listen to you breathing (is where I wanna be)
Or the one where Buck is presumed dead after a building collapse
and Eddie has to live through the reminder that tomorrow isn’t promised
to anyone
read on ao3 (warnings for presumed major character death, grief/mourning and major character injury; edit: additional warnings for earthquake, being burried under a collapsed building, multiple minor character deaths)
The thing is – and Eddie should have known this, has been taught this cruel lesson over and over and over again – the thing is most of the time the worst day of your life will start like just any other day.
A million small moments, so familiar and mundane you almost don’t even notice them slipping by - until you would give anything to go back and get just one more.
(You can’t.)
This one technically starts with a call to a small pile-up accident at 11.47 the day before, which drags on so they only fall into their bunks sometime around 2am. But since they catch over 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep afterwards, it kind of doesn’t count.
So instead the day starts with the bell blessedly only going off again at 6.14 and Eddie blearily opening his eyes to a cup of coffee on the pillow next to him, almost completely obscuring Buck’s wide smile right behind it. There is a pillow crease all the way down his cheek that is visible though and Eddie barely catches himself before reaching out to smooth his finger along the promise of warm skin right there.
Instead he wraps both hands around the coffee cup - just to be safe, he does actually know how to control himself most of the time - and takes a deep gulp in the hopes it will wake not just him but also his restraint. He is up and already halfway to the door, before he turns back to raise an eyebrow at Buck.
“Wait, how did you know there was gonna be a call before the bell even went and woke everyone?”
“I didn’t,” Buck snorts. “I’ve been awake for like 20 minutes and I figured that something like this was gonna happen before too long.” He shrugs, ducks his head and something in Eddie’s chest goes warm and weightless. “The coffee isn’t super fresh anymore, but better than no coffee, right?”
