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And in the end, I'd do it all again

Fandom: 9-1-1 Pairings: Evan “Buck” Buckley/Eddie Diaz Word Count: 3314 Tags: First kiss, Canon violence/injury, Little bit of panic, Episode related: 4x14 Survivors Summary: It should have been Buck.

It should have been me. 

It’s all Buck can think and he lays in the street, his best friend’s blood splattered across his face, dripping down the bridge of his nose. It wets his eyelashes, stains his shoes, the striped shirt he’s wearing. 

Huh. Factor in a quick change of clothes, and it could have been him. 

He’s pressing his palms so hard into the pavement that pebbles imbed themselves in his hands, and he can faintly feel the sting, but he can’t worry about that now. He has a second, half a second, to decide what to do next. 

If he stays down, stays hidden, that’s smart. But it’s not what he wants to do.

If he runs out to grab Eddie, that’s what he wants to do. But it’s not smart. 

If he hides under the truck and pulls Eddie beneath it too, that’s smart. And it’s what he wants to do. Mostly. 

(He’d like to say he doesn’t waste a millisecond flashing back to being trapped under that engine, his leg snapping beneath its weight, the agony of those long minutes when he waited to be rescued, but he does, and it makes him uneasy.

But that’s bravery, right? Be afraid, but do it anyway?)

What he does next is roll under the truck, and scream for Eddie.

“Stay down, I’m coming! I got you!” he says, because he can’t see that Eddie looks half dead already. He army-crawls across the length of the truck, doing his best to keep from smacking his head off of automotive parts that are inconveniently low; when he can see light, he reaches out his arm, grabs Eddie’s wrist, and pulls. “I got you—I got you!” 

Eddie is, almost literally, dead weight, and the angle is bad, but Buck pulls because that’s all he can do, the only way he can keep him out of harm’s way.

(He thinks that it’s probably what he’d do for anyone, but this is Eddie… beyond the limits of his bravery, his kindness, his compassion, are all the things he would do for Eddie.)

“Almost there, almost there,” he pants, gritting his teeth, trying to ignore the pale lack of expression on Eddie’s face. He’s not dead, can’t be dead, because Buck hasn’t even—because he doesn’t know what he means to Buck. What he means to the world. 

He grunts, using all of the strength he can gather, the memory of every repetition in the weight room leading up to this moment—because he needs to use this strength to take care of his best friend. In this moment, it's all that he has.

He drags Eddie away from where he’d fallen, too much blood leaving a heavy trail behind his body—behind him—and when Buck pulls him out from under the truck Eddie cries out in pain. It’s the best goddamn sound he’s heard in his life, because it means he’s not dead, not yet, that there’s still time for everything. 

Buck stands, lifts Eddie up as easily as he’d lift Christopher and hands him to the paramedic that boarded the rig ahead of him. Buck’s climbing in, Mehta behind him when another shot rings out, but it only shatters the window, covering them in sparkling shards of glass. It doesn’t matter—Eddie. 

“Go go go,” he calls to whoever is in the driver’s seat, and another bullet hits the truck, this time the windshield. The door is still wide open behind him, and everyone is screaming, and then tires are screeching and there’s fire whooshing past them like they’re approaching Hell’s gates, but he leans down and puts his hand behind Eddie’s head, resting it gently on the floor of the cabin. 

He rips open Eddie’s shirt, tacky with blood, and when the paramedic hands him a compress he tears it open with his teeth, his hands shaking. “I got you, it’s okay,” he breathes, pressing it against the gaping wound splitting Eddie’s skin, and Eddie gasps soundlessly, tries to wet his cracked lips. “Don’t say anything, Eddie, just stay with me,” Buck pleads, but Eddie’s eyes are wide as he rakes them over Buck for the first time. 

“Are you hurt?” he rasps, voice sandy and raw, and Buck aches in that moment as he wonders at Eddie's caring mind, his loving heart, even now. Tears prick at his eyes and he frowns, shakes his head. 

“No, no, I’m good, buddy. I’m okay. Just stay with me. Eddie!” he begs as Eddie’s eyes roll back, his head lolling to one side like he’s lost the strength to hold it up. “Come on, come on,” he says to the driver, the paramedic, anyone who will listen, and he reaches down and holds Eddie’s face in his hands, shushing the soft gurgle that rises to his lips. “We’re almost there, Eddie, please. We’re so close, please.” 

The paramedic tries to put an oxygen mask over Eddie’s mouth and nose, but Buck takes it from him, holds the plastic for him so he can breathe, then leans in to press his lips to Eddie’s slick forehead—just in case it’s the last time he gets to do it. The only time.

From the very moment they arrive at the hospital, it’s mayhem, firefighters shouting, medical personnel brushing past him in scrubs of green and blue and purple. They lay Eddie back on a stretcher and push him away, their white sneakers squeaking against the linoleum as they roll him to an operating room, and Buck can do nothing but stand there, frozen in his desperation, his confusion. Mehta puts a hand on his shoulder, but he can’t feel it, says something, but he can’t hear it. 

Some time passes, and he is scrubbed by a nice nurse whose face he can’t remember; someone brings him a new shirt, and he pulls it over his head, his formerly blood-drenched hair wet and clean, his hands red and raw. He drinks a glass of water, tries to give a detective a statement, but the panic of the unknown rises from his lungs to his throat and he’s sorry, but he really needs air.

When he steps outside the glass doors of the ER, he’s met with the last person he expects to see. 

“No comment, Taylor,” he says as she pushes past the barricade and hurries toward him. How can he give her a sound bite when his voice is as hollow as he’s ever heard it, when his chest may as well be ripped open too? 

“That’s not why I’m here, Buck,” she says, reaching for him, and when he turns, her eyes are soft and kind. “I heard that a firefighter was shot, and you weren’t answering my calls. I got worried.” 

He blinks, frowns, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone like it’s a foreign object he’d forgotten he’d been carrying. “Sorry… I wasn’t checking my phone,” he explains, his eyes barely registering the black screen, and when she looks down at the device in his hand, her eyes grow wide. 

“Is that blood?” she asks, and he glances down at his pants—he hadn’t thought to ask for new pants—and back up at her face. He nods, feels like a bobble-head when he does it, like his brain is no longer even attached to his body, like it’s a balloon floating above him where he stands on the sidewalk.

“Uh, yeah, but it’s not mine, it’s–it’s Eddie’s.” 

At that, her expression changes from worried to heartbroken, on his behalf. She rests a hand on his arm and tilts her head, and her clear blue eyes cloud with moisture and sadness. 

“Eddie’s the one who got shot? Buck, I’m so sorry. I know what he means to you,” she murmurs, and she actually does. She’s the only one who does. She wasn’t even mad when Buck told her, because she had a feeling about that already. Apparently he’s unsubtle, and Eddie is as stubborn as an ox, or something, he forgets the metaphor. 

“Yeah, I–I need to talk to Christopher,” he says, swallowing back a sob at the thought of telling him that his dad’s been mortally wounded and might not make it home, that he wasn’t caught in a fire but targeted standing in broad daylight in the middle of the street. That Buck was right there and he couldn’t stop it. 

Taylor brings her hand to his face, soft and gentle, like something Maddie would do to comfort him, and when she speaks, the tone of her voice is even and so calm.

“I know, but you can’t talk to him like this.” Whether she means the bloody pants or the shaking hands or the feeling that he’s been run down by a freight train that’s backing up and coming for him again, he’s not sure, but she’s probably right. He takes a deep breath and nods, presses his lips together and nods again like he’s fortifying himself. 

“Yeah, yeah. I should go home first,” he says, because it makes sense and it’s what she wants to hear, and she shoots him a concerned smile and reaches into her pocket for her keys. 

“I’ll drive.”

The weight of the bulletproof vest he’s required to wear is nothing compared to the heaviness he feels when he walks into Eddie’s house and Eddie isn’t there. The heaviness he feels when he eats frozen pizza across from Christopher and has to tell him again that he can’t talk to his dad on the phone. Carla’s presence helps, her warmth, her positivity, but each day that goes by without Eddie is a chisel to Buck’s chest, threatening to crack it open irreparably. He wants to hear his voice, he wants him to come home, but mostly he just wants him to wake up. 

Buck wakes with a start from another nightmare, one where the light bled out of Eddie’s eyes the instant he hit the ground, and no amount of strength or surgery could bring him back; one where Christopher has nobody. Where he has nobody. 

He eats Cheerios across from Christopher and laughs good-naturedly when he calls him out for snoring, like the action doesn’t claw at his throat from the inside. He hasn’t laughed since Eddie got shot, but he has to, for Christopher. Christopher, who understands pain, understands death, far younger than he should have to. Who has shown so much resilience and bravery since Eddie’s been in the hospital.

Climbing up the crane is not bravery. It’s selfishness, it’s guilt, it’s anger. He makes himself a target, a bullseye in the sky, ready for the sniping, because it should have been him and he knows it. He’s not important like Eddie, doesn’t have a child, a home, a legacy of doing what’s right despite the cost. Climbing up the crane isn’t doing what’s right; it’s doing what’s easy. It’s making himself a martyr and letting the poison of Eddie’s near-death seep into his bones and make a home there. Buck couldn’t protect Eddie, so he’ll lay down his life to protect the others, if that’s what it takes. 

(It all makes sense, in his reckless, self-righteous, big, stupid head.)

It all makes sense when he gets the call that Eddie is awake. 

Eddie’s smile is… the most beautiful thing Buck has ever seen. He can’t even see Ana, and he knows that’s messed up, but once Eddie says his name it’s game over, it’s a wrap: no one exists but him. He’s so worn down, so tired, but he looks so alive, and Buck gets choked up when he looks at him.

“Do you think he’s doing okay?” Eddie asks of Christopher after the Zoom call. Buck shifts in his seat.

“Better than me,” he says with a sad, self-deprecating smile. He tilts his head, feels embarrassment rush over him; it’s better than the guilt, for a change. “Uh… I kind of lost it, when I told him you got shot. I’m sorry—I–I should have held it together.” 

He’s barely doing that now, as warm tears flood his eyes, as his words catch in his throat. Eddie shakes his head, a slight, weak motion. 

“Nah, you were there for him when I couldn’t be.” His eyes find Buck’s, and Buck sees wetness there too. “That’s what matters.” 

Buck nods even though he doesn’t agree, wrings his hands where they rest in his lap. 

“Still. I think it would have been better for him if I was the one who got shot,” he says, hating how the words sound the second they come out of his mouth; he’s not looking for pity, or to make this about him, he’s just… so, so sorry this happened to Eddie, and there was nothing he could do about it. 

Eddie huffs a rough breath, and Buck shoots up from his chair, alarmed. He looks over Eddie carefully, but there’s no gasping or wheezing or wince of pain that follows, just a look, a softness in his eyes Buck’s not sure he’s seen before. 

“I’ll call the nurse,” he says, just in case, but Eddie reaches out a hand and places it carefully on Buck’s forearm. He sighs and shakes his head. 

“It’s not me. It’s you, you idiot.” 

Buck blinks, and then the corners of his mouth turn down and his brow wrinkles. 

“Did–did you just call me an idiot?” Despite the circumstances, the Eddie gives him the ghost of a smile. 

“Yes, I did. You really think—” he begins, but he’s interrupted by the rapping of knuckles against the metal frame of the door. They both turn to look and see a nurse with gray hair, in her sixties, maybe, with a stern look on her face. 

“Visiting hours are over, and he needs his rest,” the nurse tells them, and when she sees that Buck is already standing, she comes over and gently takes his arm, guides him toward the door. “You can come back and see him tomorrow—he should be discharged then, if everything looks good.”

“But I…” Buck starts, glancing back toward Eddie where he lays in the bed; his eyes are closed, but he waves his hand in Buck’s direction. 

“It’s okay, go home. She’s right, I should sleep.” 

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Buck promises, as the nurse reaches around him to pull the door closed. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he murmurs, but it’s already shut and all he sees is a door number and Diaz written in blue dry-erase marker.

He doesn’t go home. Or, he does, but it’s Eddie’s home. Christopher wakes after Carla leaves, and they share a pop-tart before Buck tucks him back into bed. 

Eddie is discharged the next day, and because Buck is already planning to be at his house, he offers to drive him home. They’re sitting on the uncomfortable rollaway bed, the plastic-covered mattress crinkling beneath them, while they wait for his meds; Eddie clears his throat, and it brings Buck’s gaze up from his hands to Eddie’s eyes. They look concerned, maybe… conflicted. He can’t be sure.

“Hey, since we got a minute,” Eddie begins, and Buck takes a deep, careful breath. 

“Is everything all right?” He wonders off-hand if Eddie will thank him for taking care of Christopher but tell him they’ll need their space, or if he’ll want his first night back home to be with Ana, and not him. Both of those would be fair conversations to have. 

Eddie nods. 

“Yeah, yeah, I'm just… I've been meaning to talk to you about something.” It’s his turn to look down at his hands—or, arm. The one in the sling. “So, you might have noticed I almost died. Again,” he adds, and Buck exhales, moves closer to him. The last thing he should be thinking about is death, when they’re actually on the other side of this, when he gets to go home.

“Eddie,” Buck starts, but Eddie makes eye contact again, and Buck can see tenderness there, and struggle. Like it’s hard enough to get the words out without Buck interrupting him. He pauses, nods, and Eddie swallows and faces forward.

“After the last time, when that well collapsed on top of me, it got me thinking—you know, what would happen to Christopher if I did die?” Buck doesn’t even want to think about it, has had almost as many nightmares about the well as he has about the bullet. Eddie continues. “So, I went to my attorney and changed my will. So, someday, if I, uh... didn’t make it,” he decides with a solemn nod, “Christopher would be taken care of. By you.”

Those two words knock the wind out of him, and he wets his lips, confused.

“What?” Buck asks, just in case he didn’t hear him right. Eddie looks him in the eye. 

“It's in my will that, if I die, you become Christopher's legal guardian,” he explains, and he is so sure about it… Buck’s head fills with questions that he can’t help but ask, rapid-fire.

“I mean, wow. How does that even work? Don't–don't you need my consent? He has grandparents, other family; if it came to that, wouldn’t they fight for him?” 

Eddie chuckles softly and shrugs his shoulders. 

“My attorney said you could refuse, but I knew you wouldn’t,” he says, and again, he’s so sure, his eyes so deep and dark and determined. “And they’d probably fight for him,” he adds, and then he reaches across his body with his good hand to cover Buck’s where it rests on the bed. His fingertips are soft as they curl around his. “But no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you, and that is what I want for him. You are what I want for him.”

“Why are you just telling me now?” Buck asks, and his voice feels barely there; to hear him say that Buck is who he wants to care for Christopher in the event he can’t, it’s… it’s the most highly anyone has ever regarded him, the most incredible responsibility that’s ever been given to him, and he just can’t figure out how he could have ever become such a dependable person in Eddie’s eyes. Like Eddie knows this, he laughs softly and squeezes his hand.

“Because, Evan,” he says, and it’s affectionately sarcastic, makes him smile, “you came in here the other day and you said you thought it would have been better if it had been you who was shot. You act like you're expendable. But you're wrong,” he tells him, and he says it with so much conviction, such certainty, that it scares Buck a little. He’s afraid he’ll never be able to live up to the version of himself Eddie sees, that he’ll never be the man Eddie would feel comfortable leaving his child to. He’s afraid of how much it would hurt to lose them now, if he made the wrong move, how a foolish misstep could cost him this family.

(But that’s bravery, right? Be afraid, but do it anyway?)

Buck leans in, looks from Eddie’s eyes to his lips, and when Eddie doesn’t move away, he kisses him, sweet and slow and easy. The press of their mouths together is gentle, almost chaste, but Buck is overtaken by emotion, and he brings his hand up to cradle Eddie’s face the way he did in the cabin of the truck. Eddie tilts his head into it, kisses Buck once, twice, and when he pulls back Buck can feel that his cheeks are flushed and his eyelids have grown heavy. He opens them, and Eddie looks reverent. His lips are pink.

“Idiot,” he teases softly, and he initiates a kiss that doesn’t end until the nurse brings in his medicine. 

The video of the kids interrupting their dad in the middle of an interview, but it’s Tim and Damian fist-fighting in the background while Dick tries to separate them, while Bruce is in a conference for Wayne Enterprises.

i hate him ♥️

Cute and hungry people :))