Work Text:
On the third day of Buck’s medically-induced coma, Eddie wills himself out of the hard, plastic hospital chair and announces that he’s going to check on Buck’s apartment.
He doesn’t do it to be helpful or because he needs something useful to do. Going through the motions of living is almost more than Eddie can manage at the moment. He’s too exhausted and numb for much else. Time has slowed to an impossible degree. Every breath pushed into Buck’s lungs, every beep of the monitors around his bed, seems to mark another hour gone by rather than a few seconds. Every night stretches out like an endless void.
No, Eddie offers to go because, after three days, he really needs a break from the other people keeping vigil in Buck’s hospital room.
There’s a rotating cast of Buckleys and Hans here every minute of visiting hours, at least two and sometimes more. When it’s Chimney or Maddie or Albert, Eddie gets these indecipherable looks—of sympathy, definitely, but also a knowingness that’s starting to get on his nerves. Buck’s parents are worse. They seem to view him as some kind of intruder in their family crisis. Watching them at their son’s bedside, stoic and silent, fills Eddie with low-simmering rage. Why are YOU here, he wants to ask them. You don’t know him like we do. You don’t love him like we do.
So even though Eddie doesn’t want to leave Buck’s side, he volunteers for a task that will take him to a place where he knows he belongs—and back to a time when he didn’t question exactly how Buck fit into his life. Because Eddie has been asking himself some pretty damn uncomfortable questions since that lightning strike.
The Buckley parents frown when Eddie assures Maddie that he has his own key to Buck’s place. He takes great pleasure in firmly declining Margaret’s offer to come with him. To the best of Eddie’s knowledge, Buck’s parents have never visited his apartment. He might not want her there, in his safe space, Eddie reasons. Secretly, he also wants to keep as much of Buck as he can for himself right now.
The air in the apartment already feels stale, with a hint of trapped humidity from the rain that’s long gone. Midday sunlight illuminates the white marble floor, so bright that it’s painful. After opening the door to the balcony to let in some fresh air, Eddie falters. The apartment feels as hollow as an empty nautilus shell.
Buck’s going to come home again, Eddie tells himself. There’ll be more dinners around the big table, more game nights—well, assuming Buck ever gets around to buying a new couch. Buck will bustle around the kitchen, his and Chris’ laughter will fill the echoing space, and Eddie—
Eddie will never, ever take any of it for granted again.
Swallowing against the tightness in his throat, he squares his shoulders and gets to work. He goes to the fridge first. There’s not much there, but then again, Buck was probably eating at Maddie and Chim’s house a lot once his parents arrived. Eddie finds a small carton of oat milk that he knows is especially for his and Hen’s coffee. It smells like it’s starting to go bad, so he pours it down the sink, along with a plastic takeout container of hot and sour soup that Buck must have ordered when had a cold last week. The softening berries and browning lettuce go in the garbage can next, followed by the half loaf of multigrain bread from the cabinet. Once the food is taken care of, Eddie washes out the coffee pot and empties the dishwasher.
And then Eddie has to stop, because it feels too much like cleaning out someone’s house after they…
No. He won’t let himself think that way. There’s nothing to grieve about. There’s hope to hold onto. There are still prayers to be said, if one is inclined. Just yesterday, Bobby and Athena sat beside Buck with their heads bowed and hands clasped together, and Eddie could almost hear the echo of his abuela’s voice as he watched them. Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo… Eddie hasn’t been able to bring himself to try it, though. It’s been a long time since he found comfort in prayer, or believed that help might come simply because he asked for it.
He knows too damn well that sometimes help never comes.
Eddie is saved from his thoughts by a small, galvanized steel watering can on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. That’s something else he can do. It will be as if Buck went out of town and asked Eddie to water his plants while he’s gone—ignoring the fact that Eddie is possibly the least qualified person for the task. He can’t even keep a cactus alive. Eddie has a feeling Buck would have faith in him anyway.
The plants on the balcony don’t need watering, thanks to all the recent rain. There are a few small ones scattered around inside, so Eddie circles through the kitchen and living room and dutifully gives each of them some water. Hopefully not too much. He’ll just buy new plants to replace any that he accidentally kills, that’s all. Buck will probably laugh about it later if it comes to that.
He can’t remember if there are any houseplants upstairs, so he climbs the stairs to the bedroom. At the top, he stops, immobilized by the sight before him: Buck’s unmade bed, last slept in four days ago, before their disastrous shift. Eddie sets the watering can on the floor.
Was Buck running late that morning? Was he in such a hurry that he didn’t have time to flip the duvet back over the mattress? Eddie can almost see it in his mind: Buck rushing around, pulling on a jacket and patting his pockets to make sure he has his phone and his keys, the way he always does when he’s about to leave someplace. What was he wearing when he showed up at the firehouse that day? Eddie can’t remember. It feels like a month ago.
With a sigh, he goes to the bed and attempts to shake the wrinkles out of the duvet, but apparently wrangling duvets is another thing that Eddie is bad at. He only manages to make it somewhat smoother than before. The effort leaves him drained, and he sits on the edge of the bed—undoing all his work, no doubt—to rest a minute. God, he’s so tired.
Twisting to the side, Eddie starts straightening the pillows that are piled up in front of the headboard. Beneath them, he finds a black hoodie. It must be the one that Buck last slept in. Eddie holds it up, intending to fold it, but finds himself pressing the fabric to his face instead. Oh. It smells like…
Buck.
He was right here, safe and well, asleep. Eddie’s eyes fill with tears as something cracks open inside him.
Buck.
His chest felt so solid and warm under Eddie’s hands when he took over from Chimney. Please. Please. Please. Twenty times he silently begged, once for each compression. Then paused, so Hen could give Buck two breaths. Then twenty more compressions as the gurney was wheeled into the ER and the raindrops ran down Buck’s lifeless face. Please. Please. Please.
Not a prayer. A plea: Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me yet.
With a shuddering gasp, Eddie tips onto Buck’s pillows and weeps.