Chapter Text
The descent into unconsciousness was violent, a catastrophic buckling of metal and bone, but the return to the surface is agonisingly slow. For a long time, there is only a gray, suffocating pressure, almost like he is thousands of feet deep under the ocean surface. Eddie’s mind drifts in a thick fog, a drowning man trying to find which way is up while the currents of anesthesia drag him back down into the dark.
Then comes the smell. It isn’t the familiar, comforting scent of Los Angeles. This air tastes like old iron and sand. It’s a dry, scraping texture that settles in the back of his throat, parching his tongue until it feels thick and useless.
When Eddie finally claws his way to the light, his eyelids fluttering against a harsh fluorescent glare, the first thing he registers isn’t the pain — and oh, there is so much pain. But, no. The first thing he registers is the terrifying, gaping void on his right side.
As a soldier, as a firefighter, Eddie has spent his entire adult life hyper-aware of his positioning. He understands geometry, he understands structural loads and anchors. For the last eight years, Evan Buckley has been his permanent geographical east. Whether they’re standing in the middle of a collapsing building or sitting on a worn-out couch in a quiet living room, Buck is the weight that balances the scale.
Now, the scale feels uneven. The space beside him is empty, cold, and echoing with an absence so profound it feels like an amputation.
"Buck," Eddie rasps.
The name comes out broken, costing him a shocking amount of energy just to force the air through his vocal cords. He tries to shift his weight, to swing his legs toward the edge of the bed he’s lying on, but the movement triggers a painful chain reaction. A spike of agony drives itself straight through his left flank, a jagged line of fire that bolts from his hip to his armpit.
A fractured, involuntary groan tears from his throat, and he slumps back against the thin pillow, his vision graying out at the edges.
Once the pain has lessened from the agonising white-hot fire in his — well, everywhere — to a more manageable steady ache that isn’t threatening to send him back to the depths of unconsciousness, that’s when he starts taking in his surroundings. He has wires attached to his chest, an IV line running from the back of his hand, the pain of it miniscule in comparison to the rest of his body. The rhythmic, clinical beeping of a heart monitor confirms what he already knows. He’s in a hospital bed. It all comes back to him at that moment.
The cancelled flight. The roadtrip. The diner. His argument with Buck. The truck behind them. The blinding lights. Him and Buck yelling as the truck rams into their car sending them off road. The car flipping in the air. Buck.
“Ah, good to see you awake, Mr Diaz!” a voice brings his attention to the doctor that just walked in.
“What… What’s going on?” he asks dumbly, even though he already knows the answer. Some asshole drove them off the road and caused their car to crash. Why?
“You were in a car accident, but you’re alright,” the doctor smiles. Eddie feels irritated at the grating gentle professional pity. But mostly because he doesn’t care about himself as much as he wants — needs — to know where Buck is. He looks around, sparks of hope flashing in his chest when his eyes catch the outline of a bed to his left.
But the relief is short-lived. The white sheets are flat, perfectly undisturbed, almost mocking him for daring to wish that his— Buck was ever right there beside him, safe, injured, but safe. But the bed is entirely empty.
“What about my friend?” Please say he’s okay, please tell me he’s just in another room, “How is he?”
The doctor shares a confused glance with the nurse, which fuels Eddie’s irritation. “Sorry. Which friend?”
“The other guy in the car,” Eddie forces, trying to keep his panic at bay, “Evan Buckley. We were driving to LA together.”
“Mr Diaz, you’ve had a serious concussion,” the doctor states and, well, that explains the blinding headache, “CT ruled out subdural bleeding, but some confusion is normal.”
“Confusion?” Eddie grits his teeth, “what are you talking about?”
“There was nobody else in the car with you,” the doctor says, unknowingly shattering Eddie’s whole world. “You were alone.”
The words hang in the sterile air, echoing in his mind as he replays every memory of that night in his head. He remembers the three men — three homophobic men — at the diner. He remembers their sneers and insults — “your kind” — , remembers getting riled up, jumping to his feet to defend his best friend. He remembers Buck trying to calm him down
Eddie Diaz is a very practical man. He used to be a soldier who survived the dust and blood of Afghanistan, he is a firefighter-paramedic who pulls strangers from the brink of death every single shift. He knows fear. He knows loss. In truth, he has carried far more than his fair share of it. He’s lost Shannon, his wife (in a car accident, oh, the cruel irony) right after getting her back, he’s lost Bobby, a captain who had offered him the unconditional warmth and guidance his own father never could, and recently, he’s had to say goodbye to his abuela, the woman who felt like the very roots of his family tree.
Eddie knows pain. He has catalouged it his entire life. He knows the physical agony of a bullet tearing through his shoulder, the psychological torment of his own mind trapping him in one panic attack after another, and the quiet, crushing sorrow of a breaking heart. He thought he knew the limits of what a human soul could endure before it simply gave up.
But this?
This isn’t a pain he recognises. This isn't a wound he can bandage or a grief he can eventually learn to carry.
There are two people in Eddie’s life who make up his whole life. The first one is his son, Christopher, but that one is obvious. The other one? The other one has been taken. Taken from right under his watch. Taken by homophobic, likely violent men. Taken because of him.
If Buck is gone, Eddie wouldn’t just hurt. He would be entirely undone. The practical man, the soldier, the medic, they all burn away in the realisation that his geographical east has been wiped off the map, leaving him utterly, terrifyingly lost in the dark. If something happens to Buck, Eddie will never ever forgive himself.
Eddie must have dissociated through the questioning with the hospital police officer because the next thing he knows, there is a new voice speaking to him. He blinks rapidly, clearing the crust from his eyes.
“Mr Diaz,” the man in the room — the Sheriff of this town, if his clothes are anything to go by — “I’m Sheriff Woodson.”
"Where is he?" Eddie demands, getting right to the point. He grips the cold metal handrails of the hospital bed, his knuckles turning a stark, bloodless white. "Did you find him?"
Woodson doesn’t answer immediately. He takes his time, sliding Eddie’s driver's license out of its slot with a slow, deliberate friction. He looks at Eddie, his eyes heavy with a calculated, bureaucratic disgust.
"Your partner," Woodson says. He doesn’t just say the word, he spits it out like it has personally offended him. "We’re still looking. We’ve combed a ten-mile radius. K9s, ATVs. Haven’t found this Evan Buckley, or anybody else.”
The way this man says Buck’s name — like he’s nothing but dirt beneath his shoes — grates at Eddie’s already fried nerves. But he can’t start anything. He knows nobody in this tow and law enforcement are his best bet at finding Buck. “Then we need more resources.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened right before you drove off the road?” the Sheriff asks, completely ignoring what Eddie said.
“We didn’t drive off the road,” Eddie grits his teeth, “We were forced off.”
“Right,” Woodson mocks, “You told one of my boys a jacked-up pickup truck.”
“An older model,” Eddie specifies, but deep down, knowing he’s not going to be able to convince the Sheriff who clearly has his own ideas, “with floodlights on the top and the grill guard.”
“You got a plate?”
“No, we were blinded,” Eddie swallows as he remembers that moment, his last conscious moment with Buck, “But I’m pretty sure I know who it was.
“We had… an argument with three guys at the diner. It seemed like maybe they were locals."
“Oh, we questioned nine locals,” Woodson says, leaning back so the leather of his duty belt groans in the quiet room. “What they recall is you and your… friend, Mr Buckley.”
“We call him Buck,” Eddie interrupts. It’s silly, and petty, but he can’t help but correct the man who probably doesn’t even care about Buck. He needs this man, he needs everyone, to know Buck’s name. He would scream it at the top of his lungs if he could, as if Buck would be able to hear him from wherever he is. They need to know his name even though it’s a privilege to even speak it. His name is Buck. Eddie calls him Buck. He’s his Buck.
“Cute,” the Sheriff sneers. “My wife calls me Woody.”
Eddie inhales sharply, the air catching in his chest. He feels dazed, a sudden, jarring sense of vertigo spinning the room around him. He isn’t stupid. He knows exactly what Woodson is doing. The man is mocking him, drawing a direct line between his own marriage and whatever he thinks is going on between Eddie and Buck, but it’s not implied out of connection or comfort. He can tell what kind of man Woodson is. He can see how things are in this town. The people of this town are hateful, small-minded. They don’t accept whatever they think him and Buck might. They don’t accept who Buck is.
The realization is a heavy, physical weight, pressing down on Eddie’s sternum. It feels like a door in his mind has been opened slightl, revealing a glimpse of something vast and overwhelming that he isn't ready to face. He can’t think about this. Not now. He doesn’t have the luxury of an identity crisis when Buck is bleeding out there at the hands of men who think exactly like this Sheriff.
He closes his eyes and shoves the vertigo down, burying it deep under the cold, hard instincts of a soldier.
“What we heard is,” Woodson continues, as if he hasn’t just blown open a box in Eddie’s mind that has been buried for years, “you and him had some sort of spat, escalated into a fist fight.”
Eddie’s eyes fly open. “No. We had words.”
“My mistake,” the Sheriff scoffs, “I think we jotted a few of those ‘words’,’ then he looks down at the small notepad in his hands.
“‘Now you want to murder me. Is that what you want?’”
“What are you implying?” Eddie ask, fire burning in his chest, “Do you honestly believe I did something to Buck?”
Again, Eddie isn’t stupid. He knows this man doesn’t know him or Buck. He doesn’t know the years of history between them. The countless times they’ve pulled each other out of the wreckage, the blood they’ve spilled for one another, the way their lives have become so tightly entwined that you couldn't pull them apart without tearing something vital.
He doesn't know that ‘kill me now’ was just Buck being Buck. Dramatic, pining, frustrated Buck, after hours of bickering and arguing that never really meant anything bad. It was the kind of thing they said to each other because they were so safe in each other's presence that they could afford to be reckless with their words.
“Did I say that?” the Sheriff tilts his head to the side, almost challenging Eddie. Eddie doesn’t have time for this. Buck doesn’t have time for this.
“This is crazy!” Eddie almost shouts, frustrated, “talk to the waitress, alright? Talk to the cook! He’s the one that chased those guys out with a shotgun! Alright? You need to find them. You need to question them. They took him!”
“Why would they do that?”
“Ask them!” Eddie almost pleads. He’s not above begging when it comes to Buck. "They followed us from the town. They ran us off the road."
Woodson lets out a short, mocking chuckle. It’s a dry, rattling sound that makes Eddie’s skin crawl. He stands up, his heavy boots thudding against the floor as he steps closer to the bed, looming over Eddie like a vulture waiting for a carcass to stop twitching.
"Look here, Diaz," Woodson says, his voice dropping into a low, threatening tone. "I’ve been the law in this county for years. I know how these things go. You two roll into my town, cause a goddamn spectacle at the diner, and then magically your car goes off a straight stretch of blacktop? Earl, the cook at the diner, said your boy was practically begging for a beating. Said he held a fork to his own neck like some kind of hysterical woman, shouting about how someone should just kill him. Said you two were having yourself a real lovers' quarrel before you stormed out."
The room goes completely quiet, save for the frantic, erratic skipping of Eddie's pulse against the monitor.
The words strike Eddie with a violent, disorienting force, but not for the reasons the Sheriff intended. Woodson thinks he’s striking a nerve of shame. He thinks he’s cornering a man who would fold under the weight of an ugly insinuation. But the cold dread pooling in Eddie’s gut is born of an entirely different, terrifying clarity.
The law in this county isn’t looking for a missing person. They’re not setting up roadblocks or checking security cameras. In Woodson's eyes, they aren't two decorated firefighters from Los Angeles who survived a catastrophic accident. They are two volatile men who brought their own ruin upon themselves in a fit of domestic deviance.
"It wasn't a quarrel," Eddie grits out, his jaw aching from the force of his clenching teeth. He ignores the flare of agony in his side, pushing himself up an inch higher against the thin mattress. "There were three men at the diner. Harley Wilcox and two others. They were harassing us. They called us... they made threats. They followed us out of the parking lot. Harley Wilcox ran us off the road."
Woodson’s expression doesn’t change, but his eyes narrow slightly. "Harley Wilcox and the Armstrong boys are good local kids. They work the rigs out on the north field. They don't go running cars off the road, Diaz. Now, if you and your boyfriend had a little domestic dispute out on the highway, you’re better off just telling me where you buried him. Save us both the paperwork, and maybe the judge goes easy on you."
The sheer, staggering wall of bigotry is overwhelming. It is a fortress built of local nepotism, casual hatred, and a complete disregard for the life of a stranger. Eddie looks into Woodson’s eyes and sees the absolute futility of argument. If he stays in this bed, if he waits for the official channels, if he lets the paperwork crawl through the system, Buck will be dead before a single question is officially logged.
The Sheriff isn’t an ally in Buck’s rescue, he is nothing but a bigot, an old relic from a darker time. Or, well, it seems the dark times never ended in this town.
"I need a doctor," Eddie says, his voice suddenly dropping its anger, smoothing out into a flat, compliant mask. He lets his posture slump back down, his eyes drifting away as if he’s losing his grip on consciousness again. "My side... I think something's bleeding."
Woodson sniffs, a sound of profound victory. "Yeah. I’ll go find the nurse. Don't you go dying on me yet, Diaz. We still got a statement to take."
The door clicks shut behind the Sheriff, the sound of his boots fading down the corridor. The moment the noise fades, Eddie moves.
It’s a violent, unthinking resurrection. Every instinct honed by years in the army and almost a decade on a rescue squad in California kicks into overdrive, completely bypassing the neurological pathways that register pain. He doesn’t have time to be injured. He doesn’t have the luxury of a broken body.
With a ragged breath, Eddie reaches up and rips the IV line from the back of his hand. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. The moment his bare feet touch the floor, the world violently disassembles itself, his stomach heaves, a wave of bile rising in his throat that he has to force down through sheer willpower.
"Breathe," he whispers to himself, his teeth clicking together. "Just breathe through it."
He can’t go out the front door in a hospital gown. He looks around the tiny room. He finds a closet, opens it, and finds his and Buck’s bags were retrieved from the accident site. He thanks a God he doesn’t know he still believes in and gets dressed, every move sending agonising strikes through his core. Then he tries to pick up the bags but has to swallow a shout of pain as his body almost crashes to the ground. He can’t carry their bags. He curses under his breaths then rummages as quickly as he can through their things. He ends up taking their (broken) phones, wallets, and keys, and decides to sacrifice the rest. Their clothes can be replaced when they're both back in LA, safe and recovering.
He looks around and finds two exit routes; one out of the door — the best option for his beaten body, but runs the risk of running into people that might stop him, namely Sheriff Woodson — and one out the window — a safer option, but much much more painful. He grits his teeth and makes his way out of the window, into the blinding, merciless crucible of the New Mexico afternoon.
The landscape is a vast, terrifying expanse of nothingness but a shimmering distortion of heat waves rising off the black asphalt of the distant road. Every step is a negotiation with gravity. But as the physical world demands his attention, his mind is entirely consumed by a much darker, much more dangerous internal terrain.
The guilt is a physical, heavy, rusted chain wrapped around his throat, tightening with every breath he takes.
This is your fault.
The accusation beats against his temples in perfect synchronisation with the frantic beat of his pulse. It is an undeniable, objective truth.
He closes his eyes for a fraction of a second as he walks, and he is back in the diner. He can smell the grease, can hear the low, aggressive rumble of the men’s voices.The three men had already been sitting there when he and Buck walked in, their heavy judgmental eyes tracking them from across the room. He remembers the taunts and insults. He remembers losing his temper, challenging the man, Harley, to a fight, ready to tear him apart with his bare hands.
Buck told him to ignore them but Eddie didn’t listen. His stubborn, military-bred masculinity demanded a confrontation. He had thought he was protecting Buck. But in his arrogant need to play the defender, Eddie did the exact thing Buck had been trying to prevent: he escalated it. He validated their suspicion. He turned a verbal harassment into a blood feud.
And now, because Eddie had clenched his fist, Buck is the one paying the invoice in blood.
If he dies out here, Eddie thinks, his vision blurring as a hot, angry tear slides down his dusty cheek, you killed him. You pulled the trigger on that highway.
A rhythmic thudding pulls him out of his spiral. He looks up and sees a local man riding a horse along the dusty shoulder of the road. Purpose wipes away his exhaustion as he calls out to the rider. He begs the man for help, explaining that he needs to get back to the diner immediately. The rider takes one look at Eddie, at the absolute desperation in his eyes, and guides the horse over, pulling Eddie up behind him.
The ride back to the diner is a blur of physical agony, each jolt of the horse sending blinding spikes of pain through Eddie’s broken ribs. When they finally arrive, Eddie slides off and stumbles through the front doors. At that diner, he learns of her. Bonnie. She is someone that can help.
Eddie needs to get to her house, but he has no vehicle. Outside, his eyes scan the car park until they land on a local man standing beside an old, beat-up car with a 'For Sale' sign. It’s a rusted piece of junk, but the engine is running.
Eddie doesn't hesitate. He takes out his wallet, doesn’t even try haggling the ridiculously high price — the man can probably tell he’s desperate and is using it as his chance to make extra money. It’s another strike against the people of this town. But Eddie doesn’t care. He snatches the keys from the man’s hand.
Minutes later, the old car is rattling violently down the asphalt, the suspension groaning as Eddie forces it down the road toward the address he was given for Bonnie’s place, and before he knows it, he’s standing at the waitress’s door, knocking frantically.
"You," she gasps when she opens the door "The boy from the diner. The one from the wreck. The Sheriff... Woodson came by ten minutes ago. He said you were locked up. He said you... he said you did something to your friend."
"The Sheriff is a liar," Eddie says. He takes a step closer, his hands raised in front of him, palms open, showing dried blood and tremors he cannot suppress. He looks at her with a raw, bleeding desperation. "They took him, Bonnie. Harley and the Armstrong brothers. They followed us. They rammed our truck until we went into the ditch, and then they dragged him out. They left me to die, but they took Buck."
Bonnie stares at him, her chest heaving beneath her faded uniform shirt. He sees the calculation in her eyes, the fear of the law, the fear of Harley, the habit of keeping her head down.
But then, something shifts in her lined face.
"Harley Wilcox," she mutters. "That boy’s been a rot in this valley since he was old enough to walk. Him and Nate and Petey... they think because their daddies own the mineral rights they own the town. They think they can do whatever they want to folks who pass through."
"Where would they take him?" Eddie implores. "Please, Bonnie. You know this place. You know where they go when they want to hide. The Sheriff won't look. He’s going to let them kill him."
Bonnie looks down at Eddie’s hand, at his trembling fingers, the hospital identification band still taped to his wrist. Then she looks up into his eyes, stares into his soul so deep he feels exposed.
"You care about him a whole lot, don't you?" she asks softly. There is no judgment in her voice. It is just a quiet, maternal observation.
Eddie doesn't pause to weigh her words. He doesn't think about definitions, or boundaries, or the complicated, heavy ways their lives have been completely fused together ever since the day Buck let him in after pulling that live grenade from a man's leg. He doesn't have the capacity to analyse it. All he knows, with a blinding, absolute certainty, is that a world without Buck is a world he refuses to inhabit.
"More than my own life," Eddie says. "If they kill him, Bonnie... there's nothing left of me anyway."
Bonnie nods once, a sharp, decisive snap of her jaw. She steps back into the house, grabs her own car keys, then she’s stepping out, gesturing toward her truck.
"Get in the car," she commands. "Harley’s daddy owns an old, abandoned drilling lease out by the dry creek bed. There’s nothing out there but an old corrugated equipment shed and miles of sand. If they took your boy anywhere to do something they don't want the sun to see... that's where they went."
As Eddie hauls himself into the passenger seat, the engine coming to life, he rests his head back. All he can think about is the empty space by his side, the space Buck should be occupying. He’s spent years building a life that only works because Buck is the other half of it. He closes his eyes and counts the seconds against the throb in his ribs, praying the desert isn't as big as it looks.