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Everything is so awkward.
It’s not supposed to be awkward with Eddie. It’s never awkward with Eddie, but this—this is awkward. Buck wishes he was driving, just to have something to do with his hands or eyes or attention that wasn’t Eddie. But there was no talking Eddie out of switching at the last gas station.
It’s not unlike Eddie, to insist on driving—god forbid he let someone do him any favors—but Buck can’t help but wonder if there’s more to it this time. Eddie’s drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, focused on the road in front of him like he’s a kid trying to earn his learner’s permit.
They haven’t talked since Eddie demanded the driver’s seat. It’s been—Buck checks the GPS—god, it’s been almost an hour. The sun’s starting to set, casting the sky in dull purples and oranges, casting shadows too long and light too dim.
They haven’t said a word. On the way down here, Buck’s not sure they got through one three-minute song without some conversation.
But that was before, this is after.
After what, Buck isn’t completely sure.
Nashville was an adventure to say the least, and last night, well, all Buck’s got to go on are slivers of color and sound and touch.
A door swung open, and Eddie, breathless but not surprised. His smile tilted to one side, wasted and wistful. Buck stumbling—crashing into him, hands on his waistsidestomach. Buck.
In the present, Buck risks a glance in Eddie’s direction. He’s still driving, still not looking. There’s music on the radio, but Buck can’t really hear it. The silence is too fucking loud.
Buck checks his phone. There’s nothing. Maddie texted him this morning to tell him to make sure he and Eddie didn’t distract each other too much on the way back. Before, that would’ve meant nothing, but this is after.
It still means nothing, Buck reminds himself. Nothing’s changed for Maddie.
Eddie’s breath hot and wet on Buck’s fingers. Buck throbbing with it, aching, I want you.
Nothing’s changed at all.
They take an exit onto a two-lane road, littered with red lights, but Eddie somehow manages to time them all brilliantly so they don’t stop.
“So,” Buck announces, far, far too loud in the quiet. “Are we—”
Eddie startles, and it ricochets down his entire body before he looks at Buck, and horror casts his usually dark eyes too bright. “What?”
His eyes were a kaleidoscope last night, all glazed with alcohol, eyelids heavy, head against the wall. So take me.
“I, uh…” Buck shifts in his seat. “A-Are we gonna drive straight through? Today?”
Eddie blinks a few times, like he’s got to shake off this nightmare of a question Buck’s dared to ask, then stares back at the road. “I don’t see why not.”
“There’s no rush,” Buck says, maybe a little more combative than necessary, maybe a little stung that Eddie seems so desperate for this trip to end.
Eddie’s jaw ticks. “It’s a long drive. I’d rather just get it over with.”
“Okay.” Buck drops back against the passenger headrest, and his sigh comes out a little heavier than he meant.
Heavy enough that Eddie asks, “What?”
“What what?” Buck grabs his phone, clicking onto a game he hasn’t touched in six months just to look busy.
Eddie huffs, then rolls his eyes. “Nevermind.”
A few seconds tick by, and Buck stares at the opening screen of the game before he closes it and sits upright. “You know, i-it kinda feels like it’s not the drive you wanna be done with.”
Eddie lets out a long, exasperated exhale. “Oh, god, don’t do this, Buck. We’ve got way too far to go for you to start this shit now.”
“You’ve barely said three words since we left Nashville.”
Eddie’s knuckles whiten over the steering wheel. “Neither have you, unless you count whatever tantrum you’re throwing right now.”
“I’m not throwing a tantrum,” Buck hisses. “I just think it’s weird that we’ve been in this car for almost four hours, and we aren’t talking.”
Eddie shakes his head, like this is the silliest conversation he’s ever had. “I’m just tired.”
More flickers from last night. A dim hotel room. Eddie gasping. Whiskey. He had whiskey, it was bitter and shot through with the sweat-salt on his neck.
Buck breathes and tries, desperately, to center himself in this moment, in the space between the driver and passenger seats. In Eddie, hands on the steering wheel, not twisted in damp sheets, Eddie, mouth set in annoyance, not whining Buck’s name.
“Okay,” Buck finally gets out, “then if you’re tired, we should probably think about stopping somewhere.”
“Is that what you want?” Eddie hurls it like a stone. “Stop somewhere, find another bar, deal with another hangover?”
Buck doesn’t feel hung over. He thinks about how he woke up this morning, one hand hung around Eddie’s waist, face buried in Eddie’s shoulder. Buck closes his eyes; he’s never had a hangover cure work quite that well. “Sorry I like spending time with my best friend.”
It’s the last two words that have Eddie scoffing. “Just stop.”
“Stop what?” Buck asks.
“Stop… acting like a-a moody teenager.”
Buck’s mouth falls open. “I’m not the one huffing at the idea of a conversation.”
“I’m not doing this.” Eddie takes a breath that shudders through him, and he narrows his eyes down the road like he can make it disappear.
“Not doing what?” Buck asks. “Is that how this is gonna work? W-we have one… awkward… night, and you can’t deal with me anymore?”
Eddie shakes his head. “I can’t deal with you needing to talk this out like it’s—”
“Like it’s what?”
Buck swallows around the blitz of feeling, the memory of Eddie’s thighs, the arch in his spine when Buck tugged, the dragging fiction of skin over skin, a thousand matches striking against Buck’s bones,
Eddie…
“Buck,” Eddie says, and the name electrifies Buck—like it’s the first time he’s heard it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s fine,” Buck says. “We were drunk. I can’t even remember—”
“—I remember,” Eddie snaps, and now he’s looking with every purple, pink, and blue of the sunset before they go ember red against the horizon in his eyes. “I remember, Buck.”
Buck watches, waits for Eddie to settle as he finally catches one of the red lights and stops the car. “What do you remember?”
The answer never comes. Buck doesn’t even have time to wonder if it would, because impact slams him forward, then back. It spears and tears at his consciousness hard enough that he doesn’t register the sound of metal on metal until a second later.
And then everything stops.
He blinks some of the pain out from behind his eyes, then finds Eddie, who’s got a hand over his left eye, pulling himself away from the steering wheel where the airbag’s deployed and glass is littered on the dash where the window shattered. It takes Buck one more blink to find the splash of red between his fingers.
“Eddie!?” Buck doesn’t think, just reaches out to tug Eddie’s hand away from the wound on his temple. It’s stark, spilling cracks of blood down the side of his face. “Shit, did you hit it on the window?”
“I think so.” Eddie lets Buck look for a few more seconds before he covers it with his hand again. “What the hell hit us?”
Behind them, there’s a dated beige station wagon and a frantic blonde woman stumbling out to head over to them. “Oh my god,” she says, once she’s in range. “I’m so sorry. I… I got distracted with the damn radio. Are you guys okay?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says.
Buck frowns at him. “My friend hit his head pretty bad. Did you call an ambulance?”
She tugs her phone out, then frowns and raises it towards the sky. “Ugh, the service around here is so bad.”
Buck checks his own phone and confirms that she’s right—the service isn’t just bad, it’s nonexistent. “Damn it.”
She leans against the window and tugs at Eddie’s hand. The touch sends a spike of something sulfuric up Buck’s chest and into his throat. Eddie resists, but eventually, he lets her look, and she lets out a low whistle.
“Oh, that looks like it might need stitches.”
Her hand brushes it hard enough that Eddie flinches, and Buck leans across to shove her away. “Stop, you’re hurting him.”
“Sorry!” She holds up her hands. “Crash has me all jittery, but, hey… my husband and I own a motel up the road. He’s a doctor, so he could probably take a look at that if you want, and we have a room you could use, no charge.”
Eddie grabs his head again. “We weren’t planning on staying anywhere tonight.” He frowns at the keys still in the ignition, the shattered window, the smoke billowing from the gaps in the hood.
“I think you’re out of options,” she says. “Once we get to the motel, I’ll call the mechanic. He’s about ten miles up the road. He’s probably closed for today. Gosh, I feel awful. Why don’t you boys let me make it up to you? It’s not much to look at, but the diner nearby has pretty good food.”
Eddie tosses Buck this exhausted look, and Buck hedges for a few seconds before, “I… yeah, I guess there’s not much else we can do. You alright, Eddie?”
A few different expressions pass over Eddie before he nods and unbuckles his seatbelt. “Yeah, let’s just go.”
~
Right up the road has never been more accurate, they climb into her very dated station wagon and are parked again before Buck can figure out what the hell the weird smell is, which is probably for the best.
The motel looks like it might smell the same, though. There’s a vertical sign that just says MOTEL in red out front, and the building itself is an L-shape of concrete, stained black with mildew or mold or something equally unpleasant.
“Looks great.” The words tumble out without Buck’s permission, and Eddie jams an elbow into his side.
Nora, which is the name of their assailant turned helper, finds him in the rearview mirror and smiles. “Sam and I can’t settle on a color, and I don’t mind the stains. Gives her character.”
Buck shoots Eddie a look, which he half returns before he grimaces and dabs at some of his still-spilling blood with his fingers.
“You okay?” Buck mouths.
Eddie just rolls his eyes, and Buck returns the gesture in kind.
They get out of the car, and she leads them to the door at the hinge of the L, helpfully labeled OFFICE. Inside is marginally less grim, or at least it’s got a vase of bright flowers on the desk to counteract the scuffed linoleum floor.
Nora slips behind the wooden counter and knocks on the door set in the wall behind it. “Sam, you in there? We have guests, and uh, you got a patient.”
Eddie’s shoulder brushes Buck’s, and for a second, Buck panics. He moves to catch Eddie’s arm to help him—furious that he hasn’t been paying attention to the fact that Eddie has a head wound, but Eddie just frowns at Buck’s hand as it circles his elbow. He slips free, then tilts his chin towards the back wall beside the door. There are honest-to-god keys hanging there, twelve of them, with no empty hooks.
Nora catches him looking, and she plasters that smile across her face again. Like she’s just barely holding it together. “Yeah, don’t get a ton of visitors out here. Nearest gas station’s about twenty miles north, and they went and opened up a damn motel 6 a few years back and plastered signs everywhere.”
“Oh,” Buck says, a little lamely. “Sorry.”
Her smile widens, and Buck squirms at the way it pricks at his scalp. “It’s alright, just means we gotta make the most of the people who do stop by.”
The silence goes on a little too long, so Eddie nods aggressively enough that Buck sees him flinch.
“Sam!” Nora calls again. “Get out here and look what I brought you.”
The words sharpen the prickle at Buck’s neck to something like a scythe. His fingers flex and settle against Eddie’s back before he can stop them.
Eddie immediately notices. His eyes slice towards it, then away, back towards the door Nora’s been yelling at. He doesn’t move away.
The door eventually swings open, and a broad man with mouse-brown hair steps through. He looks to be around Nora’s age, and his eyebrows lift when he sees Eddie and Buck. “Oh, look at that, customers.”
Nora chuckles, then sags. “Not exactly. This is Buck and Eddie. I hit their car and now it’s got smoke coming out the hood, so I told them they could stay for free tonight.”
The man shakes his head and gives alarmingly little reaction to the fact that his wife rammed into the back of another vehicle. He sighs and zeroes in on Eddie. “You must be the patient… Buck or Eddie?”
“Eddie,” Eddie answers.
“Nice to meet you, Eddie. I’m Sam, looks like Nora got you pretty good, huh?”
Eddie removes his hand and lifts his eyes, like he has any chance of seeing the wound. Buck’s got a clear look at it, though, and it’s bad. Half his temple is stained red, and there’s a dark, near-black gash where the skin’s split. “The window did, at least.”
“You’ll probably need to run up there and move the car at some point,” Nora says. “It’s right smack in the middle of the road.”
“Never ends with you, does it?” Sam’s voice is all fond exasperation before he gestures Eddie back towards the door he just came from. “C’mon, I’ve got a miniature doctor’s office back here for Nora’s many misadventures. I should be able to fix you up.”
“You really don’t need to do that,” Eddie says. “I think it’s mostly stopped bleeding. I’m a medic, I can—”
“Eddie,” Buck hisses.
“Don’t be a hero, kid,” Sam says. “You’re giving me something to do other than crosswords, and it’ll be a hell of a lot more inconvenient if you pass out and get blood all over one of my rooms.”
The idea makes Buck stomach turn a little.
“Okay.” Eddie lets out a breath and steps towards the desk. The motion pulls him away from Buck’s fingers, finally, and the absence pulses like an electric shock.
Buck suddenly, violently does not want to be away from Eddie. Can’t be. “I-I’ll come too. Just to, uh… make sure he’s good.”
Eddie casts Buck a look and opens his mouth. Buck recognizes it immediately, knows Eddie’s about to tell him to relax, because Eddie’s always telling him to relax, stop worrying, he’s fine. But this time, it dies on his tongue, and he blinks a few times too many before he starts towards the door again.
“Fine with me,” Sam says.
Through the door, there’s another room, fashioned like an office: a desk with a couple upholstered chairs, a bookshelf, papers, but there’s something immediately wrong. It takes Buck a few seconds to realize it’s the paintings on the wall.
They’re unsettling in a way Buck can’t pin down, silhouettes of people, arched at odd angles—like they’re in pain. One near the back is painted in watercolor, a man holding a woman, dying or dead, with his hand crooked at her throat. Both their faces are obscured, colors weeping with an acute, palpable despair, worsened by the run in the colors. It looks like the painting’s bleeding right out of the frame.
“Nora’s something of an artist,” Sam says, motioning for Eddie to take one of the chairs. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”
Eddie tears his gaze away from the painting and sits down. “Uh, y-yeah. Wow.”
Buck’s throat knots, but when he tries to meet Eddie’s eyes, Sam cuts off his gaze as he kneels to check Eddie’s head. Immediately, Buck repositions himself so Eddie’s in view again.
Nothing bad is happening.
Sam checks the wound, then starts the slow process of cleaning it.
The touching is all professional, but Buck’s jaw clenches; he can’t stop watching. All thoughts of weird paintings and creepy smiles scattered beneath a hand on Eddie’s chin and the flutter of his lashes at every dab of the rag.
Buck doesn’t like it, but he’s not sure why, why he should hate seeing Eddie react to another person’s hands on him. The guy’s a doctor, probably. And it’s not like Buck’s hasn’t had his hands on Eddie. It’s not like less than twenty-four hours ago, it wasn’t Buck’s hand on his neck, thumbing and coaxing Eddie’s fluttering pulse to something musical.
He swallows against the memory of Eddie’s jawbone beneath his tongue, sharp enough to cut. He swallows, and swallows, and stares. The doctor tugs Eddie’s head a little, and Eddie lets him, then breathes this sigh of a breath that isn’t pleasure and isn’t pain but definitely isn’t Buck’s.
“Eddie,” Buck blurts, for absolutely no discernible reason.
It’s jarring enough that Sam pulls back, and Eddie’s face screws itself into confusion before he meets Buck’s eyes. “What?”
“I, uh…” Buck flounders and fights with the follow-up, I wanted you to look at me. Eventually, he schools it into, “A-are you good?”
“I’m fine.” Eddie’s confusion twists into something else, and he turns his attention back to the doctor. “We almost done?”
Sam looks between the two of them, eyes narrowed, like he’s uncovered a secret. He ducks his head and coughs, maybe to cover a laugh. “Yeah, stitches would be preferrable, but so long as you’re careful, you should be fine tonight with a few butterfly bandages.”
He finishes his work, and Buck breathes a little easier when Eddie stands and puts a little distance between himself and Sam. Sam, for his part, goes to his desk and takes out a bottle of pills, dumping a couple into his hand before extending them to Eddie.
“Might need some of these,” he says.
Eddie accepts them, but he shoves them into his pocket rather than take them. Normally, Buck would take issue with it, because Eddie could absolutely benefit from painkillers, but something about this place has him perfectly fine with Eddie pocketing the pills rather than taking them.
Nora’s still there when they walk back into the lobby, like she hasn’t moved at all. “Did he show you my paintings? He loves showing off my paintings. They’re my life’s work.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says too fast. “They’re great.”
“Amazing,” Buck echoes haphazardly.
Nora beams. “I wanted to put some in the lobby, but he says they’re too special to show off to everyone. Hope you boys feel special.”
Again, Buck looks at Eddie; Eddie looks at Buck. The moment lingers too long, before Nora extends a key to them. “Here you go.”
Eddie stares at the key. “Oh, uh… can we get two?”
Buck tenses, twitches, then crosses his arms. It makes sense that Eddie would want two rooms. The rooms don’t look big, and it’s not like anyone else is using them. Two rooms. Two beds. A wall between them. Great, perfect.
“Two?” Nora asks. “You two in a fight or something?”
Buck makes half a word, which collides with the messy string of syllables from Eddie’s mouth. It all falls at Nora’s feet and tugs another one of those unsettling smiles onto her face.
“We aren’t…” Eddie says, just as Buck tries, “It’s not like…”
They turn to each other, both wide-eyed and off-balance. Eddie turns back first. “We’re not together. We’re just friends.”
Buck hates that phrase, but he says, “Yeah. That’s all.”
Eddie catches the tone, and his head tilts, like he’s going to glare at Buck, but he aborts the motion with a strained breath.
Nora stares at them for another moment. She bites her lip, and her shoulders shake, like she’s fighting off a laugh or some other inappropriate reaction. Eventually, she turns to grab the key for room eight off the rack, leaving seven and eight the only open spaces.
“Silly me,” she says, dangling a key off either of her index fingers, one towards Eddie, one towards Buck. “Sam will probably run up to the diner to get dinner in an hour or so. I’ll tell him to get some extra in case you guys are hungry.”
Buck takes his key, and Eddie takes his, a little slower, as he asks, “Did you get a chance to call the mechanic?”
“Yeah,” Nora says. “Closed until nine tomorrow, but I’ll have Sam go make sure no one hits your car. Or, well, no one else anyway.”
“Great,” Eddie says, in a tone that is decidedly not. “Thanks.”
The sun’s almost disappeared completely by the time they step back outside and head towards their rooms. They get just past room three before Buck says, “Is it just me, or were they super creepy?”
Eddie’s eyes widen, and he shushes Buck, then grabs him and drags him past a few more doors before he hisses, “Great idea, Buck, let’s offend the creepy owners of the only civilization for miles.”
“Okay, okay,” Buck grumbles.
He stops them outside the room marked seven and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Damn it, I still have no service.”
Buck checks his own. “Me either.”
It’s bizarrely quiet out here, which isn’t doing anything for Buck’s nerves. He didn’t think the town was this remote, but god, was he wrong. There aren’t any cars on the road, and the cicadas’ distant rattling comes in slow, eerie waves.
“What if we just… walk to the Motel 6?” Eddie asks. “We could probably make it there in a couple hours.”
It’s not a bad idea. This place is unnerving Buck in ways he didn’t know he could be unnerved, but he glances up to the still-visible cut on Eddie’s head. It’s gone purple with bruising at the edges, and even in the low light, Buck can tell he’s paler than usual.
“You look like you need to sit down,” Buck says, bracing himself for Eddie’s indignation.
It flares, immediately. “Buck, I’m fine… it’s not even…” He lifts his hand, then stops short of touching it. “I’m the medic, not you.”
Buck rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, right now, you sound less like a medic, and more like Christopher before he’s had breakfast. L-look, let’s just go inside and lock the door. They’re probably just an… eccentric couple. Being a little creeped out is better than that cut reopening or you passing out.”
“That’s—”
“I can tell your head’s killing you,” Buck says, then takes him by the elbow. “Let’s just go inside.”
Buck slides his key into the lock, and the door opens. The room’s fine, carpeted, and bizarrely colored, like someone pulled it right out of the eighties. It’s small; it’s good Eddie asked for two rooms, because there’s definitely only one bed.
Eddie collapses onto the edge of it once Buck closes and latches the door. “We didn’t even get our bags out of the car.”
“Maybe he’ll grab them when he goes to move it?”
“Or he’ll steal them,” Eddie says, “and the car.”
Buck walks over to the desk, opening drawers like he’s going to find anything. There’s nothing, not even a Bible like there was in the Nashville hotel room. “I’m supposed to be the overreactor, here. You’re the level-headed one.”
This pulls a reluctant smile out of Eddie, and his eyes are soft when they meet Buck’s. “Didn’t know we had assignments.”
“Yeah, you did.” Buck crosses the room to fall beside him on the bed. “Those paintings were weird as fuck, though.”
“So weird,” Eddie says.
Despite the mildly terrifying couple in the office, this is the most normal Buck’s felt all day. Quiet settles over them, but it’s different from what they had in the car—this is comfortable, familiar. Eddie leans back on his arms, hands sprawled on the eyesore of a bedspread, all blues and reds and oranges that probably went together better before they faded.
Buck says nothing, just traces the line of Eddie’s arm with his gaze a few times, before Eddie’s head lolls back a little, and it exposes the soft curve of his neck. A trail of bruises peppers just beneath the line of his jaw. It’s this mosaic of red-brown-purple; Buck’s fingers twitch as his throat goes wet and thick with saliva.
He remembers Eddie’s nails harsh at the skin of his shoulder, remember sucking, harder, harder until it dragged a sound out of him, then another one. Buck wonders what sound he’d make if he reached out and brushed his neck now.
Words tangle and evaporate on his tongue as he watches Eddie. His breathing’s even, this slow, steady movement that draws his chest up and down. Eddie’s always cut a hell of a silhouette, the way his chest folds into a waist so small Buck thinks he could close it in one fist some days.
Except before, Buck could bat the thought away, before, Buck never wanted to try. Now, there’s last night hanging between them, trapped in Buck’s chest. Last night, when he pressed his palm into flesh until he felt the jut of Eddie’s hip bone, where he tongued a line up Eddie’s chest. Last night, when he had Eddie shuddering, whining, begging beneath him.
Fuck.
Eddie said he remembered, and Buck so badly wants to ask what he remembers. Wants to ask if his skin’s still fizzing with the memory like Buck’s is, but he can’t get words out—he can barely get breath out.
He needs an excuse, any reason, to touch him, and his eyes wander back to the cut on Eddie’s head, still visible beneath the butterfly bandages. Buck reaches, slow at first, but Eddie notices and jerks to attention before Buck can get close enough.
“What?” Eddie breathes.
“I wanna see how deep it is,” and as soon as he says it, he realizes he means it—excuse or no. “That guy was weird—what if the bandages don’t hold?”
Eddie lifts a hand to finger one of the bandages. “Even if it didn’t, there’s nothing we can do about it if you’re not willing to walk.”
“Just let me see.” Buck brushes Eddie’s hand, but he doesn’t have to move it. Eddie lets it drop, tilts his head to give Buck a better view of the wound. Buck risks settling the pad of his fingertips against Eddie’s temple. Eddie reacts, not quite a shudder, but it feels like an echo of the way he moved last night.
The gash looks better than before, cleaner, but the dark line of it still makes Buck’s stomach knot. “God, Eddie, that looks like it hurts. I really wish we’d gotten our bags out of the car. I had some Ibuprofin.”
Eddie purses his lips. He digs into his pocket to pull out the pills he got from the doctor, then lifts his eyebrows at Buck like a question.
Buck catches his wrist. He doesn’t need to. Eddie fights taking Tylenol on a random Tuesday, let alone some mysteriously unlabeled pills he got from a shady doctor operating out of a seedy motel. But Buck’s not taking any chances.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Eddie smiles, but it falters when he glances down to Buck’s hand on his wrist. “I don’t know. Might produce some fun hallucinations. Been a while since someone dosed me with an unidentified drug.”
“Not funny,” Buck says. “God, I really don’t like being stuck here.”
Eddie is still watching their hands, and eventually, he tugs his free and massages it like it’s gone numb. “Could always ask them to give us a ride to the hospital. I could play up the injury, act like I’m dying.”
Buck thinks back to Nora’s almost manic expression when he looked at the keys. “I’m sure they’d be happy to, right after they chopped us into pieces and threw us in the trunk of their car. Besides, you’re not that good of an actor.”
“Rude,” Eddie says. “I was on a TV show.”
Buck bites his lip to stop the smile; it doesn’t work. “You were bad.”
“You were bad.”
Buck scoffs through a laugh. “Yeah, that’s why I’m not volunteering to act.”
The sky goes black enough outside that Buck has to lean back and pull the string on one of the lamps to stave off total darkness.
He doesn’t mean to—or at least, he doesn’t think he means to, but when he slides back to sitting, his knee brushes Eddie’s. Eddie starts, then stares at it, letting out a strained breath before pushing himself back to standing.
“I should probably get some sleep,” Eddie says. “Hopefully we can get up early and get the hell out of here.”
The absence of touch carves this hollow, endless pit into the center of Buck’s chest. This isn’t good. It can’t be like this with Eddie. He can’t keep wanting like this, can’t be wound so tight that every touch sets him off like a firework.
“Eddie,” Buck tries. “You could, uh… I get why you asked for two rooms, but maybe we should…” The bed is small. They’d be touching all night, and that would be bad, given what happened last night—it would be terrible; Buck definitely doesn’t want it.
He doesn’t want Eddie pressed against his chest, doesn’t want his soft, steady breath at his ear. He doesn’t want it so bad that he says, “Splitting up gets people killed in horror movies.”
Eddie’s answering smile is surprisingly soft. “We’re not in a horror movie, Buck.”
“Not yet,” Buck says. “Come on. You’re hurt. I feel like I should keep an eye on you.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Eddie’s eyes narrow because god forbid someone look out for him. “I can keep an eye on myself.”
“Yeah.” Buck stands, and he’s not sure what possesses him but he gets a hand around Eddie’s arm. “But I would also like to keep an eye on you.”
“Stop,” Eddie hisses, then yanks his arm free. “We’re not doing this tonight. My head almost went through a windshield this afternoon, I think that’s enough headache for one day.”
Buck huffs. “We’re going to have to talk about this.”
“Talk about what?”
Buck lets his silence serve as answer.
Eddie recoils. “I thought you said you didn’t remember.”
Buck tongues his cheek. “Yeah, so, I lied. You’re insane if you think there was any chance I forgot…”
The memory of Eddie canting his hips, driving up, gasping for air, gasping for Buck weaves its way into the tear of his heartbeat. Buck can still feel Eddie’s mouth beneath his, soft and damp, and he wants—wants so bad his knees quiver like they’re going to buckle.
The lamp in the corner flickers, and the light winks out, wrenching the color out of Eddie, so there’s only ink-black edges in the dark, only the glitter of his eyes beneath lashes long enough that Buck can still make every single one out, even in the dark.
“Great,” Eddie says.
“See?” Buck asks. “Horror movie.”
Eddie scrubs a hand over his face. “No kidding.”
Buck takes a step to close the distance between them. Something about the dark makes him bolder—makes the memories that have been haunting him all day more vivid, like something he can take back.
“What do you remember, Eddie?”
Eddie’s breath hitches even before Buck gets a hand on his waist. It’s so small, like something meant to be held, meant to be grabbed and tugged and owned. Buck’s eyelids flutter at the direction of his own thoughts, but he doesn’t back up.
“Buck,” Eddie tries, but it’s too much breath, it’s too close to the way he whispered it last night.
“Tell me.” Buck leans closer to his mouth. The shadows lay soft over Eddie’s lips, and his breath comes heavy on Buck’s as Buck glides a hand around to his back and draws him closer.
Eddie’s eyes close, and he moves like he wants to shake his head but can’t. “I can’t.”
“So show me,” Buck says simply.
He leans in, and Eddie tips his head up, just enough, for Buck to get a whisper of touch, of unraveling, before bang.
Someone’s at the door, knocking loud enough that Eddie stumbles back and Buck drags him hard against his chest. Buck holds him there for a second, taking a long breath, before the banging gives way to a rattling and the door swings open.
Buck twists, instinctively, to try and get himself in front of Eddie. Light spills in from the doorway, from one of the fixtures on the awning outside. Nora’s illuminated at the door, but that does not make him feel better, especially when she smiles that strange smile and holds out a white bag.
“So much for the deadbolt,” Eddie mutters.
“Oh!” Nora says. “My, my, you two just can’t make up your minds, hm?”
Buck isn’t sure what she means for a few seconds. All he feels is the scream of his pulse between his ears, and Eddie’s unsteady breathing behind him.
Finally, Eddie steps around him. “Uh, sorry?”
“Sure doesn’t look like you needed that second key.”
Eddie flounders, frenzied into all kinds of motion, fingers, feet, everything. “We were just talking. I was about to go to mine. We weren’t...”
“Just friends,” she says, “just talking… don’t you ever get bored of all those just’s?”
Buck puts a hand on Eddie’s arm and moves to stand beside him, staring at the bag Nora’s still holding out in front of her. “D-do you barge in on all your guests like this?”
Nora’s smile widens. “Only the ones I like. Here, I brought you some food from the diner. You two look like you could use some sustenance…” Her eyes slip past Buck and linger on Eddie. “Especially you.”
Ash billows up Buck’s throat so fast he nearly chokes on it. “Wh-what’s that supposed to mean?”
Eddie moves forward to take the bag. “She means my head, Buck, relax. Sorry, he’s exhausted. We appreciate the food and the room, really.”
“Glad one of you has some manners,” Nora says, and there’s this odd, almost hunger in her eyes as she looks from one of them to the other, this time, landing on Buck. “I’m kidding. I think it’s sweet, how you worry about him. Always nice to see someone who cares about their friends.”
“S-sure,” Buck gets out. He knows he needs to de-escalate this. Every look Eddie’s giving him is begging him to. “Well, we’re pretty tired, so… good, uh, goodnight.”
Nora tilts her head, like she’s going to push, like she’s going to force more awkward, borderline terrifying conversation, but she just smiles that horrifying smile again. “Alright, you boys get some rest, and don’t get too worried if you hear some noises. We have all kinds of animals running around here at night. Raccoons get into everything. Oh, and Sam did get your car out of the road.”
“Did he happen to get our bags?” Eddie asks, with more presence of mind that Buck’s got right now.
Nora sucks in a burst of air through her teeth. “Oh, dang it—I should’ve thought about that. Now he’s already settling in for the night, but I’ll have him run out first thing tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Eddie tries valiantly to mask his disappointment, to anyone other than Buck, he probably succeeds. “Thanks.”
Eventually, she leaves, and they hold their breath for a few long seconds before Buck whirls to Eddie. “Just stay in my room.”
“I’m not staying in your room.” Eddie walks over to the lamp that didn’t go out before and turns it on. “She was being polite. She brought food.”
“She barged into our room, and then she-she looked at you like she wanted to…” Buck’s mind sticks when he thinks about it, like a hangnail caught in loose fabric. “I didn’t like the way she looked at you.”
Eddie holds up his hands. “Look, we’re both exhausted. Let’s just… go to bed, in our own rooms, and we’ll figure this out—figure all of this out—tomorrow.”
Buck wants to ask if that means they’re going to talk about it. He was so close before. If she’d waited one more second, he would’ve had his mouth on Eddie’s—he would’ve had him against the wall, smoothing all that tension into something bearable, something irresistible.
“I mean it,” Eddie says. He’s placating, but it’s flowering the hope in Buck’s chest anyway. “We’ll talk. I just want to lay down and get rid of this headache.”
Buck sighs, then opens the bag of food. There are a few containers of vegetables and some chicken breasts. “You think I should just throw this out? I’m so hungry.”
Eddie stares at the bag. “It’s probably fine,” he says, but doesn’t sound convinced.
“They’re just weird, right?” Buck sounds equally unconvinced.
“Let’s just… save it till morning,” Eddie says. “I honestly just wanna go to sleep, and if I’m not eating it…”
He doesn’t say it because it sounds insane out loud, but Buck knows what he means. He knows they’re probably off-base with this couple, but he also knows that even if he wishes he could give Eddie something to eat, he’d rather die than have Eddie touch this food if he doesn’t.
“Alright, yeah.” Buck sets it on the table. “But I really wish—”
“It’ll be fine,” Eddie says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
~
Buck dreams about Eddie.
Eddie’s quivering hand on his neck. The taste of the moan that rolls up his throat and wrings out of his throat, thin and reedy. Buck kisses him and kisses him, and he doesn’t think he can stop, doesn’t know how he’s going to tear his fingers off Eddie’s damp, burning skin.
“Eddie,” he whispers, again and again and again, because it’s the only word that’s ever mattered. “Eddie…”
It’s a moan, a whine, a prayer.
Buck’s never been religious, but this feels like an altar, something sacred, and he’s taking and taking, teeth tearing at Eddie’s seems, the hollow of his throat, the line of his jaw, the corner of his mouth.
Distantly, something sharpens at his core, something dangerous and expectant—something that knows this is too much, too fast, too good. He holds on tighter, buries himself in Eddie, presses, and digs, like he can break open his skin. The pressure builds, and Eddie’s thighs quiver beneath him.
“Fuck,” Buck whispers. “You’re—fuck, Eddie.”
Nothing’s ever felt this good. It doesn’t feel possible for something to feel this good, but something opens inside him, a want he’s never looked at before. A want that threatens to ruin him, ruin everything, until he sucks some of it into the side of Eddie’s neck.
“Buck,” Eddie finally gets out, and all Buck’s far-off fears pulse inside it. “Buck, what’re we—”
“It’s okay, we’re drunk,” Buck says, sloppy, uneven, but it’s a lie. If he was drunk before he put his hands and mouth and skin on Eddie’s perfect, plaint body—held inches of skin that he’s touched but never felt—he’s not anymore. Buck’s not drunk, not on alcohol. “Shh.”
Eddie obeys. He listens to Buck, especially like this, and Buck coaxes his chin up to bite the soft skin beneath his jaw, still buried—buried in him but not close enough. Buck drags his mouth down Eddie’s collarbone, fingers sprawled between his ribs.
“God,” Buck gasps. “Eddie, you’re fucking… gorgeous. I can’t… I can’t breathe…”
“Buck,” Eddie gets out again, and Buck slides back up to kiss him, to taste it. “Buck, I…” Eddie’s fingers crook into him, his breath at Buck’s ear. “I…”
Buck crashes out of sleep, this violent, painful feeling, like when the car rammed into them earlier. His dick’s hard and sticky, but he’s not going to think about it. He can’t think about it. His hand reaches, blindly, for Eddie, even though he knows he isn’t there. Knows he’s in this tiny, gross motel room alone because Eddie wanted to get away from him.
“Shit…” When Buck grabs his head, it comes away damp with sweat. Everything is uncomfortable, but not because of the sweat or the mess in his boxers or the murder suspects that own this hotel. It’s uncomfortable because Eddie isn’t here.
His stomach hurts with a familiar gnawing, like it’s working up the energy to devour itself. He sits upright, all hollowed-out, and takes a look around the dark room. He’s hungry, but he’s not sure if food would make him feel better.
Buck weighs whether he wants to get up or try to get back to sleep. Before he can, though, there’s a thud on the other side of wall. The wall that leads to Eddie’s room. Buck’s heart kicks into his throat, and he throws the sheet off to step off the bed.
He’s halfway to the door, when there’s another eruption of sound, a quick, loud knock at his door. Buck sucks in a breath, and before he can get across the floor, the pounding comes again—frantic. Buck’s skin sticks too tight to his bones, and he wrenches the door open.
Eddie half falls into the room, all wild-eyed, like someone’s chasing him. No one’s behind him, but Buck slams the door before he turns to him.
“Buck…” There’s this urgency in Eddie’s voice, this panic that splits Buck down the middle he’s a log and it’s an axe. “Buck, shit… there’s…”
Buck catches him by the arms, eyes wide, wider when Eddie sags a little in his grip. The cut above his eye is bleeding again—only one of the bandages is still on—and his mouth is tangling around words that won’t come.
“Eddie,” Buck tries. “Wh-what’s—are you okay?”
“No,” Eddie says. “No, they fucking… drugged me. We should’ve left. You…” His words get away from him, like they’re slipping out of his mouth, and he blinks hard like he’s trying to get them back. “Fuck, Buck, we gotta go. We gotta go now.”
“What?” Buck’s brain can’t catch up. All he can process is that Eddie’s standing wrong. He’s swaying and swallowing. Buck holds him a little tighter and fights the instinct to pull him to his chest. “H-hey. Eddie, what are you… what’s going on?”
“The door,” Eddie decides, then shoves Buck towards it, but there’s hardly any force behind it. He’s all off balance, but Buck goes it anyway, turns the deadbolt and presses his back to it just as the doorknob twists.
Eddie stares, and the horror paints his eyes this bright, almost pale brown, before he stumbles and half falls onto Buck’s bed, never looking away from the door.
“M-maybe grab a…” Eddie swoons, then shakes it off. “Can you… get the lamp? You need to… shit, Buck, I’m gonna pass out.”
“N-no, stay…” The door rattles hard, and Buck presses himself against it a little harder. “Stay with me, Eddie. Wh-what happened? Did you take the pills?”
“No,” Eddie hisses, managing to sound offended despite the wooziness. “I woke up, and they were in my fucking room. Just… standing there. He stuck something in my neck, I…” He sags a little further against the bed.
“Eddie!” Buck pulls briefly off the door, but it rattles again and he jerks back into it.
He searches, kind of frantically around the room. Eddie’s right. He needs something to defend them—to defend Eddie. There’s no way he’s holding this door forever.
Then, as if they heard him, a sound tears through the air beside him—something rips through the door, hot and violent, just an inch from his head.
A bullet, Buck realizes, as it pings across the room and buries itself in the wall above the bedframe. Buck’s limbs all seize at once.
“Holy sh—” Eddie jerks off the bed, but his knees give out almost immediately.
Buck scrambles towards him, off the door, and it swings open immediately. Nora is standing there with the same smile she wore earlier tonight.
“See, Sammy?” she asks. “Told you they’d be fun.”
She’s got a knife in her hand, and she’s spinning it, quick, so it’s just glint after glint of stolen light, but the blade is sharp, threatening in the dark. Buck moves towards Eddie, maybe to grab the lamp, but Sam appears in the doorway, and there’s a silver-barreled revolver in his hand, pointed directly at Eddie.
“Alright, let’s all calm down for a second,” Sam says. “Buck, since you look like you got a couple more wits about you than your friend here, why don’t you go stand in the corner?”
Buck’s insides burn. His fingers clench, breath coming in horrible, shallow gasps. Sam’s still got the gun trained on Eddie, and Eddie’s arm is shaking where he’s trying to keep himself from collapsing to the floor.
“Don’t shoot him.” Buck wrenches the words out of his throat. “Please, you can have the car—you can have…”
“We don’t want the car, Buck,” Sam says, like he’s placating a child. “And I’m not gonna shoot him, so long as you walk over to that corner and get on your knees.”
Eddie manages to raise his gaze enough to meet Buck’s, but he’s only half there. Buck takes a shuddering breath, struggling, before he convinces his body to walk over to his corner, and struggling even worse, as he forces himself to his knees.
“Wh-what are you doing?” he rasps.
Nora smiles where she’s still twirling the knife, and she crosses the distance to Eddie. “Hi Eddie,” she says, tugging his chin up to look at her. “You got me pretty good. You’re quick.” She uses her free hand to finger her own cheek. “Not feeling too hot, now, though, huh?”
“What… the hell do you want?” Eddie gets out.
Nora tilts her head, then tilts Eddie a little, appraising him. She bends, so her mouth is at his ear when she says whatever she says next. Buck can’t hear it, but he watches every second, watches Eddie’s eyes widen, just barely, before she pulls back the knife and jams it directly into his stomach.
“NO!” Buck jumps to his feet, reaching, before Sam whistles and brandishes his gun.
Eddie makes this half-aborted sound, like he’s trying to pull in air that’s lodged in his throat. He shudders, then slumps into Nora when she pulls out the knife.
“Relax.” Sam drags out the word, still with the tone of someone besieged by unwarranted dramatics. “She’s not gonna kill him, and neither am I, so long as you get back on your knees.”
Buck can’t get the shake out of his hands, his bones, and he can’t tear his eyes away from Eddie, from the heaving breaths shattering his chest. “Get the fuck away from him.”
“Or what?” Nora asks, then gets a fistful of Eddie’s hair and pulls his head back so Buck’s got a clear view when she places the bloodied knife to his throat.
Buck freezes, and eventually, his body gives out on his own; his knees hit the ground again. Eddie grits his teeth, and Buck can see him fighting, trying to move his body, trying to grab the knife, but he’s just trembling.
Buck stares at the knife as it digs in a little deeper, as the first bite of red beads at the top of it. Eddie’s breath hitches beneath it.
“Please, stop…” It takes Buck a second to recognize his own voice, his own sobbing. His voice is shaking like the rest of him, splintered to nothing, but he keeps trying. “Please, just… wh-whatever you want. I don’t—please.”
Nora giggles and turns the knife, scraping but not cutting, as she slides it closer to Eddie’s jaw. “God, I love this part…” She lowers the knife, then tightens her grip on Eddie’s hair and slams his head into the bed frame.
Buck watches him collapse, tries to get up again, and too late, realizes that Sam’s not at the door anymore. He’s behind him, but Buck still hasn’t taken his eyes off Eddie when the butt of the gun hits the back of his head.
~
Buck’s head pounds at the first sliver of consciousness that finds him. His head hurts, his stomach hurts—everything fucking hurts. He groans without really meaning to, but when he goes to move—to try and do something about any of it—his hands won’t move. And that’s all it takes. Everything rips through him again. Before his eyes even open all the way, he gasps, “Eddie.”
“Oh, there he is!” a voice says from the side of the room.
Buck doesn’t hear it because Eddie is in front of him, on his knees, with his wrists bound together over his head. He’s hanging from a piece of exposed pipe on the ceiling, completely limp, only upright because the rope’s keeping him there. The gash on his head is torn open again, spilling rivulets that catch in his eyelashes, and the bottom half of his shirt is red, stain blooming from the tear the knife left.
Buck twists his hands again, but they’re behind him, tied with rope like the one holding Eddie. He’s stuck, not three feet from Eddie, but he can’t get to him.
God, Buck doesn’t know where they are. It’s definitely not the motel room. The space is dark, save a single light bulb directly above them, and the air is heavy and cold. They’re underground, Buck realizes. This must be a basement; he tears his eyes from Eddie for a moment to search for an exit. There’s a set of stairs off to the right, leading up to a door he can’t see. Buck finds Eddie again; his knees pressed to the concrete.
They’re both bound, but Buck’s in a chair. Why is Eddie strung up like this, like whoever did it wanted even his position to hurt?
“Eddie!” he tries again, but Eddie doesn’t move. He’s limp, and Buck searches frantically for a pulse or breathing or, “Eddie!”
“He’s alive,” says the other voice. Nora. “I wouldn’t hurt him while you weren’t here to watch.”
“What?” Buck chokes, and his vision swims with tears and heat. “Wh-what are you… fuck, what is wrong with you? Wh-what are you doing?”
He grinds his wrists, trying to find some way to get his hands free, but there’s so much rope, and the angle makes it impossible to get any actual leverage. He fights until he feels the warm, stinging rush of blood, then he grits his teeth and fights harder.
Nora purses her lips and strides over to where Eddie’s knelt. She gets his hair in her hand again, just like she did before, and pulls his neck up to caress the line of his jaw with the knife she’s still holding. Eddie’s eyelids flutter, but they don’t open.
“Stop!” Buck lurches forward in the chair, but a hand catches his shoulder and draws him back.
“Easy there, bud,” says the man behind him. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Buck tries to wrench forward again, but Sam’s grip is solid, and there’s another stretch of rope around his middle he’s just now reckoning with. “Pl-please, j-just… tell me what you want, I-I’ll figure it out. You don’t have to do this. You don’t need to hurt him.”
Nora taps the knife thoughtfully against Eddie’s jugular, and she bites her lip when she looks at Buck. “See, the thing is...” She withdraws the knife, then catches the right hem of Eddie’s shirt between her fingers. “The only way you can give me what I want… is if I do exactly that.”
She presses the tip of the knife beneath the shirt, just above Eddie’s hip, and cuts a slow, deliberate line up his side, tearing fabric and skin in one, long stroke. Buck’s eyes widen, breath caught in his throat, as he watches the knife, watches Eddie’s face pinch then twist with pain. Nora keeps going, over Eddie’s ribs, towards his exposed armpit, until the knife splits the seam of the shirt and it hangs loosely off either side of him.
“Fuck,” Buck says. “Please, please, stop…”
Nora smiles, and it’s almost sympathetic as she passes behind Eddie and grazes his shoulders with the knife. “You know, I’m already impressed, Buck. A lot of people look away because they just can’t stomach it, but you…” She licks her lips and starts the same process on Eddie’s opposite side, but she’s not looking at Eddie—she’s looking at Buck. “Even now, you can’t take your eyes off him.”
She finishes the stroke, and Eddie’s shirt flutters to the ground in two bloodied pieces. A quivering, half-breath falls from Eddie’s lips, and his head turns like he’s trying to force himself awake. His torso’s fully exposed now, damp with sweat. Buck can see the stab wound just beneath his navel, the trembling lines of every stretched muscle.
Buck chokes and tastes blood in his own throat. She’s right—he can’t stop looking at Eddie, because he’s afraid if he closes his eyes for one second, he’s going to lose him.
“Don’t do this,” he tries again. “Not to him, please—please, just…”
“I know.” She scrunches her face, the same mock sympathetic lilt in her voice. “Anyone but him, right?” She sighs contentedly. “Now, let me answer your questions from earlier.” She makes a come here motion with her hands. For a moment, Buck’s eyes widen, almost hopeful that she means him, but Sam steps out from behind him and takes Nora’s place next to Eddie, while she comes to put her hands on Buck’s shoulders.
Buck frantically tries to catch Eddie’s fluttering eyes, but he hasn’t managed to pull his head up, and every sound that comes out of him is broken off with pain and breathlessness.
“See, the truth is,” Nora leans in close so her voice is at his ear. “I’m… a romantic. Ever since I was a little girl, I just love romance, but not the heart and flowers and cards on Valentine’s day stuff. That stuff… it’s a dime a dozen. It’s everywhere. It’s boring. No, I like the real stuff. The stuff that rips open your chest and spills all your blood and guts onto the floor. That’s romance.”
“Wh-what?” Buck can barely recognize his own voice in the scrape and flood of tears. “What are you talking about? Just tell me what you want.”
“I am, darling,” she croons, then tugs his chin to meet her eyes. “What I want is to watch you… watch him.”
“What?” Buck can’t get anything else out, but he fights with her grip, trying to get his eyes on Eddie again.
She giggles. “This, exactly, I want to watch you watch him suffer. I want to see the anguish in those pretty blue eyes of yours.”
“Wh—no, no, that’s…” There’s oil or tar or soot—there’s black in Buck’s chest, in his bones. He can’t breathe. He’s tearing from the inside out. “L-listen, listen, okay, that’s…” He scrambles for words, for anything, any way to save Eddie from more of this. All he wants is to save Eddie from this. “I have, okay? I… I saw, just… j-just wake him up, okay? Cut me, hit me… m-make him watch. He’s already hurt. Y-you’re gonna… just do me, okay? Please, just… do me.”
“Aw!” She pinches one of his cheeks, then claps her hands and pulls them to her mouth. “You’re so precious! I almost wish I could, Buck, I do, but I’ve watched you two… and I’m sure it would make him just as miserable to watch, but he isn’t as… showy.” She inclines her gaze towards Eddie and Buck follows it. Eddie’s got his teeth gritted, halfway to waking. “He’s stoic, you know? I’m sure we could break him after a while, but you… god, you’re just…” She throws her head back, and her eyes are gleaming when she pulls it up again. “I’ll see the bat hit you as clearly as you’ll see it hit him.”
Buck nearly gags on his scream. He was so desperately trying to reach Eddie that he didn’t even realize what was in Sam’s hand. Sam swings, and the bat hits Eddie square in the stomach. Eddie cries out, jerks forward, until he’s caught and yanked back by the bindings on his wrists.
“Eddie!” Buck doesn’t hear himself scream, doesn’t feel his wrists writhe beneath the ropes or the pain or the blood that comes with it. He just tries to move, tries to get to him, but, just like Sam, Nora’s got a hand on his shoulder, squeezing, and she’s laughing—almost maniacal.
Eddie tries to take a breath, but it’s wheezing and serrated in his throat. His eyes go wide; he blinks, over and over, but before he can look anywhere, before Buck get anything else out of his mouth, Sam hits him again, this time in the chest. Eddie’s next sound comes out rasping and bloody. His mouth trembles, open, for a few seconds, before his eyes rise, too slowly, to find Buck.
“Eddie,” Buck says again, but it’s reedy, as barely-there and useless as steam.
“Like that,” Nora says. “Just like that.”
“You’re insane.” Buck’s voice is still wrong, all high-pitched and raw with panic. “You’re…” He holds Eddie’s eyes, watches as they clear, as they take stock of what exactly is going on, of what exactly is happening to him. They don’t widen, but his mouth twitches, just barely, as another stream of blood seeps from the corner of it.
“Eddie,” Nora says brightly. “Glad you could join us. I was just explaining to Buck about mine and Sam’s little hobby. We like watching people watch the people they love… suffer. All that anguish, it’s beautiful.”
Now, Eddie’s eyes do widen.
“You ought to give him a choice, Nora,” Sam says from behind Eddie, smacking the bat against his palm thoughtfully. “He’s been through a lot today after all.”
Nora hums, then drops her shoulders. “Fine. Eddie. Buck seems to want you to be the watcher, and him to be the…” She gestures vaguely in Eddie’s direction. “Thoughts?”
Eddie’s eyelids flutter, and he swallows what Buck can only assume is blood in his throat, but some of it still sprays when he answers, “Fuck you.”
“I’m… not sure how to take that.” Nora frowns, then looks at Sam. “Should we switch them?”
“Yes,” Buck tries again. “Yes, you should. If this is some… i-if you’re trying to drag this out, then just… switch us. He’s hurt. He hit his head. He can’t… you can’t keep hurting him, he’s gonna…”
Nora smacks Buck in the back of the head, hard, but almost playful. Buck’s vision swims. “We weren’t asking you. Now, Eddie, who do you want us to hurt? And if you say something nasty again, I’m going to assume your answer is Buck.”
Buck flares his nostrils, eyes on Eddie. Eddie’s not going to want this, because he’s stupid, because he’s Eddie, and he will always, always pick his own pain over someone else’s. But they need time. They need to figure this out, and if these people keep hurting Eddie like this… he’s stabbed; he’s lost so much blood. He has to know that.
Buck can’t make a sound, all he can do is mouth Eddie’s name in the shape of a plea.
Eddie holds his eyes and takes another, ragged breath that rattles through his chest. He looks to the knife in Nora’s hand, towards the bat in Sam’s, then back to Buck. The apology is bright and glistening in his eyes as he says, “Me.”
“Fuck!” Buck screams. “Eddie, you j—fuck, they’re gonna kill you. They’re gonna kill you and make me… you can’t—don’t do this.”
Sam pulls back and slams the bat into Eddie’s side. Eddie clamps his teeth around his cry, but it tears out anyway. Sam keeps hitting him this time, and Buck keeps screaming, keeps begging, but his hands won’t come loose—nothing is working. Nothing is working and Eddie is dying in front of him. Every crack of the bat runs through his body and up his throat.
Buck jerks enough to get the chair to sway, almost knocking it sideways, before Nora jerks to catch it and forces it back upright. “Okay, okay, Sam, hang on…”
Eddie barely lifts his head to look at him, but he does, and there’s streaks in the blood on his face, tears still glittering, caught in his eyelashes. He’s present, despite everything, despite the smudges of shadow the bat left, despite the split skin over his ribs, despite the pain raked across him before the bruises even form. He’s trembling, but he’s looking at Buck like it’s the only thing keeping them alive.
“Eddie,” Buck whimpers. “Eddie, please…”
“It’s not fair to give Eddie all the power here,” Nora says, then half skips over to Eddie with the knife behind her back. “So I’ll give you a choice, Buck…”
“Me,” Buck spits, but it’s hardly a word, lost in tears and snot and blood. “Me, just… please.”
“Not that choice,” Nora says. “No, I have a better one. This one’s more fun. I’m going to cut him, and you’re going to tell me where.”
Buck’s mouth falls open, even as his head shakes. “No, no, no…”
“You don’t have to,” Nora says, “Obviously, I can choose.” She sets the knife back at Eddie’s throat. Eddie tries to jerk away, and she presses it in a little deeper. “But I’ll warn you, I love the sight of blood, especially when it gushes. It adds so much flavor, and sometimes, I get carried away, and, well…”
“Stop,” Buck says. “Just—”
“Buck,” Eddie gasps and catches his eyes, words quivering with the rest of his body. “It’s okay.”
Buck wants to scream. His wrists are drenched in blood, but the bindings still won’t give, and all he wants to do is cross the room and shake Eddie, hold him, scream that it isn’t okay. None of this is okay.
“No, it’s n—” His words shatter at the fractured light in Eddie’s eyes, and he stares, disbelieving at the knife against his throat. Buck can’t breathe. “Just fucking stop… I can’t…”
“Okay, then I’ll do it.” Nora turns the knife until fresh spider-cracks of red spill hot over its edge. A ripple of movement runs through Eddie and strangles the noise in his throat.
“No!” Buck chokes. “No, please… don’t…”
“Buck,” Eddie tries again, cut thin and desperate by the blade. “Pl-please…”
Buck meets his eyes, and there’s a glint of something there, something Buck couldn’t see through his own tears. Couldn’t see through all the pain, all the hurt Buck let happen. All the hurt happening for Buck’s fucking benefit. But Eddie is looking at him, and Buck realizes, then, why he’s looking so hard.
He knows Eddie. He knows every line, every expression, every move. Buck’s eyes lift towards Eddie’s hands where they’re still bound, but his thumb’s tucked in, too far, much, much too far. It wasn’t like that before, which means Eddie did it to himself when Sam was hitting him.
Buck swallows the sound in his throat to keep from giving anything away. Eddie has leverage, a plan, however feeble. That’s something, but it doesn’t mean it’s any easier to open his mouth and tell this woman where to cut Eddie, where to hurt him.
“Where?” Nora asks.
“I-I…” Buck can’t get a word out.
“Buck,” Eddie tries again. “It’s not your fault. It’s…”
“Aw, aren’t you sweet?” Nora says, but every word vibrates through the knife, and Buck shakes his head like it’ll stop anything. “It will be, though, if he can’t make a decision.”
She’s right. Buck doesn’t deserve the reassurance, and he can’t keep stalling, because the knife is getting deeper in Eddie’s throat and the pain of it is seeping into Eddie’s eyes no matter how hard he’s trying to hide it.
The light catches it, casts it in the shadows thrown across his body. The light bulb is muted, leaving everything half-colorless, except Eddie. Even pale from blood loss, even like this, Eddie so fucking vivid, sweat like starlight in the slash of his collarbone. Buck can taste every battered breath in Eddie’s throat, can feel the warm, thick spill of the blood, gleaming half-black beneath the bulb. The strain in every muscle, the struggle in every flutter of his eyelashes.
Buck needs to make this better, needs to hold him, but instead, he’s got the option of letting this bitch kill him or opening his own mouth and making it worse.
“Eddie,” Buck says it again, barely audible.
Anything Buck says is going to hurt. He’s pulled taut by the wrists, trembling, bruises blooming like constellations between the cuts along his ribs. This was designed to do nothing but hurt—hurt and display.
The answer in Eddie’s eyes has nothing to do with pain. He isn’t worried about what will hurt him more or less. He’s worried about his dislocated thumb. He’s worried about getting out. Buck should be too, but Eddie’s not watching the most important person in the world to him be torn to fucking pieces.
“Th-just…” Buck’s voice tangles. “L-leg…” Buck finally gets out, because it’s as far from Eddie’s hands as it can be, because it can’t be his arms, and it can’t be his chest.
Nora tilts her head. “Both of them?”
“No,” Buck croaks, “not both, no…”
“Be specific, sweetheart.”
“Fuck!” Buck screams.
“Buck—” Eddie tries, but Nora gets the knife deep enough against his throat that it cuts him off.
“You don’t talk,” she says.
Buck has to focus. Buck’s eyes drop to Eddie’s thighs, shaking where his knees are pressed to the ground. The inside will hurt, and the artery—god, Buck knows there’s an artery, but he can’t think.
He lifts back to Eddie’s face, and somehow, he knows. He knows Eddie. Knife or no, Eddie is trying to help him, and despite everything, Buck’s brain clears a little. Femoral artery. It’s on the inside of the thigh. Eddie hit his left knee during the games.
It helps, but fuck—it barely matters. Both Eddie’s legs are shaking. Eddie’s already losing blood. Eddie’s got a knife to his throat. Eddie is being tortured in front of him.
Buck grits his teeth. He doesn’t want to do this; god, he doesn’t want to do this. “R-right… outside… just, please…”
Nora hums, then sets the knife against Eddie’s outer thigh and slices fast and deep. Eddie blanches, trying to pull back, but his arm’s catch. He swallows his cry. He swallows it for Buck, because he’s trying to protect Buck, but Buck screams it for him.
“That was fun,” Nora says. Her eyes trail up the length of Eddie, starting from the gash, to his ribs, his chest. “Do another one.”
Buck pitches forward like he’s going to retch, like he’s going to throw up on the floor in front of them.
Eddie shakes his head, and Nora’s gaze stops at his mouth. “Y-you… you know you’re… wrong. We’re not. This isn’t romantic. He’s… we’re just…” God, the words are all so wrong. Even if they save them, they’re so fucking wrong. “He’s not… he’s not in love with me.”
“Oh.” Nora draws back, then swivels her head towards Buck. “Is that true?”
Buck knows what he should say, knows it’s the only thing he can say. What matters is getting out of here, not how the words taste. “N-no—I mean, yes. Yes, I’m not… I-I’m not in… we’re just… friends.”
Nora huffs, then tosses a sidelong glance towards Sam. “You buying this, babe?”
Sam exhales long and heavy. “You said you saw something in them driving down the highway. I’m inclined to trust your instincts.”
“I am pretty good at this stuff,” Nora says, then cocks her hip and plants a hand on it. “But surely you two wouldn’t lie to me… I hate being lied to, and well, if this was all for nothing, then…”
Her gaze moves back to Sam, and he pulls the gun out of its holster on his hip and aims it at Eddie’s head.
“No!” Buck chokes. “St-stop, what are you…”
“Well,” Nora answers. “We can’t just let you go after all this, can we? And, quite frankly, I’m a little put out that we did all this for nothing. May as well end it now.”
“No, no… I…” Buck’s heart writhes in his chest, and his words grow like thorns along his throat’s edges. “He was lying. H-he… I am in love with him. I am so fucking in love with him. Don’t shoot him. Please, please, don’t… don’t shoot him.”
“Now, how do we know you’re not just saying that to keep me from blowing his brains out?” Sam asks. “You already lied to us once.”
“Fuck you,” Buck screams, spraying saliva and tears with every word. “You knew it. You saw it. Of course I’m in love with him. He’s—he’s the only person I could… he’s… Eddie.”
He looks at Eddie, eyes still wide, but a different color, a thousand colors, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. But how could he not believe it? After everything, how can he possibly look surprised?
Nora sucks her teeth; Buck doesn’t look at her. He wants to look up, towards Eddie’s hands, to see if they’re any closer to escape. It shouldn’t have to be Eddie getting free, but Buck’s rubbed the skin clean off his wrists, and the rope won’t give. He keeps his eyes on Eddie’s face instead, twisted to mask pain that’s too obvious in his eyes, in the blood still running over his skin like cracks in porcelain.
“Do you believe him, Eddie?” Nora finally asks.
Eddie’s eyelids flutter, and his chest heaves like he’s bracing for another blow. His eyes linger on Buck before they flick towards the gun still pointed at his head, as if that’s the only reason Buck’s saying it.
“Yeah,” he barely gets out.
“I don’t think you do,” Nora says. “See, I knew there was something about you two when I saw you in that car. All that tension. It was electric. And this—I’ve never had something like this, so… how about a deal?”
Eddie shifts his eyes back to Buck, and Buck holds them as his lip curls, words caught behind gritted teeth. Nora is insane, and evil, and Buck is going to kill her the second he gets out of these ropes, but she’s also right. Eddie doesn’t believe him.
Last night, Eddie was beneath him, writhing, panting his name, again and again, and he doesn’t believe Buck’s in love with him.
It all rushes through Buck again, the feeling, the touching, the wanting, all wrong in this dank, underground hellhole with these awful people watching them—
—Eddie trembling against him, body half broken open with moans, with Buck’s name. Buck fingering the sweat-slick notch of his spine above the damp sheets. Eddie’s mouth at his ear. Buck’s teeth on Eddie’s jaw, Eddie’s breathing, heavy, opening his mouth.
I love you.
“Wh-what deal?” Buck barely gets out, eyes falling to the bright red streaking Eddie’s bottom lip. “What?”
“You convince him,” Nora says, “and… maybe we let him go. Hell, maybe we let you both go, if you do it well enough.”
Sam lets out a low whistle. “Nora…”
“Hush,” she says, then tilts her head at Buck.
“Convince him?” Buck asks, even though he knows exactly what she means.
Eddie closes his eyes and chokes a little on the words. “I told you… I-I believe him. Buck, d-don’t… she’s just… she’s fucking with you. She’s not gonna… she wants you to feel… like you failed.” Then, he holds Buck’s gaze again. “I believe you,” a beat, a hitch, a shudder, “I do.”
Nora’s mouth falls open, all colored in indignation as she gets the knife against Eddie’s collarbone and tears another bloody line across it. Eddie whimpers; Buck screams, and Sam has to steady him in the chair again.
Nora gets Eddie’s chin in her hand and squeezes. He struggles a little, but it just tightens her grip and twists her expression to something of a mean school teacher’s. “Listen, I’m not a sadist…” She hedges, then glances at Sam, whose expression Buck can’t see. “Well, I’m a very particular brand of sadist, I suppose. But I’m not here to make you two feel bad about yourselves. I’m here to watch that beautiful, aching thing between you cannibalize your insides until you’re nothing but viscera and longing. And here’s the thing, sweetie, you’re not my first.”
Eddie makes a sound, but it mostly dies in his throat, and Nora sweeps a thumb over the corner of his mouth to smear some of the fresh blood before she continues.
“I know how this works. Know the expressions and the body language. I’ve watched dozens of couples, now, professing their love in their final moments. Stoically refusing to say anything, like it’ll save their partner. Even had one die of a heart attack before we finished—that’ll teach me keep my targets below fifty—so I know what to watch for, I know the look on this pretty little face of yours. You don’t believe him, and I am giving you both the opportunity to come to an understanding before we move on, which I think is pretty damn nice of me… so, are you going to be quiet and listen…”
Eddie shudders but says nothing.
Nora keeps going, voice low and dangerous, “Or shall we switch and put you in that chair?”
Eddie’s eyelids flutter. He can’t move his head, can’t meet Buck’s eyes from this angle, and Buck can’t catch his breath long enough to spit out any words.
Eventually, Eddie works out a bloodied, “Okay.”
Nora brightens, then lets his chin go and turns her attention to Buck. “Seems like he’s a hard one to crack, Buck. Good luck.”
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, and Buck watches him. Words unravel in his chest, clawing at the edges of his throat like climbers with rubber pickaxes. This isn’t how this is supposed to happen. Eddie’s not supposed to be bleeding, swallowing cries and gasps of pain. He’s not supposed to be hurt, and they aren’t supposed to be tied and bound in front of two maniacs.
Buck’s never thought about how this was going to happen. He’s never thought about it at all. Not before watching Eddie in that bar last night, not before knocking on his door and seeing that lazy smile on his face.
“Eddie,” Buck tries, and slowly, inevitably, Eddie opens his eyes, and there’s that technicolor apology again. Buck reads what it’s for in every shade of brown—for making Buck watch this, for last night, for not believing him, for wanting to.
“Eddie,” Buck says again because right now, it’s the only word he knows how to say. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t said it—I’m sorry that we’re here. I… I don’t know what I thought, or-or maybe I didn’t think… I just needed you with me, and if I said it, then…”
Eddie’s face twitches, and his mouth opens, like he’s going to say something, but all that comes out is another jagged, torn-out breath.
“I do love you, Eddie. I really do. I love you so much that I can’t… I can’t think about it, because if I do, i-it’ll crush me.” Buck’s voice pitches and quakes with tears. “It’s like my heart’s not beating when you aren’t around, or, or maybe it is, but it’s wrong, like it’s diseased, like it’s killing me. I… Eddie, you have to know, okay? Why do you keep looking at me like you don’t know?”
Eddie flinches, almost looks away, but stops himself. His eyelids lower, casting his lashes like shields, but they don’t close. They’re in this impossible situation, but right now, Nora and Sam don’t matter. Right now, whatever comes next—deal or no—Buck needs Eddie to hear him.
“I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this, t-to have something tear you to pieces and-and… remake you and keep you warm all at the same time. I feel like I’m on fire when we’re together, but I-I can’t be away from you. I need you. I-I didn’t know it was possible to want to be on fire, to be comfortable and happy and safe when you’re on fire, Eddie. I love you. I love you so much that the word love feels flimsy and stupid. The word friends, or, fuck, best friends, feel weak and wrong and useless. We’re not just friends. I’m not just in love with you. There is no just, Eddie. There’s you, and you are the reason I fucking breathe.”
Eddie pulls in air that sticks and crackles in his throat. His mouth makes the shape of Buck’s name, but no sound comes with it. Buck needs to get to him. Needs to get out of this chair, needs to protect him, because if he doesn’t protect Eddie, then the earth’s core may as well collapse. Because if he doesn’t protect Eddie, there is nothing left.
“Wow,” Nora cuts through the moment and brings her hands together in a single clap. “Wow, I… god, does this make up for the heart attack guy. That was… incredible.” She bites her lip and squeezes her thighs together, and Buck snarls as he tries so, so hard not to see. “You two are by far the best I’ve ever had.”
“Hang on,” Sam says, checking Buck’s ropes on more time as he steps forward. “Let’s take a step back. From where I’m standing… Buck, here, is the one doing all the work.” He smacks the bat against his palm again as he steps in front of Eddie, obscuring Buck’s view of him, which sends bolts of crimson-hooked panic through Buck’s center. “What about you, hm?” He raises the bat. Buck chokes on a plea, but all Sam does is get it beneath Eddie’s chin to pull his gaze up. “Mr. Mild-Mannered here hasn’t done much other than take a beating. It’s not romance if it’s not both of them, Nora.”
Nora’s clicks her tongue and puts her hands on her hips again. “You’re so mean. He’s not a talker, Sammy, but fine, have your fun… what do you want him to do?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “Maybe you were telling the truth before. I mean, sure, your buddy over there’s been panting after you since we got here, but you… I don’t know. You keep things pretty close to your chest.” He taps the bat against Eddie’s chest to emphasis the point.
“I…” Eddie’s voice falls away too fast.
“Not even gonna try?” Sam pushes. “Maybe we should switch you two boys. Let you watch for a second and see if I can see it in your eyes, since you don’t want to use that pretty mouth of yours.”
“No, no, don’t,” Eddie chokes. “I do… I…”
“Do what?” Sam lifts the bat to knock his chin again.
Buck can’t see him, but he can hear Eddie’s breaths—they’re wet, thick and battered, like they’re hurting. Eddie will try, of course he will, but Buck risks a glance towards the rope holding his wrists together. His thumbs crushed against his hand hard enough that it looks broken; his arms are quivering with the effort. He needs another second. He needs the attention off him.
“Hey! I thought you hated liars.” Buck swings his eyes towards Nora. “You said… you said if I convinced him that you’d let us go. I did. I know I did. Tell your bastard husband to leave him alone. He’s hurt. He’s lost too much blood. You drugged him. He’s not thinking straight, it wouldn’t be real… please.”
Nora sighs, then watches Sam and Eddie for a few more seconds. “Well, first off, I said I might let you go, but listening to you, I just got more excited for the idea of you watching him die.” Buck’s chokes. He should have known this, maybe, distantly, he did but hearing it so plainly has him lurching in the chair again.
Apparently, though, Sam’s tied it to a metal bolt in the ground, and it doesn’t move this time.
“I’ll let you hold him, though,” she says. “You can shush and pet and love him while he bleeds out in your arms.”
“N-no,” Buck whispers, drowned in a flesh flood of tears. “No, you can’t… you can’t.”
Sam’s moved enough that Eddie catches Buck’s eyes again. Buck gets it. He can’t freak out. He can’t be emotional. He needs to help. They need Sam’s attention off Eddie.
Buck takes a few moments of scattered, fractured breaths before a few syllables spill out of him, and then, “W-wait, okay, you-you said… if, if… wouldn’t it be… more tragic, m-more romantic… if…” Bile climbs up his throat, and when he swallows, it’s bitter and tinged in blood. “I-if he doesn’t get to say it… i-if he…”
Nora’s eyebrows lift, and she looks at Sam, who’s looking at her like he knows he’s not about to like what’s coming.
“Oh, man…” She sucks in a breath. “Babe, I’m sorry, but he’s right. I promise I’ll let you run it next time, I just… I need this one.”
Sam groans, like he’s having to go to her favorite restaurant again, then rears back and hits Eddie’s cheek with the bat so hard the wood shatters. The pieces explode and clatter across the ground. Eddie head jerks sideways hard, but he doesn’t make a sound, just chokes noiselessly until a glob of spit and blood splattered onto the ground in front of him, splatters across the floor and Sam’s boots.
“FUCK!” Buck screams and shakes his head. Eddie’s eyes are wide, blinking, and glazed in a veil of shock and pain. “I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking—”
Impossibly, Eddie rights his head, trembling, and finds Buck again.
Buck can’t lose it. He needs to distract them. He needs to help Eddie get loose since Buck’s wrists still haven’t found even an inch of space.
He steels himself, and for the first time since he came into the room, he squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, lets this awful, keening sound peel between his teeth.
“Hey,” Nora says. “Don’t do that. Open your eyes.”
Buck doesn’t. “I’m not doing this. I’m not gonna watch you kill him.”
Buck feels Sam cross the room and get a hand on his jaw, like he can wrench his eyes open; Buck doesn’t let him. He hears more shifting, knows instinctively that Nora’s beside Eddie. Knows she’s got that damn knife.
“Buck,” she says, gentle, “open your eyes or I’ll cut his throat right now.”
Fear tears up Buck’s spine, coils around every bone in his body, but she won’t. She won’t do it unless it’s on her terms. She needs Buck to watch.
“Fine,” Buck says, and it feels like swallowing a blade. “Do it. I’m not… I’m not watching.”
“Buck!” Nora huffs. “Don’t make me mad. You were doing so well.”
Buck doesn’t answer. Sam slams a hand across his jaw, and his head spins, but he doesn’t open his eyes. Sam hits him again, still, he keeps them closed, even when he feels his lip swell and burst.
“Buck,” Eddie breathes.
Buck opens his eyes in time to see Eddie slide his hands free. He drops, then wrenches off his knees—it’s unreal he even as the strength, but he grabs a piece of the shattered bat and jams it into Nora’s back. They both fall to the ground. Sam screams and yanks the gun out of its holster again.
Buck jerks his head hard enough to knock the gun, and Sam fumbles and nearly loses his grip. It’s enough time for Eddie to get back up and grab the knife. Sam aims the barrel and fires. Buck shouts, but the shot misses and rips against the wood of the stairs.
Eddie slams into Sam, knife first, and the gun clatters to the floor before Eddie whirls and saws the knife through the ropes keeping Buck in place.
“Eddie,” Buck rasps.
“The gun,” is Eddie’s answer.
“Damn it, Sam,” Nora groans.
Sam’s already moving towards the gun again, but Buck’s faster. He throws himself on top of him, and they wrestle for it, all hands and teeth and grunting. Buck’s wrists throb, cut deep enough that he’s pretty sure some of the bone’s exposed. Sam yanks, and Buck’s fingers loosen, but Eddie’s voice, all cut up and chattering, stops him.
“Drop it,” Eddie says, and Buck looks across to see Eddie with Nora pulled against him, knife to her throat in the most beautiful reversal Buck’s ever witnessed. “Now.”
Buck doesn’t wait for him to decide. He uses the moment to slam a fist into Sam’s face. He snatches the gun and screams, breaking it across Sam’s jaw, his temple, his forehead. Anger pulses through every part of him, and he lets it—just for a second, he lets it consume him. He doesn’t stop when he sees blood, when he hears a crack, then another one.
“Buck!” Eddie calls, and Buck’s hands shake as he pauses.
“No,” Nora whispers, and her voice is edged with something different now, something seeping and sticky. “No, no, keep going. Kill him. Kill him and let me hold him while he dies. Please… please let me hold him.”
Her eyes are alight, like she doesn’t even feel the blade Eddie’s got to her throat. She’s watching Sam, enamored, like he’s performing an erotic dance, not choking on chipped pieces of his broken nose.
Buck sees it first. Eddie, appropriately horrified, loosens his grip on the knife—the knife he never wanted to cut her with. She notices too. She grabs it, twists and grabs, forces it against Eddie’s jaw, and it slices a line. Eddie shoves her away, stumbles back, but she keeps the knife. She squeezes it, lunges, and—
BANG.
Buck blinks. He feels his finger squeezed on the trigger, sees the burst of blood and the shattered mess of her jaw. She falls, and Eddie sinks back into the wall.
Sam screams and sprints across the room. Buck scrambles, fumbling to understand how to ready another shot, but he doesn’t need to. Sam falls to his knees beside Nora, gathering her in his arms. “Sweetheart, baby… god, oh… oh, no… Nora… my sweet Nora…”
She gurgles, but Buck isn’t listening. He keeps his grip on the gun and runs across to grab Eddie. He’s still against the wall, upright, but his face and torso are smeared and slick with blood. His breathing’s all wrong. One of his hands is pressed against his chest, thumb purple and out of place.
“Eddie,” Buck gasps. “Fuck, hey, l-look at me.”
Eddie’s half limp, so there’s no resistance as Buck pulls Eddie’s face toward his. They’re too bright, shot through with the past few hours, with the unfathomable wounds all over him.
“Buck,” is all he says, and even that is bloody.
“We’re gonna get you help, okay?” Buck promises, and his voice is still tear-choked as he strokes Eddie’s cheek as gently as he can. “I’m so sorry. You saved us. I-I’m so sorry. I-I couldn’t get my hands—god, Eddie, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“No,” Eddie gets out alongside another swell of blood. “Y-you did good—you… b-but, Buck, w-watch them… we need…” He has to use his whole body to gesture towards the two monsters still in the room.
Sam’s hunched over Nora, cooing into her ear and petting her hair. It’s like he’s forgotten Eddie and Buck entirely.
“I-I should kill him,” Buck whispers. He doesn’t mean to, but the sight of Sam, the sight of Eddie, the memory of the bat against Eddie’s ribs and those awful, suffocated whimpers of pain. “He tried to—fuck, Eddie, you’re…”
“No, y-you don’t wanna…” Eddie says. “You shouldn’t have… it’ll catch up to you, Buck… it’ll… I’m so sorry…”
Buck shakes his head. “Wh-why didn’t you… why didn’t you let them do it to me? You were already… why did you have to… Eddie.”
Eddie scoffs, and blood sprays out of his mouth and speckles Buck’s jaw where he’s bent close enough. “You wouldn’t… have switched… either.”
He’s right, but Buck shakes his head. “Eddie.”
“I’m sorry,” Eddie tries.
“It’s okay, Eddie,” Buck answers, thumb still soft and stroking on his cheek. “It’s okay.”
“Just don’t…” A whimper slips between the words. “Kill him, Buck.”
He sways; Buck changes his grip to Eddie’s waist to keep him upright. “S-sure, yeah, w-whatever you want, Eddie… w-we… we gotta find a phone.”
“It’s in my office,” Sam says, all monotone. “Under the desk. It’s a landline. You can use it to call the cops. Keys to my truck are in there too if you wanna head to the hospital.”
Buck’s eyes widen. It has to be a trap. There’s no way he’d give that up, no way he wouldn’t want revenge. But then, Buck’s eyes watch the way his hands stroke Nora’s limp face, watch the life leave him as it leaves her, and in a sickening twist of his gut, he recognizes it. He sees himself. He knows Sam is telling the truth, that it wouldn’t matter if Buck lifted the gun and shot him or if he called the cops.
Just like he knows Sam will be dead when the cops get here.
He knows, knows his anger has no purpose anymore, but still, he slides Eddie onto the floor, and turns, before Eddie catches his hand. The grip is slippery and shaking, but Eddie’s still careful of Buck’s wrists.
“Don’t,” Eddie begs.
“I’m not,” Buck swears and walks over to Sam.
For a second, he stands there, staring at Nora’s body, carnage obscured by Sam’s back. Sam doesn’t react to him, maybe doesn’t even notice him.
Buck pulls in a breath and thinks about how bad Sam must want to lie down on top of her, about how he’ll cling until he can’t anymore, and then he’ll end it. He’ll end it, not happy, but content to know he’ll be with her, even if it is in hell.
Buck sees it all one more time, Eddie with his wrists over his head, Sam’s bat beneath his chin, the glee in his eyes as he hit him with the bat, even his hands back on Eddie’s cheek in that fake fucking doctor’s office. Rage roars through him one last time as he rears back and slams the butt of the gun into the back of Sam’s head.
He collapses, but Buck catches the back of his jacket and tosses him a few inches away from Nora and grits out, “Rot in prison, you son of a bitch.”
He walks back over to Eddie and kneels. He tries to take stock of everything. The stab wound in Eddie’s stomach, the cuts on his sides, the broken thumb and torn skin on his hand, the mosaic of bruising across his abdomen, across his jaw. The cut on his head.
“Fuck,” Buck gasps because it’s too much, because he can’t do this—he can’t look at Eddie like this. “Fuck!”
Eddie’s pulls in a breath, shaking his head to meet Buck’s eyes. “A-are you okay?”
Buck has to do this. If he does nothing else, he has to get Eddie out of here, has to keep it together enough to get him help. He closes his eyes and considers before a laugh tumbles out of him. “I, uh… not really? I-I’ll feel better once we get you to a hospital. Can you stand?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, not actually considering the question at all. He just pushes off the wall and gets to his feet, shaking until he wobbles but doesn’t fall. Buck keeps his hands gentle as he grabs one of Eddie’s arms and pulls it over his shoulder.
Eddie can’t stop the sound, even though Buck sees him try, when Buck’s shoulder brushes his armpit. The gash from the knife is still bright red, and a fresh trickle of blood comes where Buck smeared it.
Buck swallows a scream.
“Oh, shit, Eddie, I’m sorry,” he says instead, then readjusts to scoop beneath Eddie’s knees and bring him against his chest. Given the day they’ve had, and the lack of food, it shouldn’t be as simple as it is to pick someone of Eddie’s size and build up, but it is. Because it’s Eddie, and he’s Buck.
Eddie makes another sound, maybe a protest. “Buck, you’re… you can’t carry me all the way to… your hands are…” Eddie frowns at them, coated in blood from his still-stinging wrists. He assumes they’re still stinging, anyway. He can’t really feel anything other than relief and concern for Eddie right now.
“I just won a firefighter competition,” Buck reminds him. “I was born for this.”
“Tied.” Eddie gets out, but the laugh is drained out of it, and he slides his hand around Buck’s neck, fingers settled loosely against it. His breaths are still shallow.
Buck thinks back to the sound of the bat hitting him, again and again. He’s never going to stop thinking about it. Eddie thinks Nora’s going to haunt him, and she will, but not because of that bullet.
Buck carries Eddie up the stairs. It leads to one of the motel rooms. The first one, Buck realizes as they step out into the pre-dawn, where the sky’s gone purple to match the bruises on Eddie’s body. The air is cold, brisk in their lungs after the suffocating fog of the basement.
They get to the office and Buck sets him in one of the upholstered chair. He finds the landline and explains what he can to the cops before he hangs up and pulls out the truck keys, then rummages for any actual first-aid equipment in this sham of a doctor’s office.
“You okay?” Buck asks.
“Seeing two of you right now,” Eddie says, ragged in a way that chips away at the humor he’s going for. “Other than that, I’m peachy.”
“Eddie…” Eddie’s trying to make this normal, but Buck’s breathing is as wrong as Eddie’s, and no one hit him with a bat.
“You should sit,” Eddie says, closing one eye when a streak of blood slides into it.
“Hush.” Buck frowns at him where he’s got some gauze and an ice pack with no ice. “We gotta stop some of the bleeding.”
“How long did the cops say?” Eddie asks.
“Thirty minutes,” Buck says.
“I’ll be fine.”
Buck grits his teeth to keep from yelling at him, then asks, “What kind of ambulances do they even have out here? Should I try to drive you somewhere better?”
Eddie tries to shake his head, but it catches in his chest and drags him through another shudder.
“Eddie.” Buck freezes, eyes wide.
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. “H-how many people… do you think…?”
Buck hasn’t thought about it. He doesn’t want to think about it. “I don’t know.”
“You think they’re… buried?”
Buck presses his lips together. “I don’t know, Eddie, but I’m sure the cops will find them. Don’t—just don’t worry about it for now, okay? There’s nothing we can do for them.”
Eddie swallows, and his eyelids flutter. He’s fighting so hard for consciousness, and Buck wishes desperately he could let him rest, but instead, he half-runs over to him and kneels, “E-Eddie, you gotta stay with me.”
“I know,” Eddie answers, then grimaces. “Hey, y-you, uh… you really sold that speech… back there.”
Buck can’t tell if the sound he makes is a scoff or a laugh, but he presses some of Eddie’s hair off his forehead where the blood’s matted it. “I’m not that good of an actor.”
“I know.” Eddie’s breath hitches. “Y-you said you remembered… last night.”
Buck doesn’t breathe at all. “Yeah, of course I do, Eddie.”
“I told you,” Eddie says. “While we were… I-I told you.”
“You…”
The memory rings sharp and crisp through him. The ending to all the touching and the tasting and the taking… Eddie’s mouth at his ear, shivering, blissed out beneath Buck’s body.
“I love you, Buck.”
Buck’s played it, in some recess of his mind, a dozen times. He’s convinced himself, over and over, that it was a dream—that they were both so far gone, that he was so drunk off the taste of Eddie’s sweat and skin and shivering that he made it up.
A fantasy.
Buck’s mouth falls open. “I… fuck, I… I didn’t… I had no idea. I thought I was dreaming, Eddie.”
It all makes more sense now. Why Eddie was so distant, what he must have thought. Sitting with an unanswered confession.
“No,” Eddie says, and it’s all caved in and collapsing. “I didn’t mean to. I-I didn’t mean to… say it, but I meant it, and I…”
Buck’s hands shake as he settles one between the bruises on his side, sliding in the sweat, while the other holds Eddie’s jaw, as he leans in and kisses him because he doesn’t know what else to do. His mouth and face are so slick with blood, but it’s still Eddie. Still this kaleidoscope of warmth and color and Eddie. The fire in Buck’s chest stokes to an inferno, and he can’t help when he opens wider, pushes deeper.
Eddie mirrors him, even shaking, his hand fists the front of Buck’s shirt and tugs. Buck comes closer, careful with his weight.
As easy as it would be to give into this, Eddie needs a doctor bad. He’s hurt. He never should’ve gone through any of this; no one should, but especially Eddie.
“God, I’m so sorry…” Buck presses into his mouth, the refrain he’s said a thousand times, the refrain he’ll never say enough. “You shouldn’t have had to… it shouldn’t have been like that. I should’ve told you before. I’ve been so fucking scared of it that I couldn’t even let myself realize what I was scared of.”
“You shouldn’t have had to, Buck,” Eddie whispers, closing his eyes as longing fogs the edges of the words. “Not like that.”
Buck kisses him again because he needs it, maybe as bad as he needs a doctor. This one lingers, and Buck glides a careful up to Eddie’s neck just to feel his pulse.
When he pulls away, Eddie’s smile is weak, lopsided, and he squeezes his eyes shut, maybe to pressure some other gasp or whimper into collapse. “You know, for some… stupid… second back there, I thought I’d be okay with it. Dying… if-if you were holding me.”
Buck’s fingers crook on his throat as dread and anguish and pain twist and knot in his chest. “No… no, you don’t get to talk like that. You don’t die. You don’t leave me, ever. If you do…”
“I know,” Eddie whispers, gentle in a way he only ever is with Christopher.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it. Or-or I’m sorry that’s what it took for me to…”
“Stop…” Eddie closes his mouth to stop his teeth from chattering, then swallows before, “Stop apologizing. You have told me. You’ve shown me… over and over. You’ve… I should’ve known, Buck. I…. maybe I did, maybe that’s why I said it last night, but I couldn’t…”
Buck leans in and kisses him again. He needs to take care of him, and right now, he thinks maybe that is exactly what he’s doing, especially when Eddie opens his mouth just a little.
Buck’s mouth is stained in Eddie’s blood and saliva when he finally pulls back. “I like showing you. I wanna keep showing you… for the rest of my life.”
“That a threat?” Eddie says, dazed, eyes still on Buck’s mouth.
“A promise.” Distantly, Buck hears a siren as he presses his lips against Eddie’s forehead. “You’re gonna be okay, Eddie.”
“I know,” Eddie says, even as his eyelids flutter again, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”