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bisexualbuck · 4 years

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Forever Day

Day Six of the Evan Buckley Week 2020! The prompt was “I won’t let you do this” + angst

Summary: The man pulls a gun out.

He aims it at Buck’s head.

“If you take another step I will blast your brains on the ground."

[Read on AO3]

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Time is a funny thing. There are moments that only last a second, entire days, weeks, gone in the blink of an eye. Afterwards, you stop and think, where has time gone? You could swear last month was only yesterday.

And then there are moments stretched so long, a single beat going on forever, as if time itself had stilled, everything slowed, everything muted.

This particular moment is of the second kind.

The man pulls a gun out.

He aims it at Buck’s head.

The instant draws on and on – the image burning in their memory as they are living it. They will never be able to forget that scene, that very single moment. They won’t forget the angle of the man’s arm, or the way Buck raises his hands up in the air. Neither will they forget the way the sun reflects on the gun, the thick smell of the blood of the patient they’ve been treating.

It almost feels like they are underwater. Everything is slow. Everything is strange.

The moment stretches, stretches, and then – then.

It snaps.

The world gets loud, fast, vibrant, again.

“If you take another step I will blast your brains on the ground,” the man yells out.

He is desperate enough to do it, and so no one moves – least of all, Buck who stands very still, and maybe he is the only one left in the moment, maybe he is still underwater while everyone else have come up for air.

It’s only the 118 crew here. No one has thought the situation would escalate as it has, but Buck can only hope that Eddie, who is hidden from sight, has called for backup.

They were called for to a house in downtown L.A., the only information they’d gotten was that there had been an incident and that someone had been hurt.

That moment had gone fast. There was so much to do, rushing to the patient, assessing his bleeding – gun wound to the torso – and stabilizing him enough for transport. Buck had gone to the second person present in the house, a man looking in the midst of a breakdown.

That’s when it all went wrong.

“I need to get out of here,” he says, his words jumbled and slurred.

He is very clearly under the influence of some drug, which makes him dangerous and unpredictable.

Buck has only one strategy here – keep the guy’s attention on him at all times. Most importantly, keep the gun aimed at him.

“You can leave anytime you want,” Buck lies smoothly, hiding his fear as bast as he can. “What’s your name, man?”

“Why the fuck do you want to know?”

Aggressiveness, defensiveness, all of which is a very bad cocktail for a situation such as this. Buck, like every firefighter, has had some training on how to deescalate these things but this is real. This isn’t some role-playing exercise. There is a real gun pointing at his head, with real bullets insides that could do real damage.

“I’m just asking. You can call me Buck, everyone does.”

“Weird name,” the man comments.

His gaze keeps shifting but Buck keeps his on him. The team is still working on the patient, though as silently as they can, and without any sudden moves.

From the corner of his eyes, Buck sees that Bobby has placed himself between Hen, Chimney and the patient, and the gunman. He wants to scream at his captain to get back, to let him handle it, but that would bring the man’s attention to Bobby.

“What’s your name?” Buck repeats, as gentle as he can.

The man hesitates, bites his lips. The gun trembles in his grip.

“Ricky,” he blurts out.

“Okay, Ricky. Can you tell me why you’re upset?”

“I have to go. I have to go before the cops get there.”

“You can go. Nobody has to get hurt.”

“I don’t trust you. What if you called the cops, huh? No this won’t do, this won’t do.”

Buck is pretty sure that he remembers enough of his SEAL training to disarm Ricky, and he would have tried it had they been alone. But his team is here, close, and he won’t risk a stray bullet hitting them.

So he keeps still, keeps the focus on him.

“I need leverage,” Ricky decides, nodding repetitively at his own idea. “Yeah, yeah. That’s what I need.”

With the hand that’s not holding the gun, he points in the direction of the Hen and Chimney working on the patient.

“I’m getting him and we’re going to go, and no one is going to follow us.”

“You can’t do that,” Buck says, trying to smooth his face into an expression of sympathy. “He’s too weak to get moved like that, he needs to go to the hospital.”

“I need leverage.”

Ricky’s eyes are too wide, too dark.

Leverage.

He wants an hostage. He wants to have a shield against the police. He is not thinking properly, he is paranoid and scared. He is dangerous.

Buck sees Ricky move.

The moment stretches again.

Rick starts turning his head and Buck knows, he just knows, that the first thing his gaze will land on is Bobby. Bobby who is still standing between their friends and the gunman. Bobby who will follow Ricky if that means protecting his team.

The gun moves away from Buck’s face, but Buck has already made his decision.

“Take me.”

Time resumes to its rushed flow, and Ricky snaps his full focus back on Buck.

“Buck, no,” Bobby exclaims, the first thing he has said since Ricky has pulled out his gun.

“It’s okay, Cap. Ricky and I are just going to go on a walk. Right, Ricky?”

“Buck,” Bobby repeats, firmer. “I won’t let you do this.”

“You don’t have a choice, Cap,” Ricky threatens, taking one step closer to Buck.

Close enough now that the barrel of his gun rests on Buck’s forehead, a cold sensation that sends him a jolt of fear. He fights to keep his face as neutral as possible, though he knows his eyes betray him – they always do. He can’t show his panic. It’ll only feed Ricky’s.

“Let’s go, Buck,” Ricky grunts. His brow is full of sweat. His right eye twitches. “Don’t try anything funny, or I pull the fucking trigger.”

“I won’t try anything,” Buck promises.

It’s only as Ricky makes him step before him, putting his gun against his spine, that Buck allows himself to take a look at his team.

They are tensed, worried, but they’ve been through enough nerve-racking situations to keep going despite their stress. He is endlessly proud of them, he loves them so much. He is not worried for himself, the only thing that worries him is their safety.

It’s okay, he mouths at them.

It is. As long as they are safe, it’s okay.

The next moment is too fast for Buck to comprehend it.

One second, he is walking away from them, a gun pressed hard against his back, he is walking towards danger and incertitude. He has no idea what he will do once he finds himself with Ricky.

The next instant, Athena appears out of seemingly nowhere and manages to disarm Ricky in a movement that’s too fast for anyone to follow.

Buck blinks, and Ricky is on the floor, arms twisted behind him and handcuffs being passed around his wrists.

Just like that, it’s over.

Buck can do nothing but stand there, useless, as the world keeps on turning around him. It’s over, Ricky is being taken into custody, Hen and Chimney are taking the patient to the ambulance.

He needs to get going. He needs to move.

He can’t bring himself to.

“Buck, are you okay?”

Bobby is in front of him, brows furrowed, and Buck watches as his mouth moves, forming words he can’t hear. Everything is afar, everything is slow. He’s back underwater, perhaps that’s where he has always been meant to be.

It takes some time, but by the time they are back to the station, Buck is back to himself. He has come up for air again, though it threatens to take him again. Time goes as it should, not quite fast, not elongated either.

Everything is back to normal.

Except that the team is silent, no one has said anything at all since Ricky.

Buck does not thing that he ever will be able to forget the man’s wild eyes, the feel of the gun on his forehead, on his spine.

No one says anything, not until they are back at the station, and then Bobby turns towards Buck with a fury – burning but contained – he has never shown.

“What the hell was that?”

Buck takes a step back, shocked.

“What were you trying to do?”

“I knew it was going to be fine,” he lies. “He was going to take you, I had to do something.”

“You could have died, Buck,” Hen interrupts. Her mouth is nothing but a thin line. “If Athena hadn’t been there – ”

“But she was, and it’s all fine now.”

Chimney throws his hands in the air, and mumbles something that Buck does not understand but that sounds a little too much like dumbass.

“You could have been hurt,” Bobby says through his teeth. “You could have died. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I had to protect you!”

It’s too loud, too raw. His whole team is watching at him, their outrage wavering in the face of his own despair.

“I needed to keep the gun on me so that you guys could save the patient, and so that you wouldn’t get hurt.”

“And what about you?”

Eddie’s eyes are boring into him, and Buck wants to disappear. Eddie looks not angry but sad – sad because he knows. He knows Buck better than anyone else, and he knows what was going through his boyfriend’s mind out there.

Small mercies that he was not there, that he was outside the house while Buck was held at gunpoint. Eddie does not need that image burned in his memory.

“It’s – I would have been fine.”

“Buck,” Eddie calls, tender and heartbroken.

“Better me than any of you, okay? That’s what I was thinking.”

And the team must have expected it too because no one flinches. Their anger has evaporated and they look at him with something that’s not quite pity, if Buck had to name it, he would call it sympathy.

“You can’t think like that, Buckaroo.”

He is not sure who says it, but he almost laughs. He does not voice his doubts, yet he is sure they can read them on his face.

“Come here, you big moron.”

Chimney is dragging him into a quick hug before Buck has any time. It’s over almost as soon as it started, and then Chim is punching him in the shoulder.

“What the hell, Chim.”

“That’s what you get when you’re being a self-sacrificial moron.”

Buck smiles, he can’t help it, even as Hen gives him a slap to the back of his head.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Bobby says. It sounds like an order.

“Cap,” Buck replies with a sigh. “If it’s between the team and me, I’m always going to chose your safety over mine.”

“You said it. This is a team, we work together. No one gets left behind. Now get this through your head and never try anything like that again, you hear me?”

Buck nods. He couldn’t speak if he tried, too overwhelmed. He is starting to see that maybe he was wrong, maybe it wouldn’t have been all fine if something had happened to him.

He has people who care about him now. Who love him.

“He’s right, you know,” Eddie says.

“I’m sorry.”

He means it. He is sorry, he never wanted to worry his friends.

“Just – don’t do it again. Buck, I was terrified. If Athena – ”

“You can’t think about what could have happened,” Buck stops him, taking Eddie’s hands into his. “I’m here, you’re here. We’re safe. And I promise, I’ll do better. I don’t want you to worry about me.”

“I’m always going to worry about you.”

They share a quick kiss, soft and sweet.

Buck has come up for air, and he has never breathed as freely.

#evanweek2020 #evan buckley #911 fic #firefam #buddie #bobby nash #hen wilson #eddie diaz #howie han #911 #my writing #i almost didn't post this because i'm really not sure about it #but then i thought why the hell not #better that than nothing i guess

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