floyd

No one has ever painted grief the way Evan Buckley does tonight. Even last night in the kitchen, with his steel jaw and shimmering eyes, that sharp and sure sorry I’m sad that Bobby’s dead, falls short of this husk. Through the mourning and the funeral, through the gaping silences Bobby used to fill and the tear-soaked prayers for this all to be a wretched lie, Buck has never looked so hollow.

For someone so loud and tall, all-encompassing and bright, he’s sickeningly good at making himself small, at curling up like a dog in the pound. It’s jarring to see him like this after dinner tonight, where he’d been so open and booming. Laughing and poking fun at Eddie, catching up with Chris, waxing poetic over Pepa’s cooking — he’d been happier than Eddie had seen him in ages. He’d been okay, nothing like the shell Eddie had snarled at in the kitchen. He’d been fixed.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/67616826

Rating: Mature