Chapter Text
Buck didn't know how he ended up in this place. Not the bar that he was sitting in currently. He knew exactly how he'd gotten here. It wasn't his first time at Charlie's. Buck had found himself at the dingy old bar a lot in these last few weeks. It had become a bit of a habit, ever since this stupid fucking lawsuit. Ever since he burned all his relationships to the ground.
Buck was alone. He had no job, no friends, and the bar was only two blocks from his apartment. It just became a habit, coming here, to feel a little less alone, trying to forget why he was alone in the first place.
But how had he ended up in this goddamn situation? Buck had thought that if he just kept pushing, kept working, kept fighting... He could get back to his job, his life, himself. Apparently not. Bobby always told him that he couldn't just force things to happen. Now Buck wished that he had listened to him.
"You really think they're gonna welcome you back, kid?"
Chase Mackey's voice kept echoing through Buck's mind as he knocked back beer after beer. Of course they wouldn't. Not after Buck had given his lawyer all the dirt he could possibly use against them. Not after he'd cut himself off from them. Buck had been so naive.
Then he thought about Eddie and his mood plummeted even more. He closed his eyes and all that he could see was Eddie in that grocery store, furious, disappointed, hurt. "Because you're exhausting.", he had said and as much as it hurt to hear it, Buck could understand him. He'd been... nothing but a burden ever since that fucking accident. Or at least, that's what it felt like to Buck himself.
Then Eddie brought up Christopher and by that point Buck was just done. The guilt of everything he'd put his friends... his family through, it overwhelmed him.
So here he was, in the only place besides his apartment where he could still go. And he drank, and drank, trying to shut the memories of the day out, but failing miserably.
That's when the bartender placed another beer in front of him, which he hadn't even asked for. "I didn't order this.", he pointed out, looking up at the bartender.
He was probably around his age, but even taller and broader than Buck, which was no small feat. His hair was dark and cropped short and reminded Buck vaguely of Eddie. But that's where the resemblance stopped. He didn't have Eddie's kind eyes or his charming smile. He looked harsher, colder. Then again, Buck didn't think that Eddie would look at Buck with much warmth in his eyes any time soon.
"I know.", the bartender said, his voice deep and rough. "She did.", he then added, pointing behind Buck into a corner of the bar. Once Buck spun around to look at who had send him the drink, he was faced with a beautiful woman, looking back at him with a smile and a wave.
She had to be a bit older than Buck, but that didn't matter. She was gorgeous. Tall, elegant, with long red hair cascading down her back, dressed in all black with a leather jacket that fit her perfectly.
Buck accepted the drink in front of him, taking a sip from it, before looking back at her. She gave him a wink, raising her glass as if she was toasting him from all the way across the bar. Buck did the same with a practiced smile, before taking another sip of the drink. He didn't even have to think about it. Flirting like this just came naturally to him by now.
They held eye contact for a moment, then she got up from her spot in the corner, making her way over to Buck. The bar was pretty empty, except for the regulars that always hung out here. Still, she took her time on her way to Buck, making it clear that she was in no rush. She radiated confidence.
Once she finally reached the bar she sat down on the empty stool, next to Buck, giving him a long look with her huge, green eyes. She scanned him up and down, like she was appraising him, before giving him a cheeky smile and asking:"What's a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?"
Her voice was warm and smooth, like honey. Buck felt like it poured over him, calming his frazzled nerves.
"Really? I didn't really think people still used this as a pick up line.", Buck returned with a smirk, drinking some more of his beer.
"Is that what you think I'm doing here? Tryna pick you up?", she asked, a playful glint in her eyes.
"Sounded like it.", Buck shrugged.
"Well, maybe I was.", she admitted before asking:"But why don't you start by telling me about what you're sulking about?"
"Is it so obvious?", Buck asked, pulling a face as he diverted his eyes. Did he really look this pathetic that even a stranger could tell that his life was falling apart?
"With these baby blues of yours? All big and sad?", the woman asked, getting Buck to look at her again. "Definitely.", she nodded, giving him a sympathetic smile.
For a moment Buck consider it. He considered telling her everything. How he had gotten hurt, how he'd clawed his way back to health just to be betrayed by his body, how he'd fought so hard that he'd destroyed almost every meaningful relationship in his life in the process.
Then he decided against it. Nobody wanted to hear that shit, not even Buck himself. Buck was well aware of how exhausting he could be and he didn't want to dump all that on a stranger that just wanted to flirt a little. Plus, based on how many drinks he already had, he might just start crying if he started to talk about it. And how pathetic would that be.
"It's... nothing I want to bother a pretty stranger like you with.", he waved her off, putting on his best smile. Buck knew that it was convincing, or at least the smile was. His voice? Maybe not so much. Buck caught himself slurring his words a little. Damn, he didn't think that he had enough to drink yet to warrant slurring.
The woman didn't seem to mind, though, raising her eyebrows in a delighted way before asking:"So you think I'm pretty, too."
It wasn't a question and everything about this woman told him that she didn't need to be convinced of the compliment.
Still, Buck was about to launch a full on charm offensive. He'd pull out all the stops he usually did, complimenting her, making her laugh, ordering her a drink. He'd done it countless times.
Then he changed his mind. Maybe because he suddenly started to feel very drunk, maybe even a bit lightheaded. Or maybe that version of Buck was long gone, Buck 1.0, as he called it. Or maybe he just knew that no flirtation in the world would solve his problems for him, no matter how nice the distraction could've been.
Bottom line was, Buck wasn't feeling it. Not tonight. And he wouldn't be leading this woman on, either. "Sorry... I just... Normally I'd be up for this but... I'm just not in the headspace to do this right now. It's nothing personal.", he stammered out, dropping the smile. This was definitely the right choice, his slurring only seemed to get worse and even though Buck was sitting still, the room seemed to sway and spin a little now.
"It's all good.", the woman said, with an easy going smile that conveyed no hard feelings. Buck tried to focus on her face, to stop the world from spinning. It didn't work all that well. "I just figured you might need a shoulder to cry on.", she added and Buck barely heard her, too focused on trying to pull himself together.
"Nah...", he slurred. "Above anything else I probably need to get home.", he admitted, trying to get up from his stool which turned out more difficult than he had expected. The spinning got much worse once tried to stand and Buck found himself swaying so much, he nearly fell over. If he hadn't grabbed onto the edge of the bar, he might've taken a nose dive.
Buck wasn't subtle about it either. The woman jumped up from her seat, grabbing onto him to help Buck support himself, a concerned look on her face. "Wow! You good there?", she asked carefully.
"Damn, I didn't think I'd had this much to drink... Fuck...", Buck groaned, shutting his eyes for a moment, trying to get a grip on this mess. He wasn't very successful. Buck had no idea how this happened so quickly, but he suddenly felt entirely out of control.
"How about we get you outside for a little bit of fresh air?", the woman suggested. Her voice suddenly sounded distant and muffled and when Buck opened his eyes to look at her, his vision blurred.
"Sure...", he mumbled, even though she was already moving him towards the door. Buck didn't know how she managed it, considering he could barely stand by himself, but somehow she got him to stumble towards the door and outside into the cold darkness of the night. A part of Buck remembered that he hadn't paid for his drinks yet, but he couldn't bring himself to care enough to do anything about it. Not in this state.
Outside Buck found himself leaning against the cold brick wall of an ally , gasping for breath as the earth kept on spinning wildly. The fresh air wasn't doing much for Buck's state of mind. "Damn... I'm really... Not feeling well...", he groaned as he tried to get his eyes to focus on the woman.
He found her standing across from him, rummaging through her handbag before pulling out something Buck couldn't identify right away. It was thin and long, but fit in her hand comfortably. "You better...", she then smirked, stepping closer to him and Buck was a little startled to hear an edge to her tone that hadn't been there before. "The amount I dosed you with... I mean you're a big guy but the amount I gave you? Should be able to take out a horse.", she then added with a terrifyingly sharp grin.
"What-", Buck gasped out as she grabbed onto one of his shoulders, moving the collar of his shirt to the side before raising the object in her hand and stabbing it into his neck. A sharp prick followed by the feeling of a cool liquid rushing through Buck's veins. The object was a syringe. She- She'd drugged him. Drugged him before, too. The drink.
Buck's heart started to race as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. It was hard to focus, though, when Buck rapidly started to lose the last bit of control he had left. He felt nauseous and sick, his limbs felt heavy, his vision started to go dark.
"Naw... You look so confused. It'll all make sense in time. Don't worry.", the woman said with a soft smile, removing the needle and petting Buck's face in a condescending manor. Her touch made Buck's skin crawl but there wasn't anything he could do about it. No matter how much he screamed at his body to move, to defend himself, to run, to do anything- Buck felt himself slipping away.
At some point he crashed to his knees and he only felt the impact vaguely. The woman caught him before he could completely face-plant, cradling his head in her hands, forcing him to look up at her. "Just close your eyes, Evan... I'll be here when you wake up.", she whispered, her voice all sweet and innocent. She was terrifying.
"How do you- my name-", Buck stammered, barely able to talk at this point. He hadn't introduced himself. Neither had she. Buck was almost certain of this, which did nothing to calm him. How did she know his name? Why was she doing this to him? And more importantly... what was next?
He couldn't ask those questions, though. Couldn't even think them. The darkness at the edge of his vision came in closer and closer until all that he could see were those wicked green eyes, looking down at him with glee.
"All in time.", she said and by that point Buck was barely conscious enough to feel terrified. His vision blacked out, he lost all control over his body. There was nothing he could do as he felt himself shift. A pair of new hands grabbed him, lifting him up. These ones were stronger, rougher.
"Go get him loaded up. We need to get moving.", he heard the woman say and that was the last thing Buck could remember before his mind faded into nothing.
~
Buck came back to himself in pieces. The first sensation he felt was pain, in his wrists, his arms, his shoulders. Like something was pulling at them. Then he felt the headache, like a constant pounding against his skull.
It took him a while to open his eyes and even longer to get them to focus. He didn't know where he was. Once he got his eyes to work again he found himself in a bright white room, covered in tiles, like a bathroom.
That's also when he realized where all the pain was coming from. Buck's wrists were shackled and hanging from the ceiling with thick chains that kept him raised off of the ground to the point that he could barely reach the floor with his toes.
"Wakey, wakey Evan...", a sickly sweet voice whispered in his ear and that's when Buck's memory finally returned. It all came back in a flash. The bar, the woman, the drink and then... The darkness. Fuck, he was in deep shit.
As if on cue the woman from the bar stepped into his field of vision, a bright smile on her face as her eyes wandered up and down, scanning every part of Buck's body. Buck wondered how he hadn't noticed the cold and calculating look in her eyes before. She looked at him like a predator and Buck was the prey.
"What- Who-", Buck stammered, but his mouth was as dry as the dessert and at the same time it felt like it was filled with cotton.
"Don't you remember me? You called me pretty at Charlie's.", the woman explained, cocking her head to the side and putting on a disappointed face.
Buck did remember her. That didn't really help him, though. Not when his head was pounding und the world still hadn't stopped spinning. He still felt... confused, out of it, helpless. Buck didn't understand how he'd gotten here. He didn't even understand where here was. And he still couldn't think straight.
"Naw... You're hurting my feelings, Evan.", the woman sighed, coming closer. Buck tried to squirm away from her but his body would barely obey him and he struggled to find any purchase on the ground. "I mean, I shouldn't be surprised. You didn't remember me from all the other times you got wasted at Charlie's. What was it? 12? 13 times in the last few weeks? And always by yourself.", the woman went on, ignoring his struggling. Buck watched her reach out and pet his cheek again. It made shivers run down his spine.
For a moment she didn't do anything else. She just looked up at Buck, her eyes sparkling with joy, maybe even pride. It made Buck sick. Then her hand left his cheek and started to wander down instead, traveling down his throat, then his chest, stroking and squeezing wherever she saw fit.
"I gotta say, you're truly a specimen.", she grinned, lifting up the hem of Buck's shirt with one hand to let her other one glide over his abs. Buck tried to get away, to get her hands off of him but he was trapped, like a puppet on strings. All that he could do was dangle around uselessly as she explored his body in a way that made Buck nauseous. "When I saw you first I knew that I had to have you. So you can imagine that I couldn't believe my luck when I had my people track you for a few weeks and they came up with the profile of a perfect victim. No job, no partner, no friends, since you burned down all those bridges with your silly little lawsuit. You got a sister but you haven't seen her much these last few weeks either, have you?"
Buck didn't understand how he could ever find her voice calming. It had turned terrifying, domineering, threatening. It was overwhelming, to hear how calculated this had all been. How planned. Buck didn't understand why? Why him? What did he do to warrant this.
On top of that, she chose her words so well, every single one, sharp and painful, like a stab wound, reminding him of how truly fucked he was.
"You're alone. Nobody's missing you. You're perfect.", she said with a grin, looking so incredibly proud as she met Buck's eyes again.
"What- What do you want from me?", Buck managed to croak out, his voice faint and weak. Everything about him felt so incredibly weak.
Her hands were back on his cheeks, cupping his face and turning it from right to left as she analysed his face closely. "We want you.", she then said with a slight shrug. "All of you. We were missing someone like you in our collection."
Collection. The word sparked unimaginable horror in Buck. Collection? A collection of what? People?
"We- Who are you-", Buck managed to ask, pushing through the panic.
"You'll learn that soon enough.", she promised. "Oh Evan... We'll have so much fun together. I can already tell." Her excitement was terrifying.
"They'll search for me... People... My sister will notice-", Buck gasped out, even though he knew that everything she'd said was the truth. He'd cut himself off, isolated himself, even from Maddie. Who knows how long it would take for anyone to know that he'd disappeared.
The woman pulled a face that almost looked like she was pitying him. Buck wished nothing more than to get her fucking eyes off of him. "Maybe... But based on your patterns in the last few weeks, it'll take a while for anyone to notice. And by the time they do, we'll be long gone.", she then said and Buck could barely contain his panic now. They'd move him, maybe already did. He could be god knows where. Hell, he didn't even know how long he'd been out, how much time had passed.
"Now!", the woman suddenly exclaimed, taking a step back and clapping her hands together. "It's time to check out the merchandise. The Master will be here any minute.", she explained and Buck shuddered at the word Master. It only got worse when she pulled another syringe out, approaching Buck once more.
He tried to struggle, tried to fight it, get away, anything. It was all useless. His body was useless. A dead weight. Soon he felt the prick of a needle and the rush of who knows what kind of drugs entering his system.
"Strip him down!", the woman yelled as Buck's vision started to go dark once more. Suddenly they weren't by themselves anymore. Two tall figures entered Buck's field of vision but by that point he could barely make out anything anymore. They looked more like shadows to him.
He clung to consciousness for as long as he could, he clung to it like his life depended on it, because it did.
In the end it was all useless. Buck was exhausted. Exhausted beyond his wildest dreams and as he slipped away into the void again, the woman's haunting voice rang in his ears.
"Sweet dreams Evan..."