Chapter Text
The sound of his alarm – a tool he rarely used – brought Buck to wakefulness in the rudest of ways. His eyes fluttered open to unfamiliar surroundings, the bed beneath him comfortable but not his. Not in the way that the twin bed he’d grown up with, shoved in the corner of a box room, had been his. No, here there was room for him to have a double bed, and a desk, and a balcony. They all felt like consolation prizes for what he really sought: attention. Attention he was not going to find here, snuggled in his sheets, while his parents galivanted on yet another business trip that was ill-timed. They were always ill-timed as of late: Buck’s school award ceremony, his science fair, his birthday. Why bother coming home before the moving trucks arrived with their boxes, when they had children to dutifully unbox their possessions for them?
Buck silenced his alarm clock with a swift whack and leapt to his feet. He darted into the ensuite adjacent to his new room, scowling at the boy who stared back in the mirror. Buck scooped a handful of hair gel into his palm before he even thought to brush his teeth, taming curls too similar to those of the brother that had left a gaping hole in the family. The brother whose room had remained empty for months before his parents found a suitable dwelling for their ‘new beginning’, and the brother whose entire life amounted to a few boxes, no doubt set to be unloaded later that day. If his parents had their way, they would never be opened again. Buck, however, had other plans.
“You look cheerful,” Maddie greeted when Buck bounded down new stairs into the open plan of their new living area, devoid of any life or personality. Not that he imagined his parents’ stuff would breathe any of that into it.
“We get our stuff today, why wouldn’t I be happy?” Buck pressed a kiss to his sister’s forehead as he passed her, their height difference another new thing she was not pleased about. One summer vacationing with her boyfriend – a reprieve from their fathers’ stone-cold expression and mother’s weeping – and she’d come back to find that Buck towered over her. It was just one more thing that made him too much like Daniel, the dark shadow that loomed over their otherwise perfect family.
“I suppose,” Maddie said sceptically, handing Buck a peanut butter sandwich with the crusts cut off. It was just how he – and Daniel – liked it. Buck took a bite and grinned down at her, mischief dancing behind his eyes. Maddie sighed. “Just- don’t do anything crazy, okay? Mom and Dad will be back later and I promised them I’d keep you out of trouble.” Buck made a wounded noise.
“Please, I’m an angel,” Buck’s mouth soured around the word. He held his pinkie out for Maddie to interlock within her own, the sandwich abandoned on the countertop, while his other hand crossed his fingers behind his back.
Angels were popular, right? Just as Buck was. One text sent to everyone in his contacts – bar Maddie and his parents, of course – and their new home was being well and truly christened. Maddie raced after teenagers with arms full of antiques, and winced when one boy decided the walk to the bathroom was too far and unleashed his bladder onto her mother’s pristine, white couch. How would she explain away that one?
“No, don’t,” Maddie pleaded with her younger brother when he found the boxes marked with ‘Daniel’ in shaky handwriting. Had she not been trying to wrestle a vase worth more than her college tuition from someone’s arms, she might have stopped him from ripping the boxes open and grabbing armfuls of Daniel’s clothes and knickknacks.
Buck ran through the house and out into the backyard. His peers cheered him on as pieces of Daniel’s life fell from his arms. He vaguely heard Maddie’s alarmed shout, followed by the booming timber of his father’s voice and his mother’s wail, when she, undoubtedly, found the boxes Buck had discarded in his haste. The sound made his steps falter, if only a little, but he was close to the edge now. Why had his parents bought a house so close to the edge of a cliff if they had not intended for him to jump? His peers cheered around him as his feet left solid ground, flailing for a moment in mid-air before he plunged downwards with rapid speed. Daniel’s t-shirts, a medal he’d won, and a sweater Buck was sure was his mother’s favourite were ripped from his hands by the wind. It dawned on him, seconds before his feet collided with the cold, unyielding water below, that the secluded, cliff-based location of their new house was just another way his parents could hide from the reality.
There was a moment beneath the waves where Buck wondered if he should bother to come back up. He opened his eyes to find his brother’s things floating around him and pondered which his parents would save first. He knew, without a doubt, that it would not be him. Only when his lungs screamed for air and his eyes burnt with the sting of the salty water did Buck push himself up, painting on a grin before he looked up at his father’s beet red face that loomed over the cliff’s edge.
“Get up here, right now, Evan Buckley. Get up here!” Phillip Buckley’s voice echoed out into the ocean. The dreaded ‘I’m mad at you finger’ pointed first at Buck and then toward the small dock that had been cut into the cliff’s face that gave access back up to the poncy, marbled backyard that was now theirs.
With every step Buck dripped and marred the cool, white marble and he wondered, if he were to slip, if his inevitable tumble would lessen the punishment. At least he might be served jello by his mother during his grounding. His mother, who now clung to the big, floor-to-ceiling windows and snatched mementos of Daniel from the hands of the teenagers she urged to disperse. Phillip waited for his son at the top of the stairs, arms crossed and face no less red.
“This is the final straw, Evan – you are going to England,” Phillip boomed. Buck rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, wary of the fact some of the gel had begun to seep out.
“The boarding school threat again, how original,” Buck scoffed.
“I’m serious, Evan. All this is going to stop right now,” Phillip insisted and, for the first time since the threat had been made over the past six months, Buck realised that he might have just pushed his father too far when he reached for his phone.
“So, what, you think if I go to a boarding school just like Daniel, you think it’ll mould me into his clone,” Buck yelled. “I’m not Daniel, dad. No matter how much you want me to be.” Buck’s shoulders sagged. He had lived his entire life in the other’s shadow and, now that he was gone, all his parents could ever see was the darkness. The vein upon Phillip’s forehead throbbed at the mere mention of the son Buck knew he wished was standing before him now. Only, Daniel would never have done what Buck had done – he’d never have needed to, he drew the eyes of everyone in the room.
“You are going to boarding school in England, and that’s final.” The phone was by his ear and Buck could already hear the murmured arrangements being made. His mother cast one final, cold look in his direction before she retreated back into the house. When Buck met his sister’s eyes across the carnage he had created, she only sighed. Buck brought a knuckle to his mouth and bit.
That evening, Buck wallowed in self-pity in the bed he’d had no time to get used to. He heard his door creak and for one, hopeful moment, he thought it might be either his dad or his mom, coming in to apologise for overreacting, to take back the punishment of flying thousands of miles across an ocean to the cold, wet and miserable Abbey Mount boarding school. Phillip had left the transfer papers out on the countertop before he’d faxed them through, and Buck had taken the liberty to look up the place. It looked as though it belonged in a Pride & Prejudice film: a large, imposing stately home in the middle of nowhere. Founded sometime in the 17th century, it seemed nothing had changed much since then. Buck grimaced at the stuffy, tasteless uniforms that looked as though they’d stayed the same since World War II. The only thing progressive about it was its co-ed nature and even then, Buck wondered how progressive the children of people rich enough to afford the tuition could be. His own parents were certainly sticks in the mud. So stuck in their ways that he found the creak in the door had been neither of them, only Maddie, as she curled up behind him in a bed that still felt too big.
Buck winced from the chill of her feet as they bumped his own under the sheets, though he pressed back into her embrace when she pulled him closer.
“Think you’ve finally pushed them too far this time, Evan,” Maddie sighed into his still half-gelled hair. Buck made a confirmative noise. She’d no doubt begged them to change their mind on his behalf, but once Phillip Buckley got an idea, there was no turning back. It was one of the few things Buck had in common with his father.
“I don’t wanna go, Maddie,” Buck whined as he clung to her hand, forcing his pinkie into hers in a motion full of familiar comfort. Maddie kissed the back of his neck.
“Could be good for you. It was good for Daniel.” Buck wrenched his finger free of hers. Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. It was all their family could ever talk about and yeah, okay, he’d died. Buck missed him, he really did, but he’d barely had a chance to mourn, given how often he was brought up. That was Daniel’s favourite, his mother cooed when Buck asked for a certain brand of cereal. Daniel would have looked great in that, when Buck showed off his newest t-shirt. Daniel would have aced the test Buck had been so proud to have achieved a B+ on.
“I’m not him,” Buck retorted stubbornly and Maddie whined in acknowledgement of her minor mistake, the noise growing stronger when her younger brother rudely elbowed her from his bed.
“Evan-” she began but Buck had buried his head underneath the sheets.
“It’s Buck,” he reminded her for the thousandth time. He’d been insisting on the nickname for months now, his given name so often spoke with an air of disappointment and anger that it had begun to sound like a curse.
Headmaster Bobby Nash breathed in the fresh autumnal air as he stepped out into the courtyard of the school he loved to govern. All around him familiar and fresh faces dotted around the grass. Bobby nodded toward nervous 11-year olds that had just been dropped off their first term and smiled politely, welcoming 17-year-olds beginning their final year. But it was the sleek, black limousine that had just begun to pull up to the courtyard that was Bobby’s priority today. He weaved his way through excited school pupils and, in his haste, brushed shoulders with Tommy Kinard, who wore his head boy badge with pride. Bobby smiled warmly to him before he bustled away, leaving Tommy to greet the newcomers. His friends, if you could call them that, hurried behind him. Tyler Kennedy Strand, or TK to his peers, held aloft the pheasants Tommy had insisted he brought, while Carlos Reyes struggled under the weight of Tommy’s travel bag. Tommy greeted the first years with an air of superiority, cleft chin jutted high in the air as he shook their hands like he was royalty.
Before he got to the car that stood still on the gravel, no signs of life from inside as of yet, Bobby squeezed the shoulders of 16-year-old Henrietta Wilson. She was someone Bobby had found he could always rely on and, when Tommy left to go on to greater things next year, he hoped that Hen would take his place as head girl. Until then, however, Bobby had a greater task for her indeed. He left her in place to greet the sour man that had finally emerged from his car.
“Mr. Buckley, I’m Bobby Nash. Headmaster,” Bobby greeted as he extended his hand for Mr. Buckley to shake.
“Please, call me Phillip. I am so grateful for you for taking Evan off our hands,” Phillip said. Bobby blinked at the strange wording, as though his son were a dog, or work project. “He has been rather difficult since, well, you know.” Bobby squeezed his hand in sympathy for the grief that pooled in misty tears on Phillip’s lash line.
“Just leave it to me, Mr. Buckley – I have a double first in difficult.”
With that, Bobby made his way to the back window of the car. Buck took one look at him and hit the lock on the door. Bobby smiled at the indiscretion and knocked politely on the windowpane that had been marred by a spot of light rain on their journey here. Buck glared at him through tinted sunglasses and stubbornly folded his arms across his chest. Bobby knocked once more, wincing when Phillip barked his son’s name from the other side of the car. With a huff, Buck unwound the window.
“Hello, Evan,” Bobby said softly. Buck swallowed. It had been some time since his name had been spoken with such fondness. Still, he scowled.
“It’s Buck,” he corrected. Bobby beamed back at him.
“Hello, Buck. Welcome to Abbey Mount – I’m Bobby Nash, your headmaster.” Buck rolled his eyes from behind his tinted shield and scoffed. His hands gesticulated wildly as he cut the elder man off.
“Look, I understand you’re just-” Buck’s words caught in his throat when Bobby held up one finger and wagged it like he was a dog. Ah, more familiar territory then.
“Lesson number one, Buck. To me negotiation is like a nightclub. Not something I tend to enter into. Now, come along.” Bobby reached inside and unlocked the door, opening it with one swift movement. His kindly eyes dared Buck to do anything but obey the silent order. Grinding his jaw, Buck swung a leg outwards and winced as his pristine, white sneakers met with damp, muddy grass.
Across the green, Tommy had almost reached the end of those he had left to greet when one particularly, mousy squeaky boy tore his eyes from Tommy’s face and watched in awe at the newcomer who had emerged from the car.
“Wow,” the child gushed, and Tommy whipped his head around to see what was so fascinating. His eyebrows met his hairline as he took in the mess that was their newest student. He scowled at the boy’s once white sneakers, his tight jeans, of which half of his shirt was tucked into, while the other draped across his thigh. The top of the shirt opened to reveal a thin, flimsy scarf wrapped around his neck, that whipped across the pleather of his jacket. Tommy tensed at the whispers of who’s he as Headmaster Nash personally welcomed him like some celebrity. Tommy hated how the whole courtyard’s heads turned toward him, almost like they’d been drawn to the infuriating mess.
Bobby lay a soft hand upon Buck’s shoulder as he introduced him to Hen, telling the boy that she would be acting as his big sister here at Abbey Mount, before he left them to it. Buck scoffed.
“Hi, how do you do?” Hen said cheerfully, in an accent so out of place against everyone else’s posh ones.
“I already have a big sister,” Buck looked the girl up and down. She looked ridiculous in her uniform: the grey blazer washed her out, and the black sweater and blue tie beneath was giving business casual to Buck. Though he did note, with some respect, her funky glasses, shorn hair and the fact that she appeared to be wearing the boy’s uniform – a pair of blue, plaid trousers instead of the blue, plaid pleated skirts of her other female peers.
“It’s just school lingo,” Hen reassured. “I’ll be a friend, a helping hand, that’s all.” Buck couldn’t keep the disgusted scoff within him if he’d tried.
“Okay, but I choose my friends and, FYI, you don’t make the cut.”
Hen dropped her smile and arched a brow at Buck’s cockiness.
“I’m sure that would sting a lot more if I knew what FYI meant. But, for the moment, let’s just pretend it’s had the desired effect, shall we?”
Hen turned and left Buck gobsmacked in her wake, grinning to herself as she approached her true friends.
“Saddle up, guys, we’ve got ourselves a bronco,” Hen joked. Chimney leaned back so that he could look past Hen to observe the sour looking American, who stood out amongst the sea of grey and blue. Ravi looked the boy up and down, secretly wondering where he could find a jacket like his, while Karen wrapped her arms around Hen and scowled at Buck over her shoulder. Though her scowl turned into a smirk when she spied Tommy approaching Bobby, dead birds held aloft as he declared them a gift for Bobby and his son, Eddie. Karen pulled back and quietly insisted that her friends watch as Bobby took the birds off Tommy’s hands with a grimace, only to hand them back almost immediately and rush off under the guise of welcoming the first years. They all relished in the slight tick of Tommy’s very defined jaw and the fleeting grins of his minions, before they schooled their faces to one of disbelief.
Shaking off the rejection, Tommy slung his birds over his shoulder and marched toward where Buck still stood in front of his car.
“Tommy. Head boy.” Tommy thrust his hand out for Buck to shake – a high honour in his mind. TK and Carlos stood menacingly behind him. Buck sneered at the ‘gift’ he’d been presented with and gave a dismissive hm. Fearing for the boy’s braincells, Tommy stepped forward and snatched Buck’s hand in his own. “You shake the hand of the head boy.” Tommy jerked Buck forward by their entwined hands. “Out of respect.”
“When the head boy has earned my respect, then I’ll shake his hand.” Buck yanked his hand from Tommy’s grip. “Dick.”
“I’m sorry?” Tommy blinked in rapid succession. Buck smirked.
“Apology accepted.” Tommy’s eyes widened at the pure audacity of this American. Desperate to put the other boy in his place, Tommy turned and swung his pheasants against his stupid, unnecessary sunglasses. He smirked when they collided with a satisfying slap, knocking the glasses askew and trailing feathers across the birthmark they revealed below.
Buck was left to sputter at the great disrespect as Tommy and his cronies marched toward the Abbey Mount building.
"The Americans may have won the war of independence, but I won't let that Yank get the better of me," Tommy sneered. "I think it's important to crush his ego before he starts thinking he's an equal. Me thinks so." TK and Carlos looked to one another and sighed.
“We think so too,” they said as one regardless, sparing Buck a sympathetic glance as they followed Tommy like obedient soldiers into the building that would be their home for the next few months.
Phillip Buckley had already climbed back into the car. Buck pawed at the window, desperate for one last slither of attention. His father rolled the window down by an inch.
“Yes, Evan?” Buck curled his fingers around the edge of the glass, just to prevent his father from rolling it back up. He swallowed.
“Will you call me, when you get back to LA?” Buck’s voice sounded as small as he felt.
“Sure,” Phillip replied. He flicked Buck’s fingers from the glass one by one and rolled it back up before Buck could try and throw himself through the slither he’d been granted. He was forced to take a step back from the car as the driver rolled away. To make matters worse, the sky thundered from above.
“Ugh,” Buck said to himself as he looked out at the now empty courtyard. His father’s car disappeared down the winding driveway. What was it that google had said again? It rained 200 days out of the year in England. Buck so was going to get SAD. He scoffed to himself – when hadn’t he been sad?
Buck wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he opened the door to his room – maybe something similar to what he’d been used to before the move: a dark, dingy box room, with a bedside table and a wardrobe. He certainly had not expected it to be occupied. Buck stood, shellshocked, in the doorway, as he watched chaos unfold before him. Three of the four beds in the room were taken, though there were already four people in the room. Three of the beds lined the wall that met the hallway Buck had entered through, while the other sat, by its lonesome, against the wall with the room’s only window. It was that one that appeared to be free, save for a rather obscene number of socks piled atop it. Two boys knelt by the foot of another bed and struggled with the lock of someone’s trunk, both jumping back when it opened with a pop. Hen stood by the bed closest to the window and played fondly with another girl’s braid as she listened to what had inspired her to style it so.
“Excuse me, hi,” Buck alerted the group of his presence. “I’ve been assigned this room. You need to leave.” His demand was met with a chorus of chuckles. “Oh, wow. Communal.” Buck held his hands high in the air to avoid touching anything. The girl whose braids Hen had been admiring stepped into the centre of the room. She looked Buck up and down.
“Well, it’s bed number four or the corridor,” she informed him. “Your choice, mate.” Buck grimaced but made his way to the bed, much smaller than the one he could have been sleeping in instead.
“Move your stinking socks, Chim,” Hen ordered one of the others. Chim skipped over and did as told, watching with confusion as Buck pulled a generous bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket. Buck made grunts of displeasure while he doused his hands and the bedside table he assumed was his overzealously with the stuff. Chim’s nose wrinkled at the almost alcoholic stench of it all, personally preferring the slight odour of his own socks.
In the midst of ‘cleaning’ the bedside lamp, Buck noticed Hen stashing candy he didn’t recognise into the cupboard of her own bedside table.
“You lock away your chocolate?” Buck rolled his eyes. What kind of school was this? Chim, it seemed, was prepared to educate him.
“Key information, if it’s the Wagon Wheel versus the Rolex, the Wagon Wheel is going to trounce it every time,” he said with a Scottish lilt. Buck listened with disdain as he rid himself of his jacket.
“What’s a wagon wheel?” He asked, only to immediately regret his choice. Chim headed toward his own bedside table to retrieve the chocolate he held in such reverence. Buck grimaced as he was handed a large, round chocolate coated thing, tucked neatly into a red wrapper which he turned in his hands and skimmed the back of.
“Ew, that’s carbs and sugar,” Buck handed it back. Chim took it with a frown.
“What a revelation, I had no idea.”
Even worse than his new roommate’s food choices was the obvious lack of signal. No matter where Buck held his iPhone – a novelty, at least, to the boy he’d come to know as Ravi – no bars appeared. Though Hen’s friend Karen delighted to inform him that there were only two hot spots around, she didn’t seem inclined to share them. Buck stamped his foot.
“It’s imperative that I can make my phone calls,” Buck told them. He had to talk to someone normal, pronto, for if he had to hear another British accent, he might explode. Hen sighed.
“It’s pointless anyway, we’re only allowed mobiles on weekends,” she told Buck. Buck’s eyes widened with alarm – what was this? Prison?
“How am I supposed to call my therapist?” Buck questioned. The others around him laughed and Karen even dared question if he was joking. Buck saw how Hen’s eyes slid to his phone, obviously catching the contact name, and shook her head.
“Just put it away before Gerrard catches you,” Hen sighed. “Where’s your trunk?”
“It hasn’t been delivered yet,” Buck mocked. Hen cast a look out to her friends dubiously.
They found it abandoned on the courtyard, absolutely dripping, for it had been caught out in the torrential rain that had started not long after Buck had made his way inside. He moaned over his ruined stuff as the others helped him to unload it. For every sneaker that poured water onto the previously dry carpet, Buck whimpered. His expensive football jerseys? Dripping. His beloved childhood teddy, T’Eddie? Positively damp. Buck hugged the bear to his chest and whimpered as it seeped water into his shirt. His new roommates seemed to be somewhat sympathetic for his loss, until Hen reached the bottom of his trunk and found the stashes of bottled water he’d brought with him. She scoffed.
“You know, in England we have this marvellous thing called a tap,” she said. Buck huffed.
“Yeah, well, in America having a girl in an otherwise male bunkroom would be grounds for a lawsuit,” Buck bit back, though he couldn’t care much as to who he was sharing with.
Hen took a step back from Buck’s stuff and the others soon followed. Buck was left to grab at his own waterlogged belongings by himself.
“If you must know, it was an accident. Despite your complete hatred of it, Abbey Mount is actually a very desirable school, and I only got in through admin error," she explained. Buck feigned his interest, more concerned with the puddles within his trunk. Hen continued anyway. "They thought Henrietta was Henri and were humiliated when I showed up. But the papers had been signed, and it was too late to transfer, so, they let me in,” Hen shrugged. “Besides – I’m gay as hell and Bobby would rather have me here than take my suggestion of sharing Karen’s bed.” Hen pecked what Buck could now infer was her girlfriend on the lips.
“You’re just lucky Sal dropped out last year, or else you’d have gone somewhere like St. Trinians,” Karen added. Her nose wrinkled at the mere thought of the other school and Buck fought the urge to ask about it. He didn’t care, not really. Here, there or at the bottom of the ocean he had begun to regret climbing out of, it didn’t matter. Buck would have been miserable everywhere.
As if drawn to his misery like a homing beacon, their conversation was halted by the entrance of a gruff old man.
“Welcome back, kids,” the man’s eyes narrowed in on Karen. “You’re in the wrong dorm, Karen.” Karen bowed her head and rushed from the room. Buck took one look at the man, dressed in some form of uniform, and quickly made an assumption.
“Oh, good, staff. How quickly can you get all this stuff cleaned?” Buck held up one of his more expensive t-shirts. The man arched his brow back at him.
“Is he…”
“American,” Ravi helpfully supplied.
“Oh yes, we had one of those in 1997. Not good, accustom him to my rules. He should be in the correct uniform, for a start.” He looked Buck up and down. “Mobile phones, please, kids.”
The gruff old man began to take a turn around the room and from the way Chim cheerfully cried no problem as he gave him his ancient mobile phone, Buck learnt his name was Gerrard. Whatever his name, he was a grade A asshole.
“Hey, that’s mine.” Buck made a swipe for the phone Gerrard had taken from his bed. He stood toe-to-toe with the man and noticed with some satisfaction that he was practically the same height. Buck tried to reason with the old fool, spouting broken greetings in several languages including Spanish, Italian and French. Gerrard sneered back at him.
“I am Scottish, not remedial,” he bit back. Buck’s eyes lit up as he began to tell the other exactly what it was that needed doing to his poor, rain-drenched clothes before they were fit to wear again.
“How dare you, no mufti for a week,” Gerrard declared. Buck’s face crumpled with confusion, oblivious to the wince Hen gave.
“Fine, mufti may be your thing, dude, but it sure ain’t mine,” Buck scoffed.
Ravi ground his teeth as he corrected Buck’s assumption and told him that it meant no home clothes for a week. Buck pursed his lips and watched Gerrard dump out the clothes he’d dropped into the box for mobile phones.
“Like I give a shit.” Buck threw his hands up. They were ruined, anyway. Gerrard’s face slackened with shock. “I’ll be gone by then.”
“Language,” Gerrard hissed. “Two Sundays detention, for the whole dorm.” He whipped his head around the room. Buck blew air from his lips. He limbered up as he approached Gerrard with a $100 bill and offered it to him with the caveat that he buy himself something, well, anything, for anything would be a vast improvement on the rags the man currently wore. “Three Sundays. For everyone.” Groans erupted all around as Gerrard took his leave and, though Buck argued that it was all Gerrard’s fault, Hen cut his protests short and insisted he put on his uniform. When Buck placed his arms across his chest in defiance, Hen demanded more powerfully:
"Now."