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The night wasn’t supposed to go the way it did.
They were called to a time-sensitive call of a young man having a bad trip from some kind of hallucinogen. He had managed to get to the roof of his apartment complex in his paranoid state and was currently panicking at the edge of the rooftop.
Buck had already pulled on his harness by the time they made it to the building. As soon as the truck stopped, he was on the move, collecting gear with Chim and Eddie hot on his heels as the three of them takes the stairs two at a time to get to the roof.
It becomes apparent as soon as they enter the same space as the teenager that he was in a precarious situation, walking along the roof edge saying how he didn’t want the police to get him for illegally streaming tv shows. It seemed like a rather innocuous reason for him to be so agitated, but it is what it is when hallucinogens are involved.
Over the radio, Bobby warned them that they had the emergency pillow activated, but with the way the kid was moving between the two sides of the building, there was no telling that if he fell, he’d fall on the right side. They would need to try to talk him down instead.
Buck was watching the young man carefully as he teetered at the edge while Eddie and Chim set up an anchor point for his rope. He was the only one to see the kid miss a step and start to go over the side as he overbalanced when his foot touched nothing but air.
Buck was running as soon saw it, and everything felt like it happened in slow motion after that.
“Buck, wait!” There was no time for waiting he had taken off before they had the rope secured to his harness. He hears Chim and Eddie follow behind him just as he’d managed to reach the guy just in time to snag a handful of his shirt, but there was already too much momentum and they both went over the side and it was the side without the pillow.
Buck managed to catch hold of the edge of the building as the two of them went over. Almost instantly, he feels both Eddie and Chim gripping his arm to keep them from falling but the kid, Jason, was panicking and it took everything in Buck not to lose the grip on his shirt.
“Jason, stop, look up at me alright, don’t look down at them.” He calls to him between gritted teeth and somehow gets him to stop struggling.
“Hold on to me. Reach your hand up and try and get a hold on my harness.” Buck continues. Thankfully the kid listened and did as he was told.
Buck was already feeling the strain on his shoulders, and despite the hold Eddie and Chim had on his arm as they try to find purchase to bring them both up, he could feel his hand and their grip slipping.
“Alright Jason, on the count of three, I’m going to try and pull you up enough that you can reach up and grab my friend’s hand, okay?” Buck says to Jason when he lessons the weight Buck had on his bottom arm by gripping his harness. He turns his attention to Chim, “Chim did you get that?”
Chim called down an affirmative and Buck feels his grip slip again when Chim lets go of his arm, leaving Eddie to take over completely on keeping hold of Buck. In a last-ditch effort, Buck thrusts Jason upwards, thanking his lucky stars that the kid was relatively light and watched as Chim gets a hold of him.
The problem after that happened in a split second. In that movement, Buck had dislodged his grip on the edge of the building and he felt Eddie’s grips slip at the suddenness of it and he could hear Eddie's shocked shout, calling his name. And then he was falling.
It was a short fall, shorter than he expected, but it didn’t change the fact that he felt the shock of the impact throughout his body, the back of his head bouncing off the metal surface. Both of his shoulders were on fire and his back throbbed from the way he landed flat on it not to mention his head as well.
It takes him a long moment to come back to his senses, with his vision slowly returning after the impact. With a long suffering groan, Buck looks around while trying not to move to discover that he’d landed on a fire escape platform. The owners of the adjacent apartment building, peering at him in shock through the window.
He waves awkwardly to them and gingerly gestures for them to open the window, so he could talk to them before radioing to explain where exactly he landed with the help of the owners. Eddie appeared rapidly after that, looking shocked, relieved, and concerned all at once, seeing him in his unmoving state.
He gives him a once over, confirming that there weren’t any obvious breaks but easily decides to keeps him where he is regardless and orders for a basket to brought over to get Buck down.
“You’re an idiot, you know that right?” He ends up saying as they wait.
“Yeah, I know,” Buck agrees, knowing there was no point in arguing over it when they had so many times before about his recklessness, “but you know I would do it again if it means that Jason ends up safe.”
Eddie shakes his head at him, letting out a resigned huff, “Of course you would.”
“Just don’t ever make me do that again, I would rather not be in the position of dropping my boyfriend off the side of a building.”
“Okay, I’ll try not to, cross my heart and hope to die,” Buck replies as he mockingly crosses his heart in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Eddie rolls his eyes and shakes his head, “You’re an idiot.” He repeats but Buck could see the smile playing on his lips as the basket arrives. And then he busies himself getting Buck in the basket, and in a practiced move that they use during work hours, briefly kisses his fingers and touches them to Buck’s lips before lowering him down to the ground.
Buck once again ends up at the hospital after that.
He learned that he’d strained the muscles in his shoulders and one of his biceps, which came at no surprise to him, but he was thankfully cleared of any other injuries except for a concussion. He was also told he would likely have some bruising forming over the next few days.
And they were right. Most of his back ended up being covered in stripes of bruises shaped from the lines of the metal platform he fell on. Everything about him ached and he knew was going to be sore for a while, but that was alright with him as long as a life was saved.