Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The building was screaming. Wood, metal, the low roar of heat chewing through oxygen. Eddie’s radio crackled in his ear, but all he could hear was Buck’s shout — “Eddie, move!” — and then the floor simply wasn’t there anymore.

“Buck!”

The word tore out of him, raw. He hit his knees at the jagged edge where concrete and steel peeled back like paper. Through the smoke, a single gloved hand caught the beam below, fingers slipping in soot and blood. Eddie’s stomach lurched.

“I got you—hang on, I got you.”

He didn’t even think. Just lay flat, chest scraping against the burning floor, reaching down until their hands locked. The heat seared through his turnout, sweat running into his eyes. Buck’s grip was slick but strong, his arm trembling under the strain.

“You’re not going anywhere, Buckley,” Eddie gritted out, voice shaking in a way the radio would never catch. “You hear me?”

Buck tried to laugh — that stupid, breathless laugh he always had when things went wrong — and coughed instead, a wet, rasping sound that made Eddie’s pulse spike.

Somewhere below, something exploded. The beam bucked; Buck’s weight yanked hard, nearly pulled Eddie over the edge. He braced, muscles screaming, fingers white around Buck’s wrist.

“Eddie—”

“Don’t.” It came out a whisper, a plea. “Don’t you dare.”

He could feel the pulse under his thumb — rapid, terrified, alive. He focused on that and nothing else.

The heat pressed in like a living thing. Every breath scraped fire down Eddie’s throat, every heartbeat a countdown. Buck dangled below, one arm hooked over a twisted beam, the other hand locked in Eddie’s grip.

“I got you,” Eddie rasped, shifting his weight, boots sliding on scorched flooring that crumbled a little more with every inch. “Just—hold on—”

Buck’s eyes were wide behind the soot and sweat, and even through the chaos, Eddie could see him—really see him—the curve of a smile that wasn’t bravado anymore, just trust.

A thundercrack split the air. Somewhere deeper in the building, something gave. The jolt tore through the floor; Buck’s body lurched, his glove slick against Eddie’s palm.

“Eddie!”

The rest of it shattered with the floor. Their hands slid, skin against skin, a heartbeat’s worth of contact before Buck’s weight wrenched free. Eddie felt the loss like a muscle tearing.

He dove forward, catching only smoke. Below, a flash of movement—then nothing but black and orange and the deafening roar of fire swallowing the space where Buck had been.

“Come on, Buckley,” he whispered, the words dissolving in the smoke. “You don’t get to leave me like that. Not again.”

“BUCK!”

His voice disappeared into the smoke, swallowed by the roar of collapsing walls. He leaned over the jagged edge, vision stinging from heat and tears, searching for any trace of movement below. Nothing—only the blaze, devouring everything in orange and black.

“Diaz! Get out of there!” Chim’s voice barked through the radio, sharp with panic.

Eddie barely heard it. His chest heaved. His hands shook. Then his fingers brushed something—rough fabric, half-burned leather. Buck’s glove, torn loose in the fall.

He gripped it like it was still attached to him. Like if he just held tight enough, he could drag Buck back from wherever he’d gone.

“Come on, partner,” he whispered hoarsely, pressing the glove to his forehead. “Hold on. Please.”

The building groaned, shifting under his weight, and still Eddie didn’t move. He stayed there, one hand fisted around that glove, until the world around him blurred to sirens and smoke.

Chapter Text

The hallway burned like a throat inhaling fire. He could feel it pulse through the walls—oxygen sucking backward, ready to explode forward again. Somewhere behind him, Eddie was shouting for a victim count, the steady edge in his voice trying to make order out of chaos.

Buck didn’t think. He never thought when Eddie was in danger. He just saw the crack spider across the ceiling, heard the groan of metal giving way, and shoved Eddie toward the doorway.

“Move!”

The floor vanished. Gravity punched him in the gut; the world flipped end over end. For a second he was weightless, watching fragments of light—sparks, glass, the bright flare of Eddie’s helmet—spin above him.

Then pain hit. He slammed into something hard, a beam or a pipe, ribs screaming, breath gone. When he blinked through the haze, Eddie was there, reaching down through the smoke.

“Buck!”

That voice cut through everything. He reached up, fingers finding Eddie’s gloved hand. Warm even through the layers, solid, safe.

“I got you!” Eddie shouted.

Buck almost smiled. He wanted to tell him, I know. You always do. But the air was thick, sour; every inhale scraped like glass. He felt Eddie’s grip tighten, the strain in it. He could see the tremor in his arm.

Another crash. Heat roared up from below.

“Eddie—”

Their eyes locked through the smoke. Eddie’s were wild, bright with something more than fear. Buck wanted to say it’s okay, to ease that look. But the world tilted again. His glove slipped, fingers tearing free.

The last thing he felt was Eddie’s hand sliding down his, the desperate drag of skin on skin, and then nothing.

*

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The iron tang filled his nose before the pain even registered. Blood trickled down his forehead, curving along his temple, warm against skin gone cold. He blinked slowly, watching the droplets fall past his ear into the puddle growing beneath him.

Somewhere above, the fire still roared, muffled now—like it was happening on the other side of thick glass. The sound of his own heartbeat had gone thin, distant.

Eddie.

The name drifted up before he could stop it. He could almost see him through the smoke, reaching—always reaching.

Buck tried to move, but his limbs didn’t listen. His shoulder screamed; his chest felt heavy, wet. Every breath tasted like metal and ash.

The light shifted. One of the ceiling beams burned bright white for a moment, then dimmed—and suddenly it wasn’t the fire he was looking at anymore. It was sunlight. Blue sky bleeding through smoke. The noise of the fire faded to something softer, slower.

He blinked again, and for a heartbeat he wasn’t sure where he was—half in the wreckage, half somewhere else entirely.

“Eddie?” he murmured, the word scraping his throat.

The world flickered. A voice answered, faint and broken with static—his name, called like a prayer.

And even as darkness began to curl around the edges of his vision, Buck smiled, because he’d know that voice anywhere.

The gold haze shifted, rippling like heat mirage, and suddenly Buck wasn’t standing in fire anymore. He was above it.

Below him, twisted beams and shattered concrete formed a crooked circle around what looked like a person half-buried in debris. Turnout gear. Blonde hair streaked with ash.

For a long moment, he didn’t understand. He only knew the shape of it—the rise and fall of a chest that barely moved, the glove missing from one hand. Then it hit him, cold and slow.

That was him.

Buck stared. It should have felt wrong, terrifying, but it didn’t. There was no pain, no smoke in his lungs, just the echo of a heartbeat that wasn’t his.

The air trembled, and then he heard it: Eddie’s voice, rough and relentless, somewhere below the haze.

“Come on, Buckley, don’t you dare—come on, breathe for me, you hear me?”

He turned toward the sound, and the light bent with him. He saw Eddie kneeling in the wreckage, soot-streaked and bloody, his hands moving fast over Buck’s chest—compressions, breaths, shaking shoulders.

And Buck thought, dimly: That’s what love looks like. It’s not soft; it’s survival.

He wanted to reach him. To tell him he was right here, that it was okay. But every time he moved, the world seemed to pull him backward—toward the light, away from the heartbeat below.

He hesitated. Then the tether—the sound of Eddie’s voice—tightened, dragging him back down.

*

Falling back into your body had to be up there with one of the weirdest things that had ever happened to Buck.

It wasn’t falling, exactly. More like being pulled—dragged through molasses, light thickening into heat, sound bleeding in before touch. The first thing he felt was weight, pressing down on his chest, then pain blooming sharp and white.

He gasped. Or tried to. His lungs stuttered; air burned going in. Then another jolt—hands on him, steady, firm.

“Come on, Buck. That’s it. Breathe.”

Eddie.

Buck’s mind scrambled to keep up. He could feel those hands now—the rhythm of compressions slowing, one palm still spread over his sternum, grounding him in the chaos. The world snapped back into focus in pieces: sirens, shouting, the crackle of radios, smoke and blood and Eddie’s face hovering above his, eyes wild and wet.

“Hey,” Buck croaked, voice barely there. “You—you’re not supposed to cry on duty.”

Eddie’s laugh was a cracked, disbelieving sound. “Shut up, Buckley.” But his hand stayed on Buck’s chest, like if he let go, gravity might steal him again.

Buck blinked up at him, every inhale a small victory, every exhale an anchor. The haze in his head thickened, but before it took him under again, he managed to whisper, “Told you I’d catch you.”

Eddie’s jaw tightened. “You didn’t. I caught you.”

The edges of the world blurred again, but this time, Buck didn’t fight it. He let the darkness take him—knowing that as long as Eddie’s hand stayed where it was, he’d find his way back.

*

The back doors slammed and the siren started its climb, a steady wail that barely cut through the pounding in Eddie’s ears. He moved on muscle memory — gloves, pressure, oxygen mask — but his hands never left Buck for more than a heartbeat.

“Pulse is weak but steady,” he told Hen automatically, even though she was driving and couldn’t hear him. “Come on, Buck, stay with me.”

He slid the IV in, the line of his arm shaking from exhaustion. Buck’s skin was cool, clammy, the vein hard to find. Eddie exhaled through his nose, focused until the flash of blood appeared in the catheter.

“Good,” he muttered, securing it. “You’re doing good.”

He adjusted the oxygen mask, then caught a smear of blood across Buck’s cheekbone. The rag in his hand was meant for clearing debris, but he used it differently — gentler, wiping in slow, careful strokes until he could see skin again.

Buck stirred, eyes fluttering. Eddie’s thumb lingered at his temple, tracing the curve there before he pulled his hand back to check vitals again.

“You with me?” he asked softly.

Buck made a noise that might’ve been a laugh, might’ve been pain. “Could… use a break.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, forcing a smile. “You and me both.”

He pressed the stethoscope to Buck’s chest, counting beats under the crackle of the radio, then went right back to smoothing damp curls off his forehead. It wasn’t procedure, wasn’t anything he’d ever been taught, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

When the ambulance hit a bump, Eddie braced a hand across Buck’s shoulder to steady him. The contact stayed there longer than necessary, his thumb brushing over Buck’s collarbone, grounding both of them.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Eddie whispered, more to himself than to Buck.

Outside, the siren wailed on, but inside the rig it was just breath and heartbeat and the quiet, endless rhythm of Eddie’s hands moving over Buck — checking, cleaning, holding — until the hospital lights filled the windows.

Chapter Text

The sound of the sirens didn’t leave his ears when they stopped.

They just flattened into a dull hum, like the world was still vibrating from it.

He sat on a plastic bench outside Trauma 2, turnout jacket half-unzipped, gloves forgotten in his lap. Smoke clung to him, sweet and acrid, and the blood that had dried in the creases of his knuckles wasn’t all his. The overhead lights were too bright. Every time the automatic doors hissed open, he caught a flash of movement—scrubs, stretchers, the edge of Buck’s gurney as they wheeled him through—and his pulse jumped all over again.

He tried to scrub a hand over his face and stopped halfway; his hands were still shaking.

Steady, Diaz.

He’d said it to himself a hundred times on scene. It hadn’t worked then either.

A nurse passed by, murmured something about “stabilising vitals.”

Eddie nodded like he understood, like the words could touch the panic sitting behind his ribs. They didn’t.

He could still see it—the way the floor had opened, the way Buck’s fingers had slid out of his grasp. The sound his own voice had made, ripped and useless.

Even now, he could feel the shape of the glove in his pocket, the one he hadn’t let go of until they’d taken it from him.

When the nurse came back and said, “You can go in now,” Eddie was already on his feet.

*

Trauma 2 smelled like antiseptic and metal. Monitors beeped soft and steady; oxygen hissed.

Buck looked impossibly small under all that machinery, his curls damp and plastered to his forehead, skin washed out under fluorescent light. There was a bruise blooming across his collarbone, tape and tubing tracing a map of what they’d had to fix.

Eddie stopped at the foot of the bed. He told himself he was just checking the lines, the monitors, the rhythm on the screen—but really he was checking for rise and fall, for proof.

His knees almost gave when he saw it: chest lifting, shallow but even.

“Yeah,” he whispered, voice rough. “There you go.”

He pulled the lone chair closer, sat heavily, elbows on his knees. The glove sat folded in his palm; he set it on the bedside table like an offering.

Then, slowly, he reached out—just resting his fingers against the railing, close enough to feel the heat radiating off Buck’s arm.

For the first time since the floor gave way, Eddie let himself breathe.

*

The world came back in pieces.

Beep.

Hiss.

The faint squeak of a shoe against tile.

He let the sounds anchor him before he dared to open his eyes. The air smelled clean but sharp, the kind of sterile that made his throat itch. His chest ached—tight, bruised, alive.

Someone was breathing near him. Slow, steady. Familiar.

He cracked his eyes open. Light stabbed through the blur, and then shapes resolved: the hospital room, the IV line, the pulse-ox glowing on his finger. And Eddie—slumped in a chair beside the bed, head bent, one hand curled loosely around the edge of the mattress.

Buck blinked, trying to clear the fog. Every beat of the monitor felt like it was syncing with the movement of Eddie’s thumb against the sheet, small, unconscious circles.

“Hey,” Buck rasped. His voice sounded like gravel.

Eddie startled, straightened. Relief hit his face first—raw and unguarded—then he covered it with a shaky laugh. “You always gotta make an entrance, huh?”

Buck smiled, or tried to. “You didn’t… wait around all night just to roast me, did you?”

“Maybe.” Eddie leaned forward, elbows on his knees again, closer now. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Buck whispered.

Eddie’s eyes flicked up, a half-smile that didn’t quite reach. “Don’t make it a habit.”

“I’ll try.” Buck’s throat burned with the effort of speaking, but he didn’t stop. “You—uh—you caught me. Again.”

Eddie exhaled through his nose, shaking his head. “Yeah. Well. You can stop testing my reflexes any time.”

Silence settled between them, comfortable for once. The steady beep of the monitor filled the space where the fire used to be.

Buck let his gaze drift to their hands—Eddie’s still resting on the edge of the bed, his own inches away. He shifted, just enough for their fingers to brush. Eddie didn’t move. Didn’t pull away either.

“Thanks,” Buck murmured. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was all he had.

Eddie’s thumb brushed his knuckles, soft. “Just doing my job.”

“Yeah,” Buck said, eyelids already heavy. “Sure.”

*

Night thinned into morning without either of them noticing.

The blinds leaked pale gold across the floor; the steady rhythm of the heart monitor had become the room’s only clock.

Eddie hadn’t moved from the chair. His jacket was folded over his knees, eyes half-closed but refusing to sleep. Every so often he’d check the monitor, check the rise of Buck’s chest, check that the world was still right-side-up.

When Buck stirred, Eddie was already leaning forward.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Easy.”

Buck blinked, sleepy and human again, the colour returning to his face. “You still here?”

Eddie huffed. “You think I’m going anywhere after all that?”

“Figured you’d at least go grab a coffee.”

“I did.” Eddie held up the untouched cup on the table. “It went cold.”

Buck’s smile was slow and lopsided. “You’re bad at taking breaks.”

Eddie’s hand twitched, and before he could overthink it, he reached out—fingers combing gently through Buck’s curls, smoothing them away from the bandage at his temple. “You’re bad at staying out of trouble.”

“That’s teamwork,” Buck mumbled, eyes fluttering shut again.

Eddie let out a breath that shook on the way out. He let his palm rest on Buck’s crown a moment longer, then let it fall, settling instead around Buck’s hand on the blanket. The IV line pressed cool against his skin; Buck’s fingers shifted, finding his.

The monitor kept its slow, even beat.

Outside, the first sounds of the city filtered in—distant sirens, tires on wet asphalt, life starting again.

Eddie watched the light crawl higher up the wall and thought that maybe, finally, they’d both landed.