Chapter Text
You’re exhausting.
You’re selfish.
We all suck it up, why can’t you?
Buck sighed to himself, aching with each word played back in his head. Eddie’s voice echoed endlessly in his mind, turning his stomach with guilt and grief and shame. Of course they all hated him now. Why wouldn’t they?
Buck groaned, shoving his hands deeper in his pockets. A woman passed him, wrinkling her nose with a glance at his face. He hung his head lower. He was sure his scent was soured with his melancholy; he wished he didn’t have to subject anyone to it anymore, but he left his car at the grocery store, needing to run. He just needed to run.
Eventually, he made it back to his apartment, exhausted and aching with a deep twinge in his left calf with every step he took. At least this was the kind of pain he could take– the kind of pain he deserved. He stepped into the apartment, greeted by his own increasingly bitter scent curling in his nose. He knew he needed to do something about his downward spiral; that was why he’d gone to the grocery store to see the team. He wanted, no, needed to apologize. He needed them to understand the mistakes he’d made. He didn’t want them knowing that he’d dropped the suit, not yet; he didn’t want them to think he was just trying to appeal to them. Because that wasn’t it. He was just trying to go home.
This place wasn’t home. It was a place for him to rest, a place for him to suffer in heat by himself, but really? The firehouse was home. Being at the Diaz house was home. Bobby’s place was home. This empty loft was just a cold resting spot with a very comfortable mattress in which he spent way too much time.
And now, this was all he had left.
***
He needed to get out.
Buck was driving himself up the walls, pacing, replaying the closed court hearing, the way his family let the elevator doors close on him, the disdain in their faces then, at the store, the hatred words Eddie spewed. It was all on a vicious loop in his head, making him mad, and he needed to get out.
Before he knew it, he was down the block. It was the first time he’d ventured out of his apartment in two days, and he wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, just trying to get his brain to quiet. When it didn’t, he tried to think of a location.
He’d left his car in the store parking lot. He could go get that.
With a new destination in mind and a purpose for the first time since the tsunami, Buck changed directions, keeping his pace slow as he walked to stretch out the trip. Even still, walking and walking, he heard Eddie’s voice, a vitriol he’d never before heard.
You’re exhausting.
We all suck it up, why can’t you?
It would have been better if you died under that truck.
You’re the scum of the earth; I wish you were dead.
I could never trust you with Christopher, you’ll never see him again.
Buck was fairly sure not all of those things came out of Eddie’s mouth, but he’d convinced himself their meanings were there, and it was all too easy to make them sound too much like Eddie, too close to the same tone he’d used just two days ago.
Buck shook his head violently to expel the thoughts. No. Eddie just needed time; they all just needed time. They were family, and families fought. Just because Eddie knew where to push didn’t mean he meant it.
Except, if he really didn’t mean it… if he really was just angry and not hateful… why would he have taken the kill shot? Or, more accurately, five kill shots?
Buck had been stupid. At this point, that much was obvious. He knew he messed things up, and he was insane to think that things would just go away with a simple apology. He loved them with his whole heart, would die for them without a spare thought or regret, would suffer for a thousand lifetimes as long as they were happy. They were his pack, the only one he’d ever known. It seemed, for a while, that Eddie was his Alpha. Bobby and Athena had welcomed him into the pack. He thought they were pack. He thought their bond was stronger than that.
Though, walking down the street with Eddie’s anger ringing in his ears, Buck had to admit that maybe that wasn’t true. Once again, he’d gone and given himself wholly to a family that didn’t want him, a pack that went off without him. He was foolish to ever think this time was different; he was foolish to ever think he deserved love.
What was an Omega without love? Without a pack? Well, Buck was one his whole life. Didn’t make a difference now just because he thought he found something.
“What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ out here all alone?”
Buck tensed at the voice, whipping around to see a man, tall, lean, and strutting toward Buck like whatever he wanted with him was a guarantee. Buck stepped back a few times, but the man was quicker than he thought. In a moment, he was crowding into Buck’s space, acrid scent invading his nostrils, hardon pressed to Buck’s hip.
“You smell so sad,” he cooed and breathed in deeply, loudly. Buck could feel the air intake on his face. He shivered. “Maybe I can make you feel all better.”
Buck took a step back, already shaking his head. “Yeah, hard pass, pal–”
Before Buck could leave, the man – an Alpha, Buck realized belatedly – grabbed his wrist, yanking him back against him. Buck cringed away from him, fighting against the strong grasp. “I don’t think I was asking your permission.”
Buck shuddered at the Alpha Voice, about ready to vomit on the guy if that would make him go away. “Leave me alone, man, I’m just taking a damn walk.” He tugged against the hold on his wrist, but the fingers only dug deeper into his skin. With the blood thinners, they were sure to leave angry bruises.
The Alpha reached his other hand around, gripping Buck’s ass; that was sure to bruise, too. “I think you’re the perfect little Omega to spend my rut with. Perfect Omega to mate.”
Oh, hell no. Buck used his free hand, smacking the Alpha point blank across the face. He used the moment of the Alpha’s shock to run, shoving him back as he bolted the opposite direction.
“ Get back here! ” The Alpha Voice again. Buck’s feet slowed, as much as he hated it, but he threw his hands against his ears, blocking out the sounds of his demands. His running was sloppier this way, wobbling with his elbows sticking out, but if it meant he didn’t stop altogether and get that , well, he was fine with it.
A force shoved at him, slamming him hard into a nearby brick wall. Buck’s head connected with the wall, hard. Spots crowded his vision, and he gasped before a hand found its way around his throat. He tried to whimper, tried to cry out, but the hand was too tight. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe.
He was going to die here, and he was never going to see his family again. He was never going to see his parents, his sister, Hen, Chimney, Eddie, Christopher. Buck clawed desperately at the hand around his throat, a strange tension in his face as the blood pooled at the surface. He felt stinging on his own skin on his arms and neck, probably scratching himself in his fervor. Tears cropped in his eyes, blurring his vision. At least he couldn’t smell the putrid stench of the wretched Alpha as the man bit at Buck’s shoulder– not the mate mark, thank God, but Buck could feel his teeth sinking into his skin, even as he began to get lightheaded. He couldn’t hear anything anymore, and honestly, maybe it was best if he did die here.
No. No. He was not going to die at the hands of some sick Alpha in rut wanting to mate with the first Omega he saw. Buck was a fighter, he’d been fighting all his life, and he wasn’t going to stop now.
The hand around his throat squeezed tighter, and Buck, running out of options, blindly jammed his knee forward, hitting something that felt like a bulge. The Alpha let go of his neck, and Buck collapsed while the Alpha screamed. Then, before he could even catch his breath, before he could even really get a glimpse at the man’s dick he’d probably just broken, he took off running.