Chapter Text
The ER is drenched in a stench of fear, panic, and pain so overwhelming that not even the top shelf air purification and medical grade scent neutralizers pumping through the HVAC can stifle it. They got in a slew of ambulances courtesy of an apartment fire barely 30 minutes ago and Eddie can already feel the beginnings of a headache from the chaos.
This might be the worst shift of his life. A three-alarm apartment fire and an ER pungent with the scent of frightened patients and burned flesh, the blaring of machines that tell him somewhere there’s a patient coding, three gurneys waiting for transfer to the burn unit. The charge nurse is shouting from across the way to check all patients for smoke inhalation injuries, as though Eddie is a knotheaded idiot that doesn’t know how to do his job. As though it's not the first thing he does when fire survivors come in, and even if the nature of the catastrophic event wasn’t abundantly clear by the ash-covered victims in singed clothes and the presence of at least half a dozen firefighters… the scent. There’s no way to miss it. It's to the point that he’s wishing he’d presented as a Beta–their sense of smell is far less acute than Alphas or Omegas and god his head hurts. Worst shift ever.
But that's what he gets for choosing to work in an emergency room. Granted, it's not as bad as being shot down out of the sky and ambushed by insurgents…but, Eddie muses, that's not really a fair comparison.
He’s thinking about punching himself in the face–though that would be counterintuitive considering the headache–when he sees him.
He's one of the firefighters and Eddie’s half a second from assuming he’d come in to give the field report but…something doesn't feel quite right.
He looks fine, at least from what Eddie can see of him – broad shoulders relatively relaxed, an impressively thick chest rising and falling at a regular pace, long legs holding him up seemingly without issue.
He starts towards the man anyway, just as he barks out the dry, rough wheezing they look for when triaging could-be-harmless-but-also-could-be-deadly smoke inhalation injuries. And Eddie’s suddenly irrationally irritated. If this firefighter hasn't been triaged it can only be because he's refused care, but seeing as he's a goddamn firefighter he should know how reckless that is.
“Good luck,” one of the Beta nurses says picking up on his destination. “He won’t let anyone look him over. Says he can wait until the victims from the fire are dealt with.”
“Tonto,” Eddie grumbles in frustration.
His annoyance is short-lived.
The man's knees buckle as the force of his coughing wracks his huge frame and Eddie reaches out to catch him before he cracks his stubborn skull on the hospital floor.
And then there's lightning. Electrifying every point of contact between them.
Omega. Mate. Mine.
Eddie mentally scruffs himself at the thought. The completely inappropriate, totally out of left-field, frighteningly out of character thought that sits in his chest with an irrefutable air of rightness he cannot deal with at the moment. The man continues to cough but manages to grab onto Eddie – to keep himself from keeling over, not to get Eddie’s scent on him no matter what Eddie’s malfunctioning hindbrain is suggesting.
Focus, Diaz.
“Done?” Eddie asks as the hacking peters off. His voice comes out far too tender and concerned for a nurse speaking to a patient. He revisits the thought of punching himself in the face, headache be damned. The omega nods and attempts to clear his throat.
“Wait, don't do that,” Eddie scolds in that same gentle tone, “it's going to make–”
The omega’s hacking has Eddie seriously concerned he might start retching blood or stop breathing. And god, the sound of his omega fighting for his next breath makes Eddie’s heart ache.
A record scratch sounds in his brain.
When the –not his– omega stops Eddie continues, “It’s just going to make it worse, okay? Come on, you need some patching up.” He doesn't use his Voice, but he does intonate in the way he would with a partner – a clear command not to be disregarded, offered with an that same fucking tenderness because he’s at the end of a 18 hour shift and apparently he needs to go home and take a nap because madre de dios what the fuck is up with him?
Media naranja, His abuela’s voice offers, deep in his subconscious.
Walking the omega over to an empty station, Eddie takes him in. Even covered in a fine dusting of ash and sprawling black smears of charcoal he’s beautiful. A strong jaw that should be at odds with his overall youthful quality (but isn’t), a bitty port wine stain above one eye that should break up his facial harmony (but doesn’t), soft blue eyes that would rival the sky on the clearest day of summer. Eyes that are watching Eddie as he gingerly deposits the omega onto the paper covered exam table, that follow Eddie when he takes a step back despite the pang it causes in his chest.
Eyes that say the omega feels the same phantom ache in his heart now that they’re no longer touching.
He brushes it away. Compatibility on a level that forms an “Unconscious Immediate Bond” – a “perfect match"– is rare. So rare that it’s practically science fiction. Eddie is tired, his head hurts, he’s still facing an onslaught of scents and coming down from the adrenaline high that happens when they have a major event in the ER. This omega isn’t Eddie’s soulmate, he's just a patient in need of medical care and Eddie is just an overworked alpha that needs to do his job so he can clock out, go home, take a long shower and pass out for the night.
Media naranja
Abuela’s voice offers again, this time– impossibly– sounding amused.
Eddie’s going insane.
Once the omega’s latest coughing fit dies down Eddie grabs gloves and his stethoscope, grits his teeth and returns his thoughts to smoke inhalation procedure: how much smoke was there and how long was the patient exposed, how’s the patient’s pulse, how irritated are the airways, how difficult is it for the patient to breathe, does the patient need a chest x-ray to check for major lung damage…
“Uhh,” the omega puffs out. It's the first sound he’s made that doesn't involve coughing up his internal organs and it sounds like it hurts. Eddie fills a small paper cup with water. He passes it over.
Their fingers brush.
Lightning.
“S-sorry.” The man offers hoarsely, “I’m Buck, with the 118. My captain sent me in with the victims ‘cause my face shield broke.”
Eddie gives him the same immensely displeased, raised eyebrow look he uses on Christopher, “Your face shield broke?”
“Yeah,” He, Buck, confirms roughly. He takes a sip of water and then launches into…“the face shield is the see-through sheet that protects our faces, it's made of a poly-carbonate–”
“I know what a face shield is,” Eddie holds back his endeared (?!) smirk. “I’m confused as to how you broke it.”
“I got hit,” He takes another sip, “by a falling beam or something. It was heavy and it barely hit my helmet but it knocked my shield pretty good. Cracked it I guess. I was hopped up on enough adrenaline that I didn’t realize I was breathing in only about eighty seven percent of my oxygen. The rest was smoke.”
Eddie nods. Buck’s voice sounds better already and he motions for the blonde to remove the heavy fire-retardant jacket that's undone but still on his bulky frame which–
“Are you cold?”
“Uh, no? Why?”
“You’re still wearing your turnout jacket. Getting cold is one of the symptoms of smoke inhalation, the lack of oxygen in the cells triggers them to stop performing their tasks at the regular rate–”
Buck's eyes glitter and he perks up like a pup seeing a ball, “–slowing down means less friction at an atomic level and less friction means less heat ergo I’d be feeling cold.”
“Someone knows a lot about biology,” Buck visibly preens at the small compliment.
Ay Dios, he’s fucking cute.
“I like...random facts. I guess. It can get annoying.” He huffs a self-deprecating chuckle, a hand on the back of his neck.
Eddie hums quietly, stepping in close so he can press the stethoscope to Buck’s back to evaluate the condition of his lungs. He shushes the omega when he starts to open his mouth again, coaching him through the very simple task of taking deep breaths while Eddie moves his scope from one spot to another.
“Why would a love of learning be considered annoying?” He murmurs finally, when he’s sure Buck’s lungs are clear.
Buck does that chuckle again, somewhere between self-conscious and resigned. Eddie hates it.
“Most people don’t like a know-it-all omega. I’m already not exactly, you know,” Buck gestures to his body, “the…ideal.”
Oh.
Oh.
Eddie doesn't like that. The possessive, protective part of him is roaring to the surface, determined to crack the sternum of whatever hijo de puta would make Buck think he’s anything less than the perfect. How dare anyone insinuate that his omega is lacking in any way.
Buck’s sharp inhale drags Eddie out of his rage. He’s pumping out pheromones that clearly telegraph how offended he is on Buck’s behalf, and if Buck’s gaze of astonishment is anything to go by, he likes it.
Oh.
Oh.
Eddie holds Buck’s gaze as he allows a hand to to cradle the omegas jaw in his palm, thumb brushing soothingly across his cheek.
“Eres perfecto, cielito.”
Media naranja.
“Do you know what a UIB is?” Buck blurts, and then powers on before Eddie can answer, “It's a thing, a really rare thing, uh, an ‘Unconscious Immediate Bond.’ It’s only been found in Alpha/Omega pairs. And not even, I mean in the grand scheme of things, it's not even common among that subset of the population. According to the APA the accepted percentage of A/O pairs that experience a UIB is only zero point three percent and–”
Buck stops himself, seemingly realizing he’s rambling.
“I know what it is,” Eddie admits. He learned about UIBs in nursing school, of course, but more than that he remembers sitting at his abuela’s feet as she told the story of la media naranja. As the story goes, the perfect match was born out of the anguish of two lovers separated by a storm. They went on to live separate lives, never to reunite. But their grief was so great that they passed the ability on to their offspring to form a bond that ensured its bearers would never lose each other.
“Tell me more,” He says anyway. And god, the way Buck’s eyes shine…Eddie would listen to the omega talk about the weather if it meant he got to be on the receiving end of that palpable, beautiful joy.
“The UIB basically does all the same things that a mild bond formed through a bite mark would, without the biting. But in pairs that do end up bonding– you know the puncturing of the scent glands–they end up with an impossibly strong bond. Supposedly on a numerical scale that represents emotional range, UIB increases the effects of a bond on the body by about sixty to ninety percent.”
Eddie is tired. He has a headache, the ER reeks, the charge nurse is an asshole, it's the end of his shift and he wants to go home and wash his hair and hug his son and sleep for 12 hours.
But still he smirks,
"Well, then. Seems like I should probably get your number?”
Buck's grin lights a fire in his soul.