Work Text:
It happens again.
Maybe because he isn’t in the same space as Buck, and even though it’s not the first time, it doesn’t make the agony any easier to deal with.
There wasn’t even any distancing this time. It was just going to message him a video on Instagram and getting a notification that he was blocked. He proceeded to check every other social media accounts and they all came back as the same thing - blocked.
Eddie isn’t that new to social media, especially after his brief stint in dispatch as a social media intern. And there it is.
Tommy’s private twitter account, with Buck’s initials followed by a black heart.
He feels sick.
He doesn’t even register the shock. Just closes his feed while he’s at work, continues as normal for an hour before it sets in. And then he proceeds to fuck up again and make another mistake.
He messages Buck, even though he’s sure that his number is blocked.
Maybe it’s my fault for clinging to you
so hard, and I’ve finally scared you away.
I’m sorry that I’m overbearing. Take care
of yourself please. I will always love you,
and you will always be the person that I
trusted most in this world.
I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to provide you
with the same thing.
All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.
I’m sorry I didn’t understand that I
couldn’t provide that in the same
way Tommy can.
I hope you stay safe. I hope that you never
experience hurt in your life again. I hope that
you find someone, and maybe that is
Tommy that makes you happy.
I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted to do
was to hurt you. And I did. Maybe
everyone was right in telling you not
to interact with me.
Please reach out to your friends.
Please don’t isolate yourself.
You’re such a good person and
you deserve everything in the world,
Evan.
I love you so fucking much.
I’m sorry that I couldn’t love you
in the way that you needed.
I’m sorry that I wasn’t good enough.
Please take care of yourself Evan.
I’ll miss you so much, baby. So
fucking much.
You were such an important person
to me. You’ve made such a big impact
on my life, and I’ll forever be grateful
for you.
I’m so so sorry.
I’ll look out for you from the beyond,
and maybe I’ll be better at protecting you
there.
Goodbye, Evan.
Love, Eddie.
He sends it, sitting in his car during his lunch, sobbing and shaking as he mispells words, fingers hitting the wrong buttons as he tries to see through clouded vision.
Everything feels wrong now.
The sun doesn’t shine in the way it used to (like Buck’s smile). The food that he eats tastes like ash as his stomach turns, having to open the door and fall on the pavement, gagging as he regurgitates chewed food and bile. His stomach rolls heavily, a pressure sitting on his chest in a way thats familiar when it comes to interacting with Buck.
He knew he shouldn’t have welcomed Buck back, not after having been maimed so hard not just once, but multiple times for the same man. The same man who hurt Buck time and time again, with Eddie pleading with Buck, terrified out of his mind the Buck wouldn’t walk away from this.
And now he’s gone again.
It feels like every text message they had, even earlier that day, was pointless.
How can someone say they love you and that you’re their favourite person and hurt you like that? How can someone say “You’ve made me feel seen in a way I’ve never felt before. I feel safe with you.” and then proceed to never see him, to purposely hurt someone so many times?
His skin is crawling, and he tries to rid the feeling by dragging blunt nails and leaving red lines in his wake.
Buck had given him purpose. A reason to live, a reason to provide someone with the gentleness and love and effort that he had never received to him.
It’s all gone down the drain now.
There is nothing left.
The only thing that remains is Eddie taking up space that he shouldn’t have been allowed to have. The confirmation that his life isn’t worth living.
If he’s fucked up so badly at loving Buck, what was the point?
He turned into someone that he feared; someone that he never wanted to become.
He’d hurt Buck somehow, and now this was his consequence.
He wanted so badly to go back days before where they discussed meeting each other and living together and god, fuck, they talked about houses together and just existing in each others space for comfort.
How fucked up is that.
He was born to be unloved. He was born unable to love someone.
He couldn’t live properly. Working a job that caused aches and pains, worse than the ones that he normally lived with.
Sleeping 3-4 hours a night, waking gasping for air as Buck’s mangled body flashed behind his eyelids.
It was a non-ending cycle of hurt. It never stopped. He was doomed to repeat the failures of his parents, lashing out and hurting those around him, pulling them in like a tidal wave and drowning them in his presence alone.
He was doomed to be alone.
He didn’t even want Buck romantically at this point. Well, he did, but he was content and secure in their friendship that he believed that their bond was unbreakable, that they were best friends who understood each other inside and out.
What a lie it had been.
There was no going back at this point.
Tommy would always be at the forefront of Buck’s mind, creeping in and locking his heart and mind up to the point where Buck would drop any and everything for the man.
Like Eddie.
Best friends was a lie too. He had constantly referred to Buck as his best friend both to Buck himself and to other people.
Buck had never said it back.
What a smoking gun that was.
But he had excused it thousands of times, ‘Buck just isn’t that affectionate when it comes to words’ or ‘His actions prove that we’re best friends because he’s possessive of me and wants to be around me’ .
Eddie feels like he’s drowning in the weight of his own delusions and lies that he buried himself in to protect himself.
He dissociates through the rest of his shift, body and mouth on autopilot as he converses with his coworkers and finishes his job as he’s supposed to do.
Then finally he’s alone in his car again, making the fifteen minute drive home, ignoring the way that his heart is pounding in his head and the way tears start when Buck’s favorite song comes on the radio.
And he makes his way into his house, stillness in the air as he puts his things away and begins cleaning. He showers, puts his nicest pajamas on and sits down to eat so that he can take his medication.
Medication.
Medication that he has enough of to overdose with.
It’s not even that he wants to die. He just doesn’t want to keep living, especially not in a world where he’s hurt Buck enough to go back to Tommy.
He wants the voices to stop. He wants the aches in his joints to stop. He just wants everything to stop. So he reaches and takes his prescribed medication, the organizer staring back at him as he dry swallows them. He then reaches around the dozens of pill bottles, grabs acetaminophen and his prescribed 800 mg of ibuprofen. He barely blinks and he grabs handfuls of both, keeps swallowing them with water until he feels sick from taking medication.
Finally. It should finally be over soon.
He goes to bed, feeling the way his stomach is cramping as he scrolls through pictures and screenshots of his and Buck’s texts before hovering on a recent photo that Buck sent him.
Eddie pauses and stares before pressing his lips to the screen of the phone, murmuring a quiet, “I’ll always love you, baby”. His eyelids are drooping now, and he’s overcome with such a wave of relief and excitement and happiness that all the pain he’s in and caused will finally come to an end, that he won’t be able to damage anyone else.
He wakes up the next morning, realizes he’s still alive, and cries.