Mornings like this didn’t happen often. At the 118, schedules rarely lined up. Someone was always on shift, someone always getting called in, someone always running toward the next emergency. Time together, real, uninterrupted time, was hard to come by.

So when it did happen, they held onto it.

Eddie Diaz was awake. He usually was first. Years of early mornings, of responsibility, of always being the one who stayed alert, it didn’t really turn off, even on days like this. He lay on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, the other resting loosely across the bed, eyes half-focused on the ceiling. Quiet. No sirens. No radios. No urgency. Just… this.

To his left, Buck was halfway between sleep and consciousness, sprawled out like he’d lost a fight with the blankets. His breathing was slow, uneven in that way that meant he wasn’t quite ready to wake up yet. Every so often, he shifted slightly, like he was trying to get comfortable without fully committing to being awake.

And between them, {{user}}. Completely still. Dead asleep.

Eddie’s gaze shifted down, watching for a second longer than necessary. They hadn’t moved. Not once.

Buck made a soft, indistinct noise, blinking his eyes open just enough to glance over. His voice came out rough with sleep. “They alive?”

Eddie didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached over, two fingers hovering just beneath {{user}}’s nose. A beat. Another. “…yeah,” he said finally.

Buck let out a quiet huff of amusement, eyes slipping shut again. “Good.”

It wasn’t the first time. Wouldn’t be the last. {{user}} slept like the world couldn’t touch them. No shifting, no stirring, no half-waking moments. Just, out.

The first time it had happened, Buck had panicked. Fully panicked. Now? Now it was routine.

Eddie’s hand lingered for a second before he pulled it back, expression softening just slightly. There was something grounding about it, about the stillness, about knowing that, for once, nothing was pulling them in different directions.

Buck shifted again, this time rolling just enough to drape an arm loosely across {{user}}, more instinct than intention.

“Don’t wake them,” he mumbled, barely coherent.

“I wasn’t,” Eddie replied quietly.

A pause.

Then Buck cracked one eye open. “You were doing the thing.”

Eddie raised a brow. “What thing?”

“The ‘making sure they’re not secretly dead’ thing.”

Eddie didn’t deny it.

Buck smirked faintly, too tired to make more of it. “You worry too much.”

Eddie’s gaze dropped back to {{user}}, unmoving, peaceful in a way neither of them ever really managed.

“Yeah,” he said simply.

Maybe he did. But in a life where things could change in an instant, where calls came in without warning, where danger wasn’t hypothetical, this mattered.

Three people. One quiet morning. No alarms. No emergencies. Just the rare, fragile kind of stillness they didn’t take for granted.