eternity || epilogue

(general writing tag)

911 abc

tma

orv

and the two of them are polite afterwards but they keep making little comments about how lucky buck is (as if it's lucky that theo lost his parents. as if it's lucky that buck had to see two friends die in front of him), how he needs to treasure theo (in a tone of voice like they don't think buck has ever known how to treasure anything properly in his life). in every single word, every interaction, buck can feel it unspoken in the air: it's not fair. it's not fair that you have him. it's not fair that you get--

they can't ever quite look directly at theo. they look at buck even less. buck doesn't protest when they both cut the trip short early. he scoops theo up after the door closes behind them, presses his face into his hair.

'they seemed sad,' theo comments, a little curious, a little empathetic. plenty of people have talked about how much theo reminds them of buck. buck has told plenty of people about how much theo reminds him of connor and kameron. his parents saw none of this.

buck rocks theo a little in his arms. 'they are,' he agrees. 'but not because of you, bud.'

theo nods, like he trusts buck's word implicitly. 'okay,' he says. then: 'are they coming over again?'

'do you want them to?'

a little hum, then a woosh as theo flies his toy plane through the air. he doesn't like toy cars yet. his parents brought him a set of car figurines, then looked at buck accusingly when theo had burst into tears when he saw them, as if buck hadn't told them about the accident already.

'nuh-uh,' theo says, and the easy way he says it makes buck smile, despite everything.

'okay,' buck says. 'then i don't think so, spider-man. because we're a package deal, right? united front.'

not tagged by anyone but i've been fiddling with bits of sadist!buck for soooo long that i wanted to share a snippet! this concept sits really close to my heart and ive been uncharacteristically overly in my head about it so i decided to just fuck it throw a few lines out into the sea to reset myself. mwah everyone <3

The bruise on Eddie’s side is fading. Buck stares. The bruise on Eddie’s side is fading. Buck doesn’t want to hurt Eddie -- or, he doesn’t want Eddie to hurt. Those are the same thing, aren’t they? The bruise on Eddie’s side is fading, and Buck won’t do anything about it, because Buck is good. Buck can be good. He can be the kind of person who doesn’t let himself hurt Eddie.

His hand reaches out. Eddie’s skin is soft in his, his face slack. He trusts Buck implicitly.

Buck traces a thumb over the darkest edge of the bruise, the bit that matches up with the corner of his thumb. Eddie’s face scrunches a little in sleep, like he can feel it. Like he is thinking about Buck, even in sleep. Buck wants so badly to be there for him. Buck wants to crawl into his head and stay there forever, where Eddie can’t leave or go distant in the eyes or be anywhere without-- 

The bruise on Eddie’s side isn’t fading anymore. 

Buck locks himself in the bathroom, hands curled around the sink. His fingers tremble. He looks at himself in his mirror. Not as shaky as when he was going through withdrawals, but it feels the same. He feels sick to his stomach, shaky. He curls his fingers together, and they remember the soft give of Eddie’s skin, scar, bruise. He’s hard, he realizes, sick.

Buck is supposed to be taking care of Eddie. He’s supposed to be gentle. He needs to be good. He knows very well that he’s not allowed to leave any marks behind.