Chapter Text
Buck is pretty sure this is the worst cold he’s ever had in his life. His face is heavy with fluid—his nose is hot with it, and dripping, and Buck can’t even work up the strength to wipe his face—and it’s hard to breathe. He gasps, open-mouthed, trying to inhale deeply. Something presses against his chest and neck, sharp and discrete, which seems vaguely wrong. A cold with... really specific chest pain?
Buck opens his eyes.
He’s not in a… This isn’t his house. This isn’t Eddie’s house. It’s dark. Outside. Buck is outside and it’s dark. There’s a windshield, and his head feels like it’s going to burst apart at the pressure, and there’s a big crack splitting the center of the glass in front of him, and beyond it, it’s dark. Outside.
Buck can see the sky, almost. Sort of. It’s strange. It’s black. He glances at his chest. The movement hurts his head. A voice in his brain that sounds like Hen tells him not to move, but Buck has to see what’s wrong with his chest. He blinks hard, willing his eyes to work. His right fingers clumsily skate along the fabric over his ribs until they catch on a strap near his sternum.
Belt? Oh. Seat belt. Seat belt? Buck looks back outside. The sky looks strange. It’s sideways. Buck’s car is sideways. The driver’s side is pressed against the ground under Buck’s left side. Somewhere.
Buck is sideways. Oh.
And so, so late.
Emergency! Buck’s brain-Chimney-voice supplies absurdly. Emergency! What do you do in an emergency?
Buck looks down. Left. Toward the driver’s side window. Whichever direction where the gravity goes. Buck searches for his phone, the one that had been locked to the dash a few minutes ago, the one that might have been shot out the back window when the Jeep took a tumble down into who-knows-where, the one that Buck needs to dial 9-1-1.
There. Below his left shoulder, amazingly. Cracked, it seems, if Buck’s eyes are working right. Who cares. All it needs to do is place a call. When they ask what’s wrong, Buck will say, “Everything hurts. All of it. Everything I am is in tiny, little pieces. Do you have something to pick up all the screaming, broken pieces?
Buck tries to reach up (across?) toward the phone with his left hand. The left hand doesn’t move. Buck tugs. The limb, from elbow to wrist, is stuck. Pinned between the car door and Buck’s own body. Buck looks down. Oh, there’s a bump under the skin of his forearm. A piece of bone threatening to poke out. That’s why it hurts. That’s why his left arm can’t move. It’s sandwiched.
Buck’s left thigh is pinned too, smushed by the door. It throbs. Oh, it hurts. The meat of his quad feels wet and tight, some alien sensation mottled together firing his nerves in rapid pain messages. The Jeep must have rolled, crunching over Buck’s left arm and leg and doing who-knows-what kind of damage, and what if Buck throws another clot, and his left leg is going to hate him if he makes it out of this. And what if Buck doesn’t make it out of this.
Buck’s right arm is dangling over (down?) his chest. He swings it gracelessly across the window of the Jeep. His fingers glance off the phone case, then curl and pull it toward him. Buck grips the phone, misdials 9-1-2, and methodically redials 9-1-1.
“9-1-1, where is your emergency?”
Buck’s lips smack open. “Um.” His nose is still leaking. Oh. Maybe it’s not a cold. Maybe it’s blood. He doesn’t have a cold. He’s broken into tiny pieces.
“Hello. Are you having an emergency?” the dispatcher repeats.
“Yes,” Buck enunciates deliberately. “Car crash.”
“Okay, sir,” the dispatcher answers, “where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you see anything around you? Signs, street names?”
“It’s dark. There’s, um, grass. Sideways.”
“Is your car sideways?”
Buck swallows carefully. He hates being sideways. “Yes.”
“Where were you driving?”
“I was driving to Eddie’s house. On… a freeway.”
“Where were you coming from? A store, maybe? Or a town?”
“Azusa.”
“On your way to where?”
“Past, um. Pasadena.”
“On 210? Okay, sir, someone else just reported an accident there. Are you driving a Jeep?”
“Yes.”
“I have your location. I’m dispatching an ambulance and some firefighters to you. What’s your name?”
“Evan Buckley.”
There’s a beat. Then: “Maddie’s brother, Evan?”
“Me again,” Buck sighs. “She’s. Going to be pissed.”
“Let’s focus on you right now. What’s hurting the most?”
Suddenly the muscles in Buck’s left thigh seize. Buck yelps, a sharp sound bitten off just before it can become a scream. His right hand instinctively reaches for his left leg—to do what, Buck isn’t sure—but when his fingers touch the jean fabric, his thigh contracts again.
“Left—” Buck gasps out, “left side. Leg and arm. Pinned.”
Buck groans, wishing more than anything that he was not sideways.
The muscles in Buck’s left thigh seize again.
A memory comes to him sharp and swift, a lesson at a desk in a classroom four or seven or eight years ago. EMT certification. An instructor he hasn’t seen since.
Patient has a broken femur. Patient’s quad muscle gets angry at the break. Seizes. Broken femur gets jostled around by the muscle. Big muscle, strong muscle. Strong enough to move a broken femur when it contracts. Femur nicks the femoral artery. Patient bleeds internally, into their thigh. Lots of space in there to bleed. Pelvis, too. Patient goes into hypovolemic shock. Patient rapidly deteriorates. Patient goes into decompensatory shock. Patient goes into irreversible shock. Patient dies.
Oh. Oh. No.
Buck wants. Before he dies, he wants. One thing.
“How far…” Buck clears his throat, “is that ambulance?”
“About five minutes. You’re doing great. Can you—”
Buck hangs up on the dispatcher. Buck holds down the “3” button and speed-dials Eddie.
The phone rings once. Buck wants.
“Eddie, I can make you conchas.”
Eddie shrugged playfully.“You can’t make them like a tia.”
The phone rings again. Buck wants.
“I’m really good at baking now!” Buck insisted.
“Alright, you want to know which one to beat? Azusa has a panaderia. Best conchas in LA so far.”
The phone rings a third time. Buck wants.
“I’ll bring some, then. I’ll bake some, and get some from your place in Azusa, and bring them both over.”
Eddie shook his head, as if he were resigned to a fate worse than death, but he was grinning.“We’re both off Thursday.”
“Okay. Thursday night. You’re on.”
Eddie picks up before the fourth ring. “Hey, you almost here?”
Buck takes a steady breath, stifling the panic that threatens to derail his voice. He puts his phone on speaker mode. It’s hard to see the buttons. Buck rests the phone on the window (ground?) beside his head. He only has a few minutes before the sound of sirens will shatter the illusion.
And Buck wants. To have a few more minutes of Eddie. That’s all he wants. The sound of Eddie’s voice, stretched over a little more time.
“Yeah.”
Eddie pauses. “What’s wrong? Was the bakery closed already?”
Buck’s left thigh seizes. He laughs to disguise the whimper in his voice. He aches. He wants. He wants.
“No, nothing, man,” Buck huffs. The extra air makes his voice sound stronger than it is. He inhales deeply. “Nothing’s wrong. I have the bread, I’m on my way back, just…”
“Traffic?”
Sort of, Buck almost says. I’m gonna be a while. I’m sorry.
“Mm hm.”
“They look good, right?” Eddie prompts. His smile is obvious, even over the phone. “I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t think it’s humanly possible to beat Azusa conchas.”
Buck closes his eyes and imagines Eddie’s living room, the couch, the coffee table.
“I don’t know,” Buck replies suggestively. “You haven’t seen mine yet. They’re—”
Tossed like a salad all over Buck’s car? Possibly lost out a broken window when the Jeep got shoved off the freeway and rolled? Oh.
Buck’s thigh seizes, and he stifles a wince.
Eddie offers diplomatically, “Look, I’m sure yours are very good too.”
Buck’s quad spasms again, hard enough to jolt against Buck’s broken arm. Buck hisses in pain.
“Something wrong?” Eddie’s voice comes closer to the microphone.
I might take a while getting back to you. But I’m coming. I’m on my way. Well, I wish I was on my way.
“You sound… nasally.”
Buck steels himself. “Someone, uh, cut me off. But, um. Maybe I’m coming down with something. We could wait. Do this another—”
“No, I just— just come over.”
Buck can hear the faint, far-off whine of a siren. Dread starts to creep over Buck’s skin, a slow wave drowning his chest and his cloudy, heavy head.
Buck imagines Eddie’s kitchen, the cupboards, the table.
“Chris is super excited about the planetarium, by the way,” Eddie volunteers. “Won’t tell me anything about how school is going, God forbid, but jeez, he’s got the floor plan memorized. So. Saturday’s locked in. No escaping us now.”
Buck chuckles breathily. It would hurt to lie—you won’t be rid of me that easy—especially since the lie should be the truth—you won’t be rid of me ever, ever, I’m stuck to you, baby—if only the universe had been a little kinder. Buck can’t bring himself to lie.
Instead, he smiles. “Sounds good.”
The siren is getting louder.
Buck imagines Eddie’s hallway, the picture frames, the scuffed baseboards.
“Hey,” Buck starts again, fighting back panic. I’m going to miss you. “I’m gonna be a while.”
“That’s okay.”
Buck swallows. His mouth tastes faintly of blood. The anxiety, deep in his gut, is unfolding like tired origami into a sheet of paper the size of the Pacific. It’s too big. Won’t fit inside him.
Dread and panic are signs of shock. Buck’s quad muscle contracts again. It feels hot. The rest of him shivers.
Patient goes into hypovolemic shock. Patient rapidly deteriorates. Patient dies.
“Put on a movie or something. A game.”
“I can wait for you,” Eddie says. “You’re, what, five minutes away? Fifteen?”
Buck doesn’t want to say goodbye. He should, probably, but it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t seem kind. Besides, this way, Buck can pretend. What’s the harm. There’s so little left for him. He might as well pretend that he’s driving along to Eddie’s house. He’s going to see Eddie again.
Buck imagines Eddie’s shoes by the door, car keys on the hook, baseball bat leaning in the corner.
“Maybe longer.”
Buck imagines the patched walls of the back room, waiting like wounds scabbed over just begging to be rebroken.
Buck isn’t going to be around to bring more plaster.
“Don’t wait up.”
Buck’s gaze, blurrier now, refocuses on the phone screen. He pokes the red phone icon, watches the screen fade to black, and lets his eyes close. At least he’s bought Eddie some time. Thirty minutes, maybe an hour? Time before he’ll start to suspect, and then worry, and then start making phone calls. Time before Eddie will have to think about Christopher. Time to breathe easy, right before it inevitably gets harder.
Buck couldn’t give Eddie much, but he could give Eddie this.