ship: buddie
word count: 1260
warnings: slight spoilers for 2x18 in the notes on ao3, but nothing in the fic itself
If there's one thing Buck's learned since losing his leg, it's that phantom pains are a bitch. They're not common occurrences, thank God, and when he does get bouts of soreness in a limb that's no longer there, it's usually pretty manageable. Yeah, it sucks, but he gets through it. There are some occasions where the pain is so awful that he can't help but burst into tears. Those are far less common, though, which Buck is grateful for.
Most of the time, the pain sneaks up on him in the middle of the night. He'll suddenly wake to pain in a leg that doesn't exist anymore and be forced to either hop one-legged or hobble on his crutches to the bathroom in order to find some painkillers because he refuses to put his prosthetic on in the middle of the night. Before moving in with Eddie, that act was a bit of a humongous chore. After they moved in together, though, Eddie, bless his heart, began wordlessly rushing off to grab some aspirin to save Buck the trouble as soon as he found out about the source of the pain.
One night, Buck wakes up to a particularly intense pressure in his missing leg. Nowhere near as bad as it had been a couple weeks ago, when he had woken up crying because it had been too much, but still pretty awful. He groans as he sits up, not completely with it enough to wake Eddie up himself. Thankfully, Eddie's a pretty light sleeper and wakes up by himself when Buck sits up and shifts to sit at the edge of the bed, his hands on his stump, trying to massage away the pain that he knows deep down he won't be able to reach. Wordlessly, Eddie presses a kiss to the back of Buck's shoulder before getting out of bed and rushing out of the room.
Buck has no idea how long he's been sitting there before Eddie's returning kneeling down on the bed at his side and handing him some aspirin and a glass of water. Buck takes the items with a grateful hum, downs the pills and chugs some water before setting the glass on his bedside table. "Is it bad?" Eddie asks quietly after a moment.
"Kind of," Buck replies, still massaging just below his knee. "Not awful, but. Definitely not the most bearable."
