no matter how hard it gets, i'll take the graveyard shift
Evan “Buck” Buckley/Eddie Diaz | 4.6k | Teen and Up Audiences | aka: evil doctor!buck fic
Summary: After waking up from the coma, Buck continues to have nightmares about the darkest parts of himself breaking to the surface.
Eddie’s hurt. He’s hurt and he’s broken and Buck can’t remember why- can’t remember what happened- but he knows it’s his fault. He knows he’s the reason Eddie is lying before him, bloodied and pale and his face twisted in pain instead of peaceful in his sleep.
His hand doesn’t hold Buck’s back, no matter how hard Buck squeezes it. His chest rises and falls, but his breaths are shallow. His eyelids flutter, his eyelashes brushing his cheeks, but they don’t open.
He’s okay, a voice inside Buck’s mind supplies, he’s alive, he’s stable. He’s okay.
He doesn’t look okay. And Buck doesn’t feel okay. Buck feels like he’s choking, his chest constricting around his heart, his ribs cracking under the invisible pressure and stabbing into the soft tissue they’re meant to protect, leaving him bleeding from the inside out.
Then Eddie’s eyelids flutter again, cracking open ever so slightly this time. His eyes, dazed with pain and drugs, land on Buck and the corner of his mouth lifts in a slow smile. His fingers twitch in Buck’s grasp.
“Buck,” he breathes, some of the pain leaving his face as he murmurs the name.
“Hey Eddie,” Buck chokes out, the tears stuck in his throat threatening to drown him. He knows what drowning feels like. He’s had water fill his lungs, leave no room for air or a scream to let loose. He knows what it is to not be able to breathe. He’s never felt it quite like this.
“Am I-?”
“Stable,” Buck cuts in. “You’re stable. They want to keep you at least overnight, probably through tomorrow.”
Eddie nods, once, his eyes falling closed again. Buck thinks he’s fallen back asleep and he starts to lower his own head to meet their conjoined hands, to press his lips to Eddie’s split knuckles and whisper a wordless prayer. He doesn’t quite know how to pray, if he’s being honest. He thinks to pray he would have to believe someone was listening.
The only person he wants to hear his prayers is Eddie.
“Chris,” Eddie murmurs, his voice slurring. “Y’gotta go home to Chris, Buck.”
Buck shakes his head, firmly. He’s already been through this in his own mind, every molecule of his body being pulled in two directions. One is home, taking care of the child that makes up half his heart. The other is here, beside the battered and bruised other half, holding his hand as if by doing that he could heal Eddie himself. “Carla is there. Bobby is going to go over. Everyone’s agreed to look out for him, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you alone.”
Eddie squeezes his head. “He needs you, Buck.” His face contorts for a moment, his brow furrowing and mouth curling into a pained grimace.
“I need you,” Buck whispers. And that- that feels like a prayer. It is a prayer, more holy than any words Buck could pull from the Bible or recite in a church.
Eddie squeezes his hand again, his grimace melting into a smile. “Hey, I’m right here. Okay? Not going anywhere. But I- I need you to be with Chris. Please, he needs a parent right now. He’s endured this too many times already.”
Buck’s breath catches in his throat at Eddie’s murmured confession, his blatant statement. It pierces Buck’s chest, expanding in the same way a flower blooms, the honey warm petals curling around his heart, protecting it from the fear trying to shred it to pieces.
“I’m not-,”
“You are,” Eddie insists, his voice the firmest it’s been since he woke up. Buck meets his gaze and it’s fierce, fully aware of what is being said. Eddie means this.
“Okay,” Buck breathes. “Okay. I’m going to take care of him Eddie, I swear. We’re going to be home, waiting for you to come back to us. Okay?”
Eddie only nods, his eyes falling shut again. Buck barely hears the whispered Thank you that falls from Eddie’s lips like a sigh.
Buck gives himself a couple more moments, studying Eddie’s sleeping face, more peaceful now than before, until he squeezes Eddie’s hand once, twice, and moves to his feet. He waits another moment to ensure the beeping of the monitors stays the same, then he turns and leaves. He feels the distance like a physical tether, connecting him to Eddie and growing tenser with each step he takes in the wrong direction.
But there’s another tendril, one connecting him to Chris even this far away, drawing him in and in further. Two lines, one heart. He wonders, briefly, if they’ll tear his heart in two. He doesn’t care.
Love doesn’t work like that. It sounds like Maddie’s voice in his mind. It’s not meant to hurt you, to tear you apart. Those lines don’t get cut, don’t get stretched too far. They are infinite. The tension is just a reminder they’re still there.
Buck lets out a slow breath as he walks down the hallway, further and further from Eddie’s room. The tension isn’t painful, Maddie’s voice is right. It’s just a gentle tug, a warm and constant reminder that Eddie’s still there.
A doctor passes Buck, bumping into his shoulder and continuing on without a word. And something- something feels off. Something twists in the pit of Buck’s stomach and bile rises in his throat and his hands start shaking and- he has to get to Eddie.
He can’t move. His feet are planted firmly to the floor, each desperate to run in the opposite direction.
Then two things happen in quick succession:
First, a text comes through on his phone. Automatically he checks it and nearly sobs in relief when he sees the photo from Bobby, of Chris fast asleep in his bed, his face sweet and innocent and peaceful.
Second, he hears a shout. It’s muffled, cut off, barely there. He almost thinks he imagined it. But the ringing in his ears promises he didn’t.
“Buck-!”
The tether snaps.
Eddie.
Buck spins on his heel and bolts down the hallway. It’s longer now- longer than when he came up it, Eddie grows further and further away as the tile expands under Buck’s feet.
He bursts into the room late- too late, too late. The monitor has flatlined, reduced to one deafening, monotonous tone.
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