Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Shots fired!” 

“A firefighter is down — I repeat, firefighter is down!” 

“Shots fired!”

“Firefighter is down!”

“Shots fired! Get down!”

“Firefighter needs help!”

“Eddie, hang on! E–”

“–ddie!” 

Buck shoots straight up in bed, the ghost of a scream coating his tongue. His throat feels like it’s housing rocks — he’s choking on gravel, each pebble pressing into the agony that surges through his chest. His heart pounds erratically, the roar of blood drowning out everything else

Nausea hits him like a punch to the solar plexus until he’s stumbling out of bed with a hand clamped over his mouth. The comforter twists and tangles dangerously around his legs as he runs to drop in front of the toilet, only barely making it before his entire dinner ends up on the floor.

Fire streaks up his sternum as he retches, pathetic sobs wracking his entire frame as he kneels over the rim, clutching the porcelain tight in his grip like it’ll stop him from sinking straight through the floor.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, no, no, I'm good. You just hang on.” 

“We're so close, I just... I need you to hang...I need you to hang on.” 

With a gasp, Buck stumbles up and back to his room onto unsteady legs, scrambling for his nightstand. Eddie’s name plays through his mind on repeat as trembling fingers slip on the screen. Flashes of the street, truck, hospital flicker through his mind like a gruesome slideshow, ending on the mirage of Eddie’s normally-warm, mirthful eyes clouded with pain and shadows.

It takes him at least three desperate tries before he hits 1 on speed-dial, the sound of the ringtone numbing the edge of his panic.

“Hang on, Eddie!”

In Eddie’s experience, a phone call at three in the morning is never good news.

But over the past few years, he’s gotten used to hearing the ring of his phone at odd hours of night, gotten used to making calls at odd hours of night. There’s a modicum of comfort to being able to reach out whenever they need to.

Admittedly, they’d stopped for a stretch of time after the sniper attack, after the hostage event, after Eddie left the 118 — but then he came back, and with that, slowly, the ease in reaching out to the other. 

So when Buck’s ringtone pierces through his restless sleep, Eddie gets up almost on auto-pilot. He squashes down his own anxiety as he slides a finger over the screen. “Hey.”

Sometimes, a choked sound dips from the receiver, while other times, it’s a shaky laugh meant to play off how rattled he is. 

Today, the sound that follows his words is an outright sob , one that alerts Eddie to something very, very wrong.

“Buck?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing.

His best friend’s voice is thick with tears, but Eddie manages to make out his name being said repeatedly in the choked jumble of words. He thinks he catches Christopher’s a couple of times, too, but he can’t be sure.

“Can you take a breath for me, Buck?” he soothes. A rattling breath follows his instruction, and Eddie repeats it as he puts the phone on speaker and sets it near his pillow.

Eddie models a steady pattern of inhales and exhales, listening to Buck slowly morph his own breathing to it. For a long while, they just breathe together in the silence, and Eddie lets the calm of his four walls bleed through the phone to Buck.

For all that he’s alert at such an early hour, Eddie can still feel the remnants of sleep clinging to him as he thinks that maybe it’ll take a few extra words this time to calm the panic surging through Buck.

He stares up at the ceiling, wondering which horror Buck’s seeing this time — wonders what horror has him so torn. They have a cycle of them to choose from at this point, almost all of them keeping Eddie, Chris and Buck bound together with more than just the affection and trust that keep them together by choice.

Another rough sob leaves Buck, a jarring sound that sounds almost like it was caged in the period of silence stretching between them.

Eddie goes to say something, but before he can, the line goes dead.

He tries to call back five times, each call going unanswered. With each ring, the thread of anxiety that connects the two of them during nights like these only frays further. The sinking in his gut becomes ominous.

It’s then that he realizes how wrong he was.

Strings of colorful curse words bounce off the walls as he throws off the covers, jumping out of bed. Words aren’t going to cut it tonight, and Eddie can’t think beyond the need to just get to him as soon as possible.

He hasn’t heard Buck like this, ever. It only makes him wonder how many nights his best friend let it get this bad without reaching out to him. 

Eddie shoves his phone into his pocket and darts to Christopher’s room. He’s not keen on waking his son up, especially when a part of him wonders if it’s a mistake to bring him into a situation he doesn’t know anything about. But it’s three o’clock, and Buck’s crying like he’s being torn into two, and Eddie’s heart is pounding like it’ll burst out of him any minute now, so really, there’s no choice at all.

“Chris,” Eddie whispers, shaking him slightly. “C’mon, buddy, we gotta go to Buck’s.” 

His son barely stirs as Eddie picks him up, cradling his head against his shoulder as he blinks blearily up at him. 

“Dad?” he asks sleepily, eyes already falling shut. “What’s–” a yawn breaks up his words, “–wrong?” 

He’s already snoring against Eddie’s shoulder by the time he gets the question out, but Eddie answers it anyway.

“I think Buck needs some help,” he says quietly, grabbing a blanket with the other hand and rushing down the hall without preamble. 

He shoves his feet into the first shoes he can find — not even registering that they’re two separate pairs, not stopping to wince when the back scrapes along the thin skin of his leg — and leaves the house, only barely remembering to turn around and lock the door. His keys jangle loudly in the still of the night as he jogs to his truck, and absently, Eddie wonders if the sound will alert anyone else to something being as wrong as it is. 

He settles Christopher in the back, pulling his phone back out to call Buck again.

“Come on, come on,” he mutters under his breath as the tinny dial tone drones on. With each ring, the anxiety twisting in his chest turns into outright panic, the worry surging through his blood to burn in the pit of his gut. “Come on, Buck, pick up the goddamn phone.”

Unanswered.

Eddie only barely manages to bite back a curse as he throws the truck into gear and heads towards Buck’s apartment. The twenty minute drive halves itself in the absence of traffic — and Eddie’s near-breaking of speeding laws, deterred only by the presence of his son in the backseat.

Christopher doesn’t stir when Eddie parks and hops out to pull him into his arms. Out of the periphery of his vision, he can see Buck’s Jeep parked in the corner of the lot, in the spot that he silently competes with his upstairs neighbor for.

At least, Eddie tells himself, Buck didn’t leave and if he did, it wasn’t on his own. 

“Hey, Eddie, everything okay?” Jacob, the night security guard, calls out when he sees Eddie, clearly wondering what he’s doing here so late with his son in his arms. 

He’s conscious of how sleep-rumpled and harried he looks, with hair he didn’t comb back, pajamas he didn’t change, and the two separate shoes that Jacob’s eyes linger on for a moment. He had already forced himself to slow down as he reached the lobby, not wanting to alarm anyone, but the concern in Jacob’s expression proves that he didn’t quite manage it.

“Uh, yeah, just needed…” he trails off, gesturing somewhere near the elevators with his free hand.

Something in his expression must read of urgency, because Jacob only nods, going back to filling his crossword out without further question. 

(He can’t say he isn’t grateful for it, but at the same time he has to wonder. He’s not sure if it’s because he’s on the approved list or not, but Eddie truly wasn’t expecting that he’d just be let up into Buck’s apartment like that — desperate-looking or not.)

The elevator climbs each floor by what feels like inches, and Eddie barely resists tapping his foot impatiently, conscious of the sleeping bundle in his arms. The music grates on his nerves, too slow and calm, too contrary to the fear toppling in his chest. 

With each minute, scenarios flash across his mind one after the other, each worse than the last until Eddie can feel his skin vibrating with the need to get to Buck as soon as possible.

It shouldn’t make sense; Eddie’s the guy who stays calm in situations like this, but if the past few months have shown him anything, it’s that he loses his cool entirely when it comes to Christopher or Buck.

Eddie sends a thankful prayer up for small miracles as he maneuvers his key into the lock, opening it on the first try. 

“Buck?” Eddie half-whispers as he swings the door open.

The apartment is still — almost too still — and quiet in a way that’s suffocating. As he walks over to the couch to lay his son down, he surveys the rest of the apartment, finding nothing else out of place on the main floor or on the balcony. But he also doesn’t see Buck’s tall frame over the loft railing, and the lack of an answer — or any sign of his presence — sets Eddie on edge.

Christopher’s head lolls onto the couch pillow, curling up on the plush cushions quietly. He mumbles something about taking care of Buck in his sleep as he hunkers down into his blanket, snuffling into the fleece. Eddie drops a grounding kiss to his forehead before darting for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The loft is empty too, covers in disarray. Eddie spies Buck’s phone discarded haphazardly on the bunched-up covers, as if it had been thrown there. He checks the upstairs balcony, too, finding the door locked from the inside.

When he turns to face the closed bathroom door, the sound of running water pierces through his agitated mind.

He’s not even consciously sure what he’s thinking after the sound registers, but he doesn’t bother knocking.

Buck’s sitting in the corner of the shower when Eddie bursts in, back pressed against the tiled wall. He doesn’t look up when the door flies open, Eddie only barely managing to grab the handle before it slams against the wall.

His eyes slip closed as his shoulders drop. The fear that had slammed into him at not finding Buck anywhere crumbles, leaving Eddie dizzy and adrift. Every higher power Eddie knows hears the prayer of gratitude he mumbles under his breath as he walks into the room.

Buck’s knees are drawn up to his chest as water rains down on him from the overhead shower, expression eerily blank. His hair is plastered to his forehead, curls darkened by the water. He looks so young and lost like this, a sight that deepens the ache in Eddie’s chest.

“Buck?” Eddie closes the door behind him, toeing his shoes off as he pads silently towards his friend.

He reaches out to check the water, flinching at the ice cold temperature. He doesn’t know how long Buck has been sitting here, but judging from the slight shivers wracking his body and the goosebumps Eddie can see, it’s been long enough. 

Eddie switches the water to warm before kneeling in front of him, uncaring of his own clothes getting wet.

“Buck, it’s Eddie,” he approaches gently. 

Buck doesn’t respond, still staring unseeingly. Quickly, Eddie casts a look up and down at him, cataloging him to make sure he’s not physically hurt anywhere.

“Buck.” When even that fails to get his attention, Eddie switches to something else. “Evan.”

The use of his given name seems to rouse him enough to blink the water from his lashes, bleary eyes meeting Eddie’s.

“Eddie?” Buck whispers, disbelief strung high in his voice. Eddie only barely-manages to catch himself from wincing at the roughness of it — one he’s only heard in the aftermath of Buck screaming.

The thought of the nightmares being enough to drag Buck to consciousness on a scream makes something in Eddie’s chest squeeze painfully.

“Yeah, I’m here, Buck. Can I touch you?”

Buck doesn’t move, and neither does Eddie. 

“You-you’re actually here?”

A piece of Eddie’s heart breaks off, clattering loudly in his chest at the low, small tone of Buck’s voice. Buck, who’s usually full of so much life and laughter, reduced to a shell of a man. Eddie sees the cracks, and he privately worries that nothing he can do will be enough to put him back together again. “Yeah, baby, I’m right here.”

The term of endearment slips past him before he can catch himself, startling Eddie with the way it streaks past all the invisible barriers between them — some made by Eddie, others made by Buck, but somehow mutually agreed upon despite never having talked about it. 

He has no right calling Buck any term of endearment, but in the face of how worried he is right now, he can’t really bring himself to care.

Slowly, Buck reaches out. Eddie stays still, watching as Buck’s eyes shift from roaming his face to the direction of his torso. It’s only when shaky fingers — cold, even through Eddie’s T-shirt — press into the new scar on his chest that Eddie realizes what this is about.

“Buck.” Eddie moves closer as soon the other man’s expression crumples, tugging him into his arms just as the first sob tears from his chest.

It’s a horrible, agonized sound, one filled with the anguish of the past year while they try to learn to live with the sniper attack marring a past daylight. Neither of them walked away with nothing, and it’s during nights like these that Eddie’s reminded that putting the discussion off to struggle through the fallout alone was the worst thing they did to themselves.

Buck’s fingers curl into his chest, right over the scar as he cries. As Eddie holds him, he cards a hand through his hair to smoothing it away from his forehead as he murmurs whatever comforting nonsense he can think of. He’s not even sure he’s forming full sentences as the sounds of Buck’s anguish fills the small room. Pressure burns behind his eyes as his throat thickens, and for a long, angry moment, Eddie hates how many different ways their lives have kicked them when they’re down.

As they sit under the warm spray, Eddie slips his fingers backwards to cradle the back of his head as he twists his neck to take a look around the bathroom. 

The sharp scent of disinfectant hangs in the air, too recent to be from a cleaning done any number of hours ago. Underneath that lies the slightly rancid smell of vomit that Eddie knows from experience doesn’t dissipate no matter how hard one scrubs with bleach. Buck’s toothbrush lies somewhere on the sink counter instead of in its tidy holder, an open bottle of mouthwash sitting next to it.

The mental image of Buck compulsively scrubbing his bathroom to erase the aftermath of a nightmare jars Eddie’s brain, and he dips his head to press a kiss to the man in his arms without thinking, rocking them as best as he can. 

He’s never seen Buck like this before — collapsing into fragments until Eddie thinks he might never find the pieces to put him back together again.

But he tries anyway, because Buck would do the same for him. Because this is the man who stood by Eddie even in his worst moments and refused to budge. Because this is the man whose strength Eddie draws on when he feels like he’ll float away.

Because this is the man he loves.

Slowly, through sluggish time, Buck’s tears taper off into wet sniffles and shaky breaths, each rattled ghost of air coasting through Eddie’s shirt and sending shivers down his spine. Eddie doesn’t let go of him, though — not for a second — and Buck doesn’t try to move away, either. 

“There’s bl-blood here,” Buck whispers quietly. Over the sound of the shower, despite being pressed right up against him, Eddie has to lean in to hear him. It’s a far cry from the days where Buck’s voice used to carry across the whole station, as if every cell in Eddie’s body was tuned into him alone.

Eddie’s world starts at the beginning of Christopher, and ends at the boundary of Buck’s existence. The spaces around them are filled with other people he loves, but at the end of the day, if even one of his anchors is cut, Eddie will go into free fall.

He can feel one of them fraying right now, and the swooping in his gut threatens to yank him down the rest of the way.

“Where?”

His palm comes up to cover Eddie’s shoulder, his gaze tipping up to search his face in blind panic.

Too late, Eddie realizes that his wet shirt probably feels a little too similar to the blood-soaked uniform from all those months ago. Before Buck’s panic can ratchet up, Eddie settles him back against the cool tile, moving quickly. 

“Hey. Hey, Buck, there’s no blood, I promise. Look.” He reaches behind himself and tugs his shirt off. Buck’s eyes go straight to the scar, falling unnaturally still when the absence of red registers. “There’s no blood.”

“Wh-what?” 

Eddie dips his head, catching Buck’s eye before he speaks. “Buck. The sniper attack was a year ago. We’re at your apartment right now and Christopher’s sleeping downstairs. You’re not in the middle of that street — you’re here, with me. I’m okay, alive, safe, healthy, and so are you. You’re here, with me.” Eddie taps his chest and repeats it again. “With me.”

“With you,” Buck repeats after him, shoulders beginning to fall as the rigidity bleeds out of them. Two shaky fingers tap twice on Eddie’s chest, right over his heart. “I’m here, with you.”

“Yeah, you are.” Eddie nods, noting the way shivers wrack Buck’s body. Although he doesn’t think they’re temperature-related, he reaches up and turns the dial up a little more, letting the warmer water beat down on them. 

“Fuck,” Buck murmurs under his breath, drawing his knees back up and wrapping his arms around them again. 

Eddie settles cross-legged on the shower floor, keeping one hand on Buck’s leg to keep him grounded, occasionally pushing the wet hair out of Buck’s eyes as the water plasters it to his forehead. He simply sits quietly, watching memories flash across Buck’s mind through the windows of his eyes, and waits.

The silence presses more thoughts into Eddie’s brain, about all the different ways bullets have lodged into not just his skin, but into every facet of his life. Not a single thing has remained untouched by the splatter of his blood — not his marriage, not his child, and not his job.

In Buck’s case, he means that literally.

Over the past twelve months, Eddie has never been able to shake the feeling that he’s tainted Buck in a way that he’s never going to be able to take back — another person he’s stained, another person dragged through the dust at his feet. His best friend’s trembling body is only proof of that, a product of a man running from the horrors of his mind. 

Eddie knows, because he’s seen that man in the mirror more days than he cares to count.

He’s dealt with that guilt in some ways, through Buck’s constant reassurances and a fucking heap of therapy, but a big part of him is always, always going to wish that Buck hadn’t been standing on that street with him. A big part of him is always going to wish that the fallout hadn’t cost them as much as it had — as it still does.

Buck makes the next move this time, his hand slipping off from where it was holding the other wrist to latch onto Eddie’s palm. Their skin slides together, locking into place as Eddie fits his fingers into the grooves between Buck’s, holding back just as tightly.

Buck uses his grip to urge him in, and Eddie follows quietly, letting him take what he needs.

“Too-too much blood,” he says again, frantically gesturing at something Eddie can’t see.

The water pounds down on them, giving him an idea. Eddie studies him for a minute, then grasps his elbow, leveraging the two up to stand. He impatiently shoves his own hair out of his face and turns Buck directly in the spray, reaching slowly for the hem of his shirt. “Is it okay if I take this off?”

Buck jerks his head into a nod — once, then twice. Exhausted fingers join Eddie’s to push the sopping fabric up his torso and over his head. Buck’s sweatpants are sodden, completely soaked through and they have to be heavy on his frame, but Eddie makes no move to remove them. The weight, he hopes, will keep Buck from floating away. 

Eddie stretches out to grab the shower gel, squeezing a dollop onto a washcloth and pressing it firmly to Buck’s shoulder.

“Buck,” he starts quietly. “I want you to focus on me, okay? There’s no blood anywhere. You’re safe, and so am I.”

Another stilted nod is all he gets in response, but it’s all he needs. He starts scrubbing in circles, washing Buck’s phantoms off of him with each pass. 

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Buck keeps seeing all the places where Eddie’s blood was stuck to him for longer than anyone should ever have to wear the blood of another person. 

He can’t see exactly what Buck sees, but he can monitor his best friend’s reactions, can infer what he’s seeing based on his own hazy memories. He imagines that the drain swirls pink and rust and brown instead of clear, imagines that Buck sees the grime slicing off to reveal pale, unmarred skin underneath.

Privately, the weight of gratitude that Buck’s skin had remained unmarred has threatened to bowl Eddie over more times than he cares to count. The relief that Buck hadn’t bled anywhere, that it was only Eddie’s blood saturating that street, took the life out of his knees sometimes.

A flash of a memory rocks Eddie backwards for a second, the washcloth stuttering in his grip as he remembers a familiar terror following a blood-stained face, and a question whose answer had cut all the strings keeping him conscious.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, no, no, I'm good.” 

He remembers where most of the spots were. The visage of Buck’s face and neck covered in Eddie’s blood is one of the only sharp memories Eddie has from the shooting, a frequent demon in the nightmares that plagued him for months after with a flurry of what if .

What if the blood was Buck’s?

What if there was a matching hole in Buck’s shoulder?

What if the collateral damage of unplaced violence ended up being the man Eddie loves more than anything — again ?

Some nights, these same questions drift through his mind, especially when he sees Buck with Christopher, or Buck with Jee-Yun, and remembers how close they’d already come to losing him to the firetruck bombing. Eddie doesn't think his heart could handle anything happening to him again.

He shakes off the memory now, focusing on getting every last one out of a past Buck’s skin.

It takes an age, but it’s time that they need. With each pass of the washcloth, with each brush of Eddie’s skin — full of life, not cold and bloodless like Buck’s remembering — over Buck’s, another ghost dissipates from the cavern between them. Lather covers where the bright red stains had curved along Buck’s neck and pooled into the hollow of his throat. When Eddie pays special attention to his hands, nails and wrists, Buck seems to melt into the floor with his own relief, his gaze fixed on the scrubbed skin.

It’s cathartic in a way Eddie couldn’t have predicted — an intimate ritual that leaves salt on his own face, streaking trails that dissolve in the hot water raining down around them.

By the time the washcloth hits the waistband of Buck’s sweatpants, tears are dripping steadily from both of their eyes. 

Buck takes the washcloth from him when Eddie’s hand stills, moving it to Eddie’s shoulder in turn. Eddie follows the cloth to watch Buck’s hand skate over his skin. The rough texture of the fabric grates back and forth over his shoulder, down his arm and around to his back. Buck’s movement is frantic, jerky to the point of stinging, and only on one side of Eddie’s body. 

Belatedly, he realizes that’s where most of the blood had stuck to him — on one side of his body, where the bullet entered and left destruction in its wake. 

He thinks of the other side of his body, with matching scars that have faded with time on the surface but still give him hell in every other way.

“Buck,” Eddie whispers, grasping his wrist when he feels Buck’s blind panic start to heighten again. He takes the washcloth away, quickly rinsing the lather off his body. 

Buck watches him with furrowed eyebrows and a tight expression, haunted by the very ghosts that Eddie’s diligently washing from him. He gently moves his best friend back under the spray, watching the suds streak down the drain before looking into Buck’s eyes for the first time since they stood up. They’re still alight with residual panic, but they’re fixed on Eddie’s face — wide eyes, disbelieving that he’s still here.

Most of the splatters had landed there — framing his eyes and nose and lips, spreading across his cheeks in freckles so unlike the sunburnt ones Eddie loves, and covering his birthmark in a shade of red that was just wrong.  

This time, Eddie ditches the washcloth in favor of his fingers, pressing the pads of them into everywhere he can remember to rub away the stains as if they were still there. He smooths the skin down with water drops as if he can erase that his blood was ever there.

Eddie wonders if anyone did this for Buck after he was rushed into the ER — if anyone stood and watched him scrub away at his skin. If anyone knew exactly what he’d — what they’d — gone through before the news article that outlined everything to every last detail was published.

Whether anyone else sees him or not, Eddie does.

He ends with his thumb tracing the phantom of a spot beneath the bolt of Buck’s jaw, fingers curled around the side of his neck. 

“You saved me,” he whispers simply. The fractured look in Buck’s eyes is so heartbroken that Eddie can feel the lump in his throat curl into a rock. Still, he manages to speak past it. “That’s how I remember it. Now, it’s my turn to save you.”

Eddie doesn’t just remember it; it’s the God-honest truth. But they’re familiar words, reaching from the depths of a once drowning Buck to this drowning Buck — offered again to pull him back to the surface. 

More than familiar, even, if he counts every single way Buck’s saved him from himself over the years.

Buck tips forward as if the strings holding him up have been cut, damp forehead pressing against Eddie’s bare shoulder, his fingertips — cold, still so cold — running over the scar tissue on the newest bullet wound. The puckered skin has altering points of sensation because of the nerve damage, and Buck’s touch flickers in and out like a static television.

Buck’s breath saws in and out of his lungs, loud even with the rush of water muffling the jagged sound. Eddie keeps him close, slipping his fingers into the thick mop of curls, made thicker with waterlogged tangles. 

On a whim, he reaches for the shampoo, too. He pours a dollop on his head, carefully massaging the stupidly expensive product into Buck’s curls.

“You know, I don’t get why shampoo has to be more than fifteen dollars,” he rambles, talking about anything and everything that comes to mind as Buck comes down from the height of his panic, now that the ghosts of blood have been washed from their bodies. “What are they putting in it?”

Eddie talks about the latest thing he burned in the kitchen, talks about throwing out expired food, talks about the latest PTA mom to hit on him. He talks about Christopher’s next summer camp, talks about a nebulous plan for a road trip the three of them should take. He talks about not going to the next PTA meeting because at least four parents always hit on him, and talks about who he thinks will win the next baseball game.

He talks, and talks and talks, and Buck relaxes further and further into him until he’s practically boneless. Eddie only quiets down when the fingers at his shoulder are steady, work-worn calluses resting warmly over the scar tissue. 

Eddie finishes lathering Buck’s hair in conditioner by the time Buck speaks again, forehead still pressed to Eddie’s shoulder. “I don’t want hair that feels like straw.”

The relief that hits Eddie’s chest expels the breath from his lungs on a wet laugh. “Hey,” he says quietly. 

“Hi,” Buck’s rough voice returns, his fingers pressing a little harder before falling away entirely.

When Buck lifts his head, his eyes are clearer. His face is blotchy, and his eyes are puffy, rimmed red and tired, but they’re clear and that’s all Eddie cares about.

A smile curves Eddie’s lips, just before he sees the embarrassment in Buck begin to set in. Before it can take root and fester, he moves a hand up to cup his neck again, holding him firmly. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Buck says, looking away as he clears his throat. Something seems to occur to him because his head snaps back at Eddie in the span of five seconds. “Christopher?”

“Sleeping downstairs,” Eddie confirms. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been in here, but he hopes that Chris hasn’t woken up in that time.

Something in Buck seems to unwind as he lifts his hands, staring at where Eddie’s just washed all the phantom blood off. “It’s gone. The blood…it’s gone.”

Slowly, Eddie curves his fingers around Buck’s wrist. “I’m still here.”

Buck nods, relaxing into the warm spray. The silence isn’t awkward, like Eddie had feared, but it is contemplative.

“You still have to wash the conditioner out of your hair,” Eddie tells him after a while, wanting to give Buck a little bit of his privacy back. “Will you be okay to finish up here? I’ll be waiting right outside, I just have to get you a pair of clothes.” He looks down at himself and grimaces. “Well. Us, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Buck says, turning to face the shower wall. Eddie watches him and steps back, barely managing to avoid tripping over their discarded shirts. He moves them to the far corner of the shower so Buck doesn’t slip, and steps away from the spray.

He reaches for the towel, wrapping it around his waist just as he slips off his soaked pajama shorts. Buck doesn’t turn to look at him as Eddie steps out, moving to go get Buck a pair of extra-warm clothes.

It’s only when Eddie’s hand lands on the door knob that Buck speaks again. 

“Eddie,” he says quietly.

He pauses, never quite having heard his name be said like that — like Buck means something with every letter he sounds out. 

“Yeah?” he answers, his voice just as low. 

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.” 

The words are whispered as if Eddie’s capable of denying anything Buck needs — wild horses couldn’t drag him away. 

He sighs, feeling the steam in the bathroom settles onto his skin as oppressive heat, sending a flush of goosebumps along his skin. The tentativeness in his best friend’s tone hurts more than he expected, but Eddie knows that’s a discussion for another day. For now, he keeps it simple. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. Not today, not ever.”

Buck’s voice comes stronger this time, when he says, “thank you.”

His voice is meaningful in a way that says that he isn’t thanking Eddie for just one thing, replacing the thread of anxiety between them with the stronger thread of gratitude and something else that’s crackled between them for years.

Eddie smiles and looks over his shoulder to where Buck’s still facing the shower head, the water sluicing across broad shoulders. From the side, Eddie can see the relieved smile on his face — it’s not a smile, barely the slightly hint of a curve tipping his lips, but it’s close enough.

His heart skips and his tongue slips, but Eddie manages to answer.

“Anytime.”