Chapter Text
Buck had arrived on a Tuesday. Eddie remembered because his mom was making enchiladas the same day, and had complained to his Abuela on the landline immediately after.
Buck had stepped out first. Bright blue T-shirt. Light blue eyes that matched it almost exactly. , holding a T-Rex stuffed animal, and a small bruise on his left eye that Eddie would soon find out was a birth mark.
The first two things Eddie learned about Buck's house were simple
A. Their rooms were across from each other. Their windows being right across from each other aside from the fence that they also shared.
And B. The walls in Bucks house were very, very thin.
Eddie had figured out the second one the day after Buck and his family moved in. He was sitting on his bed, homework spread out in front of him, window open to vent out the smell of meatloaf, when the shouting started. It wasn’t the normal, muffled arguing he sometimes heard from other houses on the block. It was closer and sharper than the others.
“Evan, go to your room. Stop playing with that stupid fire truck and for the love of God pick up a damn box and start being useful around here.” Followed by the sound of a crash that sounded more like multiple cracks, followed by a “No!” and a cry.
He crossed to the window and pushed it open wider, heart knocking unevenly against his ribs. The fence blocked most of the yard, but he could see Buck’s window across from his. The curtains were half drawn. A shadow moved behind them. Eddie was just starting to tell himself he’d imagined the yelp when Buck’s window creaked open. Buck climbed halfway onto the sill, shoulders hunched, T-Rex tucked under one arm again. His eyes were a little red, but he wasn’t crying.
“Hey!” Eddie shouted from his window, startling Buck in the process.
Buck jumped and turned towards his window in fear, hesitating before responding.
“ Hi.” Buck had never had a kid talk to him. Willingly that is. He had only had one friend before this interaction. And even then, his parents didn't want him to talk to anyone.
“What's his name?" Eddie points to the stuffed dinosaur with his head cocked to the side.
Buck glanced down at it like he’d forgotten he was holding it. His fingers tightened instinctively around the fabric. “Rex.”
Eddie laughed. Buck’s attention snapped to his face immediately. He noticed the way Eddie’s eyes wrinkled at the corners when he laughed, the way they crinkled up. It didn’t look mean. It didn’t sound mean. It just sounded… warm.
Hm.
“ What's so funny?” Buck questioned, also cocking his head to the side. Eddie shrugged one shoulder, still smiling. He leaned a little farther out his window, forearms resting on the sill. The afternoon sun hung low enough now that it hit Buck straight on, catching in his eyes and turning them something brighter than blue. Bluish green. Like the ocean Eddie had only seen in pictures.
Hm.
“Nothing. I just think a cool dinosaur like a T-Rex would have a cooler name.”
“Well, what do you think his name should be?" Buck asked, inspecting his T-Rex with an eyebrow raised.
“I don’t know,” He shrugged. “Something like..” He trailed off.
Eddie leaned forward on his elbows against the window frame, seriously considering it like it was the most important question he’d ever been asked
Buck watched him while he thought. The way he squinted slightly. The way his mouth pressed together. The way he didn’t laugh again, but Buck could still see the ghost of it in the corners of his eyes.
He liked that.
“What about Titan?” Eddie offered
“I like that. It’s cool.” Buck repeated it under his breath. “Titan.”
He nodded once, decisive. “Okay.”
He adjusted his grip on the dinosaur, holding him a little higher. “This is Titan now.”
Eddie and Buck sat there with a long silence between them before Eddie spoke.
“You wanna see my backyard?” Eddie asked.
Buck blinked at him. “Through the fence?”
“You can climb it,” Eddie said, already stepping onto his desk chair to swing one leg over the sill. “It’s not that high.”
Buck looked back toward his bedroom door one more time. Then he looked at Eddie and nodded.
Eddie climbed out of his window and down to the grass with ease, while Buck was still halfway out his window when Eddie hit the ground.
“You coming?” Eddie asked, looking up.
Buck hesitated. He glanced back into his room, toward the open door. Then he pulled himself fully out, sneakers scraping against the siding as he climbed down more carefully. He landed beside Eddie, clutching Titan tightly to his chest.
Up close, Buck looked smaller than he had from the window. Narrow shoulders. Thin wrists. Eddie could see faint freckles across his nose now, almost hidden under the flush still clinging to his cheeks.
They stood there for a second, neither of them moving.
Then Eddie nudged a soccer ball toward him with his foot.
“You play?”
Buck looked down at it, then back at Eddie. He shrugged. “A little.”
That was good enough. They started slow, just kicking it back and forth across the patchy grass. The yard wasn’t big. The fence boxed them in on three sides, the house looming close behind Buck like it was listening. Buck loosened up after a few minutes. He stopped clutching Titan so tightly, setting him carefully on the ground near the fence where he could still see him. His kicks got stronger. More confident. He laughed once when Eddie missed the ball completely, the sound quick and surprised like it had slipped out without permission. Eddie liked that sound. He liked the way Buck smiled after, too, like he was waiting for someone to take it back. They kept playing until Buck’s hair stuck to his forehead and his breathing came a little faster. Eddie trapped the ball under his foot, holding it still.
“That thing by your eye,” Eddie said, nodding toward it. “Does it hurt?”
Buck blinked, confused for a second. Then he reached up, touching it automatically.
“Oh.” He shook his head. “No. It’s a birthmark.”
Eddie nodded slowly. “Oh.”
“Oh.” Eddie nodded like that made perfect sense. He looked at Buck for another second before his eyes dropped lower, catching on something darker just barely visible under Buck’s sleeve. Eddie pointed without thinking. “Is the one on your arm a birthmark too then?”
Buck froze.
He pulled his sleeve down quickly, covering it. “Yeah,” he said, too fast.
Eddie nodded slowly, even though something about that answer didn’t sit right in his chest. The ball stayed between them, forgotten. He hesitated, then asked quietly, “What were they yelling about?”
Buck looked up immediately. “What?”
“Before,” Eddie said. “before you were in your room. I heard them.”
Buck stared at him like the words didn’t make sense.
“You… heard that?” he asked.
His voice was smaller now.
Eddie nodded. “My window was open.”
Buck’s fingers curled slightly at his sides. He glanced back at the house behind him, then at the fence, then at Titan, like he didn’t know where it was safe to look.
“Oh,” he said.
He shrugged, but it didn’t look real. “It was nothing.”
Eddie frowned. It hadn’t sounded like nothing. It had sounded loud and sharp and scary in a way that made his stomach hurt.
“They sounded really mad,” Eddie said.
Buck didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the ground.
Eddie swallowed, then asked the question anyway. “Do they hit you?”
Buck went completely still. Not surprised. Just still like he doesn't know if he’s supposed to answer that.
He didn’t look at Eddie when he said it. “…Sometimes.”
Eddie felt something twist painfully in his chest. He didn’t understand why anyone would hit Buck. Buck hadn’t done anything wrong from what he could see. Buck was just standing there, small and quiet, with gorgeous eyes and a nice smile and–
“They shouldn’t,” Eddie said.
Buck shrugged again, like it didn’t matter, like it was just another fact about the world. Eddie nudged the soccer ball toward him gently. Buck looked at it for a second before kicking it back. And neither of them said anything else, but Buck stayed in the backyard until the sun started to disappear, and Eddie stayed with him.