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“And some breaking news, we’re going live to chopper footage of a landslide near the PCH. Hetty, what can you tell us?”
“As you can see a good 30 or 40 feet of cliffside slid in the collapse. We have no word yet on how many casualties there may be, but it was a crowded day here at the park. It looks like people are being moved back to the parking lot for now, but there are still some closer to the disaster site.”
“We can see a firetruck on the scene, were first responders able to get there that quickly?”
“Actually, Colleen, they were here before the collapse happened. There was a community outreach event today, hosted by station 118. A good bit of luck, to have trained personnel already on scene.”
“Is there any word if any of the firefighters were caught in the collapse?”
“Again, not that we’ve heard, but it’s definitely a possibility. Other stations have been called in for support, and- yes, we’ve just been told to clear air space for a med-evac chopper. This is Hetty Chang, reporting from news chopper four. Back to you, studio.”
-
“Do you think Fire Station Family Day is quite so literal at the other houses?”
Eddie glances up at Buck from where he’s simultaneously trying to spread mayo on a hamburger bun and hand out a smoke detector to a mostly uninterested member of the public. “Huh?”
“I mean…” Buck gestures between the two of them, and then points at Chimney who’s trying to tear open a stubborn bag of chips, and waves at Bobby standing next to him at the grill. “We’re practically all related.” He turns the wave into a finger gun in Hen’s direction. “Denny’s gotta grow up and fall in love with either Chris or Harry, get the Wilsons officially in on this.”
Hen, sat on Eddie’s other side, makes a face at Eddie first - which Eddie makes right back because he and Buck are different people, thank you, he’s not responsible for everything that comes out of his husband’s mouth - before raising a sharp eyebrow at Buck. “No. We’re not going to be those weird parents who want their kids to date, Buck.”
“That’s fair-“
“And besides, Bobby isn’t actually related to anyone officially either.”
“Oh yeah?” Buck taps Christopher’s shoulder as he walks past. “Hey kid, you wanna say thanks for lunch?”
Chris squints at Buck for a moment, but dutifully turns to where Bobby stands next to the grill. “Thanks grandpa Bobby.”
Bobby shakes his head as they all crack up, but he can’t stop his pleased smile as he says “You’re very welcome, Christopher.”
Chris makes an unamused face at being used to solve some kind of argument, displaying a fine example of the patented Diaz eye roll. “Buck, are you gonna fly the kite with me?” He asks it in his I’m a high schooler now and I don’t really care about this stuff voice that never really fully hides how eager he is. Eddie makes sure to hide his smile in his hamburger.
“Of course!” Buck grins his megawatt smile that even Chris can’t resist returning, and waves his hotdog a little. “Lemme finish lunch, I’ll meet you by the cliff.”
Chris ambles off and Buck sits on the arm of Eddie’s camp chair, making the whole thing dip worryingly. Eddie pinwheels an arm for a moment, then wraps the other one around Buck’s waist in an attempt to keep them upright. Buck smiles down at him cheekily and kisses the top of his head, and Eddie huffs a laugh as Buck takes a bite out of the hot dog and turns to Hen again. “Okay, so you’re officially unofficially my sister-”
Hen smiles, but it’s a scrunched up one. “I feel like I’d just be proving that by telling you to chew with your mouth shut.”
“And there’s my brother in law, my husband,” he pauses just for a second to share a giddy little glance with Eddie, the word still new and thrilling three months after the wedding, “And my- basically my dad.” Buck shrugs, inhaling the entire second half of the hotdog in one go. He finishes his thought sort of muffled. “I’m just saying I don’t even know if the people over at the 133 even, like, hang out on weekends.”
Ravi, who’d been off to the side trying to escape notice by keeping busy with his phone, braves the food table to grab a bag of chips. “I hate to ask where I fit in in all this.”
“You are my very beloved cousin,” Buck grins, leaning over the table to slap his hands on the sides of Ravi’s face and pull him in to smack a wet kiss on his forehead.
Ravi pulls back, making an unamused face remarkably similar to Christopher’s. “Yeah, that’s about as related to you people as I want to be.”
“Oh, you adore us,” Chimney comes around to hook an arm over Ravi’s shoulders, a slightly difficult feat with the height difference. “Open my chip bag, beloved cousin.”
As Ravi sighs and does what he’s told Eddie looks up at Buck. “I think the ‘family’ in Fire Station Family Day is meant to refer to other people’s families who’re invited to come visit, not us.”
Buck shrugs. “Why not multi task.”
Eddie laughs, and then just keeps looking up at him. He’s high enough up sitting on the arm rest that he’s not bathed in the shade thrown from the ladder truck. The bright afternoon sun lights his face, tangles in his curls, and his eyes look like they were cut out from the sky above. Eddie had spent so long building up the nerve to propose that the instinct to ask Buck to marry him still springs up on him sometimes, and the words dance on his tongue now. Marry me, again. Again and again, I’d like to marry you every day, I think, if you would like that too.
“Aaaaand- time,” Chimney says. Buck and Eddie turn in synch to look over at him. He points to Ravi, who’s holding his phone.
“That was 7 whole seconds of heart eyes, boys, gonna have to break it up.”
Eddie groans and Buck cackles, ducking in to kiss him right on the lips - definitely forbidden at work but almost always forgiven - and then stands up. “Alright, I’m going to see a man about a kite.” He does a little wave and then grabs the toy from under the table. He and Christopher had found it online during some research rabbit hole or other, and made twin irresistible doe eyes at Eddie until he’d agreed that a kite that looks like an old biplane is indeed a cool object worth purchasing. Eddie watches him go, and tries to make his eyes not heart shaped at all. Fails, apparently, going off the fact that even Hen and Bobby are snickering at him.
“Yeah, yeah, alright. I think we’re still within an acceptable honeymoon phase time limit.”
Ravi raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been in the honeymoon phase for like four years running.”
“What?” Eddie says, slightly loud to be heard over Hen and Chimney’s guffaws. “We haven’t even been together that long. And you had just started working here four years ago.”
“And you two have been like this the whole time.”
Eddie just shakes his head because any denial would be a blatant lie and lets his family’s laughter drift around him. Buck is right, it’s what they are, and Eddie still feels a little blindsided sometimes about the love that was waiting for him when he moved to Los Angeles. He knows exactly how much ketchup Hen likes on her burger and that she’d drop everything if he called and asked for help. He knows Chimney’s top three favorite flavors of chips and that he is always, always available as a shoulder to lean on. He knows that Ravi, despite his protests, is just as devoted as the rest of them. He watches Bobby look out at Chris and Buck with a gentle smile on his face, and thinks about a man that has always offered him support without any conditions.
Buck. Eddie is pretty certain that at this point he knows the back of that man’s hand better than his own. The scar across a knuckle from falling out of a tree as a kid, little burns from work or cooking mishaps, every freckle. Hands that he uses so easily to support, comfort, love. Hands that Eddie thinks, for the rest of his life, he will feel awed that he gets to hold. They’re 20 or so yards away but a gust of wind carries Buck and Christopher’s delighted laughter back to the truck as the kite takes to the sky. Eddie knows he has heart eyes again, but how could he help it watching his husband and son find such joy in each other’s company.
He’s still watching them where there’s a sound like the world splitting in two and the ground falls away beneath them.
-
“Buck! Buck!”
There’s.. water. He’s underwater and something is pulling at him, pulling him upwards. The current, and Christopher’s screams, a deeply familiar nightmare. He struggles to wake up, clenching and unclenching his fists, shaking his head, trying to inhabit his waking body and get out of this-
Buck’s head breaches the water and there’s a moment when he feels like the world is turning inside out because-
This isn’t a dream, this isn’t his mind tossing him back into the tsunami. Buck gasps for air and blinks into the darkness, water up to his neck where he’s sort of kneeling and- rocks, or concrete, there’s debris all around him, and-
“Buck!” Chris cries out again, one hand fisted in Buck’s shirt and pulling, pulling, trying to keep him afloat.
“C-Chris-“ There’s some light, they’re not in pitch black which is probably important, but Buck’s vision is swimming and he’s suddenly aware of a splitting headache. Okay, probable concussion. He can see Chris’s outline, anyway, so reaches out and then flinches right back when he lets out a little cry of pain. “Oh, oh- Chris, are you- where does it hurt?”
“My arm,” Chris says, leaning close to Buck, hand trembling where it’s still fisted in Buck’s shirt.
His work shirt, he was at a work event. Buck scrambles around in his pockets, looking for- there, a flashlight, and a radio clipped to his belt. He brings both up out of the water, the tools meant to resist the elements but probably not best to let them stay submerged for long. He clicks on the light first, trapping the radio between his jaw and shoulder so he can brush Chris’s wet hair out of his face with his free hand. His glasses are gone, there are little cuts and the beginnings of bruises all over his skin, but his eyes dilate normally and his gaze is steady and Buck is flooded relief at just being able to see him upright and breathing after whatever the fuck just happened. They were falling… the cliff? A landslide? Something he can figure out in a moment, for now injury assessment is the priority. He angles the flashlight down and-
Buck, by dint of profession, is not a squeamish man. While he’s not naive enough to say he’s seen every way a human body can break apart, he is grimly familiar with a wide array of gruesome injuries. He’s seen almost every bone in the human body snap and fracture and barely batted an eyelid. But it’s different, it’s always different when it’s someone you love, and when he sees the unnatural bend in Christopher’s forearm he has to suck oxygen in through his nose to avoid being sick.
“Okay, o- okay, sweetheart, it’s okay-“ Buck’s hands hover helplessly around the limb. He has- nothing, there’s fucking nothing he can do about this here. “Okay, I’m sorry, just- just try not to move it, alright?”
Chris nods, cradling the arm to his chest. “Buck,” he says, small and scared, not really a question but still a plea that tears right through Buck’s chest, a request for comfort or rescue that he doesn’t know that he can provide. “You wouldn’t wake up.”
God, what a kid. “And you kept me above water, you did so good, Chris- my Superman, my hero.” The words crackle as they come out, and Buck leans very carefully around his arm to press a kiss onto Chris’ forehead, lingering for a second and trying to breathe through the reality of the situation setting in. “Are you hurting anywhere else, Chris?”
Chris shakes his head no, but Buck does a cursory examination of his head and torso for anything he might not be feeling due to shock or adrenaline. Nothing he can find, in a tiny flashlight beam who knows how far underground with the chill of the water and his own shock and adrenaline making his hands shake. He shines the light around the space they’re in. It’s more cylindrical than he would have expected. It looks like they’re in a tunnel, sloped up at a sharp 70 degree angle, leaning against the lower wall. There’s debris in front and below them, and when Buck moves the rocks below him shift uneasily. The water is briny, and he wonders where they are relative to sea level, and how much of a problem that might start to be. He makes to stand-
And leans back against the wall immediately. Fuck. He tries not to make a face that will startle Chris, though he’s the one holding the flashlight and he’s pretty sure he’s in enough darkness he could get away with it. There’s something wrong. It’s not pain, exactly, the sensation that twisted through his gut when he moved. It’s just- wrong. Wrong in a way that’s probably dangerous, probably has a time limit, probably will start to hurt soon, definitely means he won’t be able to do much to help them out of this. Even if they could somehow scale the steep slope behind them Buck doesn’t think it will be possible with a broken arm and- and whatever this is. Fuck. He takes another breath, and this one rattles in and out of him. “Okay. Alright Chris, I’m gonna- lets see if we can call out.”
He holds air in his lungs as he presses the button, and it bursts out of him as it crackles to staticky life. “B- This is firefighter Buckley-Diaz, 118. Is- can anyone hear this?”
The answer is immediate, so many people on the line at once the signals keep cutting each other out. “Buc-“ “Wh-“ “Kid, we-“ “Are y-“
And then “Buck,” Eddie’s voice, cracked with relief. “Buck, where are you? Where’s-“ silence for just a second, then “Is Chris with you?”
“We’re here, we’re here,” Buck says, nodding at Chris, who leans in against him.
“Dad,” he says, sounding braver than Buck feels. “We fell.”
Another moment of silence. “Is there any way to tell where you are?”
Buck squint up above them. In the very distance he thinks he can see light. “Yeah we’re- it’s some kind of tunnel? Or drain? Almost vertical. I don’t know if we’re at the bottom or if the slide just- I don’t know if we’re on solid ground-“ Buck has to stop for a moment to gasp in air as something twists and twists. “T-there’s- we’re in water, Eds-“ Buck releases the button for a moment and looks at Chris. “Hey, was- is there more water? Has it been like this the whole time?”
Chris looks around them. “I think… more. Not a lot.”
Buck nods, swallows, turns the radio back on. “Rising, but not fast. I’m not sure- I wasn’t conscious. I’m not sure how long it’s been.”
“Almost 20 minutes since the cliff collapsed.” The radio is crackly, it’s hard to read tone, but Buck can still hear the tight, horrible fear in Eddie’s voice. “Injuries?”
“Chris’s arm. I don’t- there’s nothing here, I- it might be both ulna and radius, I can’t tell.”
Longer silence. When Eddie gets back on the line his voice is shaking even over the static. “And you?”
“Concussed, I think. And-“ Buck cuts himself off, because there’s not much of a point. Eddie is already going to tear the earth apart to get to Chris as quickly as he can, and while he can bring a splint down with him there’s not much he can do for an internal injury at the bottom of a hole. Better not to worry Christopher.
“And?”
“Nothing, I- it’s fine.”
“Buck, we-“
The silence lasts longer, and Buck waits for whatever question Eddie is working himself up to ask, but then he keeps waiting, and waiting, and the static sharpens and then cuts out completely, lights on the radio winking out. “F-fuck- Eddie? Can you hear me?”
Nothing. Buck smacks the radio against the wall and regrets it a moment later because he probably broke the fucking thing more. A tunnel, a tunnel in the ground, that’s all they have to go on.
“Buck.” Chris leans his cheek on Buck’s shoulder, and Buck kisses his forehead again and tries not to cry. “Don’t worry. Dad will come for us.”
“Yeah,” Buck says, immediately losing the fight against the tears and dropping his face into Chris’ curls. “Yeah. Of course he will.”
-
Eddie has spent a lot of his life in the midst of chaos. He could say something noble about it - that it’s where people need the most help so that’s where he wants to be, lending a hand on the worst day of someone’s life.
The radio went dead. Eddie is standing on solid ground that nevertheless crumbled beneath him as surely as it did Buck and Chris, sirens going, cries of fear and pain and calm instruction still flying around him, and the radio is silent, and he thinks that he’s had more worst days of his life than he can count and that he would like to be anywhere fucking else. He swallows past the dry lump in his throat and turns to where Ravi and Bobby have a map spread out on a table that had condiments and hot dog buns on it less than fifteen minutes ago.
“I think they could be here,” Ravi points to a mark a little ways behind where they are, the map key labeling it as a drainage pipe. “The city installed it a few years ago, it’s supposed to drain rain water from the cliff so it doesn’t-“ the kid very carefully doesn’t glance at Eddie. “Doesn’t collapse. A sloped concrete tunnel, goes all the way down to the ocean… It sounds like what Buck described.”
“200 feet?” Bobby asks, not really looking for an answer as he stares at the paper. “It’ll take time to get down there, if we’re wrong-“
Bobby doesn’t have to finish the sentence. If they’re wrong, that’s time wasted that Buck and Chris might not have. His kid is 200 feet underground with a broken arm, and Buck- whatever he cut himself off from saying is bad, Eddie knows Buck, he knows it’s bad. “You’re sure, Ravi?”
“No,” Ravi says, unhappy, voice tight. “But I don’t- there’s nothing else on here that makes sense. I think it’s our best bet.”
Eddie doesn’t have time for a fucking box breath so he just sucks oxygen through his nose. “Fine. Let’s go.” He moves to the truck without waiting for an answer. "Ravi, find Hen."
Bobby takes the kind of breath he takes before he says something someone isn't going to like. "Eddie, you should get Hen. I'll belay, Ravi harness up-"
"Like hell." Eddie slams his palm against the truck as he whips around. “Bobby-“
“Eddie,” Bobby says, in a voice someone who doesn’t know him might mistake as calm. “You’re too close to this.”
“I’m too- what about you? Grandpa Bobby?” Eddie holds himself back from shoving him, barely, knowing it would undermine any argument he has that he can keep himself collected enough for this. “We’re- he just said it, we’re all family, I can’t-“ Eddie’s hand is so tightly fisted it shakes. I can’t lose them. That’s my kid. I’ve been a widower once and I cannot be one again. “I have to go down there. I am going to go down there. I am going to bring them home.”
It’s a promise, and they all know not to make promises, but Bobby was also a widower once, and has lost two children. He closes his eyes for a moment, and then nods. “Ravi, Hen’s helping Chim with the other victims, get her over here with a backboard. Eddie, harness up, take the med kit from the engine. We’re moving now.”
Time blurs as they move the truck into position by the drain and cut through the metal grate. Bobby checks his harness, and Eddie tries to forgive him for not being Buck. Then he’s sitting at the ledge staring down into the dark.
“I’ve called a chopper,” Bobby says, because he knows Buck too. “If the radio stops working, two tugs and I pull you up.” He puts a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, forces eye contact. “Are you sure, Eddie?”
For a moment Eddie pictures Ravi, or anyone else, going into the earth and finding them alive, or dead, or being there to give comfort or witness their final moments, and his whole body shudders at the thought of it not being him. Whatever he’ll find, it would be worse to stay here. “I’m sure.”
Bobby nods, and pats his shoulder, and Eddie starts his descent.
It’s easy. It’s a smooth concrete tunnel, in good shape, installed in the last five years. It hasn’t even rained recently, so there’s no mud or mold, and the steep slope means there’s not really any debris to kick his way through. Getting a little dirt on his clothes seems too simple a price to pay. When he’s been going for awhile, and the rasp of his own breathing bouncing off the walls is starting to make him feel like he’s drowning, he calls out.
“Christopher! Buck! Can you hear me?”
Silence, silence, then faintly: “Dad!”
“Eddie, we’re here!”
Eddie’s body involuntarily shudders again at hearing both of their voices. “I’ll be right there, hang on.”
In ten feet he can smell ocean, in another ten his headlamp shines down on rubble and two distant faces. Some automatic system within him kicks in, and he keeps up a steady stream of it’s okay and I’m here and other reassurances honed from years of flus and bad days and other catastrophes. It’s not a straight drop down but it’s still difficult, once he gets close, not to just slide right down on top of them.
“I’m just adjusting, don’t pull me up,” he speaks into the radio before shuffling as much to one side as he can while Chris and Buck below do the same in the other direction. And then he’s in the water, and his son is in front of him with wide, scared eyes.
And the only fucking way he’s going to be able to do this is as a proffesional, so he only touches Christopher’s face to examine it for injury and check to make sure his pupils dilate in the beam of the headlamp, and when Chris makes a pained noise as Eddie so carefully pulls his arm out of the water he desperately pretends not to hear it. It’s swelling already, and Buck was probably right that both bones in the forearm are broken, but his radial pulse is strong.
“Okay, Christopher, I’m going to put this splint on you.” Eddie retrieves it from the bag, careful to keep it above water level. “It’s going to- It’s gonna hurt, I’m so sorry, but we’ve got to keep your arm steady until we can get to a doctor.”
Chris’s eyes are still wide, and he’s shaking a little - maybe from the cold water, Eddie hopes not from shock - and his uninjured hand flits up to grab Eddie’s collar for a moment, but he nods. Bravest kid on earth. “Do it.”
“Okay. Just keep taking deep breaths for me.”
Buck, who Eddie can’t force himself to make eye contact with, wraps an arm around Christopher and gently murmurs encouragement as Eddie sets the splint. By some miracle his hands do not tremble as he works. It doesn’t take long, but Eddie knows the pained sounds Christopher makes will soundtrack his nightmares until the day he dies.
“Okay, you’re okay, I love you so much, you’re okay,” Eddie says, gentle and shaking as he pulls Chris closer and presses a firm kiss to forehead, unable to hold the professional shield entirely. He lets himself have three seconds breathing in the salt water soaking his son’s hair before he puts the medic back on and turns to Buck.
A quick pass of the flashlight over less than responsive pupils confirms the concussion. He’s about to pull him a little more out of the water to check for further injury when Buck grabs his wrist and minutely shakes his head.
“You were right, kid,” Buck says to Chris while making careful eye contact with Eddie. “Of course dad came for us.” Slowly, calmly, Buck lifts his shirt, turned just enough from their son that Eddie is the only one who sees the reddish bruise spreading over his side. “We didn’t have to worry at all.”
Eddie misses Chris’ response because he’s biting his tongue hard enough to taste copper in an effort to keep his expression neutral. He tries to move his hands as calmly as Buck did, rocking his palm across his abdomen and making sure not to inhale too sharply when it’s firm with the swell of blood pooling somewhere it shouldn’t. Buck’s eyes are still locked on him, and whatever is helplessly displayed on Eddie’s face seems to read as confirmation. He nods, very slightly, lets out a sigh masquerading as an exhale.
“So now he’s gonna take you back up top,” Buck says, still to Chris, still looking at Eddie. “And Hen and Chim are up there and they’ll take real good care of you, and then he’s going to come back for me.”
Eddie wants to scream. Eddie wants to talk to Buck. There are questions he should ask - Do you know when the bleeding started? How long has it been? How bad does it hurt? Are you injured anywhere else? There is a conversation he wants to have - If I leave you here I don’t know that you’ll be alive when I get back. There are protocols, in disaster situations. If you can only save one person, you save the one most likely to survive. Beyond protocol, you always fucking save the kid. Beyond that, it's our kid. It’s our fucking kid, it’s Christopher, and I am going to get him to the surface and in doing so I am going to leave you for dead. But it’s Buck, and they never really needed words to talk, and Buck is still looking at him, and Eddie knows what he'd say. He'd downplay the injury. He knows the protocol. And he’d already said it, damned him out loud, he’s going to take you back up top and then come back for me.
And for all that non-talking, Christopher still hears them. “I'm not leaving you,” he frowns at Buck, uninjured hand gripping his second father’s arm tight. “We can- we’ll wait, or go together.”
There’s the briefest flash of heartbreak on Buck’s face before his features rearrange into something apologetic. “Superman-“
“Buck!"
“Sweetheart," Buck says, softer, and that's so much worse. “The line can’t hold all three of us. And I can’t-“ Buck swallows hard, and brings Chris forward to kiss the same spot Eddie had. “I can’t help you on the way up right now. It’s going to be okay, go with-“
Chris leans back with a frown and whips forward to face Eddie. "He's hurt! Dad! I'll stay, I'll stay, dad, please!”
Eddie shakes his head and just manages to unclench his jaw enough to speak. "He is hurt. So we have to go right now, Chris, so I can come back and bring him home too. I'm gonna put this harness on you and then we're gonna leave, and- and you-" he turns to Buck, pointing a sharp finger at him "You hang on. You hang on, Buck. I'm coming for you.”
“Stop,” Chris says as Eddie puts the sling around him, the word cracking over a sob, but he doesn’t fight against it. Eddie thinks he should be apologizing but his vocal chords feel entirely frozen now, and he wonders a little deliriously if this might be a dream after all, not fuel for a future nightmare but a nightmare itself.
But he can taste salt, and the hand that Buck presses into his side is so dreadfully real. “It’s alright,” he says to Chris as his fingers dig into Eddie. “I love you- I love you so much. It’s going to be okay.”
Eddie bites his tongue again to stop from making a sound, and then turns to kiss Buck, hard, knowing he can’t make it mean as much as he wants it to but trying anyway, and then he turns the radio on. “Pull us up.”
Eddie tries as best he can to position them so he’s the one sliding against the concrete, Christopher at least having the cushion of his body to soften the ride. The harness is secure but Eddie still keeps his arms wrapped tight around Chris, and he thinks this may be the longest he’s held his son in a while. He feels so big, limbs long and lanky, grown up so fast. He remembers when Chris was very small, and he had no idea what he was doing, and didn’t know how to make the crying stop. He’s weeping again now, and Eddie feels just as helpless.
Buck always says road trips feel faster on the way home, and suddenly they’re blinking in the daylight of the drain entrance. Hen and Ravi are waiting by with a stretcher and Eddie sits on the concrete edge and passes his son to them. Chris’ hand tangles in Eddie’s sleeve for a moment, and Eddie feels a wave of nausea as he frees his fingers from the fabric.
“It’s alright Chris, I love you, Hen’s going to take care of you, I’ll see you soon,” Eddie says, words chalky in his mouth. He can hear Hen continue the assurances as they head towards the ambulance and barely manages to tear his eyes away to turn to Bobby. “Second- Second victim with a severe concussion, and-“ swallow, swallow, “Internal bleeding in the abdomen. Tell the med-evac.” Eddie does not wait for a response and Bobby doesn’t even try to give one, just hands him the backboard and watches him descend once more.
On the too slow slide back down, Eddie thinks about the phrase "injuries incompatible with life." It’s always struck him as too clinical and too whimsical at the same time. I’m sorry, ma’am, life and your husband just weren’t working out. The chemistry was gone. Incompatible. If only his vital organs were just a little more friendly and communicative. Death took Buck before, and then let him go - maybe life loves him as much as Eddie does, and when he gets to the bottom of this hole in the ground Buck will be awake and waiting for him and he’ll never have to tell Christopher that his injuries were incompatible with anything.
Buck isn’t awake, and he’s slumped in the water almost to his chin, but he’s still breathing as Eddie splashes down into the water at his side. It’s definitely deeper now, and Eddie’s pretty sure the debris around them has shifted. His hands still don’t shake as he cups Buck’s face with one hand and steadies him with the other.
“Buck… can you hear me?”
Buck’s eyelids twitch once or twice before he manages to get them open. He slowly focuses on Eddie’s face, and nods slightly. His breathing is shallow, and his pulse, when Eddie checks it, is weak.
“Alright, it’s okay honey, I’m gonna get you out of here.”
Buck nods again, and Eddie feels his hand move through the water and rest against his chest. Buck doesn’t speak, but he looks Eddie in the eyes and Eddie hears Thanks for coming back and I love you and I’m sorry. Eddie nods back, Of course, I love you too, I’m the one who should apologize, and Buck’s eyes close again.
He takes the utmost care as he secures Buck to the board, so familiar with his husband’s body and how it moves that even without Buck’s conscious effort it's easy to arrange his limbs.
“Pull us up.”
Eddie clings to the board as they’re pulled up through the darkness. It's almost as if they’re laying side by side, close as they always like to be. When they were married Eddie had offered to upgrade to a king size bed, give them more room, but Buck had smiled, and shaken his head, and said they'd only end up in the middle of it anyway. And it's true, it's been true since before they were married, it was true on their wedding night when they’d delayed leaving on their honeymoon so their first night together could be in their own familiar bed, it was true this morning when Buck had pressed him into the mattress, sleep tossed and smiling, stroking dizzying touches through his sweatpants. It’s true now. Eddie watches Buck’s calm profile in the light coming from the nearing drain entrance and once again loses his professional composure, taking one hand off the board and resting it on Buck’s chest. They could just be sleeping.
Then Bobby is shouting down to him, and he can hear the helicopter, and they emerge into bright sunlight. Buck looks worse up here, and Eddie hadn’t prepared himself for it. He’s pale, clammy, and when the board is flat on the ground Eddie pulls his shirt up again and it’s a nightmare, his whole belly a rashy, swollen bruise. Eddie can hear Bobby’s sharp inhale even over the chopper blades.
“Vitals weak but holding,” he chokes out as he rubs his knuckles up and down Buck’s sternum. “Come on Buck, come on, come on baby, wake up for me.”
His eyes flutter open just as Hen runs up. “Eddie-“
Eddie looks around frantically. “Why are you still here? Where’s Christopher?”
“He refused to leave until Buck was out-“
“Yeah and he’s fourteen, you go anyway!” Eventually, eventually he will apologize for yelling. “Why are-“
“Go…” Eddie might have missed it if he weren’t so incapable of pulling his attention entirely away from Buck. As it is he whips his head down to meet halfway focused blue eyes. “Eds… go with him.”
“Buck-“
“He’s scared.” Buck’s voice is weak and shaking, but steady in conviction. “Go with him.”
I’m scared. “Buck.” Stay with me, I’m frightened.
“I’ll go with him, Eddie.” Bobby is kneeling next to him, Eddie isn’t sure when that happened, and the crew from the helicopter are here now, ready to whisk Buck away where Eddie might never see him with his eyes open again. “Be with your son.”
“Buck,” he says again, but Buck’s already lost consciousness, and anything he might say to him would take a lifetime, a lifetime that he was stupid enough to wake up this morning and assume they had. He bends in a motion that’s almost a fall to kiss Buck’s forehead and then tears himself upright with a sound like it hurts, because it does, and then he has to move towards the ambulance or he’ll never move again.
“Where’s Buck?” Chris cries out as soon as he sees him, arm now more firmly splinted. He’s got the kind of hazy look in his eyes you get when painkillers have been administered, and Eddie feels bile rise up in his throat that they were necessary, that any of this happened. “Dad!”
“Mijo, he- they’re taking him in the helicopter-“
“He’s dead- Is he dead?”
Eddie can only shake his head for a moment, words strangled in his throat. He tries to gasp in air to give the consonants and vowels the oxygen they need. “N-no, no, he’s just hurt, he just-“
“Then why isn’t he- he should be here.”
He can hear Hen’s choked breathing on the other side of the gurney. The ambulance starts to move. Buck should be here. “He wants to be,” Eddie says, finally reaching out to touch Chris, running a hand through his hair. “I know he wants to be, but- his injuries- they have to get him to the hospital quickly so the doctors-“
Chris leans away from his touch and Eddie’s heart cracks. “Then why didn’t you take him first! Why aren’t you with him!”
His heart cracks, and cracks, bloody, pulpy pieces floating loose around his chest. “I have to- you’re-“ my baby my baby my baby “You’re my kid, it’s my job to be here with you. I’m here with you.”
Chris still looks terribly angry, but he’s sobbing now and the rest of the ride to the hospital passes with only hushed and useless words of comfort. Eddie hadn’t thought to ask where they’re headed, but passes a look of gratitude to Hen when they pull up to Cedars-Sinai instead of the children’s hospital. He’s not sure he would have survived having to make a choice between waiting rooms to fall apart in. As it is, after x-rays reveal the need for metal pins, Eddie is only upright in his seat because of Bobby on one side and Maddie on the other, the two halves of his heart in two different operating rooms and leaving nothing left for him to keep his own blood pumping. Bobby’s hand rests solidly between his shoulder blades, thumb stroking his spine when he forgets to breathe.
Chris is out first and they let Eddie sit beside him in post op, and he’s not sure whether it's because he’s a minor or because it looked like Eddie would have to be put in a bed himself if he wasn’t allowed to see him. Chris’ hair had slowly straightened as he’d grown older, but today the salt water has made it curl. Eddie runs his hand through it again and again, gently untangling knots and listening to the heart rate monitor beep a steady pulse.
It’s Bobby, not a nurse, who comes to tell them Buck has made it through surgery. Chris had woken for a while and then mostly dozed off again, but he sits up immediately when he hears Bobby pull up a chair.
“Where’s Buck?” He demands, squinting at his unofficial-official grandfather. Fuck, his glasses are gone, Eddie hadn’t even thought about it. He should go home, or have someone bring over his extra pair.
“Buck’s alright, Christopher,” Bobby says, quiet and gentle, and whatever manic part of Eddie that had been worrying about eyewear a moment ago implodes, collapses, melts away inside of him so quickly he slumps forward in his chair. Bobby puts a hand on his shoulder for a moment before moving it to take Chris’. “They’re keeping an eye on him right now, but soon they’ll move him into a room to stay for a night or two.”
“I want to see him,” Chris says, turning his head between the two men at his bedside like he’s unsure who has the power to grant him permission.
“He’ll be in observation for a little while, mijo,” Eddie says, rubbing his shoulder. “We should go home, you can shower, get your gla-“
“No!” Chris shouts it, loud enough that both Bobby and Eddie jump.
“Chris-“
“I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving-“ Chris is shaking, and Eddie tries to bring him to his chest even as he tries to pull away. “No! I have to see Buck!”
“Sweetheart,” Eddie begs, still trying to hold him, a feeling settling in his legs like gravity has stopped working. “Please-“
“No.” Chris leans far enough back to look Eddie in the face, and Eddie recoils a little. He is certain, suddenly, that if he makes Christopher leave he will never be forgiven for it. “It’s Buck.”
It’s Buck. It’s Buck, they’re staying. “Okay,” Eddie says, wet. He left Buck once today, he doesn’t know why he thought he’d be strong enough to do so again. “Alright, it’s okay, we’ll stay. We’ll see him.” Chris lets himself be held, now, and the look on Bobby’s face as he watches them is about as destroyed as Eddie feels. “As- as soon as we can, we’ll see him.”
As soon as we can turns out to mean in an hour and 47 minutes. It takes awhile for them to move Buck out of post-op, which Eddie tries and fails not to worry about. They’ve politely kicked Chris out of his bed, so the two of them and Bobby relocate to some too-familiar plastic waiting room chairs. The ones by the ICU are more comfortable, which an opinion Eddie somehow has. Maddie comes to join them when the staff are doing the actual move. Eddie tries to judge by how pinched her face is exactly how bad Buck is. He thinks he’s seen her look worse, something else he somehow has an opinion on.
“He didn’t wake up while I was with him,” she says, voice just a little hoarse. “But he seems okay. They said- they said it went well. His readings were good.”
Maddie hasn’t been a nurse in years, but Eddie knows that kind of knowledge is hard to forget. He sits there, Chris at his side and half in his arms, and feels numb, then okay, then worried out of his mind in a dizzyingly rotating cycle. And then a nurse is coming forward to lead them to Buck’s room, and saying two at a time please, and there’s no question which two it will be. The woman doesn’t even blink at Chris coming along, and Eddie wonders if she’s been here for any of their other tragedies, if she recognizes them. He doesn’t think she looks familiar, and then he’s not thinking about her at all because there is his husband, lying in a hospital bed.
Buck always looks smaller here. They’ve cleaned up the scratches on his face, none really deep enough for stitches or even bulky bandages. He’s got a nasal cannula to bring him fresh oxygen but doesn’t really need a machine's help to breathe, this time. His heartbeat beats steady. Eddie collapses into a chair at his side, unsure when he moved from the entrance to the room, and Chris is right there a moment later, a little slower on a borrowed crutch.
“Is he okay? Dad-“ Chris grabs Eddie’s elbow, unsure and looking younger than he has all day. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He is,” Eddie says, though at the moment he doesn’t remember a damn word of anything Maddie or the doctors have told him. Buck is here and breathing and when Eddie puts his hand over his on the sheets it’s warm. “He’s going to be okay.”
Chris nods once, and then bites his lip, nods again, and starts weeping. These chairs are also not big enough to truly hold him while sitting on, but the room has a couch to one side so Eddie carefully moves them over to it and cradles his son, whispering reassurances that feel slightly more solid in his mouth now that he can look over and see Buck as he speaks them. Eddie isn’t sure if Chris stops crying or falls asleep first, but eventually his breathing evens out and Eddie carefully extracts himself so he can settle him into a more comfortable position. There are blankets and terrible flat pillows already left out for them, so he tucks Chris in as best he can. When he’s done he looks down at him and nearly falls to his knees watching his sleeping face because it hits him, all at once, that he nearly lost him today. His son nearly died. Eddie watched it happen. Eddie doesn’t fall but he does kneel before the couch like it’s a pew, one hand holding Chris’ arm and the other his skull and face pressed somewhere between the two, trying not to wake him as he shakes with sobs of his own. Old prayers bubble against his lips alongside apologies and pleas and love so bone deep Eddie thinks it would tear him apart if opened his mouth and let it out.
Eventually he can breathe again, eventually he peels himself up off the floor. He makes it back to the chair at Buck’s bedside, both of his boys in view. He takes turns watching Christopher’s face, Buck’s, Christopher’s again, until he looks at Buck and finds blue staring back at him. He’s frozen there for a moment, feeling bizarrely confused, before his body riots and moves of its own accord and he's reaching, leaning, until Buck's face is in his hands and their foreheads are pressed together.
"Buck," he says, a whispery rush of air. Eddie thinks if someone were to tally all the words he'd used at the end of his life, that one might top the list.
"Hi," Buck croaks, squinting a little because of the short distance between them. One of his hands comes up so his fingertips poke into Eddie's jaw, and then his eyes widen. "Chris-"
"It's okay, he's okay," Eddie assures him, nodding over to where he still sleeps on the couch.
Buck lethargically turns his head to look over at their son, snoring peacefully. “His arm?”
“You were right, and they had to put pins in.”
“Fuck,” Buck rubs a hand over his eyes, shaking his head. “He’s okay though?”
Eddie shrugs a little, because no but also he will be, you’re alive so he will be. “Okay as he can be.”
Buck shakes his head again, and holds onto Eddie’s bicep. “He’s… he was amazing, Eds, that kid…”
Buck got him being brave, he was conveniently unconscious when all the screaming and weeping happened. He’s an amazing, resilient, courageous kid but Eddie wishes more than anything he hadn’t had to be. “Yeah.”
“Did anyone else get hurt?” Buck says it regretfully, like he’s upset he wasn’t there to help.
“No- or, not any of the 118. And no other civilian fell as far, you two were- were closest to the cliff.”
Buck grins a little ruefully. “Man, which one of us pissed off the concept of structural integrity in a past life?”
“It’s not funny, Buck.” Eddie sits in his chair again, moving back from the half leaning crouch he’d been hovering in.
“No, I know, just… I feel like I have a lot of nickels. Full bingo card.”
Eddie shakes his head, grits his teeth a little. He’d be joking along, usually. That’s how it goes - the world ends, and then it doesn’t, and then they laugh together before longer forms of trauma set in. But Eddie can’t get Buck’s bruised body and Chris’ anger out of his mind, and he’s not really in the mood to joke. “Not a lottery I’m happy about you winning.” His voice is tighter than it should be, here in the aftermath where everyone is safe and sound, and Buck frowns a little.
“Are you okay?”
How is he supposed to answer that question? “Fine.”
“Eds...” Buck rests his hand on Eddie’s forearm, and Eddie knows it's warm but he can’t help imagine how cold it had been.
“I’m fine, Buck. You’re both fine, everything’s- it’s fine.”
"Are you… mad at me?"
Buck sounds incredulous, and Eddie doesn't know how to deny it because he realizes, suddenly, that he is. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
“What good would it have done?”
“What-“ Eddie frowns at him, jerks his head a little. “Buck-“
“You were already coming to get us, there wasn’t anything you could have done for me down there-“
“If I’d had all the information-“
“What?” Buck hasn’t crossed his arms but it still feels like he has. Eddie doesn’t want to fight. Why are they fighting? Buck almost died, why is Eddie angry? “There was no other- no other options, you couldn’t do anything differently. Why make it worse, why make you and- and Chris worry?”
Eddie leans back into his chair. “He was pretty fucking worried, Buck.”
“But he got out. He’s okay.” He says it like it explains it all perfectly, like it's the only important thing. And maybe it should be, but-
“You almost didn’t. I had to leave you there.” Eddie runs his hand through his hair, fingers catching on knots left by the helmet. He’s known this man for so long, knows how eager he’s always been to die for someone else. Had it been a relief, when it seemed like it was going to happen for someone he loves so much? “I just… You pick between your husband and son, see how you feel.”
“What?” Buck looks taken aback. “Eddie. It’s Chris. Every time it’s Chris.”
“I know.”
“Don’t-“ Buck is frowning, and he grips Eddie’s arm tight. “Don’t ever choose me over him.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Then wh-“
"Fuck you for making me make the choice at all."
Buck's eyes narrow. “You came down with a splint, not a backboard. The choice was made.”
Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever kissed someone in anger. With him and Shannon the fighting happened when the kissing stopped, and with Ana there had never really been much of either, just mutual charm that died a slow, cold death. He pulls Buck in, a slow motion collision, a ten car pile up, fingers tangled in hair, breathing harsh against each other. Their teeth clack together like he wants somebody to hurt. But he already fucking hurts. This is Buck in his arms, this is the love of his life, who almost died underground far away from him. Eddie’s next breath is a sob choked into Buck’s mouth, and Buck’s hands detangle from his hair, slide around him, pull him close.
“Baby, it’s okay…” he sighs into Eddie’s hair, dropping much gentler kisses there. Eddie shakes his head, because it’s not okay, and then laughs through the tears because but I will be, you’re alive so I will be. He tries not to put too much weight on Buck even if all he wants to do is burrow into him, settling himself by putting one hand on either side of his rib cage and pressing his face into his throat. “I’m sorry,” Buck sighs again. “I’m sorry, Eds.”
“I know you’d choose him too.” Eddie kisses the words quietly into his collarbone before pulling back to make eye contact. “But can you honestly tell me it would be easy to leave me behind? It wouldn’t tear you in fucking half?”
Buck’s eyes widen a little, look at him, look over at Chris. “Eddie…”
“I’d never forgive myself, Buck. He would never forgive me. If you-“ Eddie laughs again, bubbly, hysterical. “If you die, we lose you. That’s what… that’s what that means. I don’t want to live a life without you, Buck. We... we got married.” Eddie wipes his face, a useless gesture because it's not like he’s stopped crying. “As long as we both shall live.”
Buck’s eyes are still wide, and one hand unwinds from around Eddie to tap at the center of Eddie’s chest- his saint Christopher’s medal, warm against his skin under the fabric. Eddie’s breath stutters out of his lungs, and Buck’s fingers twitch against him. “I’ll… I’ll always try to come home to you. You know we won’t always get a choice.” A firefighter to the core, hesitant to make a firm promise. “But I’ll fight to- I’ll always fight to come home to my family.” Eddie’s head drops forward like his neck’s given up holding it. Buck kisses his forehead, firm and lingering. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
The whispered apology lingers in the quiet room. They stay pressed together, all fight and strength gone out of Eddie. He’s not sure he could move if he tried. Buck’s hand stays on his chest, occasionally tapping along with one of their heartbeats.
“Buck?”
Eddie puts a steadying hand on Buck’s chest as he tries to sit up at their son’s voice, but facing each other as they are he doesn’t have time to react to Chris launching himself onto the bed with Buck. They curl around each other immediately, in a way that has Eddie’s chest aching with how perfectly they fit even as he tries to keep Buck’s IV line and monitor wires from being yanked around.
“Hey, hey hey, here you are, you’re okay, I’m alright,” Buck says into Christopher’s hair, clinging just as hard as the kid is. Chris may have grown a lot since the two of them met, but Buck’s hand is still so big on the back of his head. “I love you so much, you’re okay.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris says, muffled from where he’s pressed into Buck’s hospital gown.
“Sweetheart, why are you apologizing?” Buck scratches soothing motions through his hair, and Eddie puts a hand on his back.
“I didn’t want to leave. I shouldn’t have left. You- you promised you wouldn’t leave but I promise, too, I won’t leave you.”
Buck stares up at the ceiling for a moment, blinking hard. “Kid- Chris… Christopher, look at me.” Buck’s hand slides to Chris’ cheek as he raises his head. “You didn’t leave me, you just- you just got out and met me here, because that’s what had to happen. You didn’t do anything wrong. This was not your fault, or your responsibility in any way.”
“I couldn’t help.”
“Chris- you did help, you saved my life. And don’t-“ Buck glances at Eddie, “Don’t be mad at your dad, we- firefighters have rules on how to get as many people out as safely as possible. And those rules definitely don’t include leaving a hurt fourteen year old alone in a really dangerous place, even one as fantastic as you.”
“Well those rules fucking suck,” Chris says, and Eddie can’t see his face from this angle but can clearly imagine the accompanying frown. Buck makes eye contact again, lips pressed together to avoid a smile, an unspoken question about swear jars in the air. Eddie sighs, then rolls his eyes with a shrug because those rules really do fucking suck sometimes, and after the day they’ve had he thinks they all deserve some tax-free expletives.
“Yeah, I guess they do,” Buck says, laughter faint around the edges of his voice. “But we all got out. We’re all here.”
And Eddie knows that’s mostly owed to dumb luck, but they are. Buck and Chris are tangled together, and Eddie is leaning across both of them, all three of them awake and breathing and okay. Soon the rest of their family will bully or sneak their way past the hospital staff to join them, and they’ll celebrate another close call and another day alive and in each other's company. Eddie moves his hand a little ways down Christopher’s back to rest over Buck’s, finding his wedding ring with a finger tip. Better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health. The metal is warm because Buck’s hand is warm. To love, and to cherish. Buck looks up at him.
“We’re all here,” he repeats, and it feels like just as important a vow.