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On the third day of Whumpmas, my whumper gave to me...
Three blocked doors,
Two human shields,
And a Buck tied to a pear tree.
"Firefighter Buckley, evacuate now. That's an order."
Buck rammed his shoulder against the door again and sighed in frustration when it refused to budge. Again.
"Firefighter Buckley, evacuate and acknowledge."
Buck reached for this radio even as he surveyed the room he was trapped in to find anything that would help him with the door. Nothing jumped out as useful. "I'm working on it, Cap."
"All of the residents have been accounted for, there's no need to stick around."
"I am actually trying to evacuate, I promise," Buck said.
"What's that supposed to mean? Buck, what's going on?"
Buck didn't want to admit that he ended up trapped in an apartment because he thought he heard a cat meowing and it turned out to be a toy that had been left on. He could probably get away with just saying he heard something and went to investigate...and ended up getting trapped.
"I'm stuck in one of the third floor apartments, unit 3B," Buck reported. "Part of the ceiling collapsed a few moments after I entered, it's blocking the door. I tried ramming it but I think there's too much material on the other side."
"Are there any other exits?"
"There are two other doors, but they're already engulfed on the other side. I think my best bet is gonna be the window. I could jump—"
"Absolutely not. If you can wait five minutes, we'll have the ladder backed up to the window. Unit 3B?"
"Yeah."
Buck could wait five minutes. Five minutes where the smoke in the room was getting thicker and the longer he waited to get the window open, they'd risk introducing more oxygen to the fire if it breached the room...
And by the cracks on the door, the fire might reach him in less than five minutes.
Buck figured that if Bobby could get the ladder to the window in faster than five minutes, he would've said that from the get go. A bag might be a better option, if Buck had to break the window on a jump. Buck eyed the door again; it might have already been too late to open the window for a ladder rescue.
"Cap, I think opening the window is gonna trigger a backdraft at this point," Buck said over the radio. "Any chance you could set up an airbag instead? If the window is really my only way out, I'll need to get through a lot faster than climbing onto the ladder."
There was a pause on the radio, and Buck was sure Bobby was either rubbing the bridge of his nose or consulting with Captain Mehta about how fast they could get the bag deployed. Possibly both.
"We can have the airbag out and ready for you in three minutes, that work?"
Buck eyed the door with growing dread. He'd give it a solid 'maybe.'
"Yeah," he answered instead.
He trusted Bobby with his life, he trusted Hen and Ravi with his life. Hell, he trusted Captain Mehta with his life, he'd already saved it once before. He knew they'd work as fast as they could to get the rescue air cushion ready for him to leap for.
He just couldn't shake the part of him that wished Eddie was out there with them. He wouldn't go as far as to say that he wished Eddie was there in the room with him, because the two of them jumping out that tiny window at the same time would absolutely not work, and if there was a backdraft, they couldn't risk going one after the other. But having Eddie outside and waiting, making sure everything was going smoothly...
That would've helped.
Hell, maybe if Eddie had been with him in the building, he would've recognized the toy for what it was with how hypersensitive he was to technology. Then Buck wouldn't have been trapped in the apartment in the first place.
A crash from outside the room startled him and he flinched, whirling to investigate the door again. The wood was splintering dangerously and Buck guessed he had less than a minute before the flames reached him in the room. He definitely had all the ingredients needed for a backdraft.
"Cap, how's the bag looking?"
"About a minute left for full inflation."
The bags typically took 90 seconds to inflate fully. He wondered if it would be suspicious if he asked whether Bobby was rounding up or down to get to a minute, because Buck definitely did not have a minute left to wait.
"Can you wait that long? Buck?"
"...Yeah."
"That was the least convincing 'yeah' so far." Oh, damn, Bobby had been picking up on the earlier ones, too.
"We don't have time to come up with another plan, so yeah, I'm gonna have to wait that long," Buck snapped, voice sounding a bit more high and pitchy than the sharp sarcasm he was aiming for. Luckily, Bobby didn't comment on it.
"Just be ready to jump."
Buck nodded, more to psych himself up than anything else, considering no one else could see him at the moment. Regardless of the airbag's status, Buck would have to jump at the first sign of a spark. Opening the window would cause a backdraft, but introducing flame to the oxygen-rich room would be just as disastrous. Buck would rather take his chances with the bag than add burning alive to his list of near death experiences.
Buck held himself in a ready stance, knees bent and set loosely like he was playing football again, ready for the center to hike the ball. Except letting the play clock run out in this scenario would have much more dire consequences. He kept the window in his peripheral vision, eyeing the crackling door while scoping out his route of escape—
There.
A spark.
Buck had run out of time.
Buck didn't have time to radio Bobby a warning. He braced his legs then pushed off, running full tilt at the window and then throwing himself through it shoulder first. The glass shattered around him in a shower of broken shards, and as Buck felt the swooping sensation of free-fall, the searing heat of the backdraft nearly helped to push him out the window.
Bobby's startled yell wouldn't be able to stop Buck's fall, and Buck braced his body for a less than graceful landing—
Buck hit the rescue cushion hard and he let out an involuntary howl of pain as his arm absorbed too much of the fall. The bag had done well to absorb the impact otherwise, but it definitely hadn't been fully inflated when he landed on it, and his arm felt the solid mass of the ground below before the bag was able to fully slow his descent.
"Buck!"
Buck groaned, trying to roll off the cushion as he was trained to and immediately regretting the motion. Instead he settled for rolling onto his back and using his feet to awkwardly shuffle to the edge.
"Easy, Buck, we got ya," Hen said, appearing at his side and helping him to his feet off the cushion. Buck winced again—yeah, that shoulder was at the very least dislocated—and Hen immediately steered him in the direction of the ambulance where she and Julie were ready and waiting to treat him.
"I'd say you're giving me gray hairs, but..." Hen said as she helped Buck out of his turnout gear. Buck snorted, grinning sheepishly.
"I'd say you're giving me gray hairs, but..." Bobby said, appearing at the back of the ambulance with them. Hen snorted even as Buck ducked his head.
"You've been getting gray hairs from the moment you found out Buck was joining the 118, it was premonition," Hen said.
"Sorry," Buck mumbled. "I didn't have a choice, the door sparked—"
"Hey," Bobby interrupted, cutting Buck off mid-apology. He waited until Buck looked up before continuing; Buck was relieved to see that Bobby didn't look mad. He didn't even look resigned like he did sometimes when Buck pulled a reckless stunt. "You did what you had to do. It's because of how well you assessed the situation that we even had time to inflate the cushion enough in the first place. If we'd waited for the ladder..."
"I shouldn't have gotten stuck in the first place," Buck muttered.
He could see it in Bobby's face, the way his brows furrowed and he inhaled as if in preparation to say 'I know Eddie's leaving has been hitting you hard, but—' But it was the last thing Buck wanted to hear. He didn't want to be reminded about how Eddie was gone, as if it wasn't the only thing on his mind the last few weeks. He didn't want to hear from Bobby that he was slipping because Eddie not being there to have his back was distracting him. He didn't need to hear that he was making stupid mistakes that could cost him and others their lives.
He'd almost died today because of a fucking toy. They'd even been told before arriving on scene that there were no pets to consider, but Buck got it into his mind that someone had snuck in a pet despite the building's no pets ordinance. Eddie would have talked sense into him.
Bobby was looking at him with an almost pitying look now, as if he could read every thought and emotion on Buck's sooty face. Buck really didn't want to hear it right now. "Bobby—"
"Buck, it was a freak accident. It happens," Bobby said instead, and Buck could almost believe that was what he'd always intended to say with how steadily he delivered the line.
It wasn't long before Hen and Julie did what they could for him; he'd have to go to the hospital for x-rays to make sure there wasn't any damage to his arm that they missed. With the injury not being critical, there were many people ahead of him in the queue and he settled himself in for a long wait, insisting that the team didn't need to wait for him and could go back to the station.
Several hours later when he was finally released with a sling and an order to rest for a few weeks, Buck contemplated on who to call. The team would likely still be working out the rest of their 24 hour shift, so he didn't want to bother them. Taylor, Josh, May, Albert, and Athena were all working too. He could...he could call Eddie...
And show him how fucked up I am over him leaving? Pass.
Buck took out his phone.
"You can have my back any day."
"Yeah. Or, you know, you could—you could have mine."
Buck's shoulder twinged painfully.
He ordered an Uber.