so hung up right now. You just have to communicate."

Buck leaves the station and heads straight for Pershing Square. He doesn't text first. Instead, he parallel-parks the Jeep in a too-tight spot a block down from Marcus' apartment building and jogs up to the entrance. He takes the rickety stairs to the second floor two steps at a time. Knocking on the door doesn't make it open itself like it did before. He bangs on it for nearly five full minutes before the knob rattles—Marcus unlocking it like a normal person.

Buck says, "I need to talk to you."

"I presumed as much when you tried breaking down my door," Marcus snips. He looks much the same—face tattoo and too many rings. His shaggy hair is pulled back in one of those stretchy, zigzag headbands Jee-Yun hates because they poke her scalp. "I wasn't answering for a reason. I don't give refunds."

"Refund? I'm not—that's not why I'm here."

Marcus sneers like he's about to tell Buck he doesn't care why he's here, but then a door slams a few units down the hall. Frowning, he edges back from where he's been blocking the doorway and brusquely gestures Buck inside. The same heavy, herbs-and-incense smell from before tickles Buck's nose.

"Well?" Marcus demands. "What is it?"

Buck mouth works as he tries to find the right words to explain it—the possessiveness, the jealousy, the desire for closeness, the constant need to touch and be touched. He ends up blurting, "Something's wrong with him," because it's the best he can do. "He's acting weird."

"Weird," Marcus repeats, his voice flat. "I told you this might happen."

"You did, yeah. But I didn't think he'd—" Buck sighs and rubs his hand over his face. "He's obsessed with me."

Marcus barks out a shrill, incredulous noise. "Are you under the delusion that you're not obsessed with him?"

"What?" Buck hisses. "I—what?"

"Do you really not know? Or am I just saying the quiet part out loud?" Marcus doesn't pause for an answer before plowing on, "You had me bring him back from the dead. That signals a level of codependency that no amount of therapy can fix."

Buck flounders for a moment, but standing there in a stranger's apartment, incense itching his nose and soot from three different fires gritty behind his ears and in his hair, he realizes that it's the truth. He is obsessed with Eddie. He's been obsessed with him since the day he got hired, drawn in by his handsome face and his refusal to rise to Buck's bait and his big, capable hands. It's the only explanation for how much he wants to be around Eddie, how much he wants to hold him and touch him and kiss him, how much Eddie occupies his thoughts.

How Buck's first thought, when Dr. Choudary suggested making funeral arrangements, had been I can't live without him.

Weakly, Buck insists, "We're not talking about me."

"No. We're talking about the man you're obsessed with being obsessed with you." Marcus cocks his head to the side and folds his arms across his chest. "Is it really so onerous? Having him love you?"

"Yes! Because I don't know if it's really him, or if this—" Buck sweeps his hand around the apartment, indicating the symbols painted on the walls, the pair of cauldrons on the stove, the jars and bottles and vials strewn across the table in the corner. "What if it's just because of the stuff I gave him?"

Marcus mutters, "Stuff," under his breath and shakes his head. "You didn't listen to a word I said that day. Death breaks down barriers. It lowers inhibitions. It rarely invents things wholesale. If he wants you now, chances are high that he wanted you before. After all, he followed your connection."

"Followed?" Buck asks. "Connection?"

"Yes," Marcus says, sighing. "He followed your connection. The application I gave you forged a link between your life force and his. A bridge, if you will. A tether that allowed him to find his way back to this plane of existence. I told you all of this."

"Oh," Buck mumbles. He'd been so focused on getting back to the hospital that most of what Marcus said that day had gone in one ear and out the other. "That explains the blood."

Marcus scoffs, "Why else would I have needed it?" but once again doesn't wait for a reply. "Returning from death is a choice, young man. Not all who are summoned answer. He did. He did because you called. So, please. Accept that he loves you and leave my home."

"Wait," Buck pleads. His head is starting to hurt, and not entirely from the funky smell in the room. "I don't… what about his behavior? Before this, he never would've kissed me in public or—"

"Spare me the details," Marcus grouses, holding up his hands. "It's not uncommon for people who return to crave proximity and touch. Subconsciously, he's clinging to that tether between you because some small, hidden part of him remembers it bringing him out of the dark. Often, that feeling fades, but—" He hums thoughtfully. "Given how much time has passed since he died, you're probably stuck with it."

"Oh."

After a pause, Marcus sighs again and says, "Look," in the tone Bobby uses with people who refuse medical care. "There's a phrase popular among people in my… line of work: take what you want, and pay for it. It means," he adds, before Buck can ask, "that nothing comes for free. When you asked me to reverse his death—"

"I took what I wanted."

"And him loving you a bit too loudly is the price you have to pay. Find a way to live with it, because you can't change it. Your only other option is killing him."





+++





It's nearly seven by the time Buck gets back to the Jeep and shoehorns it out of its parking spot. Rush hour is in full swing; he can tell halfway down Figueroa that the 10 is at a standstill. Taking it will eat up at least forty minutes, so he starts the long trip to the West Side by turning right on Washington. His stomach starts growling in the stop-and-go around Western, but the cop behind him keeps him from Grubhubbing ahead so the food can meet him at home. Eddie begins calling as he's crossing La Brea. Buck switches his phone to airplane mode so he doesn't have to hear it buzz while he's trying to think.

It doesn't help. He's a ball of anxiety as he turns onto South Bedford. He parks the Jeep and walks up the front steps with his hands shaking and his heart beating in his throat. The porch light is on, even though the sun hasn't quite set, and it feels like an accusation—I'm waiting up for you. Inside, he finds Eddie in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with his phone in one hand and a can of Fanta in the other. Buck's glad it's not a beer. If they're going to have this conversation, he wants them both at one-hundred-percent.

The kitchen linoleum squeaks under Buck's shoes, and that catches Eddie's attention. He looks over, mouth curving with a smile. His tank-top is so loose that one perfect nipple is peaking out, and his shorts, cut from an old pair of sweats, are about an inch longer on one side. Both stop just above his knees. He's so hot that Buck just stands there and stares at him. His nerves fade down to a vague, distant buzz.

He's still staring when Eddie notes, "You're late."

That brings Buck back to the present. He says, "Yeah, sorry," and walks over to him. "I was running an errand. How was PT?"

"Shitty. I hate it when you're not there." Eddie pulls Buck closer and presses a slow kiss to his jaw. "How was work?"

"Eh. We spent most of the shift at a CicLaVia thing in Lincoln Heights." Buck slips his hands under Eddie's tank-top as he adds, "A few skinned knees, a few dehydration packs. Nothing major. What did you do after PT?"

"Napped a little. Ignored the laundry. Watched some Bake Off."

"Did you see that episode I told you about?"

"The one where they butcher Mexican food? Yeah. It was bad. My abuela would've lost her damn mind." Eddie works a line of kisses up Buck's throat before asking, "Seriously, what took you so long? I was getting worried. Life360 said you were in Pershing Square and that's… not a great neighborhood."

Buck asks, "Life360, huh?" and nudges Eddie in the ribs. Anxiety starts churning in his gut again. "We got that so Chris could go to the park with his friends without you freaking out."

"Me? You're the one who nearly had an aneurysm when he went to summer camp."

"Two weeks in the woods is not the same as two hours at the park."

Eddie says, "Just admit it," and slots their hips together. He's not hard yet, but his dick is definitely perking up. "Admit that you're not always the good cop."

Buck kisses him instead of admitting anything. It starts out slow—just an easy slide of lips and Buck's hands framing Eddie's face—but it isn't long before Eddie's hand is sneaking down the back of Buck's pants and Buck's tongue is in Eddie's mouth. Eddie makes a dirty, breathless noise and palms Buck's ass like he wants Buck closer. Buck's thinking about putting him on the counter when one of them knocks the soda can onto the floor. It's empty, so nothing spills, but Eddie pulling away to chase it as it rolls under the table kills the mood, and that gets Buck back on track.

Before Eddie can kiss him again, he says, "Wait," and takes his hand. "Come on."

Eddie quirks a suspicious eyebrow, but he lets Buck lead him into the living room. The only light is coming from the TV, still frozen on the Bake Off landing screen. He switches the lamp on and takes his usual spot on the couch. Eddie sits next to him, turned in so that their knees are touching. He slides his hand over Buck's thigh, and Buck considers just forgetting the whole thing—just climbing into Eddie's lap, just kissing his mouth and his jaw and the cute curl of his ear, just grinding against him until they both come in their pants.

Instead, he says, "Hey." His anxiety wells upward, a prickly knot at the center of his chest. "I have to tell you something, and you might not like it."

Eddie's hand curls into a fist. He asks, "Who is it," in a voice like broken glass. "Who—"

"No. Eddie, no—"

"Is it Tommy?" A muscle twitches in Eddie's jaw. "It's Tommy, isn't it? I swear to God, if I seem him again—"

"Eddie," Buck says, ducking his head around until Eddie can't avoid his eyes. "There isn't anyone else. That's not what this is about."

Some of the tension leaves Eddie's shoulders. He mutters, "Sorry," and looks away. "I know you wouldn't do that to me. I know it. I just… the thought of someone else touching you makes me completely crazy."

Buck closes his eyes for a second. He did this to Eddie. It's his fault. He says, "I get that. I feel the same way," and tries to steady himself for what needs to come next.

Because Eddie deserves to know, even if that means he gets angry at Buck or dumps him and tells him to move out. But as Buck is finding the words, he makes the mistake of looking at Eddie's big, brown eyes. He feels so sick at the possibility of losing this—losing him—that the truth dies in his mouth.

He blurts, "I need to pick up some extra shifts," in a voice that's just a little too thin.

"What?"

"I need to pick up some extra shifts," he repeats. Somehow, it comes out calmer this time. "I know you hate it when you're stuck here all day without me, and when I can't tag along for your appointments, but the Jeep needs tires soon. That's going to be thirteen hundred bucks, easy, and I'm still paying on the loft for five more months."

Eddie asks, "What about Albert?" and catches one of Buck's fidgeting hands. He circles his thumb over Buck's wrist, right where Buck's pulse is beating a bit too fast. Buck does not deserve him at all. "Did he change his mind about grad school?"

"He's still deciding on which offer to take," Buck replies. "UCLA's close to all of us, but I guess Stanford and NYU are better programs for his major."

"Stanford and NYU don't have Jee-Yun."

"Yeah, true. But UCLA doesn't mean he'll take the loft. Student housing is way cheaper."

"That place is too expensive. I've been telling you that for years."

Buck agrees, "You have, yeah," and tackles Eddie back onto the couch. Eddie stares up at him, swallowing hard. His dick starts filling against Buck's thigh. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, having a really cool place as my first apartment." Buck shifts a little, enough that Eddie's mouth drops open. "Admit that it's cool."

"It is," Eddie concedes, breathless. "It'd be cooler if it wasn't costing you so much a month." He moves one leg to the floor, making room to pull Buck closer. "You never told me about your errand."

"Errand?"

"Whatever you were doing in Pershing Square."

"Oh." Buck kisses him while he tries to come up with something believable. When nothing clever comes to mind, he mumbles, "Craigslist shit," against Eddie's mouth.

Eddie asks, "Craigslist?" in an exasperated voice and bites at Buck's jaw. "You've already got more stuff that we can handle. I'm going to end up on the streets just so you have a place to put your fucking shoes."

"Well, don't worry. I didn't buy it." Buck shoves Eddie's tank-top up to his chin so he can get his fingers on his nipples. "You want to watch Bake Off?"

"Not really."

Laughing, Buck kisses him.

And kisses him. And kisses him.

If he can't tell Eddie the truth, he can at least been what Eddie needs.





+++





Their first after-dinner call isn't much—just teenagers who used the roof of an abandoned building as a make-out spot and got stuck there because the hatch locked behind them. It takes longer to get the ladder positioned correctly than it does to get them down, although by the time everyone's back on the ground, the girl is crying so hard that Buck's worried she might hyperventilate. It only gets worse when the cops show up; her boyfriend starts crying too.

Buck sidles up to Athena as he's unclipping his harness and jokes, "Here to make a big arrest, Sergeant?"

"Hush," Athena says, swatting his arm with the back of her hand. "They're just dumb kids. I'm sure calling their parents will be punishment enough."

"You're not even going to scare them a little?"

Athena's mouth twitches. "Well, I might inform them that under Section 602 of the California Penal Code, trespassing is a misdemeanor, and that they should find someplace to smooch that won't land them six months in juvie."

They're a few blocks from the station when dispatch sends them another call over the radio—a brawl at a wedding rehearsal dinner that resulted in at least one broken nose. Once Bobby confirms that they're en route, Ramos turns the engine around and heads down Melrose until he passes Western. He pulls up in front of a fancy seafood place, all polished wood and perfectly manicured hedges. The manager meets them at the door, wringing his hands as he begs Bobby to sort out this shameful episode as quickly as possible. He also begs Bobby to turn off the engine's flashing lights, but Bobby just sweeps into the restaurant without bothering to respond.

Inside, it's fucking chaos. People are yelling; people are crying. Several people are bleeding. Between the overturned tables, there's about $1,500 worth of lobster and crab legs on the floor. The fight started between the groom and his best man, which confuses Buck at first, but then the bride shrieks, "It's not what you think, Gerald," and Gerald shouts, "I saw you kissing him, Stephanie," and that clears things up. Everyone is drunk, including the groom and best man—especially the groom and best man. In the end, wrangling them takes a combination of patience, negotiation, and brute physical force.

When Athena walks in, Buck's more or less sitting on the best man so Hen can wrap his sprained hand. He smiles at her and says, "Long time no see!"

She squeezes his shoulder as she passes him and quips, "I'm definitely arresting someone now."

They don't make it back to the station until eleven-thirty. As they're climbing out of the engine, Bobby promises to take them off the roster until three. Buck slouches toward the locker room with an ache in his shoulders from holding down four grown men and a wet patch on his pants he hopes is champagne. He grabs a clean pair from his locker but ends up just sitting on the bench with them clutched in his hand. He's debating whether dry clothes are worth taking off his boots when his phone buzzes.

It's Eddie. Buck answers with a soft, "Hey," and then nearly swallows his tongue when Eddie moans right in his ear.

"Buck." Eddie's panting, his voice caught high in his throat. Every drop of blood in Buck's body rushes straight to his dick. "Buck."

Buck tucks the phone close to his ear and darts out of the locker room. He considers going to the bunks, but as soon as he looks over, he sees Chimney and Ramos headed that way, and since Bobby took them off the roster, they won't be the only ones. His next thought is the storage closet, but C-Shift clocks in at midnight, and their first task is stocking the ambulances. Someone will be in there looking for four-by-fours and butterfly needles in no time. In the end, he walks out to the parking lot and hides in the shadows along the station's back wall.

Eddie hasn't said anything else, but he's making low, thin whining sounds, like he's close and absolutely desperate for it. Underneath that, Buck can just hear the wet drag of skin against skin—Eddie stroking himself with a lubed fist.

He hisses, "Eddie, what—?" and squeezes his cock through his pants to take the edge off. "What—"

"Couldn't sleep," Eddie mumbles. Buck hears rustling—fabric being moved or kicked—and he wonders if Eddie's on his back or on his knees. He'd be a beautiful sight either way. "Couldn't… you're not here, and I couldn't—" Eddie moans again, throaty and rough, and Buck thunks his head against the wall. "Thought getting off would help, but I can't—I need you."

"I'm here," Buck says, soft. "You need me to talk to you?"

Eddie gasps, "Please." The skin-slap noises get louder, like he's working himself harder, faster. "Buck. Tell me…"

"Tell you what? How good you sound? How I wish I was there right now?"

"Yes, fuck." Eddie sucks in a breath. "Want…want you to fuck me."

"I will," Buck promises. "I will. As soon as I get home." He glances around to make sure no one is outside sneaking a cigarette before adding, "Open yourself up now, so you don't have to wait."

"Already am."

"How many fingers?"

"Two."

"Put in another."

There's a quick second of silence, and then Eddie chokes out a noise so filthy that Buck fucking feels it. He clenches his hands into fists so he doesn't shove them in his pants. If he got caught, Bobby would definitely fire him. And if by some miracle he didn't, he'd be so disappointed that Buck would wish he had. He'd probably end up being man behind for the next five years.

He asks, "Are you close?"

"Yeah."

"Come on, Eddie," he urges. "Come for me. I want to hear it."

It takes a moment—a long moment Buck spends biting the inside of his cheek—but then Eddie lets out another filthy moan and hisses, "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Buck imagines that he has his head tipped back, that his face is flushed, that his come-wet hand is still around his cock. He'd give anything to be there right now.

He waits until Eddie's breathing evens out before asking, "You think you can sleep now?"

"I think so, yeah. Are you guys off?"

Buck replies, "Yeah," and gives his cock another squeeze. He's still hard as a rock, and he's leaked enough that his pants have a wet spot. He's not sure how he's going to hide that when he gets back inside. "Until three. I'm about to hit the bunks."

"Okay."

After a pause, Buck says, "I can take you with me." It would be nice, falling asleep with Eddie, even if they aren't together. "We could stay on the phone."

Eddie makes a soft, pleased noise. "Yeah."





+++





Buck's phone buzzes as he's digging through a box of kitchen stuff he brought over from the loft. It's on the other side of the room, closer to Eddie, so he asks, "Can you see who it is?"

Eddie ventures, "It's probably the station," and sets a fistful of spatulas on the counter. They've been going through their combined utensils and weeding out duplicates—or, they're supposed to be. Eddie's mostly been cramming both sets into drawers when he thinks Buck isn't looking. "Chimney told me B-Shift's been passing some kind of stomach bug around."

"Gross."

The phone buzzes again. After a pause, Eddie makes a tight, irritated noise. It's soft, but still enough that Buck looks over. Eddie snaps, "It's fucking Taylor," before Buck can ask.

Buck groans; he's been dodging her for three days. "Don't bother. It's for a story and I'm not interested."

"A story?" Eddie asks. He sets the phone down a little harder than necessary. "You talked to her?"

Buck explains, "She left a voicemail yesterday," and frowns at the potholders and oven mitts he's been trying to Marie Kondo. Somehow, they're all roughly the same shade of blue, which is not helping him make decisions. "She wants to do some retrospective piece on the tsunami. Catching up with the survivors, or something. I don't want anything to do with it."

"Bullshit. She just wants to see you."

It's possible. Given their history, it wouldn't be completely weird if she wanted to grab drinks or something, especially if he did give her an interview. And if that happened, it wouldn't be completely weird if she cruised him for a hook-up. He's not interested in either scenario.

Before he can tell Eddie that, Eddie spits, "She can't have you," in a angry, seething voice.

"Hey." Buck reaches for him, but he hedges back, just out of range. "Eddie, come on. Don't—"

"Don't what?" Eddie demands. "Don't be like that?"

"Eddie—"

"No." A muscle twitches in Eddie's jaw. "You don't get to say that to me. Not when you made me like this."

Buck freezes. There's no way. There's just no fucking way.

"It's not fair," Eddie snarls. His hands are clenching and unclenching at his sides. "You did this to me. If you weren't going to be able to handle it, maybe you should have let me stay dead."

Buck's knees wobble. He has to lean against the table just to keep himself upright. Eddie takes a step closer, but Buck doesn't try touching him again. His shoulders are locked tight, and his beautiful, beautiful face is flushed red and twisted up in anger. Buck loves him so fucking much. The possibility that Eddie might leave him has put an unbearable ache in his chest.

Eddie says, "I talked to him," and folds his arms across his chest. "Marcus. The guy who gave you the stuff that brought me back." Buck makes a confused, hiccupping sound, and something awful and petty tugs at Eddie's mouth. "The text he sent you is still in your phone. An address is Pershing Square. That errand you didn't want to tell me about."

"Eddie," Buck whispers. His knees wobble again.

Eddie talks right over him, saying, "I didn't believe him at first. You know how I feel about that kind of shit. But then he showed me the mark on my arm. It matches the one on your wrist. I asked you about it, remember?" When Buck doesn't answer him, he insists, "Remember?"

"Yeah."

"A white-ink tattoo. That's what you told me." Eddie grabs Buck's wrist and presses his thumb over the mark. "That didn't seem right. I didn't remember you having it before I went down, and I would've noticed if you got it after. So, when I saw mine—" He drops Buck's arm, and the corner of his mouth pulls up—a flash of teeth. "Good job putting it where I'd never find it."

"You died," Buck says desperately. "You died, and I wasn't—I couldn't—"

"He explained it to me," Eddie continues. His voice is cold now, strangely calm, and somehow that's worse. "About the blood, and the life forces, and how he tied me to you to bring me back. How that tie is permanent." He spits permanent like it's poison. "It's why I'm so pathetically attached to you. It's why I love you too much."

That hits Buck like a physical blow. Grunting, he takes the three steps needed to close the distance between them. He grips Eddie by the hips and crowds him back against the counter. Eddie makes a rough, scoffing sound, but when his hands come up to grab Buck's arms, he doesn't push him away.

Buck promises, "It's not too much."

"Yeah?" Eddie counters. Something uncertain flickers across his face. "Is that why you complained to Marcus about how weird I've been acting?"

"It wasn't a complaint. I just—" Buck tightens his hold on Eddie's hips. "I needed to know if it's you, or the stuff I gave you. It's been driving me crazy, wondering if you only want me because I shot you full of my blood."

Eddie says, "It's both." An ugly laugh rattles in his throat. "I told you, I've been in love with you for years. And I've always loved you too much. But I could control it, before. I could put it away if I had to. Now, I can't." He leans in like he wants a kiss—sways into it like he's being drawn in, like the magic is pulling him in—and jerks back. "Now, you're the only thing I can think about."

"Eddie, you—"

Like that first night, Eddie shuts Buck up by stuffing his fingers in his mouth. On reflex, Buck angles his head back and draws them in deeper and curls his tongue around them. He wants whatever Eddie will give him.

Eddie hums, dark. He murmurs, "Yeah, suck them," and fists his other hand in the front of Buck's shirt. "Do you know how badly I want you right now? How hard I am for you?" He hitches his hips a little, enough to nudge his dick against Buck's thigh. "You don't get it. My chest hurts when you're not here. I barely sleep if you're not right next to me. You'll be inside me and it still feels like you're not close enough."

Buck growls around Eddie's fingers, then yanks them out of his mouth. "You think I don't love you too much? I had you brought back from the dead. What part of that makes you think how I feel about you is normal or casual or—"

"I think," Eddie starts, his voice going hot again. "I think that you like to fix things, and that you hate being abandoned. So you fixed me so I can't fucking leave you."

"That's not why I did it," Buck bites out. He's devastated that Eddie would think that, but he's also horrified because it's not an unreasonable conclusion, not with the way he's been acting and his habit of making things about himself. "I didn't know this would happen."

"Why did you do it?" Eddie demands, splaying his spit-wet fingers against Buck's jaw. "And I want the truth. You've been lying to me since I woke up."

Buck closes his eyes for a second. "I wasn't trying to lie to you. I just didn't know how to tell you." He shoves his hands under Eddie's shirt and claws at his back. "You said yourself you barely believed it when Marcus told you."

"That's not what I asked," Eddie digs his thumb at the corner of Buck's mouth. "Why did you do it?"

"I did it because I didn't think I could live without you."

Eddie sucks in a breath—shocked and quick, like he took a sucker-punch to the chest. He stares at Buck for a moment, mouth open and eyes wide, and then he grabs Buck by the back of the neck and pulls him into a kiss. It's angry—all shoves of tongue and too much teeth—but Buck can't get enough of it. He twists one hand into Eddie's hair and hooks the other one in the waist of Eddie's shorts.

"You better mean that," Eddie hisses, right against Buck's mouth. He fumbles around as he tries to yank Buck's shirt over his head and push him onto the floor. "You—"

"I mean it," Buck promises, scrabbling at the zipper on his jeans. "I mean it. I want you so much."

Somehow, he gets Eddie on his back and himself on his knees. He narrowly misses taking Eddie's foot to the face as he's stripping off Eddie's shorts. He thinks there might be lube in one of boxes on the table, but he can't stop touching Eddie long enough to get up and look for it. It doesn't matter; they can fuck fuck later. Right now, he just needs Eddie. He folds Eddie's legs up and sinks his dick between Eddie's thighs.

It's incredible—the warmth, the pressure, the flex of Eddie's muscles, the faint rasp of his hair. Eddie's skin is soft, and Buck's leaking enough to keep everything nice and slick. Eddie's a fucking sight underneath him, his eyes dark and his head lolled back, one hand working his cock and the other teasing a nipple. Buck moans and snaps his hips, desperate to come all over him.

"Buck," Eddie gasps. "Need to turn over. Need…"

It's not hard to figure out what he's asking for—Buck's weight on him, Buck's body over his, Buck closer. Buck sits up as Eddie rolls over and runs his hands over Eddie's ass as his gets himself positioned. He teases his fingers over Eddie's hole just to hear him whine, then slides his dick between Eddie's thighs and stretches out over Eddie's back. He bites at the curve of Eddie's shoulder and gets a hand under him to touch his cock. Eddie's lying too flat for Buck to really stroke him, but he can palm the length and tease his fingers over the head. He can rub at the slit until Eddie whines again.

"Are you close?" Buck asks, smiling at the breathless noise Eddie makes. "If you can hold out, I'll suck you off." Eddie shivers. "You want that? You want my mouth?"

Eddie hisses, "Yeah, yeah," and shivers again—shivers because he's coming, spilling over Buck's hand and dripping on the floor.

Buck can't see his face at this angle, but he can see enough. His shoulders tremble. Heat rushes to the back of his neck. The long line of his neck pulls taut. Watching it has Buck riding the wave of his own release. A few thrusts and his cock is jerking and he's slumping against Eddie's back. He presses his face to Eddie's shoulder as he tries to catch his breath.

In a minute, Buck's going to flip Eddie over and spread Eddie's legs and lick up the mess he made. He's going to slide back up Eddie's body and kiss that mess into Eddie's mouth until Eddie's hard again. Maybe he'll move them to the bed after that. There, he can watch Eddie writhe on his fingers. He can work Eddie up to the kind of drawn-out, endless, untouched orgasm he deserves.

In a minute. Right now, he's just going to breathe Eddie in.





+++





"So," Chimney drawls. He swipes the pen off Buck's clipboard and uses it to poke at Buck's neck. "Eddie knows you're not a chew toy, right?"

Buck says, "Ha, ha," reaches for the pen. He needs it if he's going to finish his inventory of the supply closet. "Come on, Chim. Give it back."

"Seriously." Chimney spins the pen between his fingers a few times, then pokes at Buck's neck again. "It's like he's teething. There's a new one every time you come in."

"Don't act like you've never given Maddie a hickey."

"Not where anyone can see it."

Horrified, Buck sputters. "Ew, gross. Forget I said anything."

Chimney grins like he's cooking up another smart remark, but Hen comes around the corner, and that grabs his attention. He winks at her and cocks his head at Buck—and silent invitation to join in on razzing him.

She glances between them before asking, "What are we talking about? And why does he have a clipboard?"

"No idea about the clipboard—"

"I'm doing an inventory of the supply closet!"

"—but we're talking about his hickeys."

"No," Buck cuts in. He manages to snatch the pen back. It's his favorite pen. It clicks between four different colors, so he can mark acceptable inventory levels in black and unacceptable levels in red. He does questionable levels in green. "We're not talking about my hickeys."

Bobby—materializing behind Buck without warning—says, "Yes, we are."

Hen and Chimney laugh. Buck complains, "You guys are ganging up on me."

"We talked about this," Bobby points out. He looks more disappointed than he sounds, but he still sounds like he means business. "Nothing above the collar."

"Sorry, Cap."

"Are you? Because it keeps happening."

It does keep happening. And right now, his neck looks pretty bad. After their argument about Taylor, Eddie had held Buck down for what seemed like hours and marked him up from throat to thighs. But Buck hadn't asked him to stop. He never wants Eddie to stop. It feels incredible when Eddie sucks and bites his skin, but seeing the marks the next morning is almost better. The fact that Eddie wants him enough to claim him like that makes a delicious heat fizz under his skin.

But Bobby's watching him expectantly, so he says, "Sorry, Cap," again.

Bobby just sighs and takes the clipboard away.

"Hey!"

"I'm confiscating it as punishment." Bobby tucks the clipboard under his arm as he warns, "No more, and I mean it. Don't make me write you up for a uniform violation. You know I hate paperwork."

"Oh," Buck says, jumping at the chance to change the subject. "Speaking of paperwork—"

Bobby groans.

"—I need to fill out a change of address form."

Hen makes a soft, surprised sound. "Change of—? Buck. Are you moving in with Eddie?"

"Yeah."

She says, "Buck," again and tilts her head to the side. "You two haven't been together that long."

"I mean, if you think about it," Chimney ventures, snapping his gum. "They've been together about four years. They just didn't know."

Hen shakes her head. "That's not the same and you know it."

"Sure, It's not the same, but they—"

The alarm goes off. Relieved, Buck hurries down the hall and out to the motor pool without waiting for the others. Inside the engine, he buckles himself into the single seat, and he leaves his headset hanging around his neck. He stares out the window as they roll down Venice through the Fashion District and toward Pico-Union. He misses having Eddie with him—Eddie's shoulder to lean on, the warm weight of Eddie's thigh against his.

The call is a four-car accident. It's a humid, smoggy day, the air thick and the sky more gray than blue; Buck sweats like a pig as he pops open doors and deflates airbags and puts C-collars on people's necks. He helps Jenkins, the floater filling in for Eddie, splint a woman's broken arm. The only other major injury is a man with a bleeding head wound. Chimney loads him into one ambulance, and Jenkins gets Lupe, the broken arm, into the other.

As Buck's turning for the engine, Hen plucks at his sleeve. She says, "You drive. I'll ride shotgun." Her voice is gentle, but the look in her eye makes it clear that it's not a suggestion.

Since Lupe isn't critical, she insists on skipping any out-of-network ER fees and going straight to Kaiser. That means making the long trek up Vermont to their sprawling campus on Sunset. Despite the heat, people are everywhere—walking, eating, shopping, driving. Chirping the sirens barely puts a dent in the traffic. It's worse around the gas station at the intersection with Pico. Loyola High's marching band is using it for a fundraising car wash, and customers are lined up for blocks.

They're passing the string of street vendors near 11th when Buck finally breaks. He glances over and asks, "Why aren't you happy for us?"

"Buckaroo." It's her mom voice—the one Buck usually finds comforting. "I am happy for you. We all are. We knew you two had something special. We're glad you figured it out."

"But…?

Hen pauses for a long moment. "It just seems like you're taking things too fast."

"We love each other."

"Of course you do. I think you have for a long time."

Buck says, "Exactly," and smacks the steering wheel.

Hen smacks him and mutters, "Ten and two, buddy."

"As I was saying," Buck cuts in. He puts his left hand at ten uses his right to poke her arm. "This isn't new. And it's not like we haven't lived together before."

Hen waves that off. "Quarantine was all four of us. That doesn't count. And neither does you staying with him after he got shot. You weren't together then. You weren't sleeping in his bed. You—oh," she murmurs, when she catches Buck shifting in his seat. "You were sleeping in his bed."

"Not… he, uh. We—" Buck clears his throat. "He had nightmares, sometimes. It helped if I—" He cuts off with a vague, floppy gesture so he doesn't have to say spooned him out loud.

"Lord," Hen says, chuckling to herself. "How you two thought you were just friends for so long I'll never know."

Buck chews his lip for a moment before admitting, "No, we knew. We both knew. We were just…"

"Scared?"

"Terrified. I mean… our friendship? Christopher? Our work partnership? There was so much at stake. But it's fine now. We figured it out."

"It's how you figured it out that worries me. You two experienced a traumatic event. That might be why you're jumping into this feet first."

"Hen—"

"Please, Buck." She reaches over and pats his knee. "Just hear me out. Hear me out, and I promise I'll never bring it up again."

"Fine."

She says, "You," and pauses like she's choosing her words. "You've never been super clear-headed where Eddie is concerned, but at the hospital—" She huffs out a breath. "You wouldn't eat unless Bobby made you. You hardly slept. You cried all the time. You wouldn't leave his room. It scared the shit out of us."

He starts apologizing on autopilot—although he's not sorry he stayed by Eddie's side—but Hen keeps talking.

"Like I said, we're happy for you two. But things look a little intense."

"What do you mean?"

"He calls you like fifteen times a shift. You've fallen asleep listening to each other breathe twice this week." The ambulance jolts over a pothole as she continues, "I saw your tattoo."

Buck touches the crest of his hip, where Eddie's name, in script, follows the curve of his muscle. "He has one too. They were his idea."

"That—" Hen shakes her head. "That doesn't help. He's not usually impulsive like that."

Buck opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Even without the resurrection stuff, the truth is a lot. Sometimes, he wants to touch Eddie so badly his hands shake. Sometimes, he puts his head on Eddie's chest just so he can listen to his heart beating. Eddie's possessive streak makes him feel more wanted and loved than he ever has in his life. And now that Eddie knows the truth, he doesn't feel bad about it.

Saying any of that out loud would make him sound insane. And he's not sure he wants to share it with anyone but Eddie anyway.

He settles on, "We love each other," and he chirps the siren before she can say anything else.





+++





It's a scorching hot day; the sun is high in the sky and glaring viciously through the smog. Everyone on the rooftop is starting to wilt. Hen and Ravi have already shed their turnout coats, and Jenkins is fanning himself with his helmet. Sweat is rolling down Buck's face. He gave up trying to wipe it away ten minutes ago because it just keeps coming back.

He shouldn't be worried. He has no reason to be worried. He's been to most of Eddie's physical therapy sessions, and he's watched Eddie do his exercises at home. He knows how hard Eddie's been working to rebuild his strength and muscle mass. He's absolutely certain that Eddie will pass.

But if he doesn't—if he doesn't—he'll get kicked back to the academy for three or four weeks, and Buck doesn't want to wait that long. He wants Eddie to recertify as soon as possible. He hates not seeing Eddie when he's on shift, but he also wants his partner back. He misses Eddie's thigh pressed against his as they ride in engine and Eddie's shoulder bumping his as they drag their hoses toward a burning house. He misses Eddie handing him equipment before he asks for it. He misses Eddie running the pulley while he's on the ropes.

Buck glances at Bobby. Bobby is dividing his attention between his stopwatch and the door, and his face isn't giving anything away.

"You look a little bucked up, Buck," Chimney observes. "What's the matter? Worried you'll be stuck partnering with Ravi forever?"

"Hey," Ravi protests. It's mostly for Chimney's sake, but when Buck hesitates too long, Ravi points at him and says, "Uncool, Buck. Very uncool."

Buck holds up his hands. "Sorry. You're great, but…"

"But I'm not Eddie. I get it." Ravi pauses for a moment before asking, "So, when Eddie comes back, do we get to call him probie?"

Chimney snaps his gum. "No. Medical leaves don't reset seniority."

"Good thing they don't," Hen cuts in. "Otherwise, you'd be in trouble."

"Besides," Chimney continues, ignoring her, "Eddie wasn't really a probie when he was a probie. He pulled a live grenade out of a guy's leg on his second shift."

"Hey, I helped him with that," Buck points out.

"Did you actually help?" Chimney asks, wiping at the sweat on his chin. "Or did you sit there staring at his pretty face?"

"I was multitasking."

"Oh, so you admit that you thought he was pretty back then?"

"Yeah," Buck says, scratching the back of his neck. "Yeah, I did."

The door bursts open before Buck embarrasses himself further. Eddie jogs through it with a hose slung over his shoulder and a dirty babydoll cradled in his arm. After a couple steps, he drops the hose and pulls off his helmet. His hair is matted, and his face is streaked with soot and sweat. Buck wants him so badly his mouth goes dry.

Bobby holds up the stopwatch. Smiling, he says, "Congratulations, Firefighter Diaz!"

Cheers ripple through the crowd. Everyone gathers around Eddie for a round of shoulder-pats and back-slaps, but he brushes past them and walks straight to Buck. He wraps his arms around Buck's waist, then presses his face to Buck's throat and takes a deep, deep breath.

Buck touches Eddie's sweat-damp hair. "You did it."

"Yeah."

Behind them, Chimney coughs. "God, it's like we're not even here."

"Honestly," Hen adds. "Come on, you two. There's cake back at the station, and I want to eat that more than I want to watch you guys smooch."





+++





Eddie's first shift back is a whirlwind. The alarm goes off before he and Buck are finished getting dressed, so they hurry out to the engine still dealing with things like buttons and belts and zippers. Inside, they take the pair of seats facing front, and they sit shoulder to hip to thigh. They don't hold hands because Hen, Chimney, and Ravi are eyeballing them in a way that guarantees they'll get razzed if they do. Instead, Eddie leans into Buck's shoulder. Buck sneaks his fingertips into the seam between their thighs.

The first call is a multi-car accident in Hancock Park. Buck and Eddie work together to extract the victim in an accordioned Nissan Altima, Buck making a gap in the door with a crowbar and Eddie popping it open with the jaws. Once the woman's out, they get her set up on a board; Eddie secures her with a C-collar while Buck straps her in. After that, the crew rushes off to a house fire in Larchmont. Buck and Eddie bump shoulders as they lug their hoses across the front lawn, and they fight the fire back to back, defending in place in the living room so Chimney, Ramos, and Molloy can clear the second floor.

They're back in the engine and heading north on Highland when dispatch pings them again. This sets off a string of rescues—a woman stuck in her attic because the ladder fell down, a woman who went up a tree looking for her lost pet parakeet, and a guy who fell through rotten flooring while spelunking in an abandoned house. On the first two, Eddie holds the ladder while Buck goes up; on the third, he runs the pulley while Buck is on the ropes.

It's great. It's fantastic. Buck's so happy to have his partner back that he's practically vibrating. He hums to himself, his hand on Eddie's knee, as the engine rolls down La Cienega toward Ladera Heights and a slip and fall at a CVS. And he smiles through the call itself, even when things drag out longer than they should because the patient won't consent to medical care until her lawyer husband arrives.

They make it back to the station around eleven. That's early for lunch, but Bobby announces that he's going to take advantage of the time while they have it. He puts on his It's Getting Hot In Here! apron and grabs some chicken thighs that have been marinating in the fridge. It's Voyta and Maxwell's turn to stock the ambulances, so Buck and Eddie sit at the table and watch Bobby futz with the spices and turn the browning chicken with a pair of tongs. Eddie rests his hand on Buck's thigh, and Buck covers it with his own.

The chicken's starting to smell really good when Chimney saunters over. He drawls, "Okay, seriously," and points the banana he's peeling at Buck and Eddie. "It's getting a little spooky."

"What is?" they ask in unison.

"Well, that, first of all. The jokes about you two sharing a brain were supposed to be jokes." Chimney takes a bite of his banana and contemplates them as he chews and swallows. "So were the jokes about you being attached at the hip. You haven't been more than a foot apart since you got here."

"We've only been here five hours," Eddie points out.

"Exactly!" Chimney exclaims. "And you've been stuck together like glue that whole time." While he's working on another bite of banana, he ducks around like he's trying to see under the table. "You're holding hands right now, aren't you?"

They both shrug. Buck asks, "So what if we are?" and gives Eddie's hand a squeeze.

"Wow. That's—"

"Chim," Bobby warns.

"I'm just saying," Chimney continues, undaunted. "They live together and work together, and they're still—" He flaps a hand at them.

Buck says, "We like spending time together," and—because he knows it'll make Chimney huff—he leans over and presses a quick kiss to Eddie's jaw.

"Hey." Bobby snaps his tongs at Buck. "What did I say about that?"

"No kissing at the table."

"No kissing at the station."

They both say, "Sorry, Cap."

Chimney throws up his hands.

The alarm rings not long after that, just in time for them to not eat Bobby's famous Chicken Florentine. They head out to Echo Park and the beginning of another string of calls—a car-on-car accident, a car-on-bike accident, and another slip and fall. By the time they're racing up Alameda to a minivan fire in Chinatown, everyone's stomachs are growling and Chimney's complaining that someone must have said the Q-word.

Their last call is an eleven-year-old kid stuck in a backyard tree. He got trapped in his treehouse when the rope ladder fell out, and instead of shouting for his parents, he climbed further up thinking he could jump onto the roof and come in through the bathroom window. The house is blocking them from getting the truck ladder positioned right, and the kid's up too high for their extension ladder. Eddie gets a rope over a branch near the kid, then hooks one end to Buck and the other end to the pulley. Buck goes up fine, but the kid panics as they're coming down, and his thrashing swings Buck into the tree. He scrapes his arm badly enough that it's bleeding sluggishly by the time he's on the ground.

The kid is fine—Hen gives him a dehydration pack just in case—but Eddie is not. Before Buck's even out of his harness, he hustles him over to the ambulance and starts tending his arm. He rinses the scrape with narrowed eyes and a grim, tight mouth—saline first, then antiseptic. He mutters under his breath as he grabs rolls of gauze and medical tape. It's mostly in Spanish, and too quiet and quick for the barroom phrases Buck picked up in Peru, but the tone alone tells Buck more than enough.

He says, "I'm okay," but that just earns him a grunt and Eddie's fingers digging in where they're cradling his elbow. The twisted-up look on Eddie's face takes Buck back to that argument in their kitchen—It's why I'm so pathetically attached to you. It's why I love you too much—and he suddenly feels like he needs to puke.

Because this is his fault, even if it wasn't what he'd intended. He did make Eddie like this—You're the only thing I can think about. So he sits quietly while Eddie fusses over a minor injury long after there's nothing left to fuss over. When Eddie finally seems satisfied, Buck pulls him close and wraps his bandaged arm around his waist. Eddie breathes out a noise and rests his forehead on Buck's collarbone, and Buck strokes his fingers through Eddie's hair.

"I'm fine," he reassures. "I'm fine."

He's not sure how long they stay like that, although it's evidently too long because Bobby comes looking for them. He shifts until he and Eddie are a respectable distance apart as Bobby asks, "Are you doing okay?"

"I'm all good," Buck replies. "Just a little bark-burn. Eddie patched me up."

Bobby says, "That's good to hear," and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "It's time to head out."

They follow Bobby over to the engine and climb inside. Everyone else is already strapped in and waiting; they've left the pair of seats facing the front open for Buck and Eddie. As soon as the engine starts rolling, Eddie leans into Buck's side. Buck manages to hold off until they're turning onto Santa Monica before taking Eddie's hand. Chimney opens his mouth, but Hen elbows him in the side, hard enough that he grunts and swallows whatever quip he'd been working on.

It's after six by the time they make it back to the station. That's earlier than they usually take downtime, but Bobby radios dispatch and asks for two hours since they've been working almost non-stop since sunrise. Everyone shuffles toward the bunk room like extras from The Walking Dead. Bobby stops Buck and Eddie before they can follow.

He says, "No sharing." His voice is stern, but his mouth is doing that thing it does when he's amused but doesn't want to admit it. "Got it?"

"Got it, Cap," they reply.

In the bunk room, they head for their preferred pair of cots. They pass Chimney, who's on his stomach and snoring, and Ravi, who's flat on his back like a corpse. Hen is further down and has her phone out—probably texting Karen or Denny. Eddie takes the cot against the wall and rolls onto his side, facing Buck. After a moment's hesitation, Buck scoots his over until it's about six inches from Eddie's, which he figures is not sharing in a letter-of-the-law kind of way. When he's settled on his side, facing Eddie, he reaches over and wraps his hand around Eddie's wrist.





+++





There's a crackle before a clipped, "Diaz," comes over the radio. It's Captain Cooper, the IC at this shitshow warehouse fire. "Diaz, do you copy?"

Eddie yanks his hatchet out of the vent-hole he just made and keys his radio. "Go for Diaz."

"We need you down in the med tent. It's filling up fast, and the closest RA unit is twenty minutes out."

An unhappy look flashes across Eddie's face. He hates it when he and Buck are separated—they both do—but he replies, "Copy that," because Bobby made them promise to keep things professional. "I'm on my way."

"I'm sending Bosko up to help Buckley and Panikkar."

Buck catches Eddie's wrist. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you." Eddie grabs Buck's shoulder and bumps their helmets together. "Come back to me."

"You're the one leaving," Buck points out. "You come back to me."

"You guys are being very gross right now," Ravi observes.

Buck flips Ravi the finger for that, although the gesture loses something because of his Nomex gloves. Ravi just laughs. Eddie snorts and skims his hand down Buck's arm from shoulder to wrist. As he's doing it, he glances between the roof access door and the fire escape like he's choosing the best route to take.

Before he can decide, Bosko bursts through the roof access door. A huge cloud of black smoke billows out behind her. As she slams the door closed, she tells Eddie, "Fifth floor's getting hot. You might wanna go over the side."

Eddie says, "Copy that," and looks over at Buck. "I'll see you—"

The roof lurches as the warehouse groans and shifts. Buck manages to keep his feet by putting his shoulder to an electrical box, but when he turns back toward Eddie, he sees a huge crack spidering between the chain of vent-holes. Flames gout up through the gap, two feet tall and spitting embers. The warehouse groans again. Buck feels the roof bowing under his feet.

Panicked voices gabble over the radio. Cooper cuts through it, barking, "Evacuate immediately. Floors three, four, and five are unstable. I repeat: evacuate immediately."

Eddie looks at Bosko. "You said hot. How hot?"

"Hot enough," she replies. "We can make it, if—" The roof lurches again. "Shit. If the stairwell didn't cave in. Cap was worried about the third floor supports."

"That might be what gave," Ravi ventures.

Eddie nods at the fire escape. "I guess we're going over the side."

Bosko edges that direction, moving past a cluster of flames that are spreading along the ancient patches of tar used to seal the roof. She asks, "Is that thing gonna hold us all?"

"It looks original." Eddie taps one of the bolts securing the top of the rusty ladder to the bricks. "How old do we think this building is?"

Bosko mutters, "Old enough," at the same time Buck says, "Late twenties. Early thirties."

"So… it's definitely not going to hold us all," Eddie comments.

The radio hisses. Cooper demands, "What's the hold up, Buckley? You defying direct orders again?"

Buck says, "Not today, Captain," and takes a tentative step to the side. The roof sags under his weight a little. Gut churning, he stops dead. "We're working on an exit strategy."

"Work faster. The third floor is ready to pancake."

Bosko keys her radio. "Cap, can you get a bag under the fire escape? Delta side? It's looking like our only way down, but it's not gonna hold us all."

"Copy that."

Ravi and Bosko start inching their way toward the fire escape. The only clear path takes them past a hotspot climbing what had probably been a flagpole before the top snapped off. Eddie turns to follow, then turns back to look at Buck, who hasn't moved. He gestures for the fire escape, but Buck shakes his head.

"Buck, come on."

"Eddie," Buck pleads. If he survives this, the look of dawning horror on Eddie's face will haunt him for the rest of his life. "This whole section is compromised."

Cursing, Eddie risks a step toward him. The roof makes a whining sound—metal shearing away from metal. Bosko grabs his arm.

She snaps, "Dammit, Diaz. You'll just bring the whole thing down."

Eddie shrugs out of Bosko's grasp but doesn't try getting to Buck again. He makes an awful, helpless noise and says, "Buck. You have to jump over to us."

"Yeah." Buck knows it's his only option. He also knows there's almost zero chance that he'll make it, between the fire and the distance. Mostly the distance. "I love you."

"Don't—"

"I love you."

"Buck," Eddie hisses desperately. "Don't you dare say goodbye to me. Jump."

"I'm going to. Just—"

"Evan. Get your ass over here right now."

Buck closes his eyes for a second. "Say it."

"I love you." It's practically a snarl. "You know I love you. Now fucking jump."

Carefully, Buck slides his left foot back. He'll need at least one good step to get enough momentum. Two would be better, but that feels too risky with the way the roof is moving under his feet. He's going to make it. He has to make it. Eddie is asking him to make it.

He shifts his weight. Just before his stomach drops, he hears a horrific screeching, grinding sound. Everything tilts sideways. Eddie screams Buck's name. The crack in the roof suddenly yawns open and Buck is—

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Pain explodes in the back of his head. Everything goes black.





+++





"… but I really need you to wake up, okay?"

That's Eddie's voice. Buck doesn't know where he is or what's going on or if he's awake or asleep, but he knows that.

"You can't do this to me, Buck. What am I going to tell Chris, huh? He already lost his mom. He can't lose you too. He loves you so much."

Buck can't explain it, but something in Eddie's voice is calling to him—physically pulling at him. He gets the sense that he's not supposed to follow it, but it's Eddie. He can't not.

"You said we'd raise him together. You promised me, Buck."

The raw, desperate edge to promised has Buck reaching and grabbing and clawing. He's floating somewhere cold and indistinct and feels outside his body—removed from it—but somehow, he moves closer. He can't leave Eddie alone.

"I don't think you understand. I loved Shannon. I loved her. But it wasn't like this. It wasn't—" A noise hitches in Eddie's throat—thick, awful. "Even before I died, I wanted you so fucking much."

Something glimmers in the distance. Buck snatches at it.

"Buck, please."

Buck snatches at it again. And this time—this time—he catches it, whatever it is. He feels a weird sense of reverse pressure and then he's hurtling somewhere and everything he is—every single piece of him—is being yanked apart and shoved back together and—

He's suddenly aware. He's aware of the antiseptic smell in the room and the scratch of hospital-grade sheets against his skin and the dull throbbing at the back of his head and the hand in his. Eddie's hand. The first breath seems impossible, but once he forces his lungs to work, he's gasping for air like he's drowning. He opens his eyes, and immediately recoils at the blinding wash of fluorescent-white light. He makes a dry, frog-like sound; his throat feels scraped raw. Eddie squeezes his hand and he squeezes back.

"Buck." Eddie has dark circles under his eyes, and his shirt is stretched out at the collar and shoulders like he's been wearing it for a few days straight. "Shit. It worked. It worked."

Buck manages a, "What…?" before his voice breaks into a cough that takes nearly a full minute to subside. "Eddie?"

Eddie rests his other hand at the curve of Buck's neck. He explains, "You died," in a thin, awed voice. "I brought you back."

"Died?" Buck croaks. He tries to sit up, but Eddie pushes him back onto the bed. "What happened?"

"We were at a warehouse fire in Sawtelle. Remember?"

After a moment, Buck nods. "Roof was going to give."

"It did. You knocked your head really bad, and you took a piece of pipe through the chest. It missed your ribs, but it punctured your lung."

Buck takes a couple deep, measured breaths. Pain radiates through his side, enough to make him wince, but nothing feels heavy or pressured or tight. He doesn't struggle to get air.

"Is it still collapsed?" Eddie asks.

Buck realizes some of the pain is from the tube in his chest. He takes another breath after saying, "I don't think so," just in case, but he's had a pneumothorax before, and it didn't feel like this. "I died?"

"Yeah."

"And you…?"

"Yeah." Eddie lowers the bed's safety rail, then squeezes into the space beside Buck's hip. He brings two of Buck's fingers to the infinity symbol on his wrist. "Marcus says we deserve each other."

That makes Buck laugh, and that turns into a cough, and that turns into a coughing fit because intubation is hell on the throat. When it keeps going, Eddie helps Buck sit up. He pulls Buck against his chest and soothes a hand down Buck's heaving back. Buck wraps his arms around Eddie's waist and rests his forehead on Eddie's shoulder.

They stay that way long after Buck settles.





+++





"Your most recent brain scans came back normal," Dr. Jassim declares. "They show no damage from the sharp force trauma or the prolonged hypoxia."

"Trauma," Buck echoes. "Hypoxia."

"Hypoxia," she reiterates, giving Buck a flat look. "Your brain was without oxygen for nearly ten minutes. Permanent damage can occur in as little as four. I'm sure you know that."

Buck says, "Yeah," because he does know that. It's one of the first things he'd learned in his med classes at the fire academy.

"As for your lung, your x-rays show—" She cuts off with a sigh. "Mr. Buckley, are you listening to me?"

He's trying to. But she came in just as Eddie stepped out to take a call from Abuela, and the distance between them is the only thing Buck can think about. He can see Eddie's shadow moving at the edge of the privacy curtain, and he's desperate to climb out of the bed and go over there. He wants to hold Eddie, and kiss him, and touch his face, and stroke his hair. He wants it so badly that his hands are shaking. A needle-like itch is building under his skin.

He bites the inside of his cheek until his mind clears, then makes himself focus on Dr. Jassim. She's a foot shorter than him, and she has a miniscule diamond stud in her left nostril. Her hijab is patterned in shades of green darker than her mint-colored scrubs.

"I'm listening," Buck fibs. "I'm just… it's been six days." He's being held hostage so the hospital can poke at the medical miracle, just like Eddie had been. It's a good thing they're at First Presbyterian. He and Eddie would probably never see daylight again if he'd reanimated at Cedars. "When can I go home?"

"Mr. Buckley," Dr. Jassim says sternly. "You were gravely injured. You hit your head so hard that your helmet shattered and a piece of it embedded in your skull. A piece of three-quarter-inch pipe pierced your lung in two places. You bled so much your heart stopped three times."

Like a true first-responder-as-patient, Buck insists, "I'm fine." Unlike most first-responders-as-patients, he's actually telling the truth. Even the headache that had bugged him right after he woke up is gone. "I feel great."

"You are… healing faster than expected," she concedes. "Much faster. But I'm not comfortable releasing you yet."

"I'll sign myself out," Buck warns.

Eddie shoots back, "No, you won't," as he ducks through the curtain, and Buck nearly whines. He has to fist his hands in the sheets to stop himself from reaching out like a toddler who wants to be picked up. Eddie knows it too; something pleased and smug tugs at his mouth. "I can monitor him at home."

Dr. Jassim considers this for a moment, then sighs like she's afraid she's going to live to regret what she says next. "Light activity for two weeks. After that, I want another round of x-rays and brain scans. If things look good, we'll discuss PT."

"PT," Buck parrots. Itch itch itch itch itch. Eddie leans his hip against the bed and rests his hand at the back of Buck's neck. It dulls the prickly-hot yearning enough for Buck to concentrate. "What about work?"

"We can discuss that in two weeks as well. Right now, I would say two months."

Buck sits up and yelps, "Two months?"

"Gravely injured," she reminds him. "I may revise that to six weeks if your x-rays and scans remain clear, but anything sooner than that would be irresponsible."

"I feel fine!" Buck swears.

Dr. Jassim huffs. "Uh-huh. You and every other firefighter I've ever met."

Eddie laughs at that, which is just blatantly pot/kettle, but Buck doesn't call him out because he's too busy watching his mouth move. He only distantly hears Dr. Jassim say she's going to have the charge nurse start his discharge paperwork. As soon as she's gone, he grabs Eddie by the front of his shirt and drags him into a wet, dirty kiss. It's all sloppy tongue and grasping hands and Buck trying to get closer until Eddie cups Buck's face and gentles it. He turns it into something so sweet and slow that the itch under Buck's skin starts to feel like sparks.

"Eddie," he pants. "Eddie."

Eddie hums, "I know," and runs his thumb over Buck's wet lips. "It's a lot. You'll get used to it."

Getting used to it seems impossible—it's too big, too consuming, too present. He's desperate to put his hands in Eddie's hair. He wants to taste Eddie's skin so badly that his mouth is flooding with spit. It's all he can think about. It only ramps up when Eddie pulls away and walks across the room.

"No," Buck complains. His teeth itch. "Come lie down with me."

Eddie snorts and unzips his go-bag. "If they catch me in that bed again, they're going to throw me out."

"We're leaving anyway."

"Yeah, and you need clothes for that."

Buck doesn't care about clothes. He cares that Eddie's so far away. But Eddie comes back, and he gives Buck another slow, sweet kiss, and that coaxes Buck into cooperating. He puts on the clothes Eddie hands him, an old t-shirt and boxer-briefs and a too-short pair of sweats. Eddie doesn't have spare shoes—the hospital cut off Buck's boots—so Buck settles for a fresh pair of grippy socks the color of traffic cones. Once he's dressed, he stretches out on the bed and tugs Eddie down to join him. Immediately, the spark-itch under his skin shifts into something liquid and warm, so good that he can't help basking in it. He stays curled against Eddie's side until the nurse bustles in with his paperwork.

It's the same nurse who kicked Eddie out of the bed the last time he was in it. She clicks her tongue at them, but she hands Buck his paperwork instead of chewing Eddie out again. Eddie rubs Buck's back while Buck reads his discharge instructions and signs his release forms. He holds Buck's hand as an orderly wheels Buck through a maze of hallways and into an elevator and through another maze of hallways and out to the parking structure. As soon as they're in the Sierra, he reaches over the console and rests his hand on Buck's thigh.

They leave First Presbyterian just after eleven, which is the sweet spot between rush hour and lunch. The lull in traffic nearly lures Eddie into the freeway trap, but Buck reminds him that no time is a good time to get on the 405. He skips the on-ramp and stays on Sepulveda, heading past the old iron-and-tile DWP building and the blocky office high-rises at Santa Monica and the massive Public Storage complex. Eddie hums as he drives—tuneless, out-of-sync with the radio—and Buck is practically squirming in his seat with how much he wants to kiss his throat and bite his jaw.

When they miss the light at National, Buck reaches his hand into Eddie's lap. Eddie just laughs and chides, "We're almost home," and bats his hand away.

"Eddie."

"How do you think I feel?" Eddie asks. His mouth is smug again. He leans across the console and kisses Buck's ear. "You've only been like this for a few days. I've been like this for months." He nips at Buck's earlobe. "I still want you all the time. I still can't get close enough."

Buck makes a soft, desperate sound and grabs Eddie's arm because he has to touch something. The light changes, which they only notice because the car behind them honks. Eddie laughs again, then straightens up and hits the gas. Buck just stares at him as they turn left on Palms and cruise past several blocks of mid-century apartments that haven't been gentrified into ugly condos yet. He still has dark circles under his eyes, and his hair is greasy at the roots. He's so fucking hot that Buck snatches his hand back and digs his nails into his own thigh.

When they get home, Eddie insists on taking a shower. And—because Buck has stitches and they're out of saran wrap—he insists on taking it alone. Since Buck can't settle without him, he tries to distract himself around the house. He opens the windows in the bedroom and living room to air things out. He orders an alarming amount of General Tso's, broccoli beef, and shrimp fried rice from the Chinese place on Cadillac and La Cienega. He gets Netflix going, then stretches out on the couch and starts a documentary about bristlecone pines.

The narrator is explaining that the oldest living tree is a bristlecone pine named Methuselah when the water shuts off. A few minutes later, Eddie comes into the living room, rubbing a towel through his wet hair and wearing nothing but those cut-off sweats. When he spots Buck on the couch, he walks right over and sprawls on top of him.

He murmurs, "You're alive," and runs his fingers over Buck's birthmark and cheek and nose. "Fuck. You're alive."

"I am." Buck slides his hands up Eddie's back. "So are you."

Eddie says, "Yeah," and kisses him.





+++





Eddie had been right that night they argued. He'd been right. Buck's inside Eddie—Eddie, who's hot and soft and tight, who's fucking perfect—and he's still not close enough.

"Buck," Eddie says, his lips sliding over Buck's jaw. "What do you need?"

Buck doesn't know. He just needs. It's under his skin—a yearning, big and sharp-toothed and consuming. Hungry. Rolling his hips just ignites it, and then he's chasing it, chasing it, want want want want want.

"Yeah." Eddie tips his head back, baring the long, gorgeous line of his throat. "Come on."

Buck hunches into him and thrusts and thrusts and thrusts. Eddie likes it hard, but he also likes Buck to build up to it, to start slow and work them into a panting, grasping, shattering frenzy. But tonight, he's already digging his heels into Buck's thighs and arching up to meet him. He's dragging his nails down Buck's back and grabbing Buck's ass and pulling him in. So Buck gives Eddie what he wants—what his own body is begging for. He angles his hips and nails Eddie's prostate. Eddie writhes under him, moaning, and Buck chases chases chases the heat coiling in his gut.

"Eddie." He's still not close enough. "Eddie, fuck."

"Do you get it now?" Eddie asks. He rubs his thumb over Buck's birthmark, then skims it down over his nose and traces it over his lips. "Why I'm always touching you and kissing you? Why I always want to be around you?"

Buck makes a rough, desperate noise. He sits up on his knees and hooks one of Eddie's legs over his shoulder. On his next thrust, he sinks in deeper. It feels so good—so incredibly, unspeakably good—but he still wants more. Deeper. Something. He wants to wrap around Eddie like a vine. He wants to crawl inside him and stay there.

"Do you get it now?" There's a raw edge to Eddie's voice this time. His nails are digging into Buck's skin again. "Why I sleep right next to you? Why I wear your clothes when you're not here? Why I won't let anyone else have you?"

"Eddie," Buck pleads. He drops Eddie's leg and braces his elbow beside Eddie's head so he can kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. "I wouldn't. I wouldn't. You're all I want."

"You're mine."

Buck says, "Yeah," and kisses Eddie again. He's close—so fucking close. "Touch yourself."

Eddie's breath hitches. "No. Want to come like this. Tell me—tell me I'm yours."

"You are," Buck promises, his mouth against Eddie's ear. "You're mine. No one else gets to touch you."

Eddie comes then, shuddering, making high, thin noises as his cock spurts over and over. Watching him do it—his throat flexing, his eye glazing over, his hand fisting in the sheets—is enough to yank Buck over the edge.

He can't help it. He just wants to be where Eddie is.





+++





Buck arrives at the restaurant a little before four. It's a hipster Mediterranean place about halfway between the station and dispatch. Since the weather's nice, he grabs a table outside. The patio faces a side street, so the view is low-key, just a couple cyclists and a row of post-bloom jacarandas and a woman walking a chestnut-colored labradoodle. He munches on complimentary pita chips and hummus while he waits. He's drinking his second pomegranate lemonade when Maddie sweeps in fifteen minutes late.

She blurts, "Sorry, sorry," and tosses her purse on one of the chairs. "Chimney's car is in the shop, so he drove mine to work, and I thought I'd take the bus here instead of wasting money on an Uber. I mean, it's only four miles, right? I didn't realize it would take a half-hour."

"No worries," Buck says, smiling. "I ordered you a falafel wrap."

"Extra tzatziki?"

"Of course."

Maddie tells him, "You're the best," and reaches for her lemonade. She glances around as she sips. "Where's Eddie? You usually bring him."

"He's still at the station." Buck's voice is a little sour at the edges; he hates it when Eddie has to work without him. But Peña's maternity leave and Molloy's broken foot have everyone rostered for extra shifts. "How's dispatch?"

"Great. It's great." She pauses, then takes a breath like she's gathering herself. "I… I've been offered a supervisory position at Valley."

"Oh, hey. That's awesome. Are you going to take it?"

"I—" She makes a face. "I don't know. The money would be nice, but it's a forty-minute commute one way. And, we'd have to find a different daycare for Jee-Yun. I'd be starting at seven and the daycare we have now opens at seven-thirty." She sighs as she adds, "Chim and I are still talking about it, but… probably not."

"I'm sorry," Buck says, reaching for the pita chips. "I wish—"

"Evan," Maddie yelps. She grabs Buck's hand. "Is that…?"

Buck's face flushes. He says, "Yeah," and turns his hand so she can get a better look at the ring. It's simple—black tungsten with two beveled silver lines at the center. "Last week."

"He asked you?"

Technically, Buck asked Eddie. Technically. It happened after a weird morning where Eddie had been hit on three times in the span of two calls. Jealous to a point that bordered on insanity, Buck had bought the rings while he was supposed to be picking up lunch and then ambushed Eddie with them at the station. But he's not telling her that. She wouldn't understand. No one understands them but them.

"We kind of just decided."

She frowns a little, and her, "Oh," is deflated, like that story lacks romance. But the truth—that Buck just shoved a ring at Eddie while Eddie was trying to stock the ambulance—isn't much better. She brushes her thumb over the ring before giving Buck his hand back. She asks, "Aren't you worried it's a little soon? You haven't been together very long."

"We love each other," Buck says, shrugging. "And it's not like we're going to run off and get married tomorrow. Eddie wants Christopher to be there."

"How's that going? Last time we talked, you said something about Christmas."

"Yeah. We're going out to visit at Christmas, and we're bringing him home with us."

Maddie's eyes are bright. She reaches over and squeezes Buck's arm. "I'm happy for you."

"Thanks."

"Wow," she tips her head to the side. "You and Eddie, doing the whole til death do us part thing."

"Yeah," Buck says. He touches the mark on his wrist—the mark Eddie now has to match. "Something like that."