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“Are you sure we’re not lost?”
Buck scowls, because it’s the third time in the last thirty minutes Eddie’s asked him. And okay, maybe, they might be the slightest, teeniest bit lost, but there’s no way he’s about to admit that to Eddie. “No. We’re just… improvising, till I can figure out where we are on the map.
“So, we’re lost.” Christopher dead-pans, with an air of sass that reminds Buck he’s about to be a teenager. His heart clenches at the thought.
Buck scans the area, and finds just more and more trees for miles. They’d been on their way to stay in a cabin in the woods, as a celebration for Buck and Eddie’s six month anniversary. Only then their car had broken down, and judging by the secluded roads surrounded by forests, there wouldn’t be any cars coming along any time soon. No signal, or course, so they had to navigate using the map Buck had scrunched up and thrown in the boot of his jeep.
He blows out a long breath. Accepts defeat. “Fine. We’re lost.”
Buck’s sure Eddie would have thrown his hands up in exasperation if he wasn't holding Christopher, judging by the way he looks up at the sky like he’s begging god to gift him with patience. “See, I told you this would happen. You don’t know how to read a map.”
“I do!” Buck counters. “It’s just been a while, okay? I haven’t had to follow a map since I was in school.”
Christopher giggles. “That must have been centuries ago, no wonder you can’t remember!”
“Hey, at least I’m not as ancient as your dad. He was around in the stone age.”
Eddie rolls his eyes but smiles, some of the tension dissipating. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Shall we head back to the car? If we just go back in the opposite direction, I’m sure we’ll find it.”
“More walking?” Christopher moans, dramatic as ever.
“Why are you complaining? We’ve been carrying you the whole time.”
“I know but I’m so bored.”
Buck huffs a laugh. “We could play eye-spy?”
Christopher gives him a look so full of dismay that Buck can see Eddie trying to hold in his laugh, lips pursing together.
“Okay, guess we’re too old for that one, huh?”
Buck shakes his leg out. All the walking is making the old injury ache, and the thought of more walking is making it throb.
Eddie’s brow pulls together, noticing immediately. “Is your leg bothering you?”
Buck shrugs. “All the walking is making it act up a bit. It’s fine, I just need to stretch it.
“Okay, how about this - I’ll go back to the car, you guys stay here and eat.” He shrugs off his backpack, stuffed with snacks. “And then I’ll come find you once I’ve hopefully got a signal, or a better sense of direction.”
“Are you sure?” Buck says, scratching his neck. He doesn’t like it when they part, even when they’re all safe. They might be lost, but they’re not that lost. “I feel guilty. Making you do all the walking.”
Eddie just smiles, and gently lowers Chris onto the floor. “This is just my way of making sure I beat your step count today.” He points at his smart watch. A couple months ago they developed a little game to improve their fitness: whoever does the most steps in a day, gets a blowjob. Buck enjoys the game, very, very much.
Buck grins, cheekily, and relents. “You’re the best, you know that?”
“I know. Now, Christopher, look away. I’m about to give Buck a big, fat, sloppy kiss.”
Chris yelps and covers his eyes, turning away fully.
Eddie walks forward, pulling Buck by his shirt and kissing him fiercely.
“I can still hear it!” Chris whines, trying to cover his ears without removing his hands from his eyes.
Buck plants his hands on Eddie’s chest and shoves him away with a laugh, even though it’s the last thing he wants to do. The man just grins, gives Chris’s curls a ruffle even though the boy ducks his head away, and then ventures back the way he came. Soon enough, he’s out of sight.
“Right, Superman.” Buck claps his hands together, looking around. “Hungry?”
Christopher cheers. “Food!”
They find a spot under a tree that shades them from the sun, and Buck takes his hoodie off so Chris doesn’t get his trousers mucky when he sits down. They empty out the contents of their backpacks, and Christopher immediately reaches for the Cheetos and starts to fit as many into his mouth as possible.
“Gotta pee.” Buck says, getting up and moving over to a tree a few metres away.
Only, as he takes another step, there’s a loud clank, followed by a snap, and before Buck can process what’s going on, he’s falling.
He chokes out a half-gasp, half-scream, and lands harshly on his forearms.
“Buck?” Distantly, he can hear Christopher call out.
He tries to respond, he really does, but the words are too hard to grasp amidst the all-consuming fire that is suddenly racing up his leg. In a haze of panic, he twists to his side, craning his head to look at what the hell is caught on his leg and –
Oh.
That’s not good. That’s not good at all.
Seeing the bear trap snapped shut around his leg is a haunting image, one that he’s pretty sure will stay with him for a while. There’s a branch rammed in there as well, and he’s pretty sure it’s the only thing stopping his leg from being completely severed halfway up his calf.
His pant leg is obscuring his view from the worst of it, but by the blood already saturating the denim he knows the flesh must be completely mangled, and there’s no way the bone beneath it hasn’t been crushed. He groans, low and raw, and fights the urge to writhe on the ground because he knows it’ll only make the agony worse.
“Don’t look!” Buck rasps with urgency, because he can hear the sound of rusting so it must be Chris coming closer. “Chris, don’t look.”
But it’s too late, because there’s a strangled gasp from somewhere behind him. “Holy shit.” Chris says, and if his mind wasn’t so fogged up with pain his mouth would have dropped open at the curse word coming from the boy's mouth. “Buck!”
“I’m okay.” He says, but he has to grit his teeth so he doesn’t scream. “Watch your step! It’s a bear trap.”
He’s got the side of his face pressed into the dirt, so he doesn't see Christopher until he’s kneeling down by Buck’s head. He sounds breathless, maybe just as panicked as Buck is. “What do I do?”
His mind goes blank. “Um - right, okay. Don’t panic.”
“I’m already panicking!” Chris squeaks. “Shall I go get dad?”
“No, you - shit,” He moans. The fire just seems to get worse, even more intense. “You might get lost and we - we don’t know how far out he is. Your dad will be back. We just got to wait it out.”
“There’s blood.” Chris says, and Buck looks up to see the boy's gaze fixed on his leg like he can’t look away.
“Hey, it’s okay, just, don’t look at it.” He pants. “Look at me.”
Slowly, Christopher’s eyes drag up to his face and there are tears tracking down his face. Buck feels immensely guilty for traumatising him again.
“We need to make a tourniquet.” With shaky fingers, he starts to unbuckle his belt. He’s losing too much blood, he can feel it. “I need you to help me, Chris.”
Chris nods, shuffling closer. He takes the belt from Buck.
“Okay, loop it around my leg, through the buckle, just above my knee.”
Sniffling quietly, Chris does so. It takes him a few seconds to get it through the buckle, but eventually he does.
“Great. That's great.” It’s hard to concentrate, and he can already feel the world greying at the edges. He’s running out of time. “I need you to pull it tight, as hard as you can.”
“Okay,” Chris trembles, and then uses both hands to yank the belt tighter. Buck yells out immediately, trying but failing to keep all his groans in. The pressure lessens. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”
“No, no.” Buck gasps, fighting for his life to stay conscious. “Keep going. Don’t stop. As tight as you can.”
Chris starts to pull again, and this time Buck shoves a wad of his sleeve into his mouth and bites down against the pain. But it’s not tight enough. He props himself up on his elbows till he’s sitting up, making everything tip side away for a moment.
He powers through though, taking the belt strap from Chris’s hands, and pulls it tight as possible, even though it’s pure agony, and somehow manages to tie it off. He collapses back, panting and stares up at the sky.
“Bucky?” Chris calls out softly, and that’s how Buck knows the boy must be really scared, because he stopped calling him Bucky two years ago, claiming he was too old for that now.
“Yeah, Bud, I’m here. Just catching my breath.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Chris whispers, and Buck peels his eyes open to see the boy pale and clammy, eyes fixed on the mess of his leg.
“Here,” It takes all the effort he can muster to shrug off his shirt, so he’s left in just his tank top. “Throw this over it. And if you throw up, it’s okay. I won’t judge.”
Christopher does as he’s told, nose scrunching. Now that the injury is covered though, it does leave him feeling a little less queasy.
“Let’s, uh - let’s play a game, take our mind off it till Eddie gets back.” He says, even though he knows that with the pain still coursing through the limb there’s no way he could possibly be distracted, but it’s the least he can do for Chris.
That, at least, manages to get an eye roll out of Chris, who has come to kneel by his head. “Fine, if you want to play eye-spy, we can play eye-spy.”
“How kind of you.” He chuckles out, though the sound comes out a little wet. “You go first?”
Chris looks around, eyes scanning the area briefly. “Eye-spy with my little eye, something beginning with… B.”
“I swear to god if you say bear trap –”
“What’s wrong with bear trap –?”
“A little on the nose, don’t you think?” Buck says. He tries to shift into a more upright position against the tree, making him gasp and whimper. “Hey, since I’m not a bear, does this mean that - technically speaking - I’m stuck in a Buck-trap?”
Chris actually giggles at that, and then, almost comically, his eyes widen. “Can I take the Buck-trap to Show and Tell?”
“Seriously?” Buck groans with a laugh. At least this means Chris doesn’t think he’s actively dying. “Let's focus on getting it off me first, yeah?”
“But can we keep it?” Chris asks hopefully, like they’ve found a puppy on the side of the road. “We could hang it on the wall in a frame! Next to the picture of us at the bear enclosure at the zoo!”
“I’m not sure that your dad will find that amusing.”
“Yeah, but if you ask him, he’ll probably say yes.”
“I’ll think about that.”
Christopher grins, satisfied. They sit in silence for a little while. Buck, though, is secretly spiralling. Though he can’t see the blood, he can feel it pooling beneath his leg, and now he’s terrified that Eddie’s gotten lost.
—
“Buck?” Chris says, tentatively
“Yeah, Superman?”
“If there are bear traps, does that mean… does that mean there could also be bears around here?”
And now isn’t that a petrifying thought. He knows it’s unlikely, but there’s still that seedling of panic that wonders if there could be bears roaming these parts, and what the hell would he do if one came along, and he couldn’t protect Chris because he was literally chained to the floor?
“No.” Buck rasps. He decides not to say how he has no idea if there could be bears around here, and also elects not to tell him how bears have a bite so strong, their teeth can go straight through a bowling ball. “No bears round here. And if there are, we fought off a tsunami, we can fight off a little old bear, can’t we?”
Christopher nods, and clutches his backpack tighter to his chest.
—
“There’s this guy in my class - Brandon.” Chris pauses, eyes squinting adorably. “I really don’t like him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Sometimes he says stuff.”
The anger is instant. It’s so fiery and red that for a moment Buck forgets all about the bear trap lodged in his leg. “What does he say?”
Chris starts to pick at his nails, just like Eddie does when he’s not sure what to say. “We had a school trip to the pool.” Buck’s stomach drops a little, because he can see where this is going. “And I freaked out a bit. Because of the water. And now, he - he calls me names, and makes fun of me for it.”
“Chris.” He breathes, closing his eyes briefly. “Why haven’t you said anything?”
“Because you’re not scared anymore! I wanted - I wanted to be brave like you. It’s just water.”
For a moment he’s speechless. Maybe it’s the blood loss, or maybe it’s the boy in front of him who sees him as some hero, when most days he barely feels like he’s holding it together.
“Kid, you know, I still get nightmares.” His voice is scratchy,
“You do?”
“Uh huh. And sometimes, when I remember too much of that day, I even have panic attacks.”
Before, he’s always thought that it was better to shield Chris from his pain, but now he’s releasing that’s not the answer. Chris needs to understand that he isn’t alone.
“What we went through would be scary for anyone. But that’s what makes you brave - the fact that you keep going even though it can be scary.”
“But Brandon said –”
“Screw what that little shit said.” Buck’s eyes widen suddenly. “Don’t tell your dad I said that.”
Christopher giggles. “We can blame it on the blood loss.”
A startled laugh escapes him.
“And you’re right. Brandon is a little shit.”
“Chris!”
“What?” Chris says, innocently. “He once stole one of my crutches and stuffed it into the toilet.
Buck looks at him in disbelief. Fucking school bullies. “That son of a b–”
“Guys?”
Both their heads whip around, seeing Eddie coming across the clearing to them with a phone in hand and a frown on his face. Buck’s whole body sags, the relief so tremendous he feels tears gathering in his eyes, which he has to blink away.
“Dad!” Chris shouts, leaving Buck’s side and racing across to his dad, where he tugs at his shirt to go faster. “Bucky’s hurt.”
That does it. Eddie rushes towards him, immediately cradling Buck’s head and scanning his body. His leg is still hidden by the shirt they threw over it.
“Where are you hurt –”
“Hey, Eds.” He croaks, trying not to let the agony show on his face, since it hasn’t calmed down since he was trapped. “Got myself into a situation.”
“He’s stuck in a Buck-trap!” Christopher yells from somewhere off to the side.
Eddie’s head snaps back to him, more confused than before, clearly taking in the sickly colour to Buck’s cheeks and the sweat coating his tank top.
“It’s my leg.” He says, voice shaking. “Under the shirt.
Hesitantly, Eddie peels back the shirt, and while he has no large, panicked reaction like Buck feared he would, his jaw tightens, and his eyes go hard around the edges.
“Okay.” Eddie breathes, and Buck can tell by the rasp in his voice that he’s desperately trying not to freak the fuck out. “What are we working with here? You think it’s broken?”
“It’s a bear trap, Eddie, of course it’s broken. In multiple places, most likely.” Buck snaps, and then immediately regrets it. The exhaustion is catching up to him, and he just wants the pain to stop. “Sorry. I’m just…”
“Don’t worry.” Eddie’s hands hover over the leg. He checks the tightness of the tourniquet, apologising profusely when Buck can’t hold back his shout of pain. “Is it the same –”
“Nope. Truck was right. I mean hey, this means I’ll have matching scars. Badass.”
Eddie glares at him, not amused. “Dios. You don’t do things by halves, do you?”
“Let’s just be happy my leg is still semi attached.”
“Don’t say that.” Eddie’s gone a little pale. He looks around. “I’ve got to go back.”
“What?” Buck says, in a panic. The thought of Eddie leaving him now is terrifying.
“I found a signal when I got closer to the main road, called a tow truck. If I run, I can call 9 1 1 , and be back in half an hour.”
Buck doesn’t like it, but he also knows they’ve got no choice. He nods, dejected. He eyes the backpack still slung over Eddie’s shoulder. “Don’t suppose you got any pain meds in there?”
Eddie’s face falls. Buck already knows his answer. “I hate seeing you in pain.”
“I’m not a big fan of being in it, either.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but a tear slips out, and he knows it didn’t land. Eddie cups his cheek tenderly, giving him a warm kiss, before wiping his tears away.
“You got this. I’ll be back before you know it.” Eddie turns to Chris. “Don’t let him fall asleep, okay? This is the only time you’re getting permission to slap someone. I’m serious, Chris, don’t let him fall asleep.”
Chris’s face is stricken as he nods, like the reality of the situation is only now crashing down onto him.
Buck clasps Eddie’s wrist before he can stand up. “You should take Christopher with you.”
“I’m not leaving you here on your own.”
“Don’t wanna traumatise him, just in case - in case –”
Because the only thought that's scarier than him dying right now, is Christopher being there if it happens. He doesn’t want the kid to carry around that kind of baggage when he’s not even in High School yet.
“You’re going to be fine.” Eddie says, stubbornly. “Stop being dramatic.”
Buck tries to shrug. “You know me, Eds, always got to be the centre of attention.”
Exasperated, Eddie mutters something in Spanish. Buck doesn’t understand - he’s been trying, but learning a new language in your late twenties is harder than people give it credit for - but Chris clearly does, since his eyes widen and he has to hold back a giggle.
“I love you.” Eddie says then, a fond expression on his face that screams he doesn’t want to go. “More than life.”
“I love you too.” Buck breathes back.
And then he’s gone.
This time, Buck and Christopher don’t talk. They don’t distract each other with silly games and meaningless conversation. Buck couldn’t if he tried, because everything feels a little slower, like time is moving through sludge.
He starts to shiver uncontrollable, and despite his greatest efforts whimpers slip out between his teeth, and Christopher cries with him. The boy tries to keep him warm by shrugging off his green hoodie and places it over Buck’s shoulders, and then proceeds to nuzzle his face into Buck’s chest, letting his small arms curl round his neck.
He tries not to fall asleep. He really does.
He does anyway.
—
Waking up in the hospital isn’t as startling as it should be.
It’s familiar. He’s been here a lot after all, whether that be for himself or someone he loves. Only this time it’s a little different - the bright lights are the same, and the scratchy covers are the same, as well as the strong scent of anti-septic - but this time, there’s a warm weight snuggled against his side.
The smile that graces his lips is easy and free, and he finds himself hugging Chris tighter.
“Hey.”
He looks to his left, and there he is. Eddie. He loves the man so much that sometimes, in moments like these, it hits him again like that first time he realised.
“Hi, sexy.” Buck rasps out, eyelids heavy.
Eddie coughs a laugh. “I see the drugs have gone to your head.”
Buck rolls his head to the side. “Yeah. Drugged up on loooove. Come one, gimme a kiss.”
“With pleasure,” Eddie says, and then he’s leaning forward, kissing him like he thought he’d never be able to again.
So of course, that’s when it really registers why he’s here, and he pulls away suddenly, looking down at his leg that’s bandaged up and elevated.
“You’re going to be fine.” Eddie assures him before he can spiral further. “Nasty compound fracture to the Tibia, and a clean break to the Fibula. It’ll take a couple months, but you’ll be back to work in no time.”
The relief is so dizzying he almost falls back asleep. Sure, being off work for so long will suck, but unlike the last time, he’ll be staying with his favourite people.
“The recovery will suck. But on the brightside, I am going to get so many more steps in than you. You know what that means?”
“Blowjobs?”
“Yep.” Eddie says with a grin, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, biceps on display.
“Come on, don’t you think I deserve something after nearly getting my leg chopped off? Like, a handjob a day, at least.”
Eddie licks his lips, giving Buck an intense look. “I can think of a couple things.”
Buck’s about to respond, when there’s a shuffling against his chest. Chris yawns against him, loud and slobbery, before looking up at Buck. His eyes widen and he jumps up immediately with a cheer.
“You’re awake!”
“Looks like it.” Buck replies with his own grin.
“I have something for you!” Chris says, and scrambles off his bed. There’s a large bag to the side which he drags with both hands onto the bed. “Open it.”
Buck peers inside the bag, a choked off laugh escaping him as his eyes go wide.
Eddie huffs. "I told Chris it was a bad idea, but he insisted -"
"That he take it for Show and Tell?" Buck guesses, eyeing the rusty bear trap, which is luckily cleaned of blood.
"You have to let me take it!" Chris begs, talking louder than necessary. "I've already told all my friends - the Buck-Trap is a legend!"
"Yeah, fine, whatever." He chuckles. "I guess it could make a pretty neat doorstop, no?"
Christopher's eyes light up, while Eddie gives him a glare that rivals Athena's.
"I'm joking - it would be much better as a door hook."
Eddie punches him in the arm lightly. "I'm burning it."
"It's metal."
"Fine, I'm melting it. Either way, we are never seeing that stupid Buck-Trap again!"