Word Count: 4,370
Warnings/Spoilers: This chapter contains a brief mention of a nightmare, discussions about destructive behaviours, and a range of pretty negative thought patterns. There's also some Google Translate'd Spanish, so I apologise for that in advance too.

He curled his body against the oncoming wave, mentally preparing for the smashing force of the water in the fractions of a second before it hit. His spine bowed under the weight and the stunning energy expelled whatever panicked air he'd absorbed into his lungs and even as he fought against the water that tried to yank his limbs in every direction, even as he tried to keep track of where the light was so he could find the surface again, even as he tried to keep his fingers gripped around Christopher's-

He slammed into something harder than concrete and his last gasp of air bubbled past his lips, and water trickled down his throat, and when his breathing hitched, more water entered his lungs until he started to feel it burn, and it started to weigh him down, and it was soaking his clothes, and cascading into his boots, and then he wasn't sure what was up or down anymore. Maybe this was it. Maybe after all his near-misses recently, this was how he finally died.

And it was painful, but it was oddly peaceful too. There was a roaring silence in his ears, and every other sense dulled as he sank, and yet floated, but then everything became darker and darker and-

"Evan."

He struggled against the arms on his shoulders, pinning him to something soft and bouncy, and his heart restarted in a racing gallop and his scrambled thoughts collapsed in on each other and he choked on his breathing and a sob when he realised there wasn't any water around him and he could actually inhale air.

"You're safe, Buck. You're in your bed. You're not drowning." Rough hands curved under his shoulders, heaving him into a sitting position and temporarily disorienting him as he flailed and his fingers connected with an arm or a face or a chest. "Hey, hey. C'mon, Evan. It's me. It's Eddie. You're okay, querido. Breathe for me."

Perhaps, more than anything, it was the Spanish that scattered the remaining bits of fog which lingered around his awareness. "Eddie?" he gasped, hands fisting into a soft t-shirt and his breathing stuttering as strong arms surrounded him, as warmth pressed against his chest where moments ago there had been cold water smothering him.

"Yeah, it's me. Just breathe, Buck," Eddie murmured, a hand cradling his head as Buck folded into Eddie's grasp and held on until he stopped shaking, until his lungs stopped aching, but then his hysteria gave way to shame and guilt and hatred and he had to- "Hey, it's okay. You don't-"

Buck shook his head, pulling away and wrapping his arms around his waist as he stood on wobbly legs and stared out the darkened window. How many hours had he scraped together for sleep this time? How long had Eddie been trying to wake him? Why couldn't he just get drunk until he passed out and slept somewhat dreamlessly?

"Talk to me," Eddie pleaded and Buck dropped his head, looking at his feet even though he could only see the faintest of outlines from the light that glowed from somewhere downstairs that Eddie must have turned on. "Buck, you- I could hear you struggling but when I got up here, you weren't breathing and I-"

"I wasn't breathing?" he whispered, rubbing a hand across his chest and feeling the skipping heartbeats pounding against his sternum. No wonder it hurt.

"You were just…writhing around in the sheets and making these…these godawful noises but it wasn't- I wouldn't call it breathing, exactly."

Buck inhaled, realising just how raw his throat felt as if for the first time. He wondered how many other times he'd stopped breathing in the middle of a nightmare, how many other times he'd been alone and choking with no one to wake him from the terror than enveloped him.

"Evan?"

"I w-was drowning," he said, voice trembling and husky. "I was drowning, again, and then I… I stopped fighting. I- I didn't- I didn't want to f-fight anymore." He rubbed at his chest again, scratching the fabric over his skin and trying to get his lungs to inflate normally and regularly. "Have you ever…?"

"Dreamt about dying?" Eddie asked when Buck trailed away, unable to put his thoughts into words. Buck made a small noise of affirmation and, behind him, Eddie exhaled with a soft sort of whistle between his teeth. Buck had heard him make the same noise before, usually when he was faced with a particularly difficult decision to make when they were on a call and he was weighing pros and cons. "I- I have, yes. After getting back from my tours, I… Some of what I saw left scars on my psyche, I guess. It's…been a while, though. Time has helped."

Buck sucked in a nervous breath and bit at his bottom lip until he felt strips of skin peel away and he could taste the metallic tang of blood on his tongue. "I- I'm so…tired, Eddie."

"I understand," Eddie said, gentle and slow and filled with knowledge that made Buck's knees tremble. The bed creaked as Eddie shifted and light filled the room with the illumination of the lamp on his bedside table. "What do you need, Evan? What helps?"

"Besides alcohol?"

"Besides that."

Buck shrugged, hating that his drawn shoulders and attempts to make himself smaller were on display now that the light was on. He wished he could just cover himself in an invisibility cloak and blink out of existence. "I don't know. I- I usually drink or I go for a run."

"A run?"

"Until… Until I can't breathe anymore," he mumbled, thinking of all the times he'd run until he thought his heart was going to explode out of his mouth and his leg burned with a reminder that he probably shouldn't have been running that hard, that far, on such firm surfaces after the crush injury.

"Is that- You haven't been eating well lately, have you?"

Buck shrugged again, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "I eat when I'm hungry, or I have to, but I- It hasn't exactly been a priority. I haven't really had much of an appetite so I… I haven't paid as much attention to it."

"Shit, Buck. Haven't you realised you've lost weight?"

Buck glanced over his shoulder, brows rising as he met Eddie's eyes. Eddie just gazed at him, mouth slightly agape in surprise or shock. Buck wasn't sure.

"You haven't realised," Eddie repeated flatly, but it no longer sounded like a question, and he shook his head slowly as he rolled off the bed and got to his feet. "Buck, have you spoken to anyone about any of this?"

He rolled his eyes, turning slowly on the spot and crossing his arms over his chest. "Of course not. Please stop with the dad mode, Eddie. I don't need you to parent me."

"Don't get defensive with me," Eddie admonished, even as Buck felt his defensiveness rise because he hated feeling like he was being treated like a child. He'd left home almost a decade ago for a reason. "You've been running yourself into the ground, literally and physically. I thought- No, I don't know what I thought. I'm sorry I- I didn't realise how much you were struggling, Buck. I've been so caught up in so many other things lately and I- I'm sorry."

And now it was Buck's turn to stare in confusion as Eddie inched towards him. "It's not your fault."

"You said there was no reason to stay," Eddie said, echoing a comment Buck had spoken out of anger, and fear, and spite, and Buck felt his heart twist in his chest because Eddie was straying too close to all the deepest, darkest thoughts he usually had when he woke up from a nightmare without anyone around and he couldn't deal with that right now. He couldn't let Eddie see through all the masks he kept wearing at the station. "Why don't you see that you have a family who loves you?"

"Maddie has Chimney," he whispered, folding his arms over his chest and refusing to meet Eddie's eyes when he saw the frown that flickered across Eddie's face.

"And Hen? Bobby?"

"Karen and Athena," he parroted like it was obvious, teeth digging into his lip when he saw Eddie take another step towards him.

"Christopher?"

"Has you."

"And who do I have?"

Buck opened his mouth to say Eddie had Christopher before realising that he didn't want to be insensitive after Eddie had talked about losing Shannon and being afraid of losing Buck. Eddie caught his hesitation and paused, giving him the chance to process and answer, but Buck didn't have an answer that made sense because Eddie was his best friend, and maybe he was Eddie's best friend, but it suddenly occurred to him that he didn't really know much about the rest of Eddie's friends. Did he have other people he saw regularly? Did he have army buddies he caught up with? It was crushing to realise he didn't know his best friend as well as he would have liked and he hated how it left him feeling ill.

When it became clear he wasn't going to answer, or maybe that he couldn't find an answer, Eddie spoke again.

"Even if all those people have someone significant in their lives, you're still part of the family at the 118." Eddie gazed at him, head tilted as he watched Buck closely and Buck tried to keep his expression neutral as he stared at a point on the wall. "And even if you don't feel like you're a part of the 118 right now, you're still a part of my family, Evan. You matter to Christopher and me."

Staring at a point on the wall was pretty freaking hard when those sorts of statements started being said. "Eddie…"

"You're my best friend," Eddie continued, resuming his slow steps towards Buck, "and I didn't see how much you were struggling. But I do now and I- I'm here and I really want to help. So how can I help? What do you need?"

Buck really wished he knew but he'd been suppressing so many feelings so thoroughly, ignoring how alone and lonely he felt, that now he just felt lost. It had been so clear in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami that everyone had someone else, except him. Everyone had been around after his leg was crushed, and there'd been barbecues that he'd hobbled around at while he was in rehab, but then he'd had the clot and everyone had fussed around him again but with more wariness, more trepidation, like they were afraid he'd collapse on them again. It began to irritate him, frustrating him that they needed to handle him with kid gloves, because he was desperate to prove he could get back to work but he kept being told no.

And then the tsunami happened and everyone had closed ranks within their familial systems and – inadvertently or deliberately – shut him out. They'd all found comfort in their loved ones, reassuring themselves that everyone they cared about was safe. Even Maddie hadn't really checked on him as much as he might have expected because she'd been focused on Chimney. He'd collapsed at the VA hospital into Hen and Bobby and Chim's arms but they'd attached to Karen and Athena and Maddie, respectively. The cut on his arm had needed stitches, and the blood thinners had made terrible bruises linger beneath his skin for weeks afterwards, but somehow it was like they thought he'd just…keep moving forward.

And even though Eddie had kept leaving Christopher with him, even though Eddie had said he trusted Buck and even though Eddie kept yanking the sheets off his body to stir him out of bed, it hadn't felt the same between them after the tsunami. Maybe that was because Buck felt so much guilt and hatred and doubt that he was responsible for Christopher when Eddie went to work. After all, Christopher had been in such danger because of him and how could Eddie keep trusting him after that?

And then he'd levelled a lawsuit at the LAFD, and at Bobby personally, and he'd been told to keep his distance from everyone, and every relationship he'd had in the 118 had splintered into shards that sliced through his palms and had left scars criss-crossing his soul. Eddie shouting at him that he'd needed to be bailed out of jail had been the worst sort of pain because he could tell he was being replaced by Bosko, that she had become Eddie's new best friend and Buck was just some…some sort of babysitter for Eddie when he couldn't ask his family or Carla for help.

Even now, even after all the apologies and all the attempts to be on his best behaviour so that he could prove his worth and value to the team, it still felt like there were cracks that were waiting to be exploited. Sometimes he could almost remember the platform of broken glass he was floating on after the tsunami, and it felt like he was on it again with everyone else circling him, waiting for him to slip and fall and cut himself and bleed out before they offered any sort of help.

"Evan?" Eddie said, barely concealing the apprehension in his tone.

"I don't deserve it," he mumbled, looking away and scrunching his eyes when the unbidden thought escaped his lips because he couldn't bear to look at Eddie after saying that. After everything he'd done, after everything he'd put the team through though, he knew it was true. "I don't- I hurt all of the 118 but I especially hurt you. I wasn't there for you when you needed your best friend."

"No, you weren't, but I've forgiven you for that."

Buck shook his head, his breath catching in his sore lungs. "Shannon died and I wasn't there for you either."

"Your leg got crushed. I wasn't exactly there for you the way I would've wanted to be."

"And then Christopher could have died because of me."

"But he also lived because of you," Eddie insisted, his voice unwavering even when Buck could feel parts of his walls crumbling because why couldn't Eddie understand how much hurt he felt? Why couldn't Eddie just accept it was his fault? "He has told me how his Buck saved him more times than I can remember. You couldn't have predicted a tsunami would hit Los Angeles, for crying out loud."

"No, but-" Buck could feel his heart thudding in his chest and the sick churning in his stomach as he pressed his lips together, fighting the words that had tattooed themselves across his tongue because apparently all his self-loathing was willing to be displayed at some godawful hour of the night or early morning when they should both be exhausted from the shift and sleeping it all off and not peeling away almost all of Buck's deepest fears and insecurities.

"What?"

"No."

"Buck." Hands pressed against his cheeks, fingers settling under the line of his jaw again and drawing his eyes open until he was staring at the shadows covering half of Eddie's face and the intense darkness swirling within his worried brown eyes made Buck's breath catch. "What aren't you telling me?"

He felt so powerless, even though he was taller than Eddie, even though he was a firefighter and could lift someone like Eddie over his shoulder and carry him down several flights of stairs, even though he was an adult – or meant to be an adult – who could take care of himself. He looked at Eddie, at the way Eddie's eyes kept searching his and the slight furrow of his brow as if he could somehow read the words that kept dancing across Buck's thoughts but they were reversed, or inverted, and he couldn't really decode-

"If the bombing or the truck had killed me, or if I'd thrown the clot at home when none of you were around and hadn't been able to start CPR, then- then Chris never would have been at the pier that day. He never would have been in such danger because I- I wouldn't have been alive to take him there," he spat out, the words so sour on his tongue as tears pricked his eyes because the furrow between Eddie's brows parted and there was this devastating moment of realisation when Buck almost thought he could hear Eddie's heart crack in his chest. Terror twined around his soul because maybe Eddie would realise just how awful he felt and he'd report it to Bobby, and then Bobby would force Buck onto the sidelines again because a Captain couldn't allow him to be running into dangerous situations feeling like this. "And not being there when you needed me was- It's unforgivable what I did, what I was putting you through, when you needed someone so I- I don't deserve you being here now because it- it would only be fair that I- You just- You shouldn't-"

"Please s-stop," Eddie whispered, folding his arms around Buck's shoulders and releasing a sob somewhere against his neck while his fingers twisted into Buck's shirt, pulling the fabric taut against his skin. "Please, querido. No puedo escuchar más de esto. I can't hear more of this."

"But-"

"No." Eddie shook his head and clung to Buck and it was only then that he realised how much Eddie was trembling. Almost unwillingly, still feeling entirely undeserving, he wrapped his arms around Eddie's torso and held the other man against him. "I told you I couldn't imagine telling Christopher you were gone and I had to-" Eddie released a shuddering breath that tickled across his neck. "Seeing you trapped under the truck was like all the guys I'd seen get blown up in their Humvees and end up trapped and bleeding out because we were taking fire and couldn't get them evac'd. And then you… You were collapsing into Bobby's arms and I just remember shouting at Karen to get Christopher inside while Hen and Chim and I were pushing everyone aside so we could switch CPR rotations and when I glanced up, I could see Bobby holding Maddie back while Athena was calling 911."

It was a part of the whole clot ordeal that Buck had never wanted to ask about. Now that he knew, he wasn't sure he wanted the mental images it conjured.

"When I saw you collapse into their arms after the tsunami, or when you radioed that that elevator was filling with water, or when you collapsed again yesterday, I just kept thinking that I-" Eddie gripped him tighter, sniffling against his shoulder and flexing his fingers against Buck's back as he clearly worked to keep himself together. "Buck, my son might be my whole world now that I… I've had to manage without Shannon and the thought of her in our lives, but you are an integral part of my world and his. Our lives wouldn't be better if you weren't in it."

Buck wanted to believe every word Eddie spoke. He was desperate to soak all the words into his skin until they washed away all the darkness and filth and grit that seemed to have seeped into his soul after the tsunami and been compounded by the lawsuit, but…he'd built up so many walls to his feelings that it was hard to believe any of it anymore. It had become too easy in those weeks of aborted attempts at contact to convince himself that he didn't really matter to anyone at the firehouse, not like how they mattered to him. They all had lives and families outside of the job and Buck… What did he have outside of them?

"Christopher needs you, Buck," Eddie said, pulling away and staring at Buck with eyes filled with unshed tears. "I need you, Evan. Okay? You don't have to believe me right now but I can't imagine my life without you in it. And I'll keep saying it every day if I have to, until you finally get tired of hearing it because you do believe it."

Buck wondered just how patient Eddie could be given that Buck tended to be irrational in tenuous situations. He could easily imagine Eddie pinning him down and hitting him repeatedly while chanting that he mattered, in some sort of morbid and faintly hysterical display of care.

Eddie held his gaze with an expectant arch of his eyebrow until Buck finally relented and gave a small nod, which made Eddie break into a grin filled with such joy that it rivalled some of the warmest and brightest grins Buck had ever seen on Christopher's face and he had a realisation of exactly where Chris had inherited his smile from. He tried to ignore how his heart stuttered in his chest at the smile and attempted to focus on anything else instead, like how Eddie's arms had loosened around him and his fingers had hooked around some of Buck's to tug him towards the bed.

"What are you-"

"Do you want me to leave you and go back downstairs?" Eddie paused, his happiness and determination of only moments ago melting into uncertainty. "I can-"

"No, it- I'm just- I haven't…had anyone stay with me for a…a while," he said, barely able to meet Eddie's eyes because he'd certainly never had a guy stay with him in this bed and he knew that before the lawsuit and the tsunami, he'd had some sort of feeling that had felt like more than just friendship. Feelings he knew that he'd never speak about because they'd never be returned.

"Then you tell me what you want or need and I'll do it," Eddie promised and after another moment of hesitation, Buck nodded and slid onto his mattress beside Eddie.

It was awkward, both lying on their backs and staring at the ceiling. There was too much silence. Their bodies were coiled with too much tension. The bedside lamp was still on.

"Are you tired?" he asked when he felt as though he'd been there for an hour in awkward stillness when it was probably less than five minutes.

"Are you?"

"Yeah, but…I'm afraid of more nightmares," he said, knowing the edges of his awareness were always crowded with the oncoming sensation of dying.

"That makes sense." Eddie rolled over and extinguished the light, but there was still a dim glow from downstairs which meant Buck could see the faintest outline of Eddie's shape. "Have you worked out anything that helps with the anxiety about sleeping?"

"No," Buck muttered, tracing the lines of shadows across the ceiling. "Only drinking."

"Hardly the healthiest of options," Eddie said thoughtfully, and Buck could imagine the faint teasing smile at the edge of his mouth. "C'mere."

"What?"

"Roll towards me and I'll hold you."

"You-"

"-don't have to but it's fine, I'm offering. Come on." Eddie's hand tapped at his chest and with no small amount of discomfort, Buck rolled onto his side and tentatively arranged himself near Eddie until the other man started more forcefully adjusting his limbs and he had his head against Eddie's collarbone, his arm slung over Eddie's belly. Eddie's arm wrapped around his shoulders, the other cradling his head and slowly smoothing fingers through his hair.

And it was…more soothing than he could even try to explain.

"This okay?"

Buck felt woefully out of his depth when, at some point almost a year ago, he might've imagined this happening. And then Shannon had shown up and-

He nodded and shifted slightly until he'd found the comfortable grooves of Eddie's body to lay within, closing his eyes when the bridge of Eddie's nose settled against his forehead. He could feel the soft puffs of Eddie's inhales and exhales tickling over his skin. He could feel the rise and fall of Eddie's stomach against the inside of his arm. He could hear the regular beat of Eddie's heart against his ear. And the fingers in his hair were dragging at his tenuous control.

"Breathe with me until everything starts to feel loose and heavy," Eddie murmured, his blunt nails against Buck's scalp almost making him ache with how much he'd missed having someone just hold him. It wasn't even about sex sometimes. He just needed to be held. He just needed the intimacy of being touched and cared for, and he'd been denying any sort of comfort since Ali broke up with him, since the bombing. Maybe even a bit before that. "Nice and easy, Buck. You're safe here. I'll keep you safe."

And Buck, as he started breathing in and breathing out in an effort to maintain a slow and peaceful drift to sleep, found it wasn't long before he became less and less aware of Eddie's gentle, soothing voice that gradually led to a darkness that wasn't so terrifying.

Eddie insisted he said nothing to the rest of the crew but there was no denying that Bobby put a slightly larger portion of food on Buck's plate than usual at their next shift, or that Hen sat on the couch next to him when he curled up to watch TV in their brief moments of down-time between calls and threaded her fingers through his hair and asked how he was doing, or that Chim wouldn't take no for an answer when he invited himself to one of Buck's dinner-dates with Maddie. They all started to…care, or at least they showed it, again, in a way that seemed too contrived for them not to have been tipped off by Eddie, at least in some way.

Bobby quietly slipped him a card for a therapist and said that any future calls involving water would see Buck assigned to some sort of job that kept him away from the liquid terror that threatened to consume him.

He couldn't tell if he was grateful for the care or frustrated to be handled like some sort of delicate flower.

Mostly he just wished awful things would stop happening.

~TBC~