Chapter Text
You’re exhausting.
The rest of us can suck it up.
Why can’t you?
It hit Buck like a ton of bricks, like a truck collapsing on top of him, no, worse, something bigger than he could ever comprehend, crushing him.
He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe. All he could smell was the anger and the disgust and the rejection rolling off these people he thought were his family. God knows he couldn’t respond with anything more than just a pitiful whine, the most omegan noise he’d made in public in fucking years.
Thankfully, depending on how you looked at it, that was the moment some jackass decided to pick a fight with a fire hydrant.
The entire team got to their jobs, forgetting about Buck in an instant. Maybe they’d forgotten about him before, but that was the moment their decision was made.
He wasn’t one of them. He never had been. He thought he’d had a pack, even if they didn’t know him entirely, but he’d been wrong. He was alone again. And this time it was because someone said no. He didn’t make the decision for them, he didn't run; everyone he loved said no. No, you're not worth anything more than this.
It hurt more than anything else in the world, a physical pain that burned like a fever and ached in his muscles.
Buck ran after the team, and what he saw only made it worse. They were working together as a unit, as a pack. They were the best of the best, strong betas and the strongest alphas, men and women who didn’t need an omega. Especially not a bad, exhausting, useless omega like Buck.
He tore his eyes away from the accident, like seeing them for one more second might blind him.
He dropped the basket.
And he ran.
Buck shoved himself into his Jeep and left the parking lot before he could even buckle his seatbelt. There was a side alley, thank god, one that he knew led back to his home, his nest. Stupid, bad, terrible omega- He had never been so overwhelmed by his omegan senses before. Everything was maxed out. He was assaulted first and foremost by a sour, acrid scent like rotting flowers that billowed through the Jeep.
It took a moment to realize it was his own. Despair and rejection and fear spilled out of him. His claws and fangs had pushed out who-knows-how-long ago, digging into the steering wheel and ripping into his console. His vision was doubling in the way that told him his eyes were glowing. There was a wetness on his face now, too, and he realized he was crying harder than he ever had in his life.
Buck felt insane, no complete thought able to form in his head as he drove like an asshole to get home, nest, home, safety, rejection, home, hate you, no home, nowhere is safe-
By some miracle, Buck got to his parking spot without killing any pedestrians or wrapping his Jeep around a tree. He tripped himself on his way out the door, in an attempt to get away from that incessant pitiful whine.
It followed him, the despair-stench and the whining and the pain. It all followed him into his building, into his elevator, and when he got to his door.
He couldn’t get his key into the lock, his entire being shaking too violently, but his claws were there and this was what omegas are supposed to do, supposed to be able to get to their nests, and he was destructive and annoying enough already so he ripped his doorknob away and threw himself through the entryway and—
And it was like walking into a fire without his gear.
Eddie, Hen, Bobby, Chimney, oh god, Christopher-
Every scent was fucked up, all backwards and stolen and wrong. The entire loft smelled like them, like pack.
But Buck no longer deserved those smells. He had to get them out.
Exhausting, suck it up, we don’t want you, we never wanted you.
He ran, sobbing, screaming, whining, clawing his way up the stairs and to the source of the scent.
Nobody needs you-
Nobody likes you-
They want you gone-
To his nest. Which would never be safe again. And the thought alone almost knocked him over.
He tore, ripping into his blankets and clawing apart pillows, to get to the source.
He grabbed the first thing he could reach, a t-shirt that Eddie didn’t notice went missing in the laundry, that he had squirreled away because he would never love you, never be your alpha, why would you have them in your nest, fucking freak, bad omega, terrible omega-
When he gets the shirt to his face to inhale the horribly painful and yet continually addictive scent, he retches, vomits, and there might have been blood.
But the scent hasn’t gone, hasn’t been covered by the bile.
And then he realizes it’s because it’s inside him, and he has to get it out, and what are claws good for if not this?
And now there’s definitely blood. Too much.
But he’s bleeding out the fiery pain, and everything hurts so much that maybe it's worth it.
He thinks maybe he‘s going to die here, surrounded by the scents of people who hate him.
He thinks maybe he deserves it.
—————————————————
Eddie regretted it the moment he turned around. Breaking eye contact with Buck was like breaking a trance, whatever it was inside him that allowed him to yell at Buck like that.
God, he didn’t even know he could get that angry with Buck. He couldn’t bring himself to turn around, to look back at the pain and betrayal on the face of the beta he loved so much.
He put his head down and went to do his job.
The omega involved in the crash must have been really scared — the acrid scent swallowed the whole parking lot.
God, he fucked up with Buck.
It was all he could think of for the rest of the shift, which was thankfully less than an hour. The shopping was meant to be the last event of the day.
He’d made up his mind before they got back to the firehouse- he had to apologize. Or at the very least have a civil goddamn conversation. Fuck that lawyer.
He called Carla as he climbed into his truck to say he was going to be back late.
There was an anxiety tugging at the back of his mind, swirling in his gut telling him something was very wrong. It was a feeling he got overseas, sometimes.
Right before a bomb went off.
But that was just his past coming back to taunt him. Even if Buck was still angry or hurt, he’d be okay. They’d all be okay, because Buck was one of the strongest men he’d ever met. At the end of all this, no matter what he’d said in the heat of the moment, Eddie knew they’d all come back together.
But the feeling got stronger as Eddie pulled into Buck’s lot. The scent from the scene, that rotting wildflower and pain scent, was still teasing at the edge of Eddie’s nostrils.
It was odd. No matter how sad the omega had been – and she really had been more angry than sad – he’d left that scene more than half an hour ago. The scent should have gone away a while ago.
Now, as Eddie took the elevator to Buck’s loft, the scent seemed to be growing more pungent by the minute. Something about it was familiar, like he should have been able to identify this scent immediately, like it should be an innate sense of his, but it was just escaping his memory.
The anxiety was almost overwhelming now.
The doors opened, and the fear despair sorrow hatred betrayal hit him like a wall.
Eddie had to get to Buck now.
He sprinted down the hallway, skidding to a halt in front of the door he’s opened a million times. The doorknob was in pieces, hanging off the hinges.
Eddie finally lost the battle with his alpha that he’d been fighting since he left the firehouse. His claws came out, his fangs descended, his eyes glowed red.
An omega was in trouble in this apartment.
Buck’s apartment?
An omega?
Buck.
He crashed inside and found a scene that would haunt his nightmares. The table was knocked over, there were claw marks scouring the chairs. The place reeked of vodka over the rotten scent, as seen by the bottles smashed across the floor. Every blanket was shredded, every throw pillow was disemboweled, there was blood everywhere. And that was just the first level.
And the whining. Past the suffocating perfume of distressed omega, because that was clearly what the fuck was happening, was a whimpering and sobbing that cut Eddie to the bone. There was also a thump, thump, thump that felt sickeningly familiar.
Taking this all in in a fraction of a second, Eddie raced up the stairs. At the top it was worse than he could’ve imagined.
Buck was there.
Buck was there, surrounded by shredded bedding, shredded clothes and blankets and pillows, and more broken bottles – as if he had tried to drench all of the fabrics in alcohol but had gotten impatient. And Buck in the far corner, throwing the back of his head into the brick wall and sobbing and whining and covered in blood.
“BUCK!” Eddie shouted as he ran to the younger man.
Buck’s eyes shot open and he froze for an instant before he hunched himself into a ball and began to claw at his scalp.
An instant was enough to see the proof. Confirming the fear that had been growing in Eddie.
Buck was an omega.
“Buck, stop! What are you doing, stop it!” Eddie shouted, coming closer to the omega.
Buck yelped as if he had been hit.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Alpha, Alpha, please, I’m so sorry, so bad, bad omega, sorry, please, sorry-” Buck was babbling as he rocked, yanking at his hair and drawing blood with his claws.
What?
“Buck, it’s just me, what are you doing? Buck, stop it!” Eddie didn’t know what to do. He was desperate. Buck was in pain. So Eddie shut down. His muscle memory took over.
Combative patient, bleeding excessively, lacerations to the scalp at least.
Medical history – recent surgery of the leg, pulmonary embolism, on blood thinners.
Eddie lunged at Buck, grabbing his wrists and wrestling them away from Buck’s scalp. Buck howled as if he’d been burned. Eddie got his legs behind Buck, putting distance between them and the wall.
“Stop it! Calm down! Down, Buck! DOWN, OMEGA.” Eddie had never pulled rank on Buck before. It would never have mattered when Buck was a beta, so it wasn’t worth trying.
But it dropped Buck like a stone.
He stopped thrashing immediately, presenting his neck and whining and – holy fucking shit.
His neck had been torn to shreds. It looked like someone had tried to claw his scent glands out. And though by fucking divine intervention his jugular veins were intact, the bleeding was still going strong. And now that Buck was sitting still, Eddie could see how pale and clammy he was. He was sweating and shivering and pale, with almost non-existent pupils. His eyes glowed a new kind of golden, and there was sweat and blood matted into his usually-golden hair.
And the scent had gotten stronger, the fear, betrayal, hurt, rejection-
And suddenly Eddie knew what was wrong.
Buck was going through rejection sickness. And it was going to kill him.