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2025-05-06
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you saw something sacred

Summary:

Eddie heard a shout from somewhere in the street below. Neither of them moved. It was a small aftershock. They weren't going to die.

But it felt like it, a little. Death had always been right around the corner, but now it was in the house. Sitting on the couch. Eating their cereal. They weren't going to die but maybe they were.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Nobody was supposed to see this.

It was the end of a long day. A difficult one. Bobby had just died. Gerrard was still their stupid acting captain and a stupid 6.8 earthquake had hit the city (on Eddie's first official day back with the 118—he's starting to think putting on the uniform is some sort of a mating call for tectonic plate shifts). Too many close calls. Too many black tags for a team fresh on the heels of grief. A team missing a leader.

They all tumbled out of the firetruck at two in the morning, tear tracks stained on dirty cheeks. Hen. Chim. Ravi. BuckEddie. Eddie doesn't remember where anyone else went. The showers, probably. Practically. He only remembers his feet following Buck like a duckling imprinted on their mother. Past the locker room. Up the stairs. Detour to the fridge for two bottles of water. Up the stairs again. Roof door creaking open. Sliding down the wall to sit.

Two bodies breathing in the night air. The wind was sharp, and Eddie started to feel his own skin again as the adrenaline wore off, dirt coating every inch, seeping into the pores. It should've felt absolutely disgusting, but there was a strange kind of comfort in the covering. He thought, this must be how Bobby feels. Or—would feel—if he could. Six feet under in a graveyard in Minnesota.

Buck was shaking, Eddie realized. He could feel it where their shoulders were pressed together. Buck, who had been dealing with it all so well, which is to say, not dealing with it at all. He was shaking in the way you shake when your body is too tired to cry. In the way it needs to release it's grief somehow, anyways. Eddie opened his mouth and closed it like a fish, no words coming out. He tried again. He stared straight ahead and pressed their shoulders together with a little more intention.

And he knows it's impossible, and against everything he's ever claimed to believe, but—he could swear it was Buck who caused the aftershock. The earth had been still for five hours at that point, but the magnitude of Buck's grief got her going again.

Buck shook the earth, and the earth shook Eddie, and Eddie looked over at Buck. And Buck was already looking back, jaw set, blue eyes hollow.

Eddie heard a shout from somewhere in the street below. Neither of them moved. It was a small aftershock. They weren't going to die.

But it felt like it, a little. Death had always been right around the corner, but now it was in the house. Sitting on the couch. Eating their cereal.

They weren't going to die but maybe they were.

So Buck leaned in. And Eddie let himself be kissed like he was going to die. And die. And die.

He didn't even register it when the earth stilled underneath their bodies. Their bodies that were so caught up in their shifting and shaking and touching and burning. With his eyes closed, he could almost pretend—as Buck had cause the earth to shake—that their kiss had caused the world to end. And they were in another place, together. Where everything was still.

A car alarm blared. A siren wailed by. Voices echoed up from the street, from the firehouse below. The kiss ended. And yet, there it was, still. Existing in Eddie like an aftershock. The rioting of his heart. The rushing of his blood.

Buck was breathing heavily, his features more of a suggestion under the layer of dust—except for his lips, bright red and stained with spit. His hand was still, steady as he reached up to ghost a finger over Eddie's bottom lip, right where he has a small scar. Eddie's next exhale hit his skin, warm and wobbly.

Hen pauses the video.

There's dead silence in the loft. Eddie's eyes are stuck on the Buck and him from six months ago on the TV. Tiny in the corner of the screen, in black and white on grainy CCTV footage. But undeniably them. Buck’s hand now frozen in its hover over Eddie's lips. He resists the insane urge to tell Hen to rewind so he can watch it again.

The thing is that—they haven't talked about it. Buck had let his finger linger on Eddie's lip for a second longer before blinking. Swallowing. And he'd gotten up without saying a word. Eddie had followed. Followed him down the stairs, into the showers, into the jeep. Followed him home. To where they live. Together. And they lived together easily, naturally, like best friends do.

By day three of neither one of them mentioning the kiss, Eddie had half-convinced himself that it was a dream. By day six, an earthquake-induced hallucination. Even with the startling evidence of it's reality staring him (and the rest of A shift) in the face, he still doesn't quite believe it.

"So," Hen clears her throat, "That was not the footage of Chimney doing his embarrassing old lady aerobics on the roof."

"No, Captain. It was not," Chimney agrees, maybe only sounding that gleeful because he was spared from humiliation. Probably not, though.

Ravi lets out an abrupt, high-pitched giggle.

"You're telling me," Hen starts again when neither Buck nor Eddie nor anyone else speak, "you two have been together for what, six months? And you've managed to keep it hidden." She whistles, "Honestly, I'm impressed. Didn't think you had it in you."

"Well–"

"We–"

They speak at the same time, and Eddie finally tears his eyes away from the past Buck to look at Buck in the present, sinking into the armchair, face beet red. His eyes are darting around the room, flickering once over to Eddie and away again, wide and panicked.

"We're not." Eddie says, voice tight, and Buck's eyes finally lock onto his and stay there. "Together."

"Oh, shit." Ravi whispers. Eddie thinks that sums it up pretty well.

"You sure about that?" Before Eddie can catch his arm, Chimney is darting forward and stealing the remote from Hen, who doesn't even put up a fight. Traitor. And like a dream and nightmare all at once, he rewinds the footage. Presses play.

Even from a weird angle in the grainy footage, he can tell that it's a good kiss. Well, it was the best kiss of his fucking life, but even if he hadn't lived it, he still would've been able tell that it was good. Once the camera stills, he can see them really going at it, tongues practically in each other's throats. One of his hands reaches into Buck's hair, tugs. There's no sound but it’s like he can still hear an echo of the noise Buck made—half moan, half whine. He watches himself dive back in to swallow it down on the screen. Watches Buck cup Eddie's face with both hands, pulling him closer, and Eddie is practically in his lap at this point. In Eddie's memory, they kissed for maybe thirty seconds after the aftershock ended, a minute total. It's been at least two minutes. Two minutes that feel a lot like an hour, or forever, but maybe that's just due to the fact that all of his coworkers are standing around watching him kiss the man he's in love with but doesn't actually have. For the second time. On a flat screen TV.

Blackandwhite BuckandEddie pull apart, and real life Buck stands abruptly, marching over to Chimney and yanking the remote from his hands. The screen goes black.

"Buck–" Hen starts.

Buck shoves the remote against her chest and storms down the stairs. Eddie sighs and stands up, knocking Chimney on the shoulder. Lightly.

"Did you really have to rewind?" He goes to follow, always to follow Buck, but a hand on his shoulder stops him. Chimney's expression is mildly chastised, but mostly defiant.

"You don't share a kiss like that," he tilts his head towards the screen, "As friends, Eddie."

Eddie shrugs, "He never brought it up again." He hears a scoff, Hen muttering, Men, under her breath. Chim just smiles, soft and sure.

"You love him." He doesn't phrase it like a question.

Eddie swallows. The CCTV cameras already did the heavy lifting of laying out the truth of his beating heart for everyone to see. To deny it now would be to say that the sky is green. That the earth is still. That nobody ever dies.

He nods.

"Tell him."

Eddie turns. And follows Buck.

Notes:

i've been rewatching superstore. stupid4stupid slow burn coworkers i love you. wrote this in the middle of the night and it was supposed to be way fluffier. um. sorry!

title from sacred by samia. butchdiaz on tumblr where you can reblog this if u feel so inclined <3