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Hi! Hello, there! You’ve stumbled into Buck’s living, waking, walking nightmare. Welcome!
He’s not quite with us yet — he’s snoring on the couch. If we take a quick tiny little peek inside his mind, he’s not having a great time, and it’s moments away from getting much, much worse.
You see, Buck got crushed by a ladder truck (unfortunate) and two weeks later he had a night terror for the very first time (embarrassing). He sleep-walked from the couch, directly into his coffee table, smashed two glasses, and landed so dramatically on the floor that Ali had dialed 911, convinced they were under attack. His bruises had lasted for weeks.
That was the start of it. From there he’d fallen down his stairs (tsunami spin cycle), wrestled his floor lamp (sniper targeting firefighters), and received a noise complaint for doing something that left him covered in bruises so mysterious he couldn’t even begin to guess what it had been (he, tragically, does not remember).
Buck’s mind, at this very moment, is back in the ocean. He’s being tossed and dunked and drowned, chewed up and spat out by the force of the pacific. The kid is back — the kid is always back, and always just out of reach. Another surge pushes them both further out to sea, and the kid screams. Sometimes he wakes up here, heart racing and gasping for breath, but not tonight. Not just yet, at least. Give him thirty more seconds and he’ll be awake and with us.
Tonight he fights against the surge, paddling towards the kid. He’s barely keeping his head above water, but Buck is so close. He reaches, reaches, reaches — his fingertips graze his shirt, but he’s too late, he’s being pulled under and Buck won’t give up, he can’t, he chases him, he swims, he follows him forward, forward, forward until
BANG
And he’s with us. Welcome back to the land of the living, Buck. You’ll wish you weren’t here in about 15 seconds.
He sucks in a lungful of air with a heaving gasp, he’s shaking, his knees burn, his heart thunders erratically against his ribcage.
He’s still reaching out, chasing something, but his fingers find familiar carpet, in a familiar hallway, and the dim flicker of fluorescent lights.
He whips his head around, hands greedy and outstretched, and finds the solid wood of his own apartment door.
Shut.
Slammed shut, he’d guess. He’d be correct. With a BANG .
He breathes, and falls back against the door. His body is shaking. His heart is still racing. His knees really fucking sting. He breathes. Reality solidifies around him. He breathes.
As his pounding heart starts to settle, he opens his eyes.
Yep.
Fuck.
(Told ya.)
He’s in the hallway outside his apartment. He’s leaning against his apartment door, which is shut, which means it’s locked. And it is. Because you couldn’t see it, and neither could he, but as Dream Buck fought to save the drowning kid, Real Buck was stumbling from his couch, past his kitchen, and right out the front door.
Don’t worry, it gets worse.
The stinging of his knees brings his attention to his body, which is naked, because he sleeps naked, even though he knows he sometimes has night terrors now and sometimes sleep-walks or sleep-fights or sleep-falls-down-stairs. His knees are scraped up, from the carpet, probably, but he actually has no idea. The last thing he remembers is passing out on the couch because his bad leg had been acting up and he didn’t want to face the stairs.
He definitely should have faced the stairs, now that he’s thinking about it, because then he probably would have fallen down them and woken up injured inside his apartment, with his phone and his keys, and not outside his apartment, naked, with no phone, no keys, and no idea what to do next.
I did warn you this was going to be a living, waking, walking nightmare. I mean, oof.
Buck would probably agree, but he’s a little busy trying to figure out, firstly, how to not get arrested for indecent exposure, and then, secondly, how to get back into his apartment without actually breaking the door down.
He can’t call Maddie or Bobby, because he doesn’t have a phone. He can’t just go and buy a phone, or some clothes, or anything, really, because again, he couldn’t be more naked. There’s a 24/7 IHOP a few blocks away that he decides would probably take pity on him, if only he could get there without streaking through the streets of LA.
So, STEP ONE: Find Clothes.
Smart.
He pulls himself up from the floor, his bad leg screaming as he does so. He hobbles to the elevator, doing his best to cover his junk from the cameras, and presses the button for the basement.
Fate follows him down.
The basement was a clever choice, for the most part. It’s where the communal laundry facilities live, and maybe, Buck’s praying, a bountiful lost and found.
He hobbles from the elevator into the bright, harsh light of the laundry room. The cl-clunk, cl-clunk, cl-clunk of a dryer raises his hackles, but there’s, blessedly, no one else in the room to bear witness to the most embarrassing moment of his life. He spots the lost and found basket in the corner of the room and takes a moment to pray to whoever is listening that there’s something in there to cover, at the very least, his junk. He squeezes his eyes closed and manifests like he’s never manifested before. He sucks in a deep breath, slowly lets it out, and approaches.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he groans, which is valid, because the whole time he was praying and manifesting, that basket could not have been more empty. It was honestly hard to watch. Well, actually, that’s not true. It’s not empty, there’s two single mis-matched socks of wildly differing lengths. But, for all intents and purposes, it’s empty.
He turns, in slow motion, towards the tumbling dryer. Like a predator with its prey, he zeros-in on it. The laundry room was his best and only idea for getting out of this without an arrest record or a lease broken from embarrassment. This cl-clunk, cl-clunk, cl-clunking dryer is his last and only hope.
He yanks the door of the dryer open and pulls out a still-damp pair of what appear to be children’s pajama shorts. They’d barely fit over his big toe. He finds the matching pajama top next, it’s space themed, which is cool, but not helpful right now. There’s one thing left in the dryer, and it looks far more promising. It’s a sheet. A bed sheet. A small one, definitely, probably for the owner of the pajama’s child-sized bed, but big enough to cover his junk and his ass. That’s a win! It’s also covered in little fire trucks, because the universe has a sense of humor. Saved by the very thing that started this night terror sleep-walking nightmare to begin with. He wraps the small sheet around his waist and sags with relief. It’s not ideal, but he can work with it.
Let it be known he does hesitate by the dryer — he doesn’t feel great about stealing some innocent child’s bed sheets, but it’s not like he has much of a choice. He can’t even leave a note, because he has nothing to write on or with, but he’ll buy the kid a new set of sheets in the morning and leave them in the laundry room and hope they make it back to the right home. It’s the best he can do, given the circumstances.
He hobbles back over to the elevator, which immediately opens, presumably because no one else is wandering around the apartment building in the middle of the night. He presses the G to take him to the ground floor, but the elevator BZZZZs at him angrily.
Denied.
Fuck. You can’t go up without a keycard, only down, and he’s as down as you can go. He’s hit rock bottom in every way imaginable, and the elevator of life is not letting him get up. Out of blatant desperation, he tries all the other buttons. As expected, the elevator responds with an aggressive series of BZZZZ BZZZZZ BZZZZZ BZZZZZZs.
Nada.
It’s dramatic, but he’s tired and running on adrenaline that is quickly running out, and his leg hurts , so he lets himself slide down the wall of the elevator, dropping his head back against the corner with a thunk.
He is aware that there’s a solution to this — take the stairs. It’s just that his leg is flaring the fuck up, and the pain meds he takes to manage it are locked in his apartment with his keys and his phone and his wallet and his clothes and his pride and his modesty and his will to go on. So, he lets himself give up, just for a minute. He wallows, and he’s allowed that — we’ll give it to him — because it’s about to get a little bit worse (or better, depending on how you look at it).
The elevator doors slide shut, the walls groan, then the whole thing starts moving , and Buck, unfortunately, scrambles to get up, but his bad leg gives out, and he falls — his modesty sheet slipping off — landing ass-up right as the elevator doors open to reveal a dark-haired man, in sweats and a tank, mouth agape and blinking at him.
Buck scrambles for the sheets, covering himself as best he can as he pushes up off the floor to stand, horrified and frozen, in front of the most handsome man he has ever seen in his life.
“Are those my kid’s fire truck sheets?” The man asks, frowning.
Buck wonders if maybe the elevator will do him a solid and plummet back down to the basement floor.
“This is not what it looks like,” he tries, clutching this random, unbelievably handsome man’s child’s fire truck sheets around his waist with a vice grip.
“It looks like you just stole my kid’s favorite sheets,” the man says, arms crossed and brows raised.
“I-I can explain,” Buck stutters, as the elevator doors start to close. Through the quickly-shrinking gap, he rushes to add, “I swear I’m not a creep! I’m a firefighter!”
The man must press the elevator button again, because the doors slide open. He’s still standing there, arms crossed, but he looks a little less creeped out and a little more amused. Buck watches as his eyes drop down to the fire truck sheets.
“I don’t think those meet the LAFD dress code,” the man jokes. Buck ignores him. He must think he’s insane.
“I just, I get these night terrors? Sometimes? And I sleepwalk,” he explains. Because he feels insane, so this man would be right to think that he is, but he isn’t. He’s normal and not creepy and would have loved to have met this unbelievably attractive man at literally any other moment of his life (he doesn’t know yet that fate chose this one for a reason). “And usually I don’t go that far,” he continues. He’s rambling, but he can’t stop. “But this time I locked myself out of my apartment, and, I, uh - - “
“Sleep in the nude?” The man suggests, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“Yeah,” Buck sighs. “Unfortunately. It was this or a pair of mismatched socks in the lost and found.”
The man steps forward and leans against the elevator door, keeping it open.
“Guess it was a good night for my kid to wet the bed, then, huh?” He says.
“Oh,” Buck blinks, looking down at the sheets fully touching every part of him.
“They’re clean,” the man chuckles. He makes eye contact with Buck’s fire truck covered crotch again and adds, “Well, they were.”
“I’ll replace them, I swear,” Buck promises, face burning. “Once I figure out how to get back into my apartment.”
The man hums sympathetically. “How long have you been locked out?”
“I have no idea,” Buck shrugs. “I don’t even know what time it is.”
“You need to call someone?” The man offers, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“Uh. Yeah, thanks,” Buck nods. “A locksmith, I guess?”
“No one got a spare key?” The man asks. “This time of night it’d be cheaper to just buy a new door.”
Buck cringes. “My ex had it, but, uh. Well, now it’s at the bottom of a box of my things I’ve shoved into the back of my closet so I don’t have to look at it.”
“Ah. Sorry, man. That’s rough,” the man says, and he looks like he means it.
Buck shrugs. “Compared to this, it really doesn’t seem that bad.”
The man chuckles. He looks over his shoulder at the hallway, then back towards Buck. “I have to get back to my kid, but I have some sweats that’ll probably fit you, and a couch you’re welcome to crash on if you don’t want to sell your kidney for a locksmith?”
Buck blinks. Of all the things he was expecting him to say, none of them had been that.
“Oh. That’s - - are you sure?”
“You rather camp out in the elevator?”
“No,” Buck admits. His leg is reaching levels of pain he hasn’t felt since the weeks following the accident. “A couch sounds great right now. I’m Buck, by the way,” he offers, pushing off the wall and limping closer to the pretty man.
“Hi, Buck,” he smiles. Fate loops around them like a string. “I’m Eddie.”
If you’re anything like Eddie, you probably weren’t expecting to be throwing pee-soaked sheets into the communal washing machine three hours before meeting the love of your life. It was, in fact, the very furthest thing from his mind.
Chris had been having nightmares ever since the tsunami. Not all the time, but often enough that they’re both low on sleep a few nights of the week. The bed-wetting is much less frequent — it seems to only happen when he’s overtired and hit with a particularly bad nightmare.
Tonight, unfortunately, was one of those nights. He’d had a big day — an excursion to the zoo with his school — and had stayed up reading until Eddie had caught him with a flashlight under his sheets. He’s only eight, but he’s a voracious reader — curious about the world and how it all works.
Eddie had had a feeling, as he tucked him into bed that second time, that it might be one of those nights. When he woke up to the sound of his kid screaming, his suspicions were confirmed.
Thirty minutes, a long hug, and a mug of sleepytime tea later, Chris was tucked safely into the big bed, while Eddie snuck out to throw his pajamas and sheets into the wash. When he returned, he slipped into the other side of the bed and pulled Chris close against him.
He never had nightmares when he was in Eddie’s bed, but his psychologist had warned him against letting him sleep in his bed every night. So, they have a rule. He’s not allowed to start the night in the big bed, but if he gets scared, or has a nightmare, he’s always allowed to escape the bad dreams in dad’s bed. Eddie doesn't mention this part to Chris, but he’s pretty sure he benefits from it just as much as Chris does. It always takes him hours to fall back asleep after one of Chris’ nightmares — sometimes sleep never finds him at all.
Tonight, for example, he’s been watching Chris sleep, counting his breaths, for hours, probably. He’s just so little, and he’s been through so much, and as much as Eddie’s psychologist tells him he can’t control natural disasters, he feels like if he were a better dad he could. A better dad, with better instincts, would have known not to take him to the pier that day. A better dad most certainly wouldn’t have lost him for hours, leaving him alone to fend for himself and witness all kinds of nightmare-inducing traumas.
His watch vibrates, reminding him that his laundry is done. He presses a kiss to Chris’ curls and sneaks back out, heading down to the laundry room in the basement to transfer the clean sheets into the dryer. If he can’t sleep, he might as well get Chris’ favorite sheets back on his bed before he wakes up.
The obsession with fire trucks is new, too, since the tsunami. He says a firefighter saved him with his fire truck. Eddie had tried to ask around at the field hospital, but it was chaos, and none of the firefighters had any clue what he was talking about. Chris’ therapist says it might be something he came up with to cope, but Eddie isn’t so sure. Chris’ story hasn’t wavered once, and the firefighter with the fire truck is always front and center.
With the sheets safely transferred to the dryer, he returns to his apartment, carefully closing the front door with a soft click . His efforts to be quiet prove useless, though, as a loud BANG echoes through the building — the unfortunately familiar sound of a door slamming shut somewhere else in the apartment building. He sighs, and hopes it didn’t wake up Chris.
He pokes his head into his bedroom and finds Chris star-fished out across the whole bed, snoozing away. He chuckles quietly, snaps a photo on his phone, and makes himself his second, closely followed by his third, cup of sleepytime tea for the evening. Or the morning. Whatever.
When his watch buzzes again, he’s still wide awake. He carefully closes the apartment door behind him, walking to the end of the hallway to call the elevator back. It takes longer than he’s expecting at this time of night. Another thing he’s not expecting is a bare ass floundering in front of his eyes as the elevator doors slide open. The guy currently flopping around on the elevator floor scrambles to cover himself, looks up, and of course it’s him.
It’s the Cute Neighbor. The one with the fluffy hair and the sunshine smile that helps Mrs Robinson change her smoke alarms and light bulbs. The one he’s been using to practice being okay with having a crush on a man. The one he was supposed to never actually talk to, let alone see his entire ass. And - - are those Chris’ fire truck sheets?
The guy looks like he could evaporate from embarrassment as he waffles through an explanation for the sheets and the nakedness. Eddie, unfortunately, finds it extremely endearing.
He’d seen him in his LAFD uniform a few times, so when he shouts that he’s a firefighter through the closing elevator doors, Eddie is more inclined to believe him than he would be if he’d never seen the guy before.
And maybe it’s stupid (it is), okay, maybe it’s completely out of character (it is), but for some reason (fate), he’s opening his mouth and offering the guy his couch.
Eddie leads him down the hallway, Buck limps along behind him, and fate follows.
Having seen Buck up close, Eddie realizes his sweats are probably a little small, but he finds an old baggy pair of gym shorts that should work. He sets up the couch with some pillows and a blanket while Buck swaps his fire truck modesty sheet out for real clothes, all while studiously not crashing out about inviting the stranger he has a crush on into his apartment in the middle of the night.
Buck shuffles out from the bathroom, and Eddie notices, not for the first time, that he’s limping. The face he makes when he drops down onto the couch is one Eddie’s seen plenty of times in soldiers trying to tough it out.
“You okay, man?” He asks, nodding his head towards the leg he seems to be favoring.
“Bad leg,” Buck grunts, using his hands to pull his legs up onto the couch. “I have meds that help, but -”
“They’re locked in your apartment,” Eddie finishes. Buck sighs and nods. Now that he’s noticed it, he can see the familiar signs of pain all over him. He’s a little too pale, a sheen of sweat sits on his skin, and his breathing is careful — slow and forced. “Okay, well, hey – I was an army medic. I might be able to help. What’s the issue?”
“Crushed by a ladder truck,” Buck grunts.
“Crushed by a - -?? Jesus . Okay,” Eddie blinks. “Can I take a look?”
“Go for it,” Buck nods. “I’ll do anything you say right now if it will make this slightly less excruciating.”
Eddie kneels down in front of Buck’s out-stretched leg and tries to be gentle as he assesses it. He can see the scar, now that he’s looking for it, and he can feel how angry his muscles are underneath his fingers. It must hurt like a bitch.
“Your muscles are seizing,” he explains, as if Buck isn’t already aware of that. “I’m gonna massage your leg, if that’s okay?”
Buck nods and swallows thickly. Eddie uses his training and his years of experience dealing with Chris’ flare-ups to try and relax the muscles. He tries to be gentle, but things like this require a little bit of force.
Buck’s face twists with pain. “Could you - - talk?” He groans. “Just. Tell me something. Anything.”
“Okay, yeah,” Eddie agrees, sliding his hands over Buck’s calf. “Uh. You said you get night terrors, right?”
Buck nods through the pain.
“Maybe you can help. My kid, he’s eight, he’s been having nightmares. We lost his mom last year, and he, uh, he’s just been through a lot. And I don’t really know how to help him. He seems so happy during the day, then at night he wakes up screaming. I don’t know, is there - - is there something I can do? Something that helps?”
When he looks up from Buck’s leg, he finds him looking back with sympathy. “I wish I knew, man. I’ve tried everything,” he admits. “Hey, I’m sorry about his mom.”
“Yeah, thanks. It’s been a lot,” Eddie admits. Some part of him knows he shouldn't be spilling his life story to this stranger on his couch, but it’s late, and Eddie’s always been more honest under the cover of darkness. “I - - do you still want me to keep talking?”
“Please,” Buck grunts, sucking in a sharp breath as Eddie kneads a particularly tense spot. He pushes his thumbs in, opens his mouth, and lets the truth fall out.
“Well, you already know I was a medic in the army,” he starts. “Afghanistan. Two tours. When I got out, we moved here. My wife wanted to be closer to family, thought it would be good for us to start over. So we moved, and it was good, then she died. Hit by a car crossing the street. My parents begged me to move back. Said it was what was best for my kid, that there was nothing keeping us here now. And I don’t know why I didn’t — they’re probably right — but I didn’t. Then I nearly lost my kid. I thought I had lost him,” he admits, clearing his throat. “For hours, I thought I’d lost him, and I had no idea what I was going to do. Then, by some fucking miracle, I got him back. I got him back, and I still don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m still working three jobs. My kid’s still waking up screaming. I still don’t know how to give him what he needs,” he confesses, kneading the words into the flesh beneath his palms.
Before he can even think about being embarrassed for trauma-dumping on the poor guy, Buck’s steady hand lands on his shoulder.
“I know we just met, but even I can tell you’re a really good dad,” he says, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder. “You care enough to worry about being good enough. That’s more than most can say. Trust me.”
And it’s not because he’s either about to start crying or smash his mouth against the kind man with kind eyes lying on his couch, but he gives one last squeeze to Buck’s leg before tapping it twice. “That’s about as good as it’s gonna get,” he says, pushing up off the floor. “And, uh, thank you. For saying that.”
Buck scoffs. “Dude, if anyone should be thanking anyone here, it’s me. It feels so much better already, I might even be able to get some sleep. Thank you. For the leg, and for the clothes, and the couch.”
“It’s no problem, Buck, really,” he assures him. “Uh, if I don’t see you in the morning, do I need to go check if you’re trapped in the basement?”
Buck rolls his eyes. “Ha ha. No, you have done more than enough already. I was actually gonna ask if your kid likes pancakes? I could make you guys breakfast to say thank you for saving my ass tonight?”
“Did I save it?” Eddie teases. “I more so remember being blinded by it.”
“Okay, Mr Funny Guy. You can make jokes, but only because yes , you did save it.”
“He loves pancakes,” Eddie grins. “Especially when someone else makes them. I always burn them.”
“Perfect,” Buck smiles. “Pancakes it is.”
When Buck wakes up on an unfamiliar couch in an unfamiliar apartment, he’s briefly terrified that he has somehow sleep-trespassed into one of his neighbor’s apartments. He sits up, trying to get his bearings, when he spots the fire truck bed sheet and remembers.
Eddie.
Handsome, kind, talented, Eddie. Eddie with the magic, healing hands and the nice smile and the best ass Buck has ever seen.
Eddie who has a kid who likes pancakes, and Eddie who burns pancakes, and Buck who is going to make the best pancakes either of them have ever had.
It’s clear the kitchen doesn’t get a whole lot of use, but he scavenges through the cupboards and drawers to pull together a decent breakfast spread. Bobby would be proud.
He’s using up the last of the pancake batter when Eddie joins him in the kitchen. He’s sleep-rumpled and soft and Buck has to brace himself against the counter to remain upright.
“Morning,” Eddie smiles, heading straight for the fresh pot of coffee. “How’s the leg?”
“Way better,” Buck confirms, flipping the pancakes. “Thank you again.”
“Good. That’s good,” Eddie hums, taking in the spread laid out on the table in front of him. “This is impressive. I didn’t even know I owned orange juice.”
“You didn’t,” Buck confirms. “But you had oranges.”
Eddie gapes at him. “You made orange juice?”
“It’s easy,” Buck shrugs. “One ingredient.”
He turns off the heat, adding the last batch of pancakes to the foil-covered plate he’s keeping warm in the oven. When he turns back around, Eddie is looking at him with a cocked head and a small, please smile on his face.
“Chris will probably be out for a while,” he says. “He sleeps-in when he’s had a bad one.”
Buck’s not surprised to hear that, he’s usually a walking zombie the morning after a night terror, too. It turns out that his urge to impress the hot single dad in his building is stronger than his need for sleep.
“I’m surprised to see you up already,” Buck notes, pouring himself a glass of orange juice. Eddie had been up just as late as he had.
“Yeah, well. Had to make sure you didn’t rob me,” Eddie shrugs, leaning back against the kitchen counter, sipping his coffee. “It was late, my defenses were down, and I was distracted — probably not my brightest idea to let a stranger sleep on my couch,” he admits, hiding his smile behind his coffee mug. “Even if he is a handsome firefighter.”
Buck chokes on his orange juice. There’s no way. There is no way the hot single dad with the best ass he’s ever seen is flirting with him right now.
“I - - you were distracted?” He coughs. Just to clarify that he didn’t mean that in a flirty way. Just to be sure.
“Mmhm,” Eddie nods. “There was a naked firefighter in my building’s elevator, if you can believe it.”
Oh. Oh god. The hot single dad with the best ass he’s ever seen is flirting with him right now.
“Well I - - I don’t think he was naked,” Buck blinks. “I think there was a sheet.”
Eddie chuckles. “Not when the doors opened, there wasn’t.”
“That was - - an accident,” Buck notes, face flaming. “I was trying to get up.”
“Hmm,” Eddie hums, hiding his laugh behind his mug. “You’re LAFD?”
“Yeah,” Buck confirms. “I don’t just have a thing for fire truck merch.”
Eddie snorts. “I applied for the academy, but had to turn it down when my wife died. I’ve been thinking about it again. My kid is obsessed with firefighters and fire trucks, kinda feels like a sign.”
“You should. You’ve got the build for it. And the skills. My captain would hire you in a heartbeat,” Buck says, letting himself picture a world where he gets to see Eddie every day.
Eddie opens his mouth to respond, but a little voice floats through the kitchen before he can.
“Daddy?” The kid asks, clearly hesitant. Probably because of the random man in their kitchen making pancakes.
“Hey, buddy,” Eddie grins, putting down his mug and opening his arms just in time for his kid to barrel into them. He scoops him off the ground, hugging him against his chest. “This is my friend Buck,” he whispers. “He made us breakfast.”
The kid turns his head toward Buck, blinks, and frowns.
And oh.
Oh.
The string of fate pulls into a knot and tightens. Three souls bound in a too-small kitchen.
“Oh,” Buck gasps, at the same time the kid - - at the same time Christopher, grins.
“Mr Firefighter?” Christopher gasps, wriggling out of his dad’s arms.
“Christopher,” he chokes, dropping down to meet him at his level moments before Christopher crashes into his arms. “You’re okay,” he whispers, blinking back tears. “You’re okay.”
Buck remembers, probably slightly too late, that Eddie is also here and watching this unfold. He looks over Christopher’s shoulder to find him blinking at the scene in front of him.
“Sorry - - what’s happening?” Eddie asks, bewildered.
“You found him, dad!” Christopher grins, pulling back to frame Buck’s face with his tiny hands. “The firefighter who saved me!”
“You - - you’re the - - oh,” Eddie whispers, falling backwards into the fridge.
“He - - I lost him, when the water came back,” Buck adds vacantly. “I thought - - God, Christopher, I’m so happy you’re okay. You have no idea.”
“You said you didn’t know how we could find the firefighter, dad!” Christopher beams.
“I didn’t.” Eddie blinks. “He, uh, he found us, bud.”
“My name’s Buck,” Buck tells him. “And your dad saved me last night, isn’t that cool?”
“You did?” Christopher gasps, looking between Buck and his dad. Eddie looks like someone hit him over the head with a bat. “Yeah! That’s awesome!”
“I have a very important question for you, Christopher,” Buck whispers, faux-serious.
“You can call me Chris,” Chris whispers back in the same tone.
Buck chuckles. “Okay, Chris. Do you like pancakes?”
“I like pancakes a lot!” Chris grins.
“Phew!” Buck gasps dramatically, wiping a hand over his forehead. “Because I made so many pancakes, and I don’t think we’d be able to eat them all without you.”
Buck gets the pancakes out of the oven, adding a few to a plastic plate for Chris. Eddie seems to be moving on auto-pilot, pouring Chris some orange juice and handing him the whole jug of maple syrup, letting him add it himself. Buck gets the feeling he doesn’t normally do that, because he adds a lot of maple syrup. Eddie doesn’t even blink.
“Hey, can we talk for a sec?” Buck asks him as they both wordlessly watch Chris top his pile of pancakes and half a bottle of maple syrup with half a can of whipped cream.
“Huh?” Eddie startles. “Oh, yeah. ‘Course,” he nods, leading them to his bedroom and shutting the door.
“Eddie,” Buck starts the second the door clicks shut. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea. I swear, I didn’t - -” he’s cut off by Eddie pulling him into a crushing hug.
“Thank you. Buck,” he whispers against his neck. “Thank you.”
“What?” Buck blinks.
“You saved my kid,” Eddie croaks. “Thank you.”
“I lost him,” Buck corrects. Christopher had slipped out of his grasp. He’d reached for him and lost him.
“You kept him safe when I lost him,” Eddie whispers, pulling back with a teary smile. “I - - I don’t even know how to thank you.”
“You don’t need to,” Buck frowns. “You saved me, remember?”
“Let me - - let me take you out for lunch?” Eddie says, urgently. “Chris would love it. He talks about you all the time. He’s been worried about you. Or - - or dinner, if you’re not up for an eight year old talking your ear off.”
Buck rolls his eyes. “Eddie. I would love to get lunch with you guys. I love kids. Especially – especially your one. He got me through that day, man. He was this little piece of sunshine in the middle of that storm. I think about him every day,” he admits. “Is that weird? I don’t mean it in a weird way. I just - - I’m so happy he’s okay.”
Eddie’s shaking his head like he can’t believe Buck is real. Which is crazy, because Buck can’t believe any of this is real.
“He got those fire truck sheets for you, you know,” Eddie laughs. “He said you saved him with your fire truck, so they’d help keep his nightmares away.”
“Oh. Wow,” Buck grins. “What are the chances they’d save both of us?”
“What are the chances you’d agree to go to dinner with me?” Eddie responds, in one easy breath.
“Eddie,” Buck chuckles. “You really don’t have to repay me.”
Eddie shakes his head. “That’s lunch. Dinner isn’t that.”
“What’s dinner?” Buck dares to ask.
“Me shooting my shot with the hot firefighter who lives in my building,” Eddie shrugs nervously. “Obviously, if you’re not - -”
“I am,” Buck cuts him off, trying not to start grinning like an idiot. “I’m, yeah. I am. Sorry,” he chuckles, face burning. “You’re just, like, the most handsome guy I’ve ever seen, so I can’t believe this is happening.”
Eddie snorts, which shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. “You’ll let me take you to dinner?”
“Yeah. Yep. Definitely,” Buck confirms.
“Good,” Eddie nods. “You free tonight?”
“You might get sick of me,” Buck jokes, but he’s not joking, Breakfast, lunch, and dinner is plenty of time for someone to realize he’s not worth sticking around for.
“I might,” Eddie concedes. “I don’t think I will, though.”
And he’s right. He doesn’t.
One week goes by, then two, then twenty, and every morning, Buck wakes up in his bed. Or Eddie’s bed. But, a bed, and not the floor, or the laundry, or halfway down the stairs. He stops chasing the kid, because he doesn’t have to, because he found him, and he’s okay. He’s thriving, actually, and rarely having nightmares of his own. Eddie’s the one with the nightmares, now, but they come in the form of fire academy exams.
There’s no need to keep up with the specifics anymore, the hand of fate has done its job — but if you were to check in on any given day, at any given moment, you’d find joy and laughter echoing around the halls of Eddie’s apartment. Unless it’s an exam day, then you’ll find calming playlists, sleepytime tea, and Buck practicing his newly-found massage skills, courtesy of his boyfriend.
You’ll also find that Chris’ fire truck sheets aren’t his favorite anymore — he’s moved onto the dinosaur ones he picked out with Buck, but Eddie makes sure to keep them nearby to ward off the bad dreams. (He’ll never admit it to another living soul. Buck knows about it anyway.)
The bad dreams still don’t come, and Buck never strays too far again, but Eddie keeps a hold of his spare key, just in case. You never know when fate might come knocking, and if it's Buck on the other side of it, Eddie will always answer the door.