Chapter Text
Buck’s pacing Maddie and Chimney’s living room, calling and calling and calling, and no one is answering, and his whole world feels like it’s collapsing – but it’s not his world. It’s his chest.
Chimney’s on the phone with 9-1-1.
“…know what service is like…”
“…don’t have time for the storm to pass…”
He hangs up and walks over, handing Buck a bottle of water. “They say they’ll try to send someone but without a proper location, could be a bust.”
“We need to go,” Buck says, clenching the water and swerving his gaze to Tommy. “Wh-what if we get another helicopter? Like we did for Bobby and Athena? We could get to them quicker.”
Tommy crosses his arms on the opposite couch. He’s just sitting there. The world might be coming apart and he’s sitting there. “There are so many reasons that is a terrible idea, Evan. First being we’ve got no evidence they’re even in trouble. This isn’t the cruise ship – it’s barely been two hours. Maddie and Eddie are smart. They probably pulled over somewhere to wait it out and realized they don’t have service.”
Buck wants to kick him in the shins, logical or not, he wants to. “You don’t know that! Something is wrong. This is Maddie. This is Eddie. They know we’d be panicking. They’d find a way to get us some kind of message—they-they might be in danger, or-or… or hurt.”
It takes the wind out of him, getting the word out.
Tommy sighs, eyebrows furrowing as he considers Buck. “Well, even if I wanted to get us one, I’m pretty sure I’m on several watch lists now – medal or no.”
“So we drive,” Chimney decides.
Buck nods, so hard it hurts his neck. “Yeah, we gotta… w-we can help them look.”
“Guys…” Tommy tries. “I get you’re worried, but—”
“You don’t,” Buck says, “you don’t get it! Maddie’s my sister – she’s Chimney’s wife! And Eddie is…” Buck trips, stumbles over what comes next. All he tastes is metal.
Tommy inclines his head, sympathetic, but hollow, like he’s consoling a child over a dropped ice cream cone. “Your best friend, yeah, I know, I’m not trying to take away from how important these two are to you.”
Best friend. It’s not enough. It’s so viscerally, violently not enough that Buck wants to scream. That Buck wants to swing at Tommy for getting it so wrong. Or, not wrong, but weak. Eddie isn’t just Buck’s best friend. Eddie is Chris’s dad. Eddie’s the person who always buys the new, shitty Pop-Tart flavors when he sees them because Buck likes trying them. Eddie is the one who never shoots down Buck’s ideas. Eddie’s the one who hears Buck panicking about not having top energy and knows Buck needs to hear he’s enough.
Eddie is gravity.
Eddie is his.
Buck shakes his head, these minute, almost quivering shakes. Tears sting his eyes, but his mouth won’t move, until he turns back to Chimney – pale, staring at his phone, like any second it’ll light up. Like any second everything will be fine. “Anything?”
“No,” Chimney says, kind of hoarse. “Kira says she can’t get through either, and they never sent her anything about pulling over.”
“Let’s just go,” Buck says, “whoever they send out there is gonna give up too fast. We need to go. We need to go right now.”
“We wouldn’t even know where to go,” Tommy says.
Buck pulls up his phone, hand shaking, as he skims his last texts with Eddie.
Eddie: Don’t you have a date to focus on?
Eddie. Buck’s heart pounds too fast at the words. He was answering. He was there. He was fine.
He is fine.
Buck: I can multi-task
Eddie: you really can’t
Buck: if I wasn’t texting I’d be worrying so it’s your job to distract me
Eddie: oh really?
Buck: legal obligation
Eddie: I filled Maddie in on the bottom/top conversation
Buck: I thought we were dropping that forever
Eddie: It’s pretty funny now that I don’t have to look you in the eyes
Buck: glad I could amuse you
Eddie: glad I could distract you
Buck: you guys getting close? This storm looks brutal
Eddie: GPS says about 30 mins
Buck: maybe you guys could pull over for a little bit
Buck: hey you’re not allowed to lose service right now
Ten minutes later.
Buck: eddie??
Fifteen.
Buck: I really really need you to answer me
Twenty.
Buck: please eddie
Buck: say something please
Twenty-two.
Buck: you have to be okay
Buck: I need you
Buck forces himself to stop reading, to stop hoping Eddie will text – will make things better like he always does. “E-Eddie, uh…” His name leaves claw marks on Buck’s tongue. “He, uh, last thing he said w-was they were about thirty minutes out. They probably pulled over there, right?”
“Evan,” Tommy tries.
“No!” Buck says. “I’m going, we’re going – c’mon, Chim!”
Chimney lets out a breath, like he’s trying to remember where his lungs are. “I-I know, just hang on.”
“Hang on?” Buck takes a few steps towards him. “What do you mean hang on?”
“Just let me think, Buck.” It’s mean – shaved to nothing but fear.
“We don’t have time to think,” Buck gives it back. “We have to go get them now.” He wants to tear out of his own skin – he wants to tunnel into the earth and come out at the place where his sister and Eddie are waiting for him. Where his beating heart is waiting for him.
Chimney startles as his phone lights up, hope turning to black ash when he reads the text. “Kira says there’s a…” He can’t get it out. His mouth opens, but there’s no words, just awful, raking breaths. “The news.”
“What?” Buck’s ears ring.
Tommy steps over to grab the remote, flips through channels until he finds the local news. There’s a news anchor in front of a blurry, rain-soaked image of a car, like it was taken on a phone camera. Buck staggers towards the TV, trying to make his ears work again.
“We are following a developing story along the Angeles Crest Highway, where a car has reportedly skidded off the road during the ongoing storm. The vehicle was discovered a short while ago at the base of a cliff on the Switzer Truck Trail below. Emergency services are on the scene despite the severe weather conditions. Initial reports indicate that there are at least two fatalities.”
Buck’s legs give out, mouth trembling as he stares at the TV – as he wills himself to wake up. As he breaks apart, piece by jagged piece.
“No,” he says. “No. That’s—n-no.”
This isn’t happening.
This only happens in nightmares.
Wake up, just wake up.
But the news anchor won’t stop – she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get the world’s ended – she doesn’t know that she doesn’t need to tell anyone anything anymore.
"The car is believed to have lost control on a sharp turn amidst the heavy rain and strong winds. Rescue teams and investigators are battling the storm to assess the situation and search for any additional vehicles or potential survivors."
“Fuck,” Tommy breathes.
Chimney’s laugh is strained, this kind of watery, impossibly noise. “C’mon, no way—no way, that… that’s not their… that’s not her car.” He turns, searching Buck and Tommy. “That isn’t—that’s not her.” His voice breaks over the words.
Buck looks. The car is nothing but a crushed silhouette obscured by blurred raindrops and a bad flash.
"The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has closed the affected section of the highway. With the storm continuing to impact the area, officials are urging extreme caution and advising residents to stay off the mountain roads if possible."
Buck’s face burns – his everything burns. He stares at his phone. It was just an hour ago. He was talking to Eddie an hour ago. “No, no, we-we gotta go. We gotta go up there. We… we have to…” Buck chokes on his own breathing, tries to stand, nearly falls into Tommy. “We just… they’re fine. There’s so many cars. That doesn’t mean—that’s not…”
Tommy says nothing. He’s looking at his phone, finger skimming, scrolling, along the screen, but his eyes are too severe, too dark, and Buck doesn’t mean to yell when he asks, “What?! What are you doing? What?!”
There’s a startled expression on Tommy’s face, but he shoves his phone into his pocket and shakes his head. “I was seeing if there was more information.”
“Alright, yeah, let’s go,” Chimney says, pulling Jee out of her bed, bundling her up, already halfway out the door when Buck throws it open.
This isn’t real. Eddie’s fine. Eddie wouldn’t leave him. Maddie wouldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t leave Jee or Chimney. They’re fine. He loves them. He just has to go get them. He has to bring them home.
Tommy follows them, but he’s got sense enough not to get in the way, at least physically. “Hey, hang on – I really think we just need to take a beat, here. You can’t bring your kid—”
“Fuck you,” Chimney snaps, and he slams his phone against his ear as he hurries towards the car, shielding Jee from the rain as best he can.
“Hen, hey – can, uh, can I bring Jee by for tonight?” Chimney gets Jee into her carseat, shaky over the buckles. “It’s, uh… it’s Maddie… she’s…” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. “Okay, thanks.”
Chimney heads around to the driver’s side as Buck scrambles into the passenger seat, but Tommy blocks him, and throws up his hands before Chimney can hit him. “Just, let me drive, okay? You’re upset. It’s dangerous. I’ll take you guys, alright?”
Chimney lowers his hand, takes a steadying breath, then slams the keys into Tommy’s hand and climbs into the back beside Jee.
Tommy gives Buck a quick look before he starts the car. The rain is heavy – constant, but Tommy puts the car into reverse and pulls out of their driveway.
Buck keeps staring at his phone. Staring at his texts. Maddie. Eddie. Maddie. Eddie. He knew better than to let them go. He wants to push Tommy out of the car, wants to scream and claw and bite, to blame it on him.
But it’s not Tommy’s fault. It’s Buck’s. Buck let them go. Buck let his entire world – entire heart and soul and sun – get into a car and drive up a winding road in the middle of a storm he knew was getting worse. He let them go.
Lightning thrashes across the sky, and Buck remembers getting struck by it. Feels the cracks in the scars on his shoulder like they’re tearing open.
He survived a lightning strike.
Eddie’s alive. Maddie’s alive. They’re both alive.
Maddie can’t die. Not after everything she did to get back here, to carve out this happiness for herself, after everything – no, she can’t be gone. She’s always been there. Buck’s still here, so she’s still here.
And Eddie.
Eddie can’t die when the last time he told Chris he loved him, Chris didn’t say it back. He can’t die while Buck is... He can’t die. Eddie can’t leave him. Eddie wouldn’t leave him.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
“I can’t find any information on this fucking car,” Chimney snaps. “It’s just three articles, all with the same bullshit info.”
“She would’ve pulled over,” Buck chokes out. “Eddie would’ve made her pull over. They wouldn’t have been – they would have stopped.”
Maddie wouldn’t risk it. She wouldn’t.
I need you.
Eddie wouldn’t leave him.
Buck puts his phone to his ear and listens to Eddie’s phone ring. Ring and ring and ring until his voicemail picks up, because he’s one of three people alive – alive – he’s alive – who still have a recorded voicemail. “Hey, it’s Eddie Diaz, you know what to do.”
Stupid.
His voicemail is so stupid.
Buck hangs up and dials it again.
They pull up to Hen and Karen’s a twenty-two minutes later. Hen runs out with an umbrella and opens the door, unbuckling Jee quicker than Chimney buckled her. “What’s going on, Chim?”
Chimney opens his mouth, but, again, nothing comes out.
Tommy answers instead, “Maddie and Eddie were going to see a friend of Maddie’s tonight, and there was a… there was an accident on Angeles Crest Highway, so we’re gonna head over there and see what’s going on.”
Hen startles, pulling Jee out of the seat, and when Chimney still says nothing, she glances at Buck, he opens his mouth – just like Chim, and just like Chim, nothing comes out.
“I’m sure they’re both just fine,” she says, “those are two of the smartest people I know.”
“Yeah,” Chimney finally chokes out. “It’s not her car. It can’t be her car – the frame’s too small.” He’s shoving the phone at Hen, and she looks at it. “The Mazda... this is too small, right? The frame’s too small. It’s too small.”
Hen puts a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t I come with you? I can give Jee to Karen.”
“No,” Chimney says automatically. “No, please – enough people I care about have already gone up that stupid mountain. Just… take care of my baby girl, okay?”
Hen’s eyes glisten, but she doesn’t let go of Chimney, almost as if she’s going to fight him on it, before she draws back and sucks in a breath. “You got it.” She casts another look to Buck before she backs out of the car. “He’ll be alright, Buck. They’ll both be alright.”
Buck tries to answer, tries to agree, but all that comes out is a shattered breath, and Hen goes blurry as he nods at her.
They turn onto the highway, and Buck dials Eddie’s number again.
“It’s Eddie Diaz, you know what to do.”
No, Eddie, I don’t.
I don’t know what to do without you.
~
Maddie holds her breath every time the car moves while she delicately makes her way to the passenger side, cuts through the seatbelt the same as she did the one on the driver’s. Her arm burns. The glass slices at her palm, streaking the glass and her arm red, and every few breaths, her lungs seize, like she’s not going to be able to take in enough air. But she ignores it – because she isn’t dying here.
No one is dying here.
Eddie hasn’t said anything about her confession on Buck’s behalf. Once she finished, he watched her for so long she thought he’d frozen, then he said he had an idea.
This idea. The only idea they’ve got, currently. The mildly crazy one.
She tries not to focus on Eddie’s breathing – the way it hitches, the way every now and then, he can’t stop a cry from getting loose. She told him it was fine – she knows it hurts, she’s a nurse, she can handle it, but he’s fighting it anyway. For her.
Or maybe it’s muscle memory for him, to hold things back.
It’s dangerous. Rule one of being impaled is to stay that way until medical intervention is nearby, but they don’t have that luxury. Eddie is slowly working himself off the car’s warped piece of frame because it’s the only way what they’re about to do doesn’t kill him.
“Y-you good?” she calls down when she gets back to the driver’s side, letting herself gasp at the pain in her collarbone for a couple breaths.
“Yeah,” he says, but the words are splattered in blood. “Yeah, I-I think… I think I’m clear.”
She checks. He is, but god, there’s blood everywhere, and he’s shivering – it’s clear even over the distance. He’s in so much pain. It’s visible, prickling through him like sunlight over thin ice, threatening to shatter him with every passing minute. But they need him awake for this. Clear-headed. They need him to hang on. Maddie needs him to hang on.
Buck needs him to hang on.
“Eddie,” she whimpers. “Please.”
So much of this plan hinges on them getting just a little bit lucky, and, well, both of them have historically struggled with that particular attribute.
Guilt nips at her heels, tearing at her worse than her injuries, trying to break her concentration. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, if she hadn’t just… no, she can’t do this right now.
He glares up at her, eyes harder, but no less bright. “We’re both getting out of this, alright?”
“Promise?”
He hedges, considers, then steels himself. “I promise.”
She knots the loose seatbelts together, ties them around her waist, wincing around the pain, then tosses Eddie the slack. He does the same with the backseat belts, but his hands shake, fumble with the knots.
His leg’s still pinned, so he’s got to fight for every movement, and the gash in his neck gushes when he tenses too hard.
“Can you get your leg free?” she asks.
He makes another halfhearted attempt to push at the metal crushed around it, then shakes his head as rain continues to pelt him, bouncing off and soaking everything. “Guess we’ll find out.”
He gets the belts around his waist, then catches the dangling line from Maddie’s waist and tugs. It cinches, holds firm, and he ties the two ends together, pulling them as tight as he can. Finally, he glances up at her, one eye closed against the rain.
There’s a determination, a resolve, in his expression that fills her with a certainty that has no business in a car seconds from toppling to certain destruction.
Well, then he’s got me.
She takes a final, separate, stretch of seatbelt and snaps it between her hands, twisting it tight around both of them until its tight. This is going to hurt, but they are going to make it. She is going to get back to Jee, to Chimney, to Buck, and she is bringing Eddie with her.
“Ready?” she asks.
Eddie glances down, then ices the fear out of his eyes. “Yep.”
There are a couple trees that could work, but they’re too tall. No, she needs one of the shorter shrubs – something she can get over top of. She eyes the closest one. If it’s just her and Eddie, the roots should hold. The car will fall, but they won’t. The shrub is barely a foot from the hood of the car – it’s bent at an angle low enough she can get the belt over it, catch on it like a horseshoe. She has to be quick. If she misses…
She won’t miss.
She takes a shaking breath and sends a prayer up to every god who’s listening, then hoists herself onto the hood. It’s slick, and her fingers slip over dented metal, as she tries to get her feet beneath her. The car groans, teeters, but she gets up. She can’t think about it – can’t think about slipping, about falling and killing them both. She can’t think about the pounding in her leg. She takes one step, two, then throws herself forward, onto the soaking wet, solid ground and gets the belt around the blunted shrub.
Everything tilts away from her, and she squeezes her eyes shut against the strain in her hands. The car whines, scrapes along the ledge, pitches over, and the belt around her waist goes taut.
It steals the wind from her chest, and for a moment, she thinks the roots will break – thinks she will break, but then Eddie screams, a real, unfiltered scream. A whoosh of panic cuts through her just before the weight shifts, lessens. Her hands quiver – and she risks a glance down to find Eddie, just Eddie, dangling from the knotted seatbelts, hands coiled around the higher knots, like he thought he was going to fall.
“Oh, hey,” she says, full delirium, “your leg.”
It’s half shredded, a crimson, bloodied mess. She can see part of the bone tearing out near the top of his
“Yeah,” Eddie chokes on it, sliding one of his hands away from the belts, trying to find purchase on the cliffside. “My leg.”
“Can you feel it?”
“Fuck,” it’s almost another scream, “sure can.”
Lightning flickers again, and Maddie stares up at it. Her body aches with Eddie’s weight, with the strain of the seatbelt wrapped around her hands. “Can you get up?” she asks. “I don’t – I don’t know how long this is gonna hold.”
“Working on it,” Eddie answers.
He’s trying to swing towards it, using his good foot and free hand to search for somewhere to dig in, but he keeps slipping. He’s a slash of silhouette, wrung out like a squeezed rag, drawn to his breaking point, as he fumbles for some – any – support.
“Eddie.” Maddie lets out a groan at the pressure on her hands – like the bones in them are being crushed, one by one. But she can’t let go. They’ve come this far. She can’t let go. “Hurry.”
“Maddie…” Eddie’s voice is hoarse, hard to hear, even if the wind is quieter now. “I can’t—the belts…”
She risks another look, where he’s still trying, desperate to figure out a way up. One of the knots, the one just above his hand still holding them, is too thick – like it’s coming undone. She needs to reach down – to secure it, do anything, but if she moves, she’ll lose her leverage. She’ll lose the only thing keeping him in the air.
It’s slipping – he’s slipping – she can feel it. There’s a shift, an unfurling. The fabric was meant to sustain force, but it’s slick – and the knots…
“No, no, no,” she gasps, then, as if he can do anything about it, “Eddie!”
He looks up at her, and his panic is brighter than any lightning strike, even through the rain, even with wet rock and debris between them. He gets a grip on one of the rocks, but the belts shudder, unraveling as he drops his other hand towards his waist.
“Eddie!”
Her vision sparks, and she watches – watches the belts slowly, slowly, then too fast, come undone, watches Eddie slip until she can’t see him anymore.
The burn in her hands, the pain, everything, goes silent, and she hears the rock crumble, hears it fall. Hears Eddie’s sharp, raking intake of breath. Feels it – feels him – fall.
She needs to get up. She needs to look for him, needs to get him, but her body won’t move.
Eddie.
Light flickers around the corner in her periphery, the same corner those first headlights flew around too fast – only these are red and flashing. Only these are too late.
Buck needs you.
~
The drive is excruciating. Buck clenches his fists so hard it brands crescents into his palms. There’s a warm beading along them, like it might be bleeding, but he doesn’t open his fists.
It’s not real, he keeps telling himself. He’s going to wake up.
It’s like he’s in suspended animation. So much of his life has held tragedy in its corners, yawning shadows in the peripheral. So much of him is made from threats of things that stopped just short of shattering, like a dream of falling that ends just before he hits the ground.
Losing Christopher in the tsunami.
Doug kidnapping Maddie.
Eddie under that rig.
Eddie getting shot.
It’s always okay. In the end, he survives – they survive. They come back. He wakes up.
He has to wake up.
This can’t be happening.
“We don’t know anything yet, Buck.”
He thinks of Maddie and her pinky promises. Maddie distracting their mom while he snuck in late. Maddie putting bandages on his cuts. Maddie giving him her Jeep. Maddie keeping all his postcards. Maddie listening, teasing, while he talked about…
“Hey, it’s Eddie Diaz, you know what to do.”
It was Eddie, beside him on the hospital bench, when Maddie was missing. They hadn’t known each other that long then, but Buck had looked at Eddie and known it would be okay. Had known he’d find his sister. Things are okay when Eddie’s there. That’s who wakes him up. Eddie wakes him up.
Because he listens. He listens like he likes it.
Wake me up, Eddie. Please, wake me up.
He doesn’t think about Eddie. Doesn’t think about Christopher. Doesn’t think about a hand on his shoulder, doesn’t think about forgiveness. He doesn’t think about Eddie’s soft brown eyes or how he drags his teeth over his lip when he plays Call of Duty.
He can’t.
“We gotta be close,” Chimney’s voice cuts through the static.
Buck tries to blink. The rain is still coming down, but it’s easier to see the road, like maybe the storm is passing. The storm is passing, but his phone isn’t ringing. The storm is passing, but his heart still isn’t beating. It doesn’t make sense. They would know – they would know how scared he is.
They wouldn’t…
“Yeah, about fifteen minutes out,” Tommy says. “I got a feeling we’re gonna run into a barricade soon.”
Buck dials Eddie’s number, brings the phone back to his ear.
“Hey, it’s Eddie Diaz, you know what to do.”
It’s just a storm, Buck thinks.
46% more fatal crashes on mountain roads.
34% more when it’s raining.
Mathematically, it’s almost 100%.
Why didn’t he go? Why didn’t he stop them?
As a kid, his mom used to tell him don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
He always thought it was silly. He could hope for something, throw himself into something, and come out the other side fine. Even if it didn’t work out. He’d always thought it was her way of telling him to give up before he started. Another way of her not believing in him.
But now, he gets it.
For once, his mom was right.
All his eggs were in that fucking basket.
And he let them go. Without him.
For a date with…
“Who are you calling, Evan?” Tommy asks.
Buck swallows hard. “Eddie.”
Tommy says nothing. Buck isn’t looking at him. He just closes his eyes against the sound of Eddie’s voice again. It’s real. It’s right here. If he can just reach through the phone and touch him. He’d be – he’d be…
Eddie is fine.
“I’m telling you,” Chim says, frantic, “this isn’t the Mazda.”
Buck pulls up the article on his own phone, zooms in on the picture for the thousandth time. Thinks of the white-silver car Maddie and Eddie climbed into. It’s so hard to make out anything. The car in the picture is ruined, colorless. Whoever was inside would’ve been…
“It’s not,” Buck finally decides. “It can’t be.”
He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know but it can’t be.
Tommy lets out a breath. “Okay, looks like we’ve come as far as they’re gonna let us.”
There are red and blue and white lights, caution tape, barricades, all sliced through sheets of rain. They breathe a kind of life back into Buck. He’s right here – if he can just get over there, find them, this will all be okay. He shoves the car door open and stumbles into the storm. The road soaks him through quick, but he doesn’t notice.
The storm’s still strong enough to obscure what’s between the lights, but Buck drags himself forward until a man in a uniform appears. “Sir, this area is off-limits. We’re investigating an accident.”
“No,” is all Buck says as he tries to push past.
“Sir!” The officer grabs his arms, and Buck fights back.
“Get off,” Buck snarls, and eventually, he twists enough that it throws the office onto the wet pavement.
Chimney is there, suddenly, out of breath. “Hang on,” he gets out. “We’re—my wife drove up here earlier, and we haven’t been able to get ahold of her.”
“Jesus,” the man says, staring at Buck like he’s a feral dog. He feels like one. “You couldn’t’ve said that?”
Instead of answering, Buck croaks. “Did you—is anyone alive?”
The officer glances over his shoulder, then back to the two of them. “Yeah, looks like there was a second car involved.”
“I knew it,” Chimney says, but Buck’s heart doesn’t unclench – stuck between a thousand branching paths, knowing there’s only one that keeps it beating. That keeps his world turning. “I knew it – are they-are they okay?”
“Just one,” the man answers. “we haven’t been able to find the other car, but…”
Buck’s hearing goes tinny, muffled. Like he’s hearing everything from the bottom of a pool.
One.
That’s not enough.
Maddie and Eddie. Eddie and Maddie.
One.
That’s not possible.
Buck shakes his head. He shakes his head and wills himself to scream, but there’s just rain – rain seeping into his lungs until he’s drowning.
Suddenly, Chimney’s clinging to him, grappling with his arms like he’s trying to find something. No, Chimney’s holding him up, because Buck collapsed, he realizes, a second too late. He’s not standing, and Chimney’s trying to help.
He doesn’t want help. He wants to sink into the ground.
Chimney’s talking to the officer, trying to get information, maybe – Buck can’t hear him. Buck keeps staring, trying to see through the blare of lights and storm. Someone brings an umbrella, helps Chimney and Buck over to an ambulance.
Buck stares at the line of the cliff – it’s steep, so steep. No one should drive on these roads. Certainly not people connected to someone else’s heartbeat. People like Maddie.
Eddie.
“…over the ledge… isn’t saying anything…”
He thinks of this afternoon on Eddie’s couch before he started getting ready. Eddie was scrolling through games in the XBOX library, talking about how Chris loved one, hated another. They were close. Close enough that Eddie’s arm kept brushing his when he’d get animated about something.
It was easy, right. Home. Two people, tied together. Making everything just a little more breathable.
Eddie was sad – he is sad. He’s hurting. He misses Chris, but even if he’s never said it – being near Buck makes it hurt less. Just like being near Eddie always makes Buck hurt less.
Like that day on the bench, when Maddie was missing.
Making the impossible bearable.
That’s what home is.
Buck desperately wants to go home.
“…she’s hysterical.”
She.
Buck finds her, then, inside another ambulance. The rain’s pulled her hair into ribbons across her face, and her shoulders hunch where an officer’s draped a blanket around her. And finally, even from fifty feet away, he sees her eyes.
He sees her see him.
Just like she always sees him.
And in that moment, they both break.
~
Maddie is cold. Freezing, really. She’s alive. She knows that – she is trying, so hard, to be happy for that, but there are emergency personnel, pulling at her, trying to talk to her. And all she can do is stare at that ledge.
Eddie.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. He promised her. He said they were both going to get out, and she believed him. People are asking her questions, and she knows she ought to answer – knows she ought to say Eddie fell.
But she can’t. She can’t move beyond that last, gasping sound she heard. Eddie came with her to be kind. People can’t just die when all they wanted was to be kind.
They can, though, a voice whispers, you know that.
Not Eddie, though.
Not Buck’s person.
“Eddie,” she keeps saying it, staring at the edge of the cliff.
More questions bounce off her. Even if she wanted to, she doesn’t know if she could answer them. She thinks of Buck, of hopeful blue eyes and a heart that won’t break. No matter how many times it’s been struck – by lightning or shit parents – it won’t break.
This will break it.
This will break him.
“Eddie,” she says it again, begging, pleading for someone that can’t answer her.
“Ma’am,” she finally makes out one of the voices, “is that who was with you? Was he still in the car?”
No, she thinks, he was with me.
He was supposed to be with me.
She’s spent her whole life making things up to Buck. Leaving. Lying. Letting him go. These past few years, it’s almost felt like they were back on solid ground. Like maybe, just maybe, she could stop feeling like she failed him. Like maybe it was okay that she came to LA and decided to stay, because Buck was the first time she felt like she could breathe after Doug.
For the first time, things were okay.
For both of them.
They had each other, and Maddie had Chimney, had Jee, after everything she fought through to get there – she had them.
And Buck had…
She shoves at one of the people holding her, drawing away from the safety of the ambulance. “Eddie,” she screams it this time. “You have to go get him. He was—he was there.”
“Ma’am,” someone tries again, “you have to calm down, please.”
“Go get him!” She whirls, eyes wide, as her hands hit the man’s chest too hard. “You have to get Eddie, okay? You have to get him.”
“You’re in shock, miss.”
“No,” she chokes, even though she knows she is. “no, he’s there. He was right there. Go get him. Please, please get him.”
Buck had Eddie.
She can’t take this from him. Can’t be the reason Buck loses everything. Tommy or Taylor or whoever – it’s never mattered, not since he met Eddie. And even if she’d convinced herself it might take a lifetime, they loved each other. Even if they didn’t touch or kiss or talk like Maddie and Chimney finally did – they were together.
That’s all they needed.
It’s what got her through the frustration. What kept her from smacking Buck in his stupid, jealous head when he nearly broke Eddie’s ankle and then started dating Tommy.
It’s why she never screamed it in his face.
“He needs him,” she tells the officer, knowing damn well it doesn’t make any sense. “He needs Eddie. You have to get… Eddie.”
“Okay,” a woman says, pulling Maddie back and stroking her shoulders. “We will. We’ll get him.” They’re lying to calm her down. It’s what you’re supposed to do. “For now, you just need to take a breath.”
They pull her back into the ambulance. They’re going to sedate her. Maddie knows how this works. She’s in dispatch. She used to be a nurse. You sedate frantic people, and right now, Maddie’s beyond frantic.
It’s hard not to be when you killed the love of your brother’s life.
There’s a shift in the rain, like it’s harder and softer all at once. People are shuffling near the edge of her vision, down the road she and Eddie drove up to get here. Please, no. She can’t face him – she can’t – but she has to.
She jerks her eyes toward her brother, tears and rain and everything blurring the world around her, but he’s there. Crystal clear. Broken. Unreachable.
“Buck,” she gasps. “Oh, god…”
He’s not there. Even from this far away, it’s so obvious, his eyes are hollowed out – vacant. Like someone’s taken an ice cream scoop to his insides. Even as relief tries to claw it’s way onto his face, even if there’s some part of him that will always be glad to see Maddie.
Maddie isn’t Eddie.
And even the relief, the joy in seeing her, is dwarfed in the wake of a black, unforgiving grief.
She glances again towards the ledge, sobbing, trying to gasp around her own failure, when she hears the other voice. “Maddie, oh my god.”
And for one, shimmering instant, everything fades – everything fades except relief, when she looks at Chimney. Soaked and shaking and sprinting towards her.
It makes the world soft and simple, and everything drains in the wake of his arms around her, in how easy it is to sink into him, into the kiss he presses into her temple.
“Maddie, Maddie,” he says, “thank god.”
“Guess you were right,” she says, lost in him for a moment.
“I’m always right,” Chimney whispers into her hair.
And everything is okay, because he’s here, and he’s holding her, until she catches Buck again, or the hollowed-out silhouette of him, over Chimney’s shoulder.
Until she realizes this is exactly what she’s taken from him.
Buck’s face twists, stuttering, like lights flickering before they come on, and he’s looking – looking towards the ledge the car went over. The ledge where… his eyebrows shoot up, suddenly present– suddenly Buck again.
“Hey,” someone calls, “hey, there’s another one!”
And then, relief. Buck’s, hers, blended into a single inhale.
Eddie, Maddie wants to scream, wants to gasp, but instead, she breaks into deeper, more painful sobs against Chimney’s chest, and she lets him hold her, really hold her. Because she knows Buck’s going to be okay – because she knows she made Eddie see it, made him look at it.
Buck needs you.
And Eddie Diaz will walk through fire, swim through oceans, through everything, for Evan Buckley.
Then he’s got me.
~
Buck feels it before any of it really registers. There’s a shift, a beat, as the rain slows, like it’s holding its breath the same as he is.
“Eddie,” Buck gasps because he sees his hand over the side of the ledge – the impossible, horrible ledge – sees it jam something into the wet ground. “Eddie.”
It’s like he’s been struck by lightning a second time, only this time, instead of wrecking him – the bolt slams into his core and stays there. Electrifies him like defibrillator paddles. He’s on his feet, sprinting towards the ledge, ignoring every warning – every cry telling him to stop. Telling him it’s dangerous.
Eventually, someone near-tackles him to the ground, and he shoves them, staggers upright, as he watches two firefighters lift Eddie over the lip of the cliff. They pull him a few feet away from it, before Eddie, bloodied and blistered with exhaustion, raises his eyes to meet Buck’s.
“Eddie,” Buck keeps saying it, like it’s a prayer.
And in a glittering heartbeat, everything fades – everything fades except relief, because this is Eddie. Soaked and shaking and staring at him.
Everything goes soft and simple and, thankfully, the officers have enough sense to get out of the way when Buck sprints and wraps his arms around him. Eddie sinks into him, one arm coming up to hang off Buck’s shoulder.
“Eddie,” Buck keeps saying. He can’t stop saying it, as he pulls him back a little, pouring over the injuries, the gash in his neck, on his face, his leg – god, he’s hurt bad. “Eddie, fuck, Eddie.”
“I’m right here, Buck,” Eddie says, somehow gentle, despite all the blood – despite all the hurt, like Buck’s the one bleeding, the one near-death. “You can breathe.”
He’s right. He’s here. He’s hurt, but he’s here.
Buck can breathe.
“Yeah.”
Buck catches Eddie’s face between his hands, follows every line, memorizing – soaking it in. Lightning slashes overhead, but Buck doesn’t notice – not the lightning, instead, he revels in the way it paints Eddie brighter, realer. More defined. He’s soaked and bloody and bruised and perfect.
God, Buck could look at him for the rest of his life.
Buck wants to look at him for the rest of his life. Nothing but him.
That’s when he gets it. Maybe he got it before he ever let Eddie get into that car with Maddie. Maybe he’s known for years. But in this fractured instant – he knows, without a shred of doubt, that he’s in love with Eddie Diaz. That Eddie is the thing that makes him come alive. That wakes him up.
Eddie is the thing he can’t lose.
I love you, Buck thinks, thinks, thinks, but doesn’t say. Instead, his fingers crook against Eddie’s bruised jaw, draw his bloodied mouth into an aching kiss as he tastes the sting of copper, of blood, on Eddie’s lips. It’s not new. Not really. Buck’s had Eddie’s blood in his mouth before, but he’s never felt the bite of what Eddie’s fought through for this, for him. Never lost himself in the heat of Eddie’s mouth or his quivering shock or his shuddering gasp at being tasted like this.
And Buck realizes, with perfect clarity, Eddie’s never been kissed properly. Not like he’s meant to be. Not like he needs to be. He’s never been touched, breathed, worshipped, like he is the only thing worth holding.
He’s never been loved like Buck was born to love him.
Eddie hesitates, but eventually his mouth opens against Buck’s, and he kisses him back, laced in uncertainty but alive with hunger. His palm finds the pulse point in Buck’s throat, draws it louder than the rain. And the moment is another, final, lightning strike, blinding, consuming, and too quick. Because Eddie’s hand goes slack against Buck’s neck and his body gives out, sinks completely into Buck’s.
Buck holds him tighter, eyes scouring the dizzied, uncertain expression on Eddie’s face, until he whispers, still against Eddie’s mouth, “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” is all Eddie gets out before he collapses in Buck’s arms.
Buck cradles the back of his head, tugging him against his chest to feel his pulse, his breath, his body. Eddie needs help. He needs a hospital, but for just one more second, Buck can’t let go of him.
~
Maddie doesn’t remember passing out. All she remembers is Chimney holding her as she watched her brother’s face come to life like a sunrise.
But now, she’s in a hospital bed with one arm wrapped against her chest, listening to the sound of the pulse oximeter and heart rate monitor. Her head hurts, but her vitals are good, and her breathing’s easier now. She squirms a little, and it tugs on the IV in her free arm.
“Hey, hey,” Chimney’s voice pulls her fully to the surface. “Take it easy.”
He’s in a chair on the side of her bed, red imprints pressed into his cheek where he clearly fell asleep watching her. “Hey,” she manages through a smile.
“Hey yourself.” He laughs but chokes on it a little bit. “How you feeling?”
Maddie considers – a lot of the pain from before lingers, dulled, but nothing feels unbearable. “Not the best I’ve ever felt.”
Chimney cocks his head, catching a stray lock of hair and tucking it behind her ear. “No kidding?”
“Weird, right?” She smiles stares at the man who drove up the same mountain in the same storm that nearly killed her on the off chance he could pull her out of the fire.
And he did, he always does.
Chimney leans down to kiss her forehead. “You are never going on another road trip without me, got it? All other near-death experiences will be had with me or not at all.”
She laughs, and it hurts a little, until he draws a hand down the side of her face. “Wait, what about… where’s Jee?”
“With Hen and Karen,” he says. “They said she slept like a log, so I’m thinking we just send her over there every other night.”
Maddie laughs. It scrapes at her chest. “No way, I’m never leaving you or her ever again.”
God, she means it. All the fear from the car races back to her, the thought of never seeing her baby again.
“I can get behind that.”
The rest of the accident coils around her like smoke, almost suffocating, as she thinks of that car, of Eddie’s bloodied face staring up at her. As she thinks of his rasp of breath when the belt knots failed. Of Buck’s eyes on hers.
“H-how’s Eddie?” The words come out too big, and some part of her recoils – terrified of the answer.
Chimney glances over his shoulder. “It wasn’t great, but they think he’s gonna be alright. He just got out of surgery. They want him to rest a little before anyone can see him.” Chimney tries for another smile. “Buck’s been tremendously chill about it.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she says, but her chest flutters. There’s other news he would’ve handled much worse. Other news that, for a moment, she saw him handle much worse. “Patience has always been one of his strong suits – especially with Eddie.”
“Always,” Chimney says. “Not sure why the staff keeps saying he needs a prescription for Valium.”
Maddie laughs, letting the second wave of relief crash through her, like a dose of Dilaudid. When she opens her eyes, the room’s so stark, so loud in her vision, Chimney’s the only thing she can look at without needing to squint. “Have you heard from Kira?”
Chimney chuckles. “You just can’t stop worrying about other people, even for a second, huh?”
She rolls her eyes. “I did all this to cause her less stress, and then I went and…” She drops her head onto the pillow. This all turned out to be such a mess. Poor Eddie. Poor Kira.
“Hey, none of that,” Chimney says. “You were trying to help a friend, and just so happened, once the storm passed, she came up to make sure you were okay. She even brought some breakfast. I’m not an expert, but she seems pretty sober to me.”
A hissing sound pulls her attention to a new read on her blood pressure, 128/84, which is about as good as anyone could expect after all this. “God, that’s a relief.”
Chimney takes her hand in both of his. “I’m really, really glad you’re not dead.”
Guilt dissolves into warmth beneath his touch. “I’m really, really glad I’m not dead too.”
She knows him – knows how hard he works on keeping up a brave face, knows how good he is at it, and she sees it slipping now, in the quiver of his mouth, in the shake of his head. “Maddie…”
She tugs at him, careful with her own injuries, and he gets it right away. Because of course he does. He leans down and kisses her, and she lets it wash through her. Lets it steady her like it has a thousand times before.
“No more road trips without you,” she says when he pulls away. “Although, motion to also not take roadtrips through steep mountain ranges when it’s storming?”
“The motion carries.”
The door to the hospital room cracks open, and Buck pokes his head through. “Knock, knock.”
“Maddie!” Kira runs past him, nearly knocking Chimney over before she gets a hold of herself. “God, Maddie, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this happened. I should’ve never let you make that drive – I wouldn’t have if I’d known it was going to—”
“Hey!” Maddie says. “Hey! Did you drink?”
Kira scoffs. “No.”
“Then I’m glad I did it.”
“You almost died.”
“But I didn’t!”
Buck laughs as he slips further into the room. “You’re starting to sound like me, Mads, and I don’t mean that in a good way.”
Chimney clicks his teeth, eyes tracking the monitors over Maddie’s bed. “Agreed. I married the sensible Buckley, remember?”
Maddie lets herself have the moment, lets herself feel lucky, just this once. It wasn’t – not really – a lucky person would probably have gotten up the mountain without several fractures and a collapsed lung. Without the gut-wrenching fear of feeling your little brother’s favorite person nearly plummet to his death.
But for now, she feels lucky.
Buck finally steps across and grabs Maddie’s hand, squeezing it tight enough for her to feel him shake. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“I know,” she says. “I’ve already promised Chimney no more harrowing road trips.”
His grip on her hand eases, but the gratitude in his eyes doesn’t. “I never shoulda gone on that date.”
Probably not, she thinks, not because of what happened but because he never had any business being on that date in the first place. “You seen Eddie yet?”
“N-not since his surgery,” Buck says, “they, uh… they aren’t letting anyone see him. Which is fine.” His voice wobbles in a way that sounds decidedly not fine. “It shouldn’t be too much longer, is what they said, but h-hey, did you know he used a screwdriver to climb back up the… a screwdriver. Where’d he even get it? I-I mean I’m glad he had one, but that’s… that’s kind of incredible, right?”
Kira’s head pops over Buck’s shoulder and despite her red-rimmed eyes, she manages to semi-subtly point at Buck and mouth. “He’s embarrassing.”
Maddie bites her cheek to suppress her giggle, forcing her attention back to Buck. “It definitely is.” She pats his hand affectionately. “He almost lived up to all your hype.”
“What’d you mean alm—” Buck averts his gaze, realizing he’s being teased, and ducks his head with a softer laugh. “I, uh… I’m just glad you’re both alright.”
His body sags around the words, because he means it – he’s never meant anything more.
“Me too.”
“Oh, hey,” Chimney cuts in. “Where’s Tommy?”
“Tommy was here?” Maddie asks, trying to fit him into this scenario in a way that isn’t horrendously awkward.
“Uh,” Buck says, confirming that it is, in fact, horrendously awkward. “y-yeah, yeah, he drove us up.”
“He drove you?” Maddie has never felt such profound sympathy for a man who only seconds before she found irrelevant at best and off-putting at worst. “Oh my god. That was… that was, uh, really nice.”
While Buck wrestles with himself, Kira asks, “Who’s Tommy?”
“His boyfriend,” Chimney says.
“His b—” Kira giggles, this high-pitched, loud thing that she has to clamp a hand over. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had a… oh. Sorry.”
Buck closes his eyes, and there’s none of the confusion, none of the pretense of not knowing why this would be hilarious. Maddie takes it as a good sign. “Yeah, he took an Uber home. I, uh, tried to get it for him but he wouldn’t let me.”
Chimney tilts his head. “Didn’t even wanna stick around and make sure everyone was okay?”
“Uh…” Buck scratches at the back of his neck. “I-I told him you’d let him know.”
Maddie fights her IV to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Oh, Evan…”
“Th-this wasn’t my fault.” Buck looks at Maddie, imploring, begging her to understand that he’s never done anything wrong in his life. “We needed to get to you guys, and he offered, and I wasn’t exactly thinking about—”
Maddie sighs. “No, I get it…” Another giggle works its way between her lips. “I do, just… it’s kinda… whatever, it’s fine. You were under extreme duress.”
“Thank you,” Buck says.
“I’m confused,” Chimney says.
“Are you?” Maddie says, meeting his eyes and finding exactly the mischievous twinkle she expects to find. He’s lucky it’s adorable.
The blood pressure machine hisses another reading. It’s better now.
Buck glances at it, then lets steps back. “I’m, uh… gonna go see if I can…”
Maddie smiles. “Yeah, yeah…”
Once he leaves, Chimney leans against the bed. “Remind me to send Tommy an edible fruits arrangement or something.”
“There’s no way Tommy didn’t see this coming, right?”
“It’d be pretty hard to miss the Eddie of it all, for sure.” Chimney’s staring after Buck. “Think they’ll work it out finally?”
“Well,” Maddie says, kind of sheepish, “I may have… screamed in Eddie’s face that he wasn’t allowed to die because Buck was in love with him, so… hopefully?”
Chimney gives her a quick, instinctive smile, glancing back towards the door before he swings back to her in a double take. “You did what?”
“I was also under extreme duress!”
“This is so much better than drinking,” Kira says.
~
Buck can’t stop staring at Eddie – at this mosaic of bruises and bandages painting his arms and face, stark against the golden brown of his skin, starker still against the cotton white of the bedsheets. He looks so small, so tired, nothing like a person who dragged themselves up a cliff face with a fucking screwdriver.
But he did.
Surgery went well. He’s going to wake up, that’s what everyone keeps saying, but Buck needs to see it. To see him. His eyes. He needs to have definitive proof that he didn’t get one moment of everything, just to have nothing, ever again.
At first, he tried not to hold Eddie’s hand – because, really, he’s not sure what they are. What’s allowed. And Eddie isn’t awake to tell him. Maybe he massively overstepped, maybe Eddie only kissed him back because he was delirious and almost dead. Maybe Buck imagined it.
No, he didn’t imagine it. The taste is still on his lips, every time he talks there’s flashes of it – like his lips don’t know how to function without Eddie’s anymore.
So, yeah, he gave in pretty quick. He’s letting Eddie’s hand rest on his while he gently thumbs the line of Eddie’s knuckles. They’re purple and red, laced with cuts from broken glass. A chest tube drain sits at Buck’s feet, and Buck keeps glancing up at Eddie’s numbers on the monitors – his oxygen’s low but okay, blood pressure’s okay, temperature’s normal. Heartrate’s normal. Stable. He’s stable, but weak, and there’s so much Buck wants to touch, wants to make better.
But mostly, Buck just wants him to wake up.
Buck’s been sitting here for hours. He’s stiff as hell, but any time he tries to get up – go somewhere else, all he can think about is the vitals monitor, about one of the numbers dropping, about losing Eddie. For real this time. He can’t let go right now.
He has to be here.
So he stays, and that’s why he feels the first twitch of Eddie’s fingers, hears the gasp of waking air when he first tries for it. Buck’s eyes go wide, and he sees every flutter of his eyelids, hears the quiet, uncomfortable sound his breathing turns into.
“Eddie,” he asks, trying to be patient, but pleading instead.
His voice drives more life into Eddie’s face until it pinches, registering the extent of his injuries before his eyes open. They’re brown and soft and so pretty, even glazed over in pain and probably experiencing some residual high from the drugs they’ve got him on.
“Buck?” He doesn’t sound high. He sounds like Eddie.
“Hey,” Buck says, but it cracks, “Hi.”
“What is—” Eddie shifts, throat working, and he flinches as it upsets the bandage on his neck. “What are you…” And then he’s trying to move all of him, so Buck jumps up and places a hand on his chest.
God, what if Eddie doesn’t remember any of it? How does he explain it? How does he get back to that truth?
He’ll figure it out. For now, Eddie’s hurt, and Buck needs him to be okay. Before anything else, Eddie has to be okay. “Y-you were… there was an accident, in the car, with Maddie.”
Eddie blinks, and there’s a prolonged moment when Buck’s sure he’s forgotten all of it, before he stills beneath Buck’s touch. “Oh, shit—i-is she—?”
“Sh-she’s good, Eddie,” Buck whispers, lifting his hand to Eddie’s neck to smooth the bandage, lingering once he does. “She’s in another room, resting. Chimney’s with her.”
“Good,” Eddie says, but it’s all caught in his throat.
Buck grabs the pitcher of water and pours him some. “Here, the doctor said to go easy on the water while your lungs are recovering, but you sound like you could use a little.”
Eddie makes a grateful noise, then sort of crumples around it like he regrets doing it at all. He lifts one of his hands to try and grab the cup, but Buck pushes it down, offering it to him with a straw instead.
This earns him a very petulant frown as Eddie gets his mouth around it.
“Don’t be a baby,” Buck says, “you need to rest – it’s not like I’m spoon-feeding you.”
“You would, though,” Eddie mutters between swallows. “You would and you would enjoy it way too much.”
Buck can’t stop the momentary grin that takes over his face before he rearranges it. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” He lets Eddie finish drinking, watching the shallow bob in his throat, and sets it back on the table.
Eddie wriggles to pull himself more upright, and when Buck glares down at him, it turns into a pointed stare-off that makes Buck desperately wish he knew where they were at on the kissing thing.
“I don’t think it’s so bad, you know,” Buck says, “wanting to take care of you.”
This works a smile onto Eddie’s mouth, dimples one of his flushed cheeks. “Not your job.”
“No, but…” Buck isn’t sure how that sentence doesn’t end in something Eddie might not be ready for. “I’m not arguing with you while you’re all laid up in bed like this. I’m just, uh… I’m glad you’re okay, Eddie. For a minute, when we saw the news article, I thought—I…”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, but it sounds like he’s somewhere else. “Yeah, I bet that was pretty awful. I’m sorry, Buck.”
Buck scoffs. “No, I’m sorry for going on that stupid date. I should’ve been there.”
“Why?” Eddie asks. “So you could’ve almost died right alongside us?”
If he says yes, Eddie’s going to judge him, so he says nothing. He falls back into the chair at Eddie’s bedside and tentatively wraps his hand around Eddie’s – he’s gauging, asking, and Eddie doesn’t stop him. His fingers fold into the touch.
Eddie’s looking, though, before he glances up again, startled. “Did, uh… what about Maddie’s friend?” he says, like he’s panicking. “Kira?”
Buck can’t tell if he’s relieved or disappointed. But his heart’s hammering so hard it’s nearly drowning out the beep of Eddie’s on the monitor. “Oh, she, uh… she actually drove over. She’s been kind of a mess, but she, ah… didn’t drink, so… mission accomplished, according to Maddie.”
Eddie tries to laugh, but it breaks into a wheeze, then a cough. Buck moves, the pads of his fingers a hairsbreadth from Eddie’s jawline, trying to find where to touch, how to help, but Eddie steadies himself through a wince.
“You and your sister are something else…” The affection in Eddie’s voice coils in Buck’s core and rises until it fizzes along his tongue, until he nearly gives in to every inappropriate urge coursing through his veins.
“We’re something else?” Buck starts. “We’re not the ones who climbed up, like, fifteen feet of cliff with a collapsed lung, multiple broken bones, and a screwdriver.”
Then, Eddie is deadly serious. He’s not smiling. He’s searching Buck, jaw clenched and sharp against his skin – stealing some of the color from the bruises. “Y-yeah, I… when we were down there, Maddie said… she didn’t think you would survive it, if I…”
Really, Maddie?
Buck’s eyelids flutter, and he forces a laugh, which is weird because he doesn’t think he’s breathing. “Ha, sh-she did?”
“Yeah,” Eddie whispers. “She, ah, she told me…” But he can’t finish it, instead, his grip tightens on Buck’s hand, and his eyes go too wide as he asks, “Did you kiss me?”
Embarrassment scorches through Buck. He was so ready to get back to this, and yet…
He tries not to wince, tries not to let his hand get too clammy in Eddie’s. Fails spectacularly at both. “I, uh… y-yeah… I did.”
“Oh,” Eddie says, like there’s nothing more to say. Conversation concluded.
Except no, actually.
“Eddie, look…” Buck’s not sure where he’s going, here. There’s so much to explain, so much to say, and none of the words are enough. None of them can make what’s in his chest make sense – nothing can. It’s like trying to explain being a kid, of looking up at the stars and losing yourself in them – in the wonder of a world you can’t hope to ever fathom.
“You can’t kiss me,” Eddie says instead, and Buck feels himself split down the middle like a cleaved log, “you can’t kiss me if you don’t – listen, I-I get maybe this is not the best time, but I can’t—I need you to understand, Buck, I have been in love with you for so long, okay? So whatever this thing is between us… if this is just the Buck version of friendship, I…”
Buck feels like a supernova. His scoff is all wrong, kind of giddy. “Didn’t you just say my sister told you I was in love with you?”
“That’s not what I said,” Eddie says, clinging to technicalities in the face of the emotion welling in his expression.
“But it is what she said?”
Eddie quivers. “It was a high-stakes situation.”
“Eddie,” Buck says, “this is definitely not the… Buck version of friendship, or… I mean, we’re friends, obviously, but… I have other friends.” It’s almost offensive, to think he’d be like this with all of them. Almost offensive that he tricked himself into believing exactly that for so long. “And I’m not going to run and kiss Chimney or Hen on the mouth while they’re maybe bleeding out because I’m so scared of losing them.”
“I climbed up for you,” Eddie whispers. “And for Chris, but after everything I’ve fucked up with him, I didn’t – I climbed up for you, Buck. Because if you…” He winces, scrunches his mouth. He always scrunches his mouth when he’s struggling. It’s always broken Buck’s heart, but right now, it’s cute – because right now, Buck can fix it. “Fuck, I…”
Eddie’s in love with him. Eddie’s been in love with him, and Buck’s been here, wasting his time with people who never mattered – who’ve left him feeling hollow – while what he needed, what he actually wanted, has been in front of him, within reach, for years.
And suddenly, he’s furious, devastated, that he’s made Eddie – Eddie Diaz – wait even one second for him. “So I can kiss you,” he says, “as long as I’m in love with you too?”
“Yeah,” Eddie breathes.
“Okay.” Buck leans forward, settling his fingers on Eddie’s cheek, gentle with the tubes and bandages and injuries, as he presses his mouth to Eddie’s. The seam of Eddie’s mouth splits on an inhale, and the inside of Buck’s mouth sparkles with it. He kisses harder, with tongue and teeth, with a hand fisted in Eddie’s hair, trying to leash himself. He can’t climb on top of him, can’t do what he wants to do because Eddie just got out of surgery. Because Eddie needs time to heal. And it’s okay, because he’ll be able to later. Because Eddie remembers.
Because Eddie is in love with him.
Because Eddie climbed up for him.
Because Eddie has waited for him.
But, god, it’s hard to stop kissing him.
Still, Buck forces himself back, gasping through a laugh when he realizes he’s got his knee up on the bed. “Eddie…”
“Wait,” Eddie says, blinking as he eases Buck back a little further, “wait, wh-what about Tommy?”
Oh, shit. Tommy. Buck meant to feel bad about it – he does, he does feel bad about it, it’s just, Eddie’s hurt, and now Eddie’s in love with him, and he’s kissing him, and… “He, uh, he took an Uber.”
“What?” Eddie asks, but his curiosity draws him back towards Buck, so Buck lets his mouth drift closer too. “What’s Uber got to do with anything? You’re dating him. You were on a date with him when this all happened.”
“Well.” Buck shakes his head. “No, he, um… we broke up. He saw me, uh… kiss you, and-and got… it doesn’t matter.” He runs a thumb along Eddie’s cheek bone, careful over the bruises. “He’ll be fine.”
“He was there?” Eddie croaks.
Buck traces the lines of Eddie’s face with his eyes – the same lines he traced when that lightning bolt lit up the sky. “I will feel bad about it later, I promise,” Buck says, “Right now, I just wanna… I just… I have you.”
“You’re gonna have me later too,” Eddie says dryly, “presumably.”
“Yeah, but I just got you.”
Eddie closes his eyes and huffs a laugh. Despite the blood loss, there is a noticeable tinge of pink on either cheek, obscured by bandages, but there. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Thanks.” Buck kisses him again, then pulls back in a snap, expression wild, and he knows Eddie knows exactly what’s coming. “So about the top thing…”
Eddie grabs his collar and pulls him back into the kiss.