i’ll bandage up your body and your bones and your bad days too | 5.6k, teen
fill for @badthingshappenbingo—kick them while they are down
“Hey, pretty boy,” he says, softly, and reaches in to wipe off a stray tear and drip of snot.
Eddie rolls his eyes and laughs, thick and nasty, because he knows he’s not pretty right now, red-faced and wild-eyed and wet with tears, wet with snot and spit and sweat and all sorts of other things, but Buck really, truly, thinks so. He wouldn’t say it if he didn’t.
“Hi.”
Buck’s smile widens. “Wanna scoot over and let me in?” he asks, ducking down so he can meet Eddie’s eyes. Eddie nods and scrambles to move, sliding over just enough for Buck to squeeze in and then slumping against his wide chest. Buck shuts the door, wraps his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, and kisses his forehead. He smells like smoke and Hen’s fruity lotion. “You’re burning up, baby.”
Eddie nods, hiccups, and says nothing.
Buck brings his other arm around to hold Eddie closer, tighter. “You said you were feeling better,” he says, whispery-soft, as he combs Eddie’s damp hair off his forehead. “Why’d you lie to me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Why do you think I’d worry?”
“‘Cause I’m having a bad day,” Eddie answers, shrugging, and nestles in further, like he can crawl inside Buck’s body and spread himself out along Buck’s bones, where he’s warm and wet and welcome, forever and always. “‘Cause I have a cold and everything hurts and nothing feels good except—except this. Except you.”
The tension in Eddie’s body sweeps out as quick as it came, leaving him boneless and unsecured and held in Buck’s arms, against Buck’s big chest and even bigger heart where he belongs, where he was born to be. It’s the one place that’s his and nobody else’s, ever again.
A tear falls, hot like fire, and he snuffles, wiping his face across Buck’s t-shirt.
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Idk how to phrase it bc I've only recently begun to think about it but 🤔 growing up poor, alone, and temporary kinda taught me valuable poor skills like "how to live w only 1/4 of your possessions available, even the important ones" or "we won't be able to stay here that long, decorate but don't mount anything to the walls" OR my greatest hit "your movers are also poor like you so bring a case of ice water and popsicles for them + get ready to haul as much of your furniture as you can w 3 sweaty strangers"
But like 🤡 I never learned the not-poor skills lmao... Yeah sure I'm good at making things last but??? Learning when it's okay to replace something is such an unexpected skill. I'm not rich by any means, but I've finally met a career level where I'm secure job-wise and financially :/c which means I don't actually have to wear things until they fall apart which is nuts. My solution at the moment is to remember being the kid in goodwill finding kick-ass clothes and happily build a donation box of things I like but haven't worn in awhile (a year or so usually). Saluting the anonymous southerner who donated a pair of new w tags tripp pants in 2009. Inspiring me, king.
Anyway also the fact that I've established myself somewhere now is 🤡 man I'm figuring it out, but I feel very silly sometimes. Killing the voice in my head that says "don't get settled too much, you have to undo all this soon" by just thinking "if I still like it here, I will choose to stay longer, dumbass" which is a CRAZY luxury???? Girlies, home ownership is insane to me and I enjoy renting tbh, but being at the mercy of rent jacks made things pretty nomadic for awhile. I'm fully unpacked here. I mounted my first TV last year? Insane. I'm hanging floating corner shelves just to put junk I make on them. I have PLANTS? Idk it's just weird the things that are very normalized that I never did and a lot of my friends never did. My countertops are stone now, so I've had to learn to place things gently on them so they don't shatter. You could dunk a plate onto the vinyl countertops I had in high school. I do miss that freedom.
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