and what if in your sleep, you dreamed
The last square on my BTHB card is finally here! This one is for @herodiaz, ily Becky 💛
Summary:
The thing is, Buck had been doing well with his dreams. Nine out of ten nights, he wasn’t bringing back anything that he didn’t want to. But: head injury, mostly. The trauma of it all, probably.
That night, Buck goes to sleep in Eddie’s bed and wakes up holding his car keys.
It’s—it could be worse. After the tsunami, he kept waking up with his sheets full of sand, soaked through and shivering. After Eddie was shot, he’d wake up with blood in his mouth, choking on the taste of it. When Maddie was gone, hiding herself away in Boston, and he missed her so much it ached, Buck had to fight against his mind not to bring her back from his dreams. That would have been hard to explain: waking up in bed with Taylor on one side and a carbon copy of his missing sister on the other. Car keys, at least, can be hidden.
Except it’s not just the car keys.
Or: the raven cycle inspired dream magic fic
For BTHB: wound that would not heal
In his dreams, there is always more blood. It pools under him as he lies in the middle of the road, pours down his arm as he stumbles through waterlogged streets, fills his lungs as Abby takes a knife to his throat. It’s torn out of him with slashes on his arms, his legs, his chest, veins cut through and gaping, arteries nicked. Buck bleeds and bleeds and bleeds until there is nothing else left of him.
In hindsight, the whole blood clots turned blood thinners thing is kind of ironic.
Or. Is that what ironic means? It’s whatever word means the universe is laughing at him, is what it is. And the universe has always loved laughing at him. Laughing and screaming and clawing him open.
For Buck’s whole life, Maddie has told him that he isn’t cursed.
“It’s a gift, Evan,” when he’s a kid. “It means you’re special.”
Becomes: “You’re different, Evan. It’s not a bad thing.”
Becomes: “I don’t know why, okay? Sometimes things happen and you just have to deal with it. Life isn’t always fair.”
She was right about that: life isn’t fair.
She was wrong about other things though. Including the fact that he’s definitely cursed. How can he not be when he dreams of blood and wakes up terrified that he has brought it with him? Buck bolts upright in bed or on the couch, at the station and at home and everywhere else he sleeps, patting himself down—arms, throat, chest, legs—fingers trembling, breaths loud and gasping, his heart beating painfully fast.
It’s worse when it comes from memory.
Months after the truck bombing, he dreams about losing his leg and wakes up on Eddie’s couch shaking, sobbing, clawing at the duvet until his fingers are digging into his thigh, his knee, his calf, still there, still there, still there. Buck folds over himself, knee hugged to his chest, hand pressed against his mouth to stifle the sobs that still won’t stop. His leg is cramping, pain shooting up through his spine, nerves tingling, but he can’t make himself let go. Can’t stop shaking. Can’t quite believe that he’s awake.
“Buck?” Disembodied and worried, the light flicking on a moment later. “Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?”
Eddie falls to his knees beside the couch, reaching out, and Buck shakes his head over and over, but can’t find the words to say he’s fine. (He’s not fine.)
