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*
Breathless, snarling.
"This isn't you."
There's no kindness in those eyes.
"You don't know me."
No love.
Four words, and they hurt.
They cut deep, because there is truth to them, too much truth, but he can't let them distract him, not now.
He can ignore them, he can-
"And I sure as hell don't know you."
Fuck.
A glance into those eyes again, and there's no recognition, nothing to indicate that-
"Tommy-"
"Shut up!"
Tommy's grip tightens as he pushes forward, and Buck can feel the burn as the brick scrapes through his shirt, the clay burning as it carves into his skin.
He tries and fails to push Tommy away, long-forgotten training useless as he flails, as he fights.
Fights to break free.
Fights to ignore the pain.
Fights to ignore the panic.
He tries breaking Tommy's grip, tries to find some sort of purpose, some sort of upper hand.
Kind of ironic, in some twisted way, that one of the things that attracted him so much may be the very thing that kills him.
Yet it's not even the look in Tommy's eyes that has him panicking, nor the promise of certain death.
It's the series of injection sites littering Tommy's bare skin.
It's the cannula trailing uselessly behind him.
It's the bruising along his neck.
Tommy is saying something Buck doesn't bother trying to catch- it's an echo of someone else's voice, the words mechanized, lifeless.
His eyes are just as dead.
Buck should be paying attention to Tommy's words, given the alarms now flashing around them, the screech of them piercing through his skull.
But he can't focus on the words themselves, only how the shapes are wrong for Tommy's lips, how they slip through the smallest inflections; Tommy always spoke with his whole body, a type of carefree casualty that drew Buck in so deep the first time.
And every time after that.
Until the last time.
Until Buck fucked up again, and another person decided he wasn't worth sticking around for.
He replayed that night, over and over again, and he shoukd have know that Tommy was too closed off, too small.
It hurt then, knowing he caused that smallness.
It hurts now, knowing he caused this smallness.
It's his fault Tommy went down this path, that he pulled away from everyone, that he went underground and-
"I'm sorry."
Tommy's still reciting the diatribe being fed to him, and Buck slips a hand around Tommy's wrist, knows it won't do jack against whatever drugs they have in his system.
Knows it can't break him from the conditioning.
"I didn't know. I should have realized-"
But he didn't, and it's too late.
There are shadows by the door now, voices and footsteps and the sounds of weapons being loaded.
Buck offers a small smile, knows Tommy won't see it, knows it's not his Tommy in there.
But he can't help himself.
"I'm gonna save you, Tommy. I swear to god, I'm gonna figure out how to save you."
Probably just wishful thinking, but he swears there's a flicker of light in those dead eyes- a small, passing shimmer of sunlight on a cloudy day.
Buck doesn't stick around long enough to find out.
With a thought, and the familiar rush of Time and Space and Reality Themselves reshaping around him, he's standing in a park several blocks away, stumbling and catching himself on a tree.
It'll take time to get the team together, but he knows for this-
We're comin', Tommy. I swear we'll get you out of there.
Even if he dies trying.
*