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One useless donor baby is a disappointment, sure, but still a child that could act as a never enough replacement for the son you lost.
Two useless donor babies is just too much of a monetary burden and too much of a reminder of how much you’ve failed as a parent.
Or, at least, that’s what Buck bitterly told himself, angry at his birth parents who weren’t fit to be parents, who gave him and his twin brother away when they couldn’t save their only true son.
What made it worse is that they didn’t give them up right away. They kept the two around, like their resentment and barely concealed hatred would one day dissipate and things would suddenly fix themselves.
But they didn’t. Of course they didn’t. Because they were just kids who didn’t understand what they did wrong with parents who would never tell them why they just couldn’t love them.
They were four when their parents started to leave them with their aunt and uncle more.
Aunt Helen and Uncle Richard were always so much kinder than their actual parents and when the months turned to years spending more and more time with them until eventually they proposed that the two of them stay with them permanently, the kids, still too young to truly understand the severity of their situation, jumped at the opportunity to be in a happy, loving home with happy, loving parents.
It’s not until they’re entering their teenage years that he started to really understand. Simon was unbothered by it, or at least, he acted like he was. He was always more concerned about whatever he was reading or documentary he watched or, oh yeah, being anywhere but where Buck was. Or, back then, he was still Jared. Evan Jared Buckley, doing everything he could to distance himself from the boy he was before, when he was still living with them.
They always loved Simon more. Jared knew that. Simon was smarter. Quieter. A better son in every way Jared was a worse one. And because of it, Simon was always treated differently. They actually paid attention to Simon, not that Simon even really wanted it. He was content with his nose in a book and no one talking to him while he did. They praised Simon for his good grades and good behavior and good, good, good. They found every opportunity to compare Simon to Jared and while they were just words that rolled off Simon’s back, they stabbed into Jared’s chest and embedded into his heart.
Even Maddie favored Simon. Jared always found a way to get under her skin whether it be with his pranks or his incessant ways he found to bother her. It wasn’t like he meant to, but it was the only way to get anyone to pay attention to him.
Things were different with Aunt Helen and Uncle Richard. For the first time, Jared mattered. They saw him and Simon.
But then things started to get tense between them and Uncle Richard started to be at home less and less and Aunt Helen got more and more bitter and suddenly they were moving away from New York to a house in the middle of nowhere.
Maddie came with them, just to help with the transition, and somehow in just their first few days there, their lives were completely and irrevocably changed.
Suddenly they had entered a world with fairies, hobgoblins, boggarts, and more. Where their house was under surveillance by an evil shape shifting ogre and attacked by the goblins after the book Jared and his stupid curiosity couldn’t help but open.
And after a night fighting off monsters with tomato sauce, dealing with Mulgarath parading around in Richard’s face and stabbing who they believed to be the man who raised them, and watching as their great aunt disappeared in a cloud sylphs with the author and guide to this crazy unbelievable nightmare, Jared, Simon, Maddie and Aunt Helen were closer than they had ever been.
Things went quiet after that, though not completely. There was a lot discovered in Arthur’s books and a lot to be protected with only a few some who knew about them.
But when Maddie went back to Pennsylvania and met Doug and slowly lost touch with them and Jared started to feel suffocated in the mansion and the responsibility that was placed upon their shoulders, Simon and Helen promised to protect the house and all that surrounded it so that Jared could find himself and who he was outside of it all.
And so he traveled. He found odd jobs and he went everywhere his Jeep could take him.
And somehow he’s ended up in LA, becoming a firefighter, and finding a family in the 118, in Eddie and Chris, and in Maddie again.
He and Simon talk every day, whether it be call or FaceTime or just text, because Jared, now Buck, can never truly let go of their fantastical adventures and the magical creatures he met in his many years protecting Spiderwick’s books.
Buck keeps the stone with him always on a sturdy chain around his neck, close to his chest, even though the hobgoblin’s spit had long since given him the sight. It’s a reassurance and a reminder of home.
He never thought he’d have to use it.
Especially not here.
It starts when Buck comes into work and is greeted by a wide eyed Eddie, almost too shocked to talk.
“What’s wrong?” Buck asks, grabbing Eddie by the shoulders.
“Buck,” Eddie says, trembling on his name. “But… I just saw you—”
It’s Buck’s turn to go wide eyed, a bright smile growing on his face. “Simon!” He grabs Eddie’s hand and drags him with him as he goes to run to his twin.
Simon and Buck don’t look nearly as identical as kids, Simon never quite filling out his height, lankier though still with lean muscle from his training with Hogsqueal, compared to Buck who is now all bulky muscle and identifiable by the birthmark over his brow that Simon doesn’t have.
Simon melts in Buck’s embrace, the two brothers unable to see each other as much as they’d like to nowadays.
“I can’t believe Thimbletack let you leave the manor long enough to come here,” Buck says.
“Helen’s watching over for me,” Simon says. “Don’t worry.”
Though all of it was a surprise to the woman and not at all what she signed up for, she had to protect her kids as they entered the dangerous world that the book brought. So, though she didn’t have the affinity to it the way Jared and Simon did, she knew enough and learned over the years.
“I’m not worrying,” Buck says.
“You are,” Simon says with a laugh. “But when are you not?”
It’s then that Buck remembers who he’s brought over with him and turns to his partner with a soft smile. “Eddie, Simon, my brother.”
“Twin brother,” Eddie says, voice still twinged with shock.
“Did he not know?” Simon asks, cocking a brow.
“Of course he…” Buck trails off. “Did I never mention that Simon and I were twins?”
“Nope,” Eddie says, eyes darting between the two, probably logging all of the similarities and differences between them.
“Jared talks so much and yet somehow always finds a way to forget to mention all of the important bits.”
“Jared?” Eddie repeats.
Simon smacks Buck on the arm. “How does he not know your name?”
Buck smacks Simon back. “I go by Buck now!”
“I thought your name was Evan,” Eddie says dumbfounded.
“It is,” Buck says. “Jared’s my middle name. I started going by it when I was a teenager.”
“But Maddie…”
“Still calls me Evan, yeah, I know, and it’s been a whole thing since we were kids. Believe me. But she gets a pass.”
“So… your name is Jared and you have a twin brother and you apparently used to live in a manor, don’t think I didn’t notice you mentioning that. Any other mind altering secrets that you want to share?”
Simon and Buck share a look and Buck shakes his head minutely. Unthinkingly, his hand goes to touch the stone that lies beneath his shirt.
“What are you doing in LA?” Buck asks.
“I…. I think that that’s something better spoken about in private.”
Dread pools in Buck’s gut. “Eddie, do you—”
“Not at all,” Eddie says. “You… you two… uhm. It was nice to meet you, Simon.”
“And you. I’ve heard so much about you.” Simon smiles softly at Eddie who nods a goodbye before making his way away.
“What happened?” Buck demands the second Eddie is out of earshot.
“He’s back.”
And with two words, Buck feels his world crash down upon him. “No.”
“Is your place protected?”
“No,” Buck says. “I couldn’t exactly grow a mushroom circle around my city apartment. But I made sure there’s one around Eddie’s house.”
Simon softens. “Eddie. He really means something to you, huh?”
“He’s the love of my life,” Buck says. “I’d do anything to protect him and Chris.”
“Enough to bring him in the loop?”
Buck hesitates. So many times, Buck has wanted to tell Eddie about it all. About Spiderwick’s journal, about the creatures that live amongst them, but the words always get caught in his throat, unable to come out and reveal the tightly kept secrets Buck has kept for over half his life.
“I don’t know how,” Buck admits, the truth in the words slamming into him with surprise.
“You don’t have to do it alone.”
“No,” Buck immediately says. “It has to come from me. Just me.”
“Jared—”
“He doesn’t know you. And he doesn’t trust easily. Believe me. It has to come from me.”
Buck starts to walk away but Simon grabs his wrist. “What are you going to tell him?’
“Everything.”