Chapter Text
It’s almost typical that an earthquake hits Los Angeles so soon after Eddie starts his new job as a firefighter with the 118. An earthquake of 7.1 magnitude, no less. And Eddie thought single-handedly removing a grenade from a guy’s leg had been high stakes. The army was getting some competition already.
He’s currently on the 11th floor of the Hollywood Palms Hotel, which is ironically leaning a little like a palm tree after it partially collapsed and the higher levels became detached. From the street they had seen a man pressed up against the glass of a window, unable to move because of the angle that the hotel was now leaning. Eddie had volunteered to go up to try to rescue him.
The angle of the floors are precariously steep up here, and Eddie and the firefighter he’s been paired with – a firefighter called Lena Bosko, recently transferred to the 118 from the 136 – are climbing down the corridor half on the carpeted floor and half on the wall.
“Hello?” Eddie calls out, “Hello! LAFD!”
He hears two separate male voices call “In here!” and “We’re in here!”
He and Lena work together to cut the door lock and secure themselves, before breaking the door open.
Inside they find not only the older man in a bath robe dangerously trapped against the window, but also a young man in the uniform of the hotel staff, who is pressed against one of the room's large gold pillars. Eddie recalls Captain Chief Williams reporting to Bobby that all but twelve of the sixty-eight hotel staff had been accounted for. Eddie and Lena just found another.
“Thank god,” the younger man in the hotel uniform says. He sounds weirdly unpanicked for someone at risk of plummeting eleven stories down.
Eddie tells him to sit tight and that he’ll come and get him.
“Ok,” the younger man says.
“No offense,” the bath robed man pressed to the window shouts back at them, “But how is he the priority here?”
Eddie is surprised when any fear on the younger man’s face gives way for indignation, “Did you just say ‘no offence’?!” he demands of the bath robed man, “Everything about you is offensive!”
“Is that really how you should be speaking to paying guests?” Lena teases, as she and Eddie edge further into the room.
“Absolutely!” the younger man protests, “When said paying guest asks a member of staff to his room and orders them to shower with him! I have been sexually harassed! Seriously man,” he shouts at the bath robed man again, “Have you not watched the news at all over the past year?!” The young man precedes to list an impressive selection of facts about sexual harassment figures and news stories from the past year.
It gives Lena enough time to start lowering Eddie via rope further down into the room towards the man on the window.
“Seriously though,” Eddie says in support of the hotel worker, “He’s right, catch up with the times.”
“Alright fine, so I’m a dinosaur!” the bath robed man declares, “A forgotten relic of a forgotten age! A product of my time! For god’s sake just get me the hell out of here!”
“None of that is an excuse for your behaviour!” the hotel worker hollers back.
While Eddie tries to move some furniture to get to the bath robed man, Lena calls to the hotel worker that she is throwing him a rope and that he needs to secure himself.
Again, the young man sounds less afraid than determined when he says ‘ok’, and calls that he’s ready for Lena to throw the rope.
The aftershocks of the earthquake hit not long after that. The aftershocks cause furniture to shift into the bath robed man and the glass that had started to web beneath him gives way before Eddie can reach him. He falls to his death. Eddie doesn’t have the time to internally criticise himself on not doing enough, not acting quickly enough, because the tremors send the young man sliding down the room. He’s managed to secure himself with the rope Lena threw down to him, but Eddie still catches him before he can topple all the way out of the broken window and end up dangling on the line. Eddie and the hotel worker teeter at the edge of the window, gripping onto each other.
He is a little taken aback when the hotel worker doesn’t scream, doesn’t panic, just sends him a sheepish, terrified grin and says “Well that was close.”
Eddie doesn't have time to try to start figuring this guy out though, as Lena starts to pull them back up the room and eventually, they step out into the unnaturally angled corridor.
“Thanks guys,” the hotel worker breathes in relief.
“Don’t thank us just yet,” Lena warns light-heartedly, “We have to get down first.”
“I have every faith,” the hotel worker says, “I’m Buck, by the way. What are your names?”
“I’m Eddie,” Eddie replies, “This is Lena.”
“Nice to meet you both, and thanks for coming to rescue me."
Neither Eddie nor Lena tell Buck that they had actually climbed all this way up to try and rescue the man that had been sexually harassing Buck.
"And I'm sorry about...about Mr Harlow," Buck says, and he genuinely looks upset that the man didn't make it. "There was nothing more you both could have done," he adds, reassuring them, which... Eddie doesn't think he's ever rescued someone quite like this before.
They make their way towards the stairs, Lena in the lead, and Eddie following Buck to make sure he’s ok. Eddie isn’t surprised Buck is pretty adept at manoeuvring the obstacle of the lopsided corridor; Buck’s hotel staff uniform is tight enough that Eddie can see Buck is pretty fit – physically, obviously, not attractively, well no, actually, he’s fit in that sense too but… -
“You think he’ll still be on the sidewalk when we get down there?” Buck's voice is haunted, and he’s looking back at Eddie like he’s just realised that that might be a possibility. Eddie's seen it plenty of times before; Buck's experiencing survivor's guilt for something that wasn't his fault.
“No,” Eddie tells him firmly, “And we’re not going to be going out that side anyway.”
Buck doesn’t look particularly comforted regardless.
They potentially aren’t going to be going out of the side Eddie suggests either, when they reach the stairs and realise they can’t take them. It leaves the elevator shaft as their only option. Buck doesn’t even so much as complain. He even helps them, when they hear a voice calling for help and find a man with a spinal injury. Eddie and Lena fashion him a backboard out of an ironing board Buck finds in one of the rooms.
As Lena sets up the ropes to lower the man on the makeshift backboard down the elevator shaft, Eddie takes a moment to check his phone. They are in a dangerous situation. He knows that. He knows there’s a high chance more aftershocks will come, or that the hotel might give up and collapse before they can make it out, or that the elevator could come hurtling down and take them all out. All he wants is to be able to talk to Christopher. He wants to make sure that Christopher is safe. He hasn’t heard from him since he left him at school that morning, and he just prays that the school has decent earthquake protocols and that Christopher is fine.
He finds that there’s still no service. His texts still wouldn’t get through even if he tried.
“Who are you trying to get a hold of?” Buck asks him, sitting down next to him for a brief moment of respite before the abseil down.
“My son,” Eddie says, “I’m trying to reach my son.”
“You got a kid?” Buck asks with enthusiastic interest, like they are two friends sharing a drink in a bar and not eleven stories up in a collapsing hotel.
“Yeah. Christopher.” Eddie turns the phone around to show Buck his phone's lockscreen picture, “He’s seven.”
Buck’s face lights up at the sight of Christopher, “And super adorable! I love kids. I worked on a ranch for a bit that ran horse riding lessons, you know? And I was a lifeguard for a while and taught surfing lessons. So yeah, love kids.”
“I love this one,” Eddie says, “I’m all he’s got.” He doesn’t know why he adds “His mother’s not in the picture.” But he does.
Buck just nods sympathetically, “He’s at school?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, I’m sure he’s fine,” Buck says, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder; again comforting him when Eddie’s the one doing the rescuing, “You know, after Northridge, FEMA spent $200 million retrofitting every school in the LAUSD; ceiling tiles, lighting fixtures…Eddie, your kid is in the safest place he can be.”
Eddie sends Buck a small smile. After all the action, this is the first time he has looked at Buck's face properly. He takes in Buck's blond styled hair, his dazzling boyish smile, and his eyes, that when lit in the light of day rather than the dimness of a collapsing hotel, are probably a bright shade of blue. He’s handsome, Eddie can’t deny that.
And, it turns out, that Buck is a bit of an action man too.
Lena is already moving herself and the backboard down the elevator shaft by the time Eddie gets Buck hooked up and ready for them both to descend after Lena.
“I’ve done some abseiling,” Buck says, “So you don’t have to worry about me so much, just make sure he gets down ok.” He gestures down the elevator shaft to the man with the spinal injury.
Eddie smiles and nods. And while Buck is right, he is good with the lines, Eddie still keeps an eye on him regardless, keeping pace with him as they lower themselves down.
They make it out. Eddie and Lena go to help Bobby and Chim rescue Hen.
By the time Eddie makes it back outside he finds that Buck is still there, perched in the back of an ambulance.
“How are you doing, Buck?” Eddie asks.
“I’m fine,” Buck says, loudly, like he’s trying to convince the paramedic of that fact, “Thanks to you. Have you heard from your kid’s school?” Buck asks.
Eddie shakes his head, “Still no signal.”
“He’ll be fine,” Buck tells him.
“Because of the $200 million retrofitting, right?” Eddie quotes.
Buck seems to light up at Eddie remembering what Buck had told him about the earthquake retrofittings in schools. “Exactly!” Buck says.
He sends Eddie a particularly lovely smile, and Eddie can’t help but grin back.
He’s about to ask Buck more about how he’s doing - because Eddie has a feeling Buck is burying things under a breezy smile, because Eddie knows internalising very well, he’s a master at it - but bizarrely, Chim beats him in speaking to Buck.
“Buck?” Chim says, coming to stand beside Eddie, taking in Buck's appearance, “You work in this hotel now?”
“Well, I did,” Buck grimaces, looking at the wreckage of the hotel, “Maybe not anymore.”
Chim pulls an apologetic face, “Where were you?”
Buck points upwards, “Eleventh floor. The guy against the window? I was in the same room, getting sexually harassed. Eddie and Lena rescued me. Not from the sexual harassment, the earthquake saved me from that, but…well, not saved, the earthquake wasn’t a good thing of course but…” He trails off, looking embarrassed, and then Eddie watches as Bobby comes into view and Buck and Bobby clock each other, and then Buck’s expression turns almost guilty, “Captain Nash,” Buck says meekly.
“Buck,” Bobby sighs, “Why am I not surprised?”
Eddie is confused. So confused that he excuses himself with an apologetic smile at Buck and follows Chim and Bobby as they head towards where Hen is being checked over. They clearly know Buck, and with Buck’s physique and cool head in a crazy situation, Eddie wonders if Buck might have worked for another firehouse at some point.
“You guys know Buck?” he asks.
“Of course we know Buck,” Chim says, “Possibly the unluckiest guy in LA, and that’s coming from the guy who got a rebar through the head.”
It takes Eddie aback, “Unlucky how?”
“The only reason we know Buck is because we’ve responded to enough incidents that he’s either been involved in or witnessed.” Bobby says, “We first met him when he was working as a bartender…”
“And then as a bouncer,” Chim chips in.
“So, we responded to enough bar brawls and incidents to start to recognise his face,” Bobby finishes, “To the kid’s credit, he de-escalated a number of situations before we arrived, and helped people who had been injured. But quite often he was also injured in the process.”
“Because Buck doesn’t just have a bad case of ‘wrong place wrong time’,” Chim explains, “He also seems to get injured a lot. There was the time he choked on bread during a date and we were the closest response unit…”
“He had a crush injury after a car pile-up,” Bobby continues with a frown, “That was a tough one.”
“Yeah,” Chim agrees, “It was. Bystanders ended up helping us physically lift the vehicle off him.”
“He got pinned under a car?” Eddie says, glancing back at the ambulance Buck was still sitting in. Jesus! Choking, getting crushed under a car, and then getting caught up in the destruction of an earthquake? Poor Buck really did have some bad luck.
“It was a truck,” Bobby corrects.
Shit. Really bad luck.
“So, it’s a good job you and Lena got acquainted with him really,” Chim pats Eddie’s shoulder as he passes him to carry on towards Hen, “This won’t be the last you’ll see of Buck, I guarantee it.”
Eddie raises an eyebrow at Bobby, but the Captain just shrugs with a defeated air that has a strange amount of fatherly concern for someone who is not much more than an acquaintance to him, “If first responders had ‘regulars’, Buck would be one," Bobby says, "This may well not be the last time we see him.”
Eddie glances back at the ambulance. He knows that with each emergency the 118 responds to, they should hope not to see the person they are responding to again after that. But Buck? Eddie cannot help but hope that maybe he might run into Buck again somewhere, sometime in the future. Preferably not in another emergency though. And definitely not an earthquake. Eddie has had his fill of those for a good long while. He imagines Buck has too.