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Eddie braced his boots against the metal grating of the scaffold platform, the vibrations of the Nashville crowd's roar traveling up through the soles of his feet even 30 feet above the arena floor. His gaze swept across the obstacle course below before landing on Buck. His eyes were already locked on him, blue and bright even at this distance.
The set of his jaw, the tilting upwards of his chin - it was the look of determination and complete faith, and it helped quiet the nerves fluttering around Eddie’s stomach.
“On your mark.”
He shuffled his feet into a wider stance, securing himself as his heartbeat rose in anticipation.
“Get set…”
The muscles in Eddie’s arms bunched, coiling tight as his whole body tensed. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and he took a deep, steadying breath to centre himself.
The air horn blared.
Eddie didn’t waste a second.
His arm shot over the railing as he grabbed the rope with one hand and started to pull with all his might.
The competitors next to him were already heaving at their own ropes, grunting with effort, but Eddie couldn’t focus on them.
The crowd screamed their support.
Buck’s words of fierce encouragement were out there somewhere, he knew, but it was impossible for Eddie to distinguish over the thunderous cheering.
The weight was a beast of a thing as he hauled it upwards, hand over hand, the braided fibres rough against the material of his gloves as Eddie’s shoulders burned with the effort.
Originally, Eddie was sceptic at the idea of competing in the 51st Annual Firefighter Games. But Buck’s relentless enthusiasm had worn him down, and his competitive streak was infectious enough that Eddie had thrown himself into Buck’s gruelling training regime.
And who was he to question Bobby’s faith in them?
Eddie had failed Bobby in the worst way, he wasn’t going to let him down again.
All Eddie had to do was pull.
The weight rose in stuttering increments.
Eddie’s forearms corded, his skin slick with sweat despite the cold chill.
He cleared the halfway mark, and he could feel the tension from the others as they raced to get the weight over the railing, neck-and-neck.
He tried to empty his mind, think of nothing but the rhythm of the pull, the leverage and friction of the rope, he had maybe fifteen seconds left and he could move on to the next obstacle.
Then the rope jerked.
A slight hitch in the line as the weight caught on something, and for a sickening instant the tension doubled, tripled, became so heavy in his hands his boots skidded forwards and his centre of gravity lurched towards the railing.
The weight dropped as Eddie’s upper body folded over the metal bar, jerking as the line went taut again.
And then it was just hanging there, dead weight in his grasp, and he couldn’t lift it, didn’t have the strength to pull him up.
The rope was slippery in his grasp because the roof - the sky - had split open, and rain was pouring down in sheets as lightning stitched the clouds in a jagged, white seam.
The drops were like needles, piercing his skin through the gaps in his uniform, and the ladder beneath him shook with thunder so loud it rattled his teeth.
Buck.
The name detonated in his chest.
He was climbing, or had been, the aerial ladder extended to its full reach against the side of the multi-story building, the wind tearing at his turnout coat, his gloves, the rungs his feet were braced on.
Eddie could hear Bobby’s voice in his radio, and it made him want to cry.
But Eddie couldn’t make out his words, because all he could see was Buck.
He was dangling below him, some six feet off the ladder, suspended only by the waist harness that had caught him when he’d been struck down.
Buck was still, a marionette with its strings cut, arms and legs loose and swaying slightly, utterly and devastatingly lifeless. His helmet had been knocked sideways, and his head had lolled backwards, neck arched and exposed to the rain.
Eddie's lungs forgot how to work.
The hose Buck had been holding dangled as well, spraying Buck and the ground in an aimless arc, but even through the downpour, Eddie could see the smoke curling from inside Buck’s turnout coat, grey wisps rising from the collar and a charred hole in the pant of his right knee.
“Buck!” the words that ripped out of Eddie were raw and desperate as he looked down at his partner.
Terror clawed up Eddie’s throat, and he tightened his grip on the rope, straining so hard against his weight he thought his muscles would rupture.
“Can you hear me?” He screamed, but Buck remained unresponsive. “BUCK!”
He was right there.
So close, but Eddie had never felt so far away, because Eddie couldn’t tell-
-couldn’t tell if he was even breathing.
And if Buck was gone, then nothing in this world would make sense ever again, because Eddie’s entire understanding of the universe had been rebuilt around the certainty that Buck would be in it.
His efforts remained futile.
He wasn’t strong enough.
Why wasn’t he strong enough?
Chimney stood at the base of the ladder, waiting for Eddie’s cue.
“I need more slack!” He shouted into the raging storm, praying the wind wouldn’t rip his words away.
Eddie…
His name was whispered in the back of his mind, and Eddie shook his head in confusion.
“More slack coming up!” Chimney yelled up at him, springing into action.
…let go!
Why would he let go? Eddie would never let Buck fall.
He grunted, then gave out a cry as he started to lower Buck into the waiting arms of Bobby.
Please, please, let him have been quick enough.
The ladder rattled underneath as heavy footsteps raced towards him.
Why was someone coming up when Buck was going down?
A warm hand rested on his shoulder.
…I’m right here. You’re okay.
Eddie’s attention was drawn back to the more important matter at hand.
“I got you. I got you, kid.” Bobby caught Buck and rested him on the stretcher.
There was frantic movement as the team swarmed around him, shouting orders Eddie couldn’t discern but had a good idea what they were about.
He slumped forward as the weight was finally released from his hands, but the panic that had sunk in like sharp claws didn’t abate. Because although Eddie had gotten him down, Buck was far from saved, and right now Eddie was too far away to help.
He needed to get to him.
Hey, hey… Eddie, look at me.
His chest heaved as he pushed back, spinning and ready to bolt past whoever was still behind him.
Calloused hands moved from his shoulders to cup his face, warm against his cheeks.
“Can you hear me?” Blue eyes filled his vision, familiar and safe and alive. “Eddie, you with me?”
The rain vanished, the ladder dissolving beneath his feet as the smoke and the storm and the terrible stillness of Buck’s body wavered until all he could see was Buck’s worried face, and all he could hear was the suffocating silence of the Nashville arena.
Eddie couldn’t breathe.
His body seized tight in Buck’s familiar grip, as though someone had wrapped a fist around him and squeezed.
Each attempt to draw air into his lungs produced only a thin, reedy whistle that barely made it past the back of his throat. The arena tilted, the platform beneath him felt wrong, because some part of Eddie was still on that ladder, trying to pull Buck up through the storm.
His hands were shaking. No, his whole body was shaking, an uncontrollable tremor that radiated through him.
“Eddie. Eddie.”
Buck’s voice was so close, but it kept sliding away from him, drowned by the memory of his own screams for Buck.
His vision tunnelled, the edges going dark and grainy as his limbs grew numb, and he could feel his heart hammering so violently against his ribs he was certain it would burst through his chest.
He tried to speak, but it came out as a strangled gasp and his legs buckled.
Buck caught him, arms wrapping around Eddie’s body as he helped lower him to the ground. Sound warped, pulsing in and out as Eddie’s wide eyes tried to focus on the way Buck’s mouth moved as he spoke to him.
“You’re not there, Eddie.” Buck’s voice registered, low and steady, calming. “You’re here, with me. I’m right here.”
“Y- you’re, okay?”
“Yeah, Eddie.” Buck’s fingers found Eddie’s hand, pulling it till his palm rested against Buck’s chest. “You feel that?”
Thump, thump, thump.
The steady beat of Buck’s heart was a balm, and Eddie’s fingers curled into his skin, like he could hold it if he tried hard enough.
Alive.
He’s alive, and he’s right in front of him.
A sob rocked Eddie’s body as he fisted Buck’s shirt and yanked him forward, burying his face against the curve of Buck's neck where the pulse thrummed warm and insistent beneath his skin. He pressed himself into that warmth like a man trying to crawl inside a fire after too long in the cold, and Buck let him, one hand cradling the back of Eddie's head, the other splayed wide across his spine.
Eddie's breath came in sharp, stuttered bursts against Buck's collarbone.
"Breathe with me," Buck murmured, rubbing soothing circles into his back. "In… and out. That's it."
Buck exaggerated his own breathing, his chest expanding slow and deliberate beneath Eddie's fist, and Eddie tried to match it. Buck didn't rush him or pull away, just cradled Eddie against him until his trembling lessened.
The distant, uncertain murmur of the crowd should have mortified him - thousands of people watching the two of them huddled together on the scaffold. But the shame was a distant thing, because Buck's heartbeat was still thumping against his knuckles and that was the only thing that mattered.
"There you go," Buck said softly, and Eddie felt fingers card through the short hair at the nape of his neck, a tender gesture. "There you go, Eds."
Eddie swallowed hard.
"How long?" he managed, the words cracked and barely audible.
"Couple minutes, maybe." Buck's hand didn't stop. "You were pulling the weight up and then you just stopped. You started shouting, and you weren't responding to me. You scared me."
Eddie squeezed his eyes shut.
“I never knew-” Buck gulped. “No one told me much about that night.”
Of course no one told him, why would anyone want to live through that again?
“For me, it was just another thing I’d survived.” Buck confessed, whispering against Eddie’s head. “God, I’m sorry Eddie. I never thought about how you had to live through it.”
“You had to live through it, too.” Eddie managed, pulling back just enough to look at him and something in his chest shifted, something that had been building pressure for years and was finally giving way.
“Not in the same way. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had to restart your heart.” Buck admitted, and they both looked down to where Eddie’s hand was still pressed against his chest.
He thought about all the ways he'd almost lost this, every close call and near miss.
He was so tired of not saying it.
But Eddie had never been good with words.
They tangled in his throat, got caught on the barbed wire of his own restraint, and by the time he wrestled them free they were always smaller than what he meant.
Shannon had told him that, once. That loving Eddie was like loving a locked room - you could hear someone moving inside, but the door never opened.
So he didn't speak.
Instead, Eddie uncurled his fist from Buck's shirt and brought his hand up until his palm settled against Buck's jaw. His thumb traced the edge of Buck's cheekbone, and he felt the slight hitch in Buck's breathing, the way his whole body went still so as not to break the moment.
Buck's lips parted, and Eddie watched the question form there, watched it die unasked as Buck read whatever was written across Eddie's face.
Eddie leaned in and closed the distance.
The kiss was barely a kiss at first, nothing more than the press of his mouth against Buck's, tentative, like Eddie was asking Buck the most important question of his life.
And Buck’s hand tightened at the back of his neck in answer, kissing him back with a gentleness that undid Eddie more thoroughly than the panic had. There was no urgency to it, and Eddie savoured the feeling that they had all the time in the world.
Because for three minutes and seventeen seconds, they hadn’t.
Buck’s mouth was warm and his lips were slightly chapped, and Eddie revelled in it.
He felt like he could taste the words Buck wasn’t saying.
I know, I know, I’ve known.
As if he’d just been waiting for Eddie to catch up.
Too soon, Eddie remembered they had an audience, and that he was up there for a reason.
He pulled back and Buck followed him, crowding Eddie against the bars, their breaths mingling in the small space between their mouths.
“We should-” Eddie cleared his throat. “The event.”
“Is over,” Buck said gently, pressing their foreheads together. “They called it.”
Eddie closed his eyes.
He knew how much this meant to Buck, to the both of them. He’d failed Bobby for the final time because he couldn’t keep his shit together.
“Don’t.” Buck said as if reading his thoughts. “Whatever’s going on in that head of yours, stop it.”
Eddie opened his eyes. “I cost us-”
“You cost us nothing.” Buck swiped a tear trailing down his cheek. “You gave me everything.”