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Eddie didn’t miss Texas often – or at all, really – but there were certain moments in life that made him think that huh, maybe being an Uber driver in El Paso wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
At least as an Uber driver he wasn’t often in the risk of ending up stuck in a hole of unknown origin, squished right next to his best friend who took his oath of having his back a little too seriously sometimes, seeing as he was now pressed firmly against it with barely an inch of space between them.
It had all happened so fast. One minute they were scouring a stretch of land on a long abandoned property looking for a lost hiker and the next thing he knew, he and Buck were falling through the ground and into some kind of hole that was nowhere near big enough to comfortably house two adult men their size.
“You’re in a hole?” Chimney had wheezed over the radio once they’ve sent out a distress call to the rest of their team, but at least he’d been nice enough to hold his laughter back until after they assured everyone that they weren’t badly hurt, just majorly annoyed at the inconvenience.
At least Eddie was; Buck was too busy doing his best impression of Sherlock while trying to figure out the origin of this mysterious hole even though it was impossible to tell anything apart in the complete darkness and with all the dust stinging their eyes.
Personally, Eddie couldn’t give less of a fuck if he was stuck in an old mine shaft, a well or an old basement someone had done a piss poor job of boarding up. They were here now and he was just relieved that it was dry and that they were both relatively unharmed, aside from some bruising and scratches from the rough stone that surrounded them. Their team was aware of their situation and was actively looking for them and all they had to do was remain patient.
Which, when the person you were stuck with was one Evan ‘undiagnosed ADHD’ Buckley, was much easier said than done.
“Will you stop that?” Eddie hissed as Buck shifted again, jostling Eddie from his attempted meditative state.
He was trying really hard not to think about the fact that they were trapped in a place that could potentially cave down on them like a poorly constructed Jenga tower and crush them like bugs if they made a single wrong move and here Buck was, wriggling around without a care in the world. Completely unaware of how he was testing Eddie’s sanity with every brush of his body against his.
It shouldn’t have felt like a big deal. After all, this was hardly the first time they’ve spooned this week alone. It kind of came with the territory, with them both being dedicated cuddlers who were now sharing a bed on a daily basis. But it was the first time where Eddie couldn’t just roll over or prod Buck until he retracted his limbs back to his side of the bed, pretending it wasn’t giving him feelings and ideas no straight man had any business having.
People liked to joke that they lived in each other’s pockets – sometimes literally so, considering how often they ended up wearing the others' clothes these days – but this was a bit extreme, even for them.
“Sorry,” Buck murmured, his hot breath bushing against the back of his neck, forcing Eddie to fight down a shiver. The sooner they got out of this hole and went back to their normal, if still a bit unusual level of closeness, the better. “I’m just trying to get comfortable.”
Eddie scoffed. Comfortable. As if that was even possible right now. “Well, stop it. I know I said I’m not feeling claustrophobic but that’s going to change if you don’t stop trying to grind me into the fucking wall.”
Buck let out a weird noise at that, but at least he stopped wriggling around so Eddie decided not to question it. At least until not even a full minute later, Buck shifted again, his movement followed by a pained sounding hiss that immediately had alarm bells going off in Eddie’s entire body.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, turning his head as far back as he could but it was to no avail. Even if he could rotate his head 180 degrees like an owl, it was too dark and dusty in here to actually see anything without a light source.
“I’m fine,” Buck said, far too quickly for comfort and Eddie didn’t buy it for a second.
They’ve checked in with each other about any potential injuries acquired in the fall and Buck had assured him that he was fine, no fractures or internal injuries as far as he could tell. Adrenaline was a powerful drug, but even once it had worn off Buck had promised that he was right as rain, whatever that was supposed to mean.
But, Eddie couldn’t help but think with a rush of anger mixed with anxiety, this would hardly be the first time that Buck had lied about his medical condition as not to worry people close to him, would it? Eddie still had nightmares about the whole pulmonary embolism thing and if Buck was on the verge of suddenly spewing blood all over him, he'd prefer to know that before it happened, if only so he could up the urgency for their rescue.
“Do you know where my flashlight ended up?” Eddie asked, starting to wriggle around himself in an attempt to locate it. He was the one manning it during their search and he dropped it once the floor gave out under their feet. Finding it in the dark would be damn near impossible, assuming it was close enough for him to reach in the first place, but he had to try. Something was off with Buck and he wouldn’t rest until he figured it out.
“It’s probably still outside,” Buck said uneasily, grunting when Eddie shifted and squished him against the opposite wall. “Why do you need it anyway? Hen and Chim are gonna get us out of here any minute now.”
“You might not have that much time left,” Eddie very reasonably pointed out, shuffling his feet around, in case the flashlight was somewhere on the ground.
“What? I’m not dying, Eddie. I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.” If anything, the more Eddie moved around, the more nervous he seemed to get. He was definitely hiding something and Eddie would get to the bottom of it even if it bruised them both all the more for it, considering the little space he had to work with.
Buck groaned as Eddie leaned a bit too far back, pressing his body fully against Buck’s own but before he could apologize, he felt a familiar shape pressed against his lower back. “I thought you said you didn’t have your flashlight on you.”
He’d said he’d dropped it during their fall, too, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Maybe he was even more out of it than Eddie first realized and he wasted no time in reaching between the tight press of their bodies to grab it, in hopes it would help him uncover Buck’s latest medical emergency he was trying so hard to conceal.
“What are you on about? I don’t have a-“
It seemed to be attached to Buck’s belt so he just groped it for a second, trying to figure out how to get it off when Buck’s entire body went rigid and he realized that the item he was holding didn’t exactly feel like a flashlight was supposed to. It was in a similar shape, sure, and it was hard but it wasn’t metal hard and he’d certainly never in his life encountered a flashlight that twitched under his grip. Or one that felt so warm to the touch.
“That’s not my flashlight,” Buck informed him in a strangled voice and Eddie went rigid too as the realization sank in. It was Buck’s cock. He was shamelessly groping Buck’s cock.
What was even worse was that in his mortified stillness, he was still just fucking holding it like some kind of pervert instead of snatching his hand away like any sane person would. He remained frozen with his hand on Buck, his eyes growing bigger and bigger as Buck’s cock somehow continued to swell under his touch despite the tight constraint of his pants like it was about to force its way out whether they liked it or not.
And look, Eddie was no expert on penis sizes but even he could tell that this wasn’t exactly ordinary. But then again, what about this situation – or their relationship, if he was being completely honest with himself – was?
“Um, Eddie?” Buck said timidly and it was enough for Eddie to break out of his daze and he snatched his hand away in a panic.
“Sorry,” he managed to somehow croak out through the sudden tightness of his throat. They were no strangers to awkward morning boners either and they were experts at ignoring them by now after months spent sharing a bed. But it was much easier when said boner wasn’t pressing into him from behind and there was nothing either one of them could do to stop it.
Well, there was one thing that immediately came to Eddie’s mind but he locked the thought down tight with all of the other inappropriate thoughts he’d had about Buck over the last few months. You know, to be examined later. Preferably while he was under the hot spray of the shower with his hand on his own-
“It’s- it’s the adrenaline,” Buck stuttered out and Eddie took the excuse for the way his own pants were starting to feel a bit tight and ran with it. “Just ignore it.”
“I’m trying,” Eddie gritted out but again, it was much easier said than done. Now that he knew what the thing pressing into him was, it was impossible to think about anything else, even the impending doom of their potential death if they didn’t get them out of this hole soon.
Whether they’d die from suffocation, being crushed or out of sheer force of their mutual embarrassment was yet to be determined.
“Try harder,” Buck insisted and Eddie couldn’t hold back his snort.
“How? That thing is big enough to have its own fucking state area code. It’d be like going to New York and trying to ignore the Statue of Liberty.”
Which was kind of ironic, considering that Eddie had never felt less liberated in his life. In fact, he might be on the verge of another panic attack right now, if the way his breathing was getting labored and he was feeling hot and cold and tingly all over was any indication.
“Did you know that her official name is actually Liberty Enlightening the World?” Buck tried. “And that she’s basically a magnet for lightning bolts? Which, like, relatable, right?”
Eddie choked out a laugh at Buck’s depressing attempt at a diversion. “I appreciate the effort, buddy but I’m afraid that this is the one elephant – or should it be elephant’s trunk? – that cannot be ignored.”
Especially since it didn’t want to be ignored, what was with the way it kept twitching and you’d think that the abject mortification choking them both would at least slow it down a little but you’d be wrong. Eddie had long suspected that Buck might have had a slight kink for humiliation and exhibitionism in general but he could have gone without having those thoughts confirmed in such a visceral way.
“It’s not that big,” Buck argued weakly because there was really no point in denying the obvious. Firehose indeed, jesus christ.
“How can you be so worked up anyway?” Eddie demanded, feeling irrationally angry all of a sudden. Increased heart rate and sudden tension in all of his muscles were sign of anger after all, right? Right? “We’re stuck in a hole in the ground, Buck. In a hole.”
“Will you stop talking about holes?” Buck hissed at him.
Eddie could actually feel the heat as it rushed to his face and to the other parts of his body he was trying really hard to ignore at the moment. “Seriously? That’s where your mind immediately went?”
“I can’t help it, okay?” Buck said miserably, trying to pull his hips away but the attempt ended with him grinding his cock right up against Eddie’s ass instead and Eddie just about managed to hold back a moan of- of surprise and protest. No arousal to be found here, none at all because that would be insane. They were stuck in a hole. They could die at literally any moment. There was absolutely nothing sexy about this situation in the slightest. “It’s not like I’ve had a lot of privacy to, you know, take care of business lately.”
As far as excuses went, that was a pretty good one. Sure, living with Buck and working with him all day long was great in a lot of aspects, but there was no denying that certain activities had to go on pause due to the lack of privacy. Which was to say that it was very hard to find the time and space to jerk off in a small house with just one bathroom and a kid, especially when you were also sharing a bedroom and bed with a guy who you were pretty sure was the root cause of your recent sexuality crisis.
He’d dare anyone to remain confidently straight after waking up every morning to Buck snuggled up beside them, all blue eyed and curly haired and yeah, if even Eddie was starting to feel the mounting pressure of his sexual frustration, it was no wonder why Buck with his raging libido was literally bursting at the seams at the first hint of action he’d gotten in months.
But still, Eddie wasn’t exactly ready to have that conversation just yet, not without knowing where Buck stood on the whole topic of ‘potentially being in love with your best friend and wanting them carnally’ thing so he said, in a weak attempt of preserving at least some of his dignity, “I’m in the same boat as you and I don’t have the same problem right now.”
Okay, so maybe there was some swelling happening and maybe he’d misinterpreted the signs his body was showing as anger and panic rather than arousal but why couldn’t it be both? He’d always been great at multitasking and besides, Buck didn’t have any way of knowing that, did he? Not unless he pulled an Eddie and started groping him to return the favor but he was thankfully too busy being indignant about Eddie’s judgy tone to investigate his claims properly.
“Well, you’re not the one with his dick currently pressed again the most attractive human being on the face of the Earth, are you?” When all Eddie could do was gape at the stone wall in front of him, lost for words, Buck added awkwardly, “It’s not a fair comparison, that’s all I’m saying.”
“You think I’m attractive?”
“Now you’re just fishing for compliments.” When Eddie continued to say nothing and Buck realized that he wasn’t just looking to have his ego stroked, he said, “Wait, seriously? I know for a fact that you own multiple mirrors, Eddie. This can’t be new information.”
And sure, Eddie was aware that he was a reasonably attractive guy. He wasn’t denying that. But he’d spent weeks after Buck first came out to him as bisexual analyzing every single one of their interactions from the moment they first met and then spent the weeks following that trying to come to grips that it was Tommy who’d caused his sexual awakening and not him, who’d been right there all along and why exactly that had bothered him so much.
Of course, Eddie being Eddie, he only figured it out once he moved to Texas and Buck became more unattainable than ever before.
“Just because you’re attracted to men doesn’t mean you’re attracted to me,” Eddie repeated the words that Buck had had to say countless times after he’d started officially coming out to everyone in his life he felt should know. If Eddie had been one of those rare people in his friend circle that he’d been attracted to, surely he’d know about it by now.
But even if Buck did find him attractive all this time, as had become Eddie’s mantra in recent months, attraction didn’t necessarily mean interest. He couldn’t forget that.
“What, you think my body reacts like this for everyone?” Buck asked and when Eddie couldn’t help but laugh, Buck huffed. “Okay, fine, maybe I’m a bit more reactive than your average guy but it’s never this intense. Like, we’ve been down here for at least an hour and it’s still going strong. If they don’t get us out of here soon, I’m going to start worrying. What do all those Viagra commercials always say? Go see a doctor if it lasts for over 4 hours?”
Eddie rolled his eyes again. “No one has that kind of stamina without medication that you’re not even on.”
“You’re severely underestimating the appeal of your ass.” Eddie shifted without thinking and Buck’s hands went to his hips, gripping hard to keep him in place. “Stop. Moving,” he gritted out. “Or things will get even more awkward than they already are.”
Eddie shivered, no longer able to deny what Buck’s proximity and the grit in his voice was doing to his own body. Despite the cold that surrounded them down here, he was starting to sweat from the heat he could feel emanating from Buck’s body even through his uniform.
He paused, taking a minute to really think things through. In the end, he only needed a second before he finally allowed his body to do what it wanted for once and deliberately pushed back against Buck’s hard on.
All he’d done lately was think. Think about Buck and the life they’ve built together and just how much it all meant to him. Think about the doubts and the fears about his own sexuality and how being anything more than strictly heterosexual would impact said life, for better or for worse. And all of that thinking had done was exhaust him. All of his feelings and thoughts had gotten so tangled up in each other until he was more confused than when he’d first started examining them.
Maybe what he needed to do now was act.
Was grinding on his best friend while they were stuck in a potentially life threatening hole in the ground the best way to go about things? Probably not. But Eddie had lived his life on the straight and narrow and it hadn’t exactly gotten him very far. If he was trying this whole gay thing out, maybe some recklessness and boldness was the way to go about things. At this point, there wasn’t much he wasn’t willing to try if it meant figuring himself out.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Buck asked him tightly, like he’d just barely choked the words out, but the hands still clutching at Eddie’s hips were guiding his movements now instead of trying to keep him immobile so Eddie decided to take it as a good sign.
“The opposite,” Eddie said. “I’m trying to uh, prevent another medical emergency.”
“Oh, god,” Buck moaned, though whether it was in pleasure or despair, Eddie couldn’t quite interpret. He was looking forward to learning the difference with time and plenty of hands on experience in the future. “That even sounds like something Eddie would say.”
Confused, Eddie frowned, the motions of his hips faltering. “That’s because I literally just said it? Are you sure you didn’t hit your head on the way down?”
“I didn’t think so but now I’m not so sure?” The fact that he sounded just as confused as Eddie didn’t bode well. “Maybe I do have a concussion and now I’m hallucinating this whole thing because yeah, everything about this does seem pretty made up,” Buck mused aloud. “It could be another coma dream or- or, fuck,” he groaned at a particular good grind of Eddie’s hips. “Maybe I’m already dead.”
“You’re not dead,” Eddie told him sternly because no matter the context, he didn’t appreciate such jokes. Buck dying once and getting close to the threshold a lot more than that was enough to make that a sensitive topic forever. Besides, the cock he was still too busy pushing against Eddie felt plenty alive to him.
“Then why do I feel like I’m in heaven right now?”
As flattering as that was, Eddie couldn’t help but ask, “Did you forget that we’re literally stuck in hole right now?”
You’d think that be an impossible fact to forget with the whole unable to move, covered in dust and cobwebs thing but Buck had always been very easily distracted.
“Yes, but I’m stuck in a hole with you,” Buck said empathetically. “And I’m harder than I’ve ever been in my life and instead of being grossed out and hating me, you’re into it?”
“Did I say that I was into it?” Eddie backtracked, starting to panic again because he still wasn’t quite sure where they stood and he couldn’t show all his cards until he did. He was not risking losing what he already had with Buck by showing how emotionally invested he was after one awkward session of dry humping. “Because I specifically said that I was trying to stop another medical emergency-“
The excuse was so paper thin and pathetic that Buck didn’t even seem to hear it. “And I don’t know,” he continued. “After pining after you for so long and thinking I’d never have a chance to be with you even if you were into men? You actually wanting me back doesn’t seem real, you know?”
Eddie paused, his heart racing so hard he was worried that he was the one who’d hit his head on the way down and was now dying without even realizing it. Head injury induced hallucinations would definitely help explain a thing or two. “There’s been pining?”
He felt Buck nod where his head was pressed against the back of his own. “An embarrassing amount,” he confessed and that was what did it in the end. The thing that made everything inside him click into place.
Now that he was being honest with himself for once, Eddie knew that the biggest hurdle in his whole sexuality crisis had always been the not knowing how Buck felt about him in return. Because what was the point of being gay if he couldn’t have the one guy he actually wanted to be with? Childish, maybe, if not flat out insane but he couldn’t exactly help how he felt, could he?
But knowing that Buck wanted him, not just now in the moment of utter sexual frustration but that he’d wanted him for a long time? Well, it was all he really needed to know in the end. And maybe it was easier to accept it here in the dark, away from the rest of the world, where he couldn’t look Buck in the eye even if he wanted to, but it wasn’t half as scary as he was worried it would be.
Then again, it was Buck. Everything was less scary when he was around.
Feeling brave and bold and a little brash, Eddie took one of Buck’s hands from where it was clutching at his hip and guided it down to his straining pants. He wasn’t sure which one of them gasped louder at the touch but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were in this together.
“Are you sure you’re not concussed?” Buck asked even as he started to touch him in the same maddening rhythm he was using to thrust against him and Eddie rolled his eyes. Or they rolled on their own into the back of his head at the sheer relief that came with Buck’s touch, it was hard to tell.
“Look, at this rate either both of us are concussed or neither one of us is, so I’d say it evens out,” Eddie said perfectly reasonably, practically daring Buck to argue with his logic. As if there was a way to walk any of this back after they’ve both groped each other so thoroughly.
But all Buck said was, “I like the way you think,” before he set about blowing Eddie’s mind.
There wasn’t much talking after that, both of them too consumed with gasping and groping and grinding as much as they could in their limited space. It didn’t feel limited though, was the thing. Sure, they were both fully clothed and dry humping like desperate teenagers but it still felt like the best sex of Eddie’s entire life.
Not that Eddie’s sexual history was anything to write home about to begin with, but his point still stood. Maybe it was the darkness and the sense of danger of being overheard or seen by anyone in the vicinity that was heightening every single brush of Buck’s body against his. Maybe it was the fact that it’d been a long time coming, or that it was his first time with a man and maybe this was just how sex was supposed to feel all along.
Or maybe, Eddie decided when Buck pressed a nuzzling kiss at the back of his neck, it was just Buck.
“I really wish that I could kiss you right now,” Buck panted into the crook of his neck, every puff of air against Eddie’s overheated skin turning the notch of his arousal higher and higher.
“Next time,” Eddie promised, then dragged Buck’s other hand up to his lips to kiss it instead. It was a poor substitute and Eddie would have felt like a sappy idiot for doing it in the first place were it not for the way that Buck shuddered at the fleeting brush of his lips against his scraped up knuckles.
“Next time,” Buck agreed disbelievingly. “Holy shit, there’s going to be a next time.”
Eddie would have laughed at the wonder in his voice if he weren’t struggling to breathe as it was. “Hopefully in a bed,” Eddie managed to say, breath hitching when Buck’s hand wormed its way under his uniform shirt and his calloused fingertips traced circles against his overheated skin. “I’m too old for these sorts of escapades.”
Buck muffled a laugh against his shoulder. “Naked, too. I need to see and feel all of you.”
Eddie nodded, throwing his head back to rest it on Buck’s shoulder. He felt sweaty and gross but Buck didn’t seem to mind; he only held him closer as their bodies moved, hurtling towards the edge and as expected, it was Buck who toppled over it first.
While Eddie unfortunately didn’t have the privilege of seeing Buck’s orgasm, he could certainly feel it in the way Buck’s entire body first stiffened and then twitched, his grip on Eddie turning almost uncomfortably tight. Eddie privately hoped it’d leave a mark, as well as the bite against his shoulder that Buck used to muffle his shout of pleasure because of course he’d be loud in bed. Eddie expected nothing less.
It was that same bite that pushed Eddie over the edge as well but unlike Buck, he didn’t have a convenient shoulder to bite on to muffle his own groan and it echoed around the hole they were stuck in, loud enough to wake the dead. Or rather, loud enough to catch the attention of their worried teammates.
“Did you hear that?” he heard someone shout from above them. Then, a bright shine of a flashlight penetrated the darkness and both he and Buck hissed at the way it burned both of their eyes. “Hen, I found them!”
Another head popped into the light above them and Hen asked, “Are you guys okay? You haven’t been answering any of our calls from the radio.”
It took him an embarrassingly long amount of time to get hold of his stupid radio with his shaky hands. If they weren’t stuck upright with no place to move, he’d have probably ended up on the floor considering that his knees felt even shakier than his hands.
“Sorry,” Eddie said into the radio, though the breathless tone of his voice didn’t inspire anyone up there with confidence.
“Are you okay?” Hen demanded. “You sound out of breath.”
Eddie took a deep, steadying breath, trying to gather his composure while Buck did the same, though he was mostly trying not to laugh. At least he’d moved his hand away from Eddie’s crotch to conceal the source of their previous distraction.
“We’re fine,” Eddie said after clearing his throat a couple of times. “But we are getting a bit impatient here.”
“Hurry up, I could really use a bathroom right now,” Buck chimed in and Eddie grimaced. Yeah, they haven’t exactly thought this one through, did they? While hot in the moment, sticky underwear wasn’t exactly comfortable. “Plus, it’s getting really hot in here!”
“Hot? You’re underground,” they heard Chimney mutter and Eddie elbowed Buck, though all it did was make him laugh that much more.
“Just hang on for a few more minutes,” Hen said. “We’ll have you out of there in no time.”
True to her word, not even half an hour later Eddie was once again breathing fresh, dust free air as he looked up at the starless LA skyline. Buck was only a few minutes behind him and the moment he was free from the ropes they used to pull them safely out, Eddie’s eyes were on him. Buck, as always, was already looking back.
There was a smudge of dirt on his forehead and a red scrape on his chin. His hair was wet from sweat and covered in dust and cobwebs but the shy little half smile on his face was what captured all of Eddie’s attention.
They should probably wait before making any announcements to their friends and family. Talk things out like the mature adults they were supposed to be once they were both fully rested and you know, not stuck in a fucking hole. Their shift was nearly over, anyway. They could wait for another hour or two before they touched each other again.
But, Eddie thought as he marched closer to Buck and watched his smile grow from unsure to outright beaming when Eddie grabbed his face and pulled him into a kiss, crew waiting. They’ve waited long enough and after spending well over an hour being pressed against Buck, waiting to touch him again would be akin to torture. One that neither one of them deserved to be put through, especially after the night they’ve already had.
Besides, it wasn’t like the change of their relationship status would be of any shock to anyone, since somewhere in the background he could hear Chimney say, “Huh. If we knew that being trapped in an enclosed space together was all it would take for you to finally get together, we’d have made it happen ages ago.”
Eddie let go of Buck only for a second so he could throw a middle finger in Chimney’s vague direction and then he was pulling Buck as tightly to him as he could manage. If they’d been stuck down there face to face, Eddie thought idly, he’d probably never want to leave. The thought made him chuckle and Buck followed, even though there was no way he could know what was going through Eddie’s head.
But then again, you never know. If today was any proof, they were always more in sync than either of them knew.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Hen finally had to say, all but dragging them apart as she and Chim herded them back to the ambulance. “You can make out all you want after I’ve checked you both over.”
Usually both of them would protest but today, they were too happy to deny Hen her fussing even if their unnatural compliance only seemed to make her that much more unsettled. But with Buck’s hand in his and the bright future of mutual orgasms that didn’t end with them coming in their pants ahead of them?
On second thought, maybe being stuck in a hole with Buck wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
(“Oh, by the way, we found that lost hiker while you two idiots were making out down there,” Chimney said on their way back to the station.
Eddie frowned at the same time as Buck asked, “What hiker?”
“The missing one? The whole reason we were there in the first place?” When all Buck and Eddie did was blink at him, Chimney closed his eyes and sighed. “Hen, are you sure that neither one of them is dying? Not even a mild concussion to be found?”
“They’re just high on love, Chim,” she told him gravely, not making eye contact with any of them. Eddie shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tried not to draw any attention to the matching wet spots on his and Buck’s pants that Hen was still struggling to unsee. “And I’m afraid it’s terminal.”)