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Buck's been awake for hours. That's hours of staring at the same dirt wall. Hours of struggling against tape at his wrists that does nothing but make it curl, make it harder to rip. Hours to accept that this is real. It wasn't an accident that their car was forced off the road. And hours to imagine Eddie dead. Maybe he went through the window even though he was wearing his seatbelt. Maybe a shard of the broken windshield hit his carotid. Or maybe, just maybe, no one found him and the elements got to him — the sun heating him in his metal coffin, a coyote too hungry to care that its meal wasn't actually dead, dehydration, starvation. The pictures played out on the backdrop of the dirt wall, the worst puppet show in the entire fucking world.
His body started complaining the moment he regained consciousness. His tailbone protests the dirt floor he sits on. His face burns, but there's no way for him to know the reason why. His runaway imagination plays with that uncertainty too — burns, infection, fever — it could be something as simple as cuts and bruises. But for all he knows, his face could be peeling. Maybe Eddie is fine and Buck is the one dead and decaying. After all, he's the one who's buried. It isn't the first time he's had that thought since waking up but it is the first time it hasn't sent him into panic attack. When he woke up in darkness, his body immediately protested. His lungs spasmed for air but tasted dirt instead. He felt his pulse in his eyeballs. He heaved until his fingers tingled and the small dirt world around him faded. But he hadn't passed out. Eventually, his body tired of panicking and he could breathe again but each breath continues to be shallow.
It struck him at one point that maybe none of this was real. He could be in another hospital on another ventilator with his body failing once again. But then he just circled around to being dead again.
He's picturing this scenario again when the ceiling opens up.
Not the entire ceiling, no. But in the corner off to his right, dirt shakes loose from the ceiling. Then a stripe of bright sunlight grows into a square of white, bisected by a very large shadow. Buck's eyes water until he has to close them. Tears sting the cuts on his cheeks.
Heavy feet hit the floor and the light behind his eyelids fades. He knows once he opens them, he'll be trapped once again, so he keeps them squeezed closed. More tears escape his lash line. He feels them settle at the corners of his mouth. Those heavy feet step through the room but the sound ping-pongs between his ears, matching his beating pulse. Are they getting closer?
The sudden sharp pain in his thigh says yes. Buck gasps, his eyes flying open. He sees the dusty boots first, follows them up thick jean-clad legs. Sitting at the very top is the face of an unremarkable man — round eyes with wrinkles made more pronounced by the lantern he holds in his hand, thin lips, smooth head, white skin stained by sun and dirt.
He kicks Buck again, higher this time. Steel toes connect with his ribs. He would double over if he could, but the duck tape bites into his wrists still. The pole he's tied too bites into his back and his shoulders are pulled back. There's no way to curl into himself. He tried.
The man sets the lantern down but drops the duffel bag he was holding in his other hand. It lands on Buck's foot. Whatever is in it is small, but heavy.
"Wake up." His voice is nicotine damaged, rough. The stench of cigarettes radiates off him.
Buck blinks blearily, watching the man open the bag. The first item he pulls out is a tripod. The feet are stained light brown by dirt. He stares at Buck, tilting his head side to side. He shoves the tripod down far harder than necessary. It brings a smile to his face when Buck flinches. What follows is a camera.
The weight on Buck's foot turns out to be a six shot revolver. The man pulls this out and shoves it in his waistband. Then, he pulls out another gun. This one he keeps in his hand.
"You move," He tests the weight, "I shoot you."
Alcohol wafts off him as the man leans down and pulls a knife from his boot. Buck's muscles lock, the only parts of him allowed to move are his eyes, following the movement of the man as he first walks to Buck's left, then keeps going.
Something sharp bites into the meat of his arm. Buck yelps.
"Don't be a pussy." The admonishment is gruff.
Then he's cutting the tape off. The adhesive burns as he rips it off, along with the hair on Buck's arms.
"You can move now."
Hours of having his joints stretched past their limits makes that difficult. His arms stay behind the pole even as his brain screams for the opposite. His chest has become a plane of rock, barely able to shift as he brings his hands to his lap. His hands shake. Blood lazily rolls from a cut on his left forearm.
The man sits crisscross in front of him, so close that their shoes touch. He sets the gun down before retrieving the revolver from behind his back. The metal is warm where the muzzle is pressed to Buck's forehead. He barely hears the next command underneath the demands of his racing heart.
"Look at the camera." He presses it further into Buck's skull when he doesn't comply. So, Buck looks at the camera, even as the muzzle scrapes his raw skin. If he hadn't watched him press a button, he wouldn't even know it was recording. There's no blinking light or sound cue.
"Look back at me."
Buck swallows, sweat tricking down his back, but he does as he's told.
"Here's the game kid. We take turns pulling the trigger. That simple."
That's the only preamble he gets before a click resounds throughout the room. Buck tastes bile at the back of his throat, shoved there by his racing heart. Blood pools in his ears. But his eyes, they remain wide open. He watches his breath fog on the silver frame of the gun.
"Spoiler Alert. I always win." Then he's flipping the gun around, offering it handle first to Buck. He doesn't take it.
"Do it, or I shoot you right now." He motions to the gun on the floor — an automatic, black.
Buck's hand shakes as he takes the warm handle into his hand. He's never held a gun before, hadn't expected it to be this heavy.
"What's your name?" The stranger asks.
Don't people say you're supposed to humanize yourself to your captors? Like maybe if he tells this stranger his name, he'll decide that Buck does get to live. But it feels like a trick. They aren't supposed to ask for it.
"Your name, kid." His hand inches towards the automatic.
"B-Buck."
The stranger huffs out a laugh. "That's your real name?" Then he shakes his head, "Pull the trigger, Buck."
Then, when he doesn't, the stranger strikes like viper. The other gun is in his hand and Buck's ears are ringing. Dirt pelts his back. The stranger's words swim in his metal hearing, "Next one goes in you."
He isn't sure if he imagines the steam rising from the muzzle, but he is sure that that it is centered between his eyes.
Buck lifts the revolver. His hand shakes. He barely keeps it aimed at the man's face.
"Ah, ah, ah, you have to spin the cylinder. The movies always get that wrong.
He says nothing else as Buck struggles to open it. He sees the release right there but struggles to get his fingers to actually press it. The patience is more nerve-racking than the threat of death. The whole thing lists to the side as the cylinder pops out. There is a single dot of brass. Metal clicks as his hands tremble, but he does as he's told. He spins the cylinder and pushes it back in. He closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.
It clicks. This time, he can visualize the hammer hitting the frame, not that single dot of brass.
He practically drops the revolver into the stranger's hand.
"Tell me some more about yourself."
"I-I ha- I have a sister and niece and nephew. I have fr-friends." If Buck is going to die right now, Eddie has to be alive. He has to. "And they'll be looking for me —"
"Your sister. Older or younger?"
Buck opens his eyes. The stranger's shoulders are relaxed. It takes barely any strength to hold Buck's life in his hands.
"Old-" He swallows around the fear, "Older."
Click.
"Have you always had a stutter?"
Buck shakes his head. Or maybe he nods. He's nothing but a trembling mass now. The stranger presses the gun into his hand, helps him find the cylinder release this time. Buck spins it. He doesn't look as he pulls the trigger.
Click.
He grits out through his teeth, "I don't know." There, he didn't stutter.
The stranger nods as he spins and spins the cylinder. "And you're a firefighter?"
"What?"
"I saw your turnouts. Buck is short for Buckley." It isn't a question.
The gun gets warmer with each round. He hates that they share this now, this heat. Hates that the handle is sweat-covered, like he's absorbing the other man.
"Diaz. What's his first name?"
Buck shakes his head, doesn't answer. He spins the cylinder. Pulls the trigger.
Click.
"Saw him get picked up by some Staties." Spin. Click.
He doesn't hand the gun back. Spin. "What is," spin, "his name?"
Click.
"Eddie."
"Eddie's your friend?"
Buck nods.
For his compliance, he's given the gun.
"I don't know if he's alive. It was a pretty bad crash." A hand grasps his wrist, yanks his hand up, "Pull the trigger, Buck."
"I haven't spun it."
"Then do it."
Click.
Buck drops the gun into the man's hand.
"Good boy."
The pet name spreads like lava through his body. In through his ears, down his spine, all to churn in his stomach.
"You're still in New Mexico, by the way. Don't know about Eddie though. They probably already sent him home. LA, right?"
"What do you mean?"
"They send bodies back home."
Buck chokes out a sob. The dirt wall calls to him again, painting its picture of Eddie, upside down. His eyes are open and his jaw is slack with death. His mouth fills with the taste of Eddie, of blood splattered against his face.
"It's a shame," Metal screeches as the cylinder spins, "I would have preferred him. Maybe he'd be less of a bitch about it."
Click.
Buck's legs are going numb from sitting for long. He asks for that numbness to spread to his head. He closes his eyes, but gets only flashes of blood and dirt. Everything spins.
"Look at me." Buck does. The stranger pulls the trigger and it clicks . He's not sure if he spun the cylinder. "He's dead."
Buck swallows around vomit. Shakes his head.
"No, no he isn't. He has a- he has a son. And if I die…Christopher needs him."
"Not if, Buck."
The gun weighs more. He drops it, picks it back up before the stranger can yell at him.
He spins the cylinder.
Eddie can't be dead because Buck was never actually supposed to take care of Christopher. It was always supposed to be the two of them. And Buck is going to die here and if Eddie is dead then Christopher has no one. He'll be all alone.
He pulls the hammer back, sweat making his grip slick. The whole revolver shakes in his hand. He pulls the trigger.
Click.
The stranger takes the gun from him. "Just accept it, Buck." Spin. Click.
When he holds the revolver this time, the pictures on the dirt wall change. This time, he sees the hammer striking forward, catching the bullet's silver primer. That is a far as he gets when the revolver clicks again.
"What is going to happen to Christopher when you die?"
"His grandparents will take him."
The stranger hums, "You the kid's godfather?"
Buck nods. He guesses so.
"Well, you really fucked that up. He trusted you right? To do better? But I guess you're motivated now." He looks at the camera, "They all are eventually. I can send him a copy."
"Please—"
"Ah! Say it to the camera."
Buck swallows down his protests.
The cylinder spins and the gun clicks. Then it is in Buck's hands again.
Spin. Click.
The stranger: Spin. Click.
"You know, this is where some people start to have hope. Maybe this will be the time the gun goes off. Maybe this time, it'll all be over.
Do you have it in you to kill another person?"
Because that is what comes next. If that hammer finds the bullet, a man will be dead. And Buck will be alone, with more blood on his hands. Can he bring those hands back to Christopher? To Maddie?
He doesn't get to decide who lives or dies. It goes against well…everything.
If he pulls that trigger and this stranger dies, no one would blame him. It would be self-defense, right? But that doesn't erase it.
"It's not hard," The stranger says, "First time I did it, I let the gun do all the work. It is simple as…" He reaches out, places his thumb over Buck's forefinger and depresses the trigger.
Click.
He's gentle as he takes the gun back. This time, when he releases the cylinder, he spins it slowly, examining each chamber. It clicks again.
"You're gonna have to do it if you don't want that kid to be all alone."
Do it for Christopher."
"Stop it." Buck makes sure to look at the camera this time, "Stop saying his name."
The stranger hands the gun back, "Make me, Evan."
The room explodes. The kickback is so much more than he expects, if he could every truly prepare for it. He feels it in his wrist, the weight of the decision, of this happenstance, of this accident. The gun drops to the ground.
Buck has already forgotten his face. In its place is a crater of blood. Nothing but blood as the bullet had ripped through point blank. The body falls to the ground, fingers twitching. A bloom of red spreads across the floor, with buds of brain and skin and skull. His eyes face left and right. It is only now that Buck realizes that they are blue.
His ears are ringing. He's gasping, breathing in nothing but blood and dirt. Buck scrambles over to the stranger, hand going to his neck, fingers slipping as he feels for a pulse. There's nothing. Blood pulses from his face as Buck starts compressions. It burbles out like a fountain.
But the stranger is dead because Buck pulled the trigger and Buck killed him and his heart won't start because his brain is pouring out the back of his head and it can't tell his heart that it needs to beat. His own heart beats in his throat. Then he's leaning over, he's retching. Nothing but bile comes up and splatters onto the floor. His stomach continues to clench, to try and throw away this moment before it can sear itself into the fabric of Buck's life. He tastes metal.
Buck stands on shaky legs. There's blood on the knees of his jeans. There's blood on his hands. The camera has caught it all. He stumbles past it, to the hole in the sky that opened what feels like hours ago.
There's a ladder leaning against the wall. Buck climbs it. Splinters dig into his hands, introducing the stranger's blood into his system.
Buck killed a man and doesn't even know his name. He'll always be the stranger in his mind. No name, no family, no history, and no reason.
There's a wooden hatch above his head. Buck punches it once, twice. It barely moves. Rusty hinges creek and dirt falls onto his face, coats his tongue and throat. He bashes it with his forearm, the cut from earlier stinging again. Holding it above him, he sees that it never stopped bleeding. It drip drips down his sleeve.
Funny, he never noticed that he's wearing a different shirt.
Buck forces the hatch open, blinding sunlight and heat greeting him. He digs his fingers into sun burnt ground, crawling his way from the grave. The ladder shifts underneath him, falling to the ground.
Insects buzz around him. They crawl over his body, seeking the fresh corpse beneath his feet.
The sun bakes him, dries him out instantly. Buck is squinting but it isn't enough. Something must be wrong. There's nothing around them. No house. No car. There's only an old wooden hatch.
The sun is high in the middle of the sky, shining bright white. Everything pinks at the edges. All around him is dirt as far as his sun-blind eyes can see. Shrubs drift in a breeze he can't feel. He picks an endless direction and walks.
The sun stays above him as he walks and walks. The blood has dried to his hands and his knees. Sweat pours off him in buckets but he dreads the moment when his body stops producing it. The stranger was right. Buck is going to die. This time he's able to see the birds that will consume his flesh.
He'll walk his way to Eddie. He'll walk his way back to the car and die where he was supposed to, with Eddie. He'll sit in his seat and let the sun bake his skin to leather, let the buzzards get loud and when they find him in a week, they'll wonder if he's been dead the whole time. Someone will question where he went and why he abandoned his best friend. Maybe they'll track his scuffed footprints to the hole in the ground where Evan Buckley actually died.
Maybe his body misunderstood. Yes, the bullet was fired but it didn't go through the stranger's head. He's the one lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. The stranger will stand and gather Buck's dead weight as best as he can. Somehow he'll get his body out of the hole and get it into a different one so there is space for his next victim. This is Buck in purgatory, the only place he really believes in. He'll walk and walk, never able to find the people who need him. He's doomed to an eternity of peeling skin and blisters. The sun will always be at his back.
The wind forms voices as it whistles past his ears — Maddie screaming his name as she stumbles in the snow and Christopher yelling for him in the wake of the tsunami and Bobby and Chim and Hen and
Eddie.
His voice is deep and rich, it comes from deep within his chest. He hits Buck's name like it matters.
"Buck!"
He tastes Eddie's name on his tongue. It's interesting there's so many letters for just two simple sounds. Eh-d. Eddie.
"Buck!" The voice echoes in the tones of strangers. But nobody says his name the same way Eddie does.
"Buck?"
There's a shadow in the distance. It's tall for a shrub, and lithe. The wind makes it sway yet it still doesn't kiss Buck's skin. The shrub has leaves on it, dark ones, the color of a cotton shirt. There's long limb-like branches.
"Buck!" The wind howls his name. Torturously it sounds like…
"Eddie?" He sounds like he's been gargling rocks. His voice doesn't carry.
The shrub gets closer, it's dark features coalescing into a person. Not a plant.
Even with the distance, Buck sees the brown eyes, knows the worried pinch between dark brows and the freckle underneath his eye. He knows that Blue Sparkle softener scent he uses on all his laundry. It's crashing into him, following him to the ground.
"I've got you." It's not the wind. It's Eddie's voice, alive and gravely from screaming for Buck, for hours or days. Eddie tucks him into his chest, shielding him from the sun. "I've got you."
"Eddie?" He asks, just to make sure.
"Yeah, Buck." His breath wafts coldly against the back of Buck's neck. He's surrounded by Blue Sparkle and antiseptic. He grips softened fabric in his stained fingers, the blood so baked in it flakes instead of spreads. He stretching the shirt. It will hold the scars of this moment, just like Eddie's jeans. Together they take in the dirt below them.
Eddie runs his hand through Buck's curls, catching on all the tangles. He ignores the dirt and continues to card through them, until the tangles are gone, until Buck has finally broken down, soaking his cotton shirt in his tears. He's screaming, feels the desperation ripping through his throat and spilling down his cheeks. Eddie holds it all. He curls Buck into his chest, running his hands up and down his back.
With a kiss to forehead, Eddie says once again,
"I've got you."