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The sound haunted Eddie’s dreams, even weeks after Buck had been released from the hospital and was back home in their bed. The sound of the heart rate monitor, the long monotonous beep signalling the lack of heart beat. The flatline mocking him as Chimney worked as hard as he could to get his brother in law back. The same mocking tone sounding as Eddie drove them to the hospital, only ending when he took over compressions, when he got the love of his life’s heartbeat back. When the scariest 3 minutes and 17 seconds of his life was over.
Or so he thought.
A coma, a prolonged hospital stay with more times that Buck flatlined. Each time, Eddie’s heart threatened to stop as well. The prospect of having to live without Buck being too much to bear. If the doctors hadn’t managed to get him back, he knew for a facf that he would’ve died too, the heartbreak being what finally finished him where a war, a well and a gunshot couldn’t.
He had found it really hard to let Buck out of his sight since he had returned home. What had started as Buck returning to his apartment being ‘cared for’ by his parents and Maddie had resulted in him running away to Eddie’s home, and he just hadn’t left. Before the lightning strike, the two had started dating. Nobody else knew, it was their secret. It was new and exciting and they were getting used to the shift in their relationship, learning things about each other that only romantic partners knew. When Buck died, Eddie had broken down and told Bobby exactly what Buck meant to him. Told him all about how they had finally made the leap that everyone thought that they would’ve taken years before. Told him all about how he didn’t know if he would survive losing Buck.
But Buck woke up. He woke up and he chose to live with Eddie where he felt safe and secure and loved. Everyone knew that they were now Buck and Eddie, their family officially completed. And Eddie didn’t think that he had ever been this happy or this scared at the same time. He had everything he’d ever wanted - he had Evan Buckley in his bed, sleeping in his arms, trusting him and choosing him. But that also meant that he had so much more to lose. Because he did have Evan Buckley, but that also meant he had Evan Buckley to lose now.
-
“I’m sorry Eddie, we did everything we could”, Hen said, standing up and walking away from where Buck was laid out on the street, a fire truck on top of him.
The tone of his boyfriend flatlining filled the eerie silence of the streets of LA.
They were the only two people around. Or, he was the only person left… Buck was dead. He was dead, and Eddie couldn’t get to him. Couldn’t pull him into his arms and comfort him. Couldn’t try to bring him back to him.
He was pinned and Eddie was alone.
The tone rang out, there was no heartbeat. Buck was dead.
-
Eddie woke up suddenly, his heart pounding in his chest. The room was still dark, he didn’t know how long he had slept for, but the fact that it was still clearly nighttime meant that it hadn’t been long.
He took a shaky breath, his ears still hearing the phantom sound of the heart monitor declaring that Buck was- no. Buck was here. He was breathing deeply in his sleep in the darkness, his body wrapped around Eddie’s. If it wasn’t for Buck’s clinginess, he would’ve found himself fumbling in the darkness for the other man. He would’ve needed to give himself some kind of proof of life.
But Buck was here.
He was warm, he was breathing. He was alive.
-
Gunshots rang out, Eddie found himself on the ground, pain screaming though his body. His training told him to keep still, don’t make yourself more of a target, so he laid still. Every fibre of his being was yelling at him to move, to get out of there but his pain and self-preservation kept him still.
The blood escaping his body was beginning to pool around him. It was warm and it was sticky and it was uncomfortable.
He finally allowed his head to move to the side, the chaos of gunfire still being here all around them.
If he could just have one last look at Buck before he died, he could die happy. Christopher would be happy with Buck, he would have a life full of love without him, and Eddie could be fine with that.
But as his head finally turned to where he knew Buck was, he was met by two wide unseeing eyes. Buck was laid out on the ground himself, clearly hit by the state of him.
There was no flatline declaring that Evan Buckley had left him. There was the sound of gunfire as Eddie’s eyes fell closed and he drifted away.
-
For the second time that night, Eddie woke with a start. He was feeling more and more exhausted as the panic which was attacking him relentlessly in his dreams started catching up.
He’d been so worried about Buck recently, about the prospect of him truly leaving him behind that it had finally started to bleed into his subconscious. His brain was giving him the worst case scenarios he could ever foresee. It was a greatest hits of their trauma with the background noise of his memories of when Buck had truly left him behind.
The other man was still wrapped around him. It was grounding and it worked toward calming his frayed nerves. Although Buck hadn’t woken up, it was as though he could sense his partners turmoil, the arm draped across his waist tightening. If Eddie thought that just having Buck close was soothing, the simple subconscious gesture thawed his heart and calmed his racing heart.
Surrounded by his love, Eddie finally fell back to sleep.
-
The rain was relentless, Eddie was relieved that he wasn’t to be the one heading up the ladder. He’d more than happily be the one keeping his boyfriend safe, he’d be at the end of any rope that Buck was attached to, but he wasn’t a fan of rain, so getting closer to the falling moisture wasn’t something he’d fight for. He made a cheeky comment with a wink and Buck was in his way.
God, he’d always admired Buck but there was just something about seeing him be so damned confident when doing physical work that really did something for-
The world was on fire and Eddie was on the ground and Buck was… Buck was hanging there. He was alone and he was dangling up in the air. Eddie didn’t think, he ran and he ran and he lowered Buck down and Eddie heard that damned sound.
The prolonged toned that indicated that the love of his life was dead.
The flat line on the screen cut through Eddie’s heart.
Buck had always spoken about the two men who died moments after each other on a call, one from a broken heart. Eddie had never gotten it until today. But if Buck didn’t- he knew he would be there alongside him. Christopher would lose both of his parents today.
His brain flicked to the team in the ambulance. The only sounds filling the vehicle being those of Chimney’s continued compressions and that damned tone. It was cutting through Eddie’s mind. The only thing staving off a full blown panic attack.
He leapt from the ambulance, pushing Chim aside and taking over. He would bring his Buck back, he would push life back into his body, it would be him who-
Beep
-
“Wake up Eddie, please wake up”
Eddie was being shaken? Large hands held his shoulders still as he thrashed around, his eyes opened to the most beautiful sight. Blue eyes unlike any others he’d ever seen. Blue eyes he’d know anywhere. Blue eyes filled with life and… fear?
“I-I-I-“
“It’s ok Eds, it was a nightmare. You’re ok, just breathe”, Buck soothed, one of his hands coming up to cup Eddie’s face, his thumb rubbing his cheek softly, the gesture so calming that Eddie couldn’t help but follow his direction, taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly.
“You were dead”, Eddie whispered, afraid to put too much volume to his biggest fear.
Buck’s eyes filled with sadness, the hand he had left on one of Eddie’s shoulders reaching out and grabbing the other man’s hand. He pulled their joined hands up to rest just over his heart.
“I’m here Eddie, feel that. You did that. You saved me”
Eddie marvelled in the feel of the steady beat beneath his palm.
“But the sound… the… it was so loud. It was all I could hear. That beep, that-that… I lost you Evan”
“I’m here Eddie. I’m alive. You’re alive. We’re ok”
Buck pulled Eddie to lay his head on his chest, ear pressed against his heart. The early morning light was starting to filter through the curtains but they still had time. Eddie drifted back off to sleep, the steady beating of Buck’s heartbeat drowning out the sound that now lived in his mind of a lifeless body.