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buddie-buddie · 9 days

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you'll find that you were never not mine

5.1k - explicit - buck x tommy - read on ao3

In his thirty two trips around the sun, Buck has done plenty of things he’s proud of. He’s run headfirst into burning buildings. He’s saved lives. He’s reunited with his sister and survived being crushed by a ladder truck and been named the legal guardian of the coolest kid in the world.

He’s felt pride before. But never like this.

This is different. It’s intoxicating and addicting and everything Buck never realized he could have. Everything Buck never realized he deserved. Not until now.

Not until Tommy.

The swell of pride behind his ribs, the warmth flooding his chest and beating through his body, it isn’t foreign, not entirely. But he’s never felt it all quite like this. It’s never consumed him like this. It’s never been so heady, so dizzying, so absolutely electrifying. He wants to bottle it up and carry it around in his pocket and take hits from it when no one is looking.

It’s a high he’d gladly spend the rest of his life chasing, if he could only be so lucky.

Never before has he felt so alive, so proud and worthy and good. There’s a deep, intoxicating pleasure to it, tiny bursts of ecstasy skittering across his skin and dancing up his spine as he looks down at Tommy.

Tommy, who’s lying beneath him, with his eyes sparkling and a wild, sated grin stretching across his face. His chest heaves as he catches his breath, his heart hammering beneath kiss-bitten, come-covered skin. He has one hand still fisted in the sheets, the other splayed across Buck’s chest.

“C’mere,” Tommy says, voice rough and heavy. He sounds absolutely destroyed. And that alone sends sparks flying across Buck’s skin, electricity crackling behind his chest as he realizes it was because of him. He did that.

The pride flares in his chest as he lets Tommy pull him in for a filthy, open-mouthed kiss.

“S’that good?” Buck mumbles against Tommy’s mouth.

Tommy pulls back, just enough to give Buck a look of absolute bewilderment. “Was that good?” he echoes, eyes wide. “I haven’t come that hard in–– I don’t even know. I–Yeah,” he says, huffing out an incredulous laugh. “Yeah, Evan. It was good.”

Buck’s breath catches in his throat, pride swelling in his chest as Tommy’s praise sets him ablaze. As does the way he calls him Evan. A name Buck usually hated now makes warmth bloom behind his ribs when it falls from Tommy’s lips.

Buck can always hear the smile behind it, can feel the fondness as it settles over him, grounding him in a way that still feels just as exciting as the very first time.

Buck just…. well, he never corrected him. He’s usually pretty quick to ask people to call him Buck, but for some reason he never did when it came to Tommy. Buck used to think that his nickname was reserved for the people who know him, but then along came Tommy with his sparkly eyes and his adorable nose scrunches and his kind heart and his fingers beneath Buck’s chin and well– Buck is starting to think maybe Tommy knows him better than he thinks.

It was only a month ago that Tommy had kissed him and his world exploded. Everything was suddenly a little bit brighter, a little bit warmer. Nothing had changed, per se, and yet everything was better. So much better.

It reminds Buck of that part in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy steps into technicolor. When the sepia tones disappear and there’s nothing but bright, beautiful color. It’s not that Buck’s life before this was bad. It was just… sepia toned. And now that he’s had a taste of technicolor, he can’t believe he ever lived without it.

He’d be lying if he said part of him doesn’t mourn the fact that it took him three decades to get here. But now that he’s arrived? Well, he’s making up for lost time.

Tommy pulls Buck back in for another kiss, this one softer and sweeter than the one before it. And yet, it still sends the same zip of pleasure up Buck’s spine, the same rush of desire thrumming beneath his skin.

Initially, Buck thought that the night Tommy kissed him for the first time was the moment when all the pieces clicked into place. But he was quick to realize that wasn’t the case at all. It wasn’t all the pieces that night, not really. More like it was the edges of the puzzle, the corner pieces that guide the rest of the journey. It was the moment when you press the edges together and have a real perimeter, and for the first time, it all feels possible. It was the realization that something will come of all the jumbled up pieces scattered in front of you. Something real. Something beautiful.

And the more time he spends with Tommy, the more the pieces fall into place.

A few days after their coffee date, Tommy had taken him for a flying lesson– the first of many, he had promised. The flying was fun, not to mention how hot it was having a front-row seat to watch Tommy in his element, this time with permission to stare. But the best part of the day was when they left the airstrip and Tommy reached down and took Buck’s hand in his.

They walked to Tommy’s car hand in hand, and Buck didn’t miss the way his mind quieted the second Tommy’s fingers intertwined with his own. Being with Tommy settled something deep inside of Buck, it eased his mind and quieted the noise he hadn’t realized had once been so loud– not until Tommy smiled at him and suddenly, everything wasn’t so loud anymore. Everything wasn’t so hard anymore.

Buck likes being with Tommy. He likes the weight of Tommy’s hand in his and the brush of his stubble against his chin. He likes the feel of Tommy’s lips on his and the way his skin sparks each time they touch. He likes being on the receiving end of raised eyebrows and nose scrunches and a quiet, fond, “Evan.” He likes it all.

Never before has Buck been in a relationship where he’s felt so good and settled and safe. Which isn’t to say he felt unsafe with any of his exes. It’s just…. it’s different with Tommy. Buck feels safe to explore, safe to not know things, safe to not be the guy with the answers all the time. Safe to figure out who he is, what he wants, what he likes. Safe to just be.

He feels safe with Tommy. Proud, too. God, he’s so fucking proud to be with Tommy.

He still has hard days— occupational hazard, and all. But even when his days are hard, they’re still good. Any day with Tommy is good.

Today, though? Today is the best of them all.

Today, Buck has Tommy in his bed. Laid out beneath him like a fucking god, looking like he’s been cut from marble and sent from the heavens just for Buck. He’s perfect, so perfect, with his kiss-swollen lips and lust-blown eyes and bruises starting to bloom beneath the trail of dark hair leading down his chest.

Buck swears he’s dreaming. It would make it the longest, most vivid dream he’s ever had, but it’s the only explanation. There’s no way a human being can feel this good– there’s just no fucking way. He must have the flu– or maybe that nasty virus Eddie had mentioned was going around Christopher’s class– and his temperature’s climbed so high that he’s started hallucinating. There’s just no way this is real life.

It’s not like Buck is a stranger to sex. Kind of the opposite, actually. He’s had his fair share of it, all of which was blown clear out of the water the first time Tommy got his hands on him. It’s not that it was necessarily bad with any of his exes. Sex with Tommy is just… better. Much like everything else with Tommy is revealing itself to be.

At first, Buck thought it was the newness of it all. Like there was a honeymoon phase of sorts, something that would vanish the next time he found himself lucky enough to be in bed with Tommy. He wondered if it would pop suddenly like a balloon that’s floated too high, or if it would slowly ebb away like the tide from the shore, gone before he realized it was. Or maybe it would melt like the wings of Icarus from flying too close to the bright, dazzling radiance that is Tommy Kinard, and he’d come crashing down, cushioned only by the memories of what they once had.

Except it didn’t. It didn’t pop, didn’t ebb. It hasn’t melted, or vanished, or even dimmed for so much as a fleeting moment. It’s been a month since the first time they got their hands on each other, and it’s still just as electric, just as intoxicating.

In fact, it’s only gotten better.

Granted, the first time was a rush of hungry kisses and frantic grinding and come-stained jeans against the door of Buck’s loft. So really, it was only up from there.

The second time, Tommy got his mouth on Buck and Buck swore he was next in line to meet Jesus. There was the time that Tommy had jerked them off together, both of them in one hand, as if that wasn’t the single hottest thing Buck had ever experienced. And the time Tommy blew him in the shower and then stood up and stripped his own cock until he came on Buck’s abs with a shout. And then there was today. Today happened to be the first time Buck got Tommy off all by himself, and it was… transformative.

Buck has never, in all his life, known pride quite like he has today.

Earlier, they had stumbled into Buck’s loft after dinner at his favorite place around the corner, barely through the door before they were on each other, swapping heavy, frenzied kisses.

“Upstairs,” Buck had breathed, punctuating his request with a kiss. “Please.”

“So polite,” Tommy hummed, and Buck could feel his lips stretching into a grin beneath his. He followed Buck up the stairs, their fingers laced together the entire time. Buck dropped backwards onto the mattress, fisting his hands in the lapels of Tommy’s jacket and pulling him down with him.

They made out for a while, grinding and rutting against each other fully clothed like teenagers, rather than two thirty-something men with all the time and space and freedom to take each other apart properly.

Tommy pulled away just long enough to tug off his jacket and toss it on the floor behind him. Buck whined at the momentary loss of touch, chasing after it with an arch of his back that had Tommy swearing beneath his breath before diving back in and kissing Buck again.

“You need to use your words, baby,” Tommy said between kisses, his voice low and breathy in a way that had heat zipping up Buck’s spine. Tommy’s mouth trailed a line of hot kisses across Buck’s jaw and down his neck, nosing at his pulse point and relishing in the way doing so made Buck’s breath catch in his throat. The pet name lit him up, made him feel warm and sparkly all over, like live wires were crackling beneath his skin and setting him on fire in the very best way.

It was exhilarating and absolutely intoxicating, and Buck wanted to live the rest of his life feeling this happy, this floaty, this good.

“Please,” Buck’s voice was hoarse, thick with lust and desire as he pushed the word out past the arousal climbing up his throat and threatening to consume him.

Tommy’s warm breath ghosted across the shell of Buck’s ear as he all but purred, “That’s it. Tell me what you want.”

“I–” Buck froze for a minute, suddenly unable to form words. He didn’t know where to begin.

He wanted it all, whatever Tommy would give him. Whatever he could be so lucky to have before this beautiful, delicate bubble popped and the magic disappeared and sepia tones began to bleed into technicolor and the jig was up. Because really, it all felt just a little too good to be true.

“A-Anything. Whatever you want.”

Tommy made a tsk sound under his breath, but there was no malice behind it, no shame. Instead, just warmth and patience and a fond, familiar sparkle in his blue eyes that made Buck’s chest ache. “Evan,” he had said, his thumb ghosting over Buck’s birthmark before coming to bracket his temple. It was a gesture so simple yet so intimate, it nearly split Buck in two. “What do you want?”

Buck stopped for a beat, letting Tommy’s words settle over him. He felt the fondness behind them all the way in his bones, and something about that made him feel whole, made him feel seen. The words were out before Buck could stop them. “I want to be good for you.”

“You are,” Tommy assured him without so much as a second’s hesitation. He stole another kiss. “You’re perfect.”

Buck’s instinct was to duck away from the praise that settled over him like a balm, soothing the rapidly-fraying edges of his sanity and warming him from the inside out. But Tommy didn’t let him. His fingers hooked beneath Buck’s chin, tilting it back up until their eyes met and Tommy said, “None of that.” His voice was so warm, so gentle and fond and soft, it made Buck’s chest ache. “You can have what you want,” Tommy told him. “Just gotta ask for it.”

Buck’s breath stuttered, his heart hammering against his chest. “I wanna get you off,” he said, barely recognizing the heady rasp in his voice. “Want to take care of you. Make you feel as good as you make me feel.”

Tommy’s eyes were wild as he bit back a groan, as he closed the distance between their lips and kissed Buck for all he’s worth. Without breaking the kiss, he sat back, pulling Buck with him. He tapped Buck’s thigh, humming in appreciation as Buck got the memo and slung a knee over Tommy’s thighs. He settled in Tommy’s lap with a slow, experimental roll of his hips that had both of them seeing stars and struggling to catch their breath.

Buck loved this, he fucking loved it, being manhandled like this. Tommy’s hands are big and strong and Buck’s never felt better than when they’re on him. He loved that Tommy could take him, that he can hold him and move him however he pleases. It sent a rush of heat dancing across his skin, lust and desire pooling in his belly.

“You’re so good,” Tommy told him, and the words danced up Buck’s spine, heat licking at his skin as he felt a flush creep up his neck. “The best boy.”

Holy fuck. Tommy knew exactly what he needed to hear, exactly what to say to drive Buck past the point of crazy and all the way to borderline hysteria. Buck whined against Tommy’s lips, rocking his hips as his fingers dug into Tommy’s waist.

Tommy’s fingers pushed up beneath the hem of Buck’s shirt, splaying out across the warm skin of his lower back. Buck arched his back in a silent invitation, one Tommy accepted instantly, tugging Buck’s shirt over his head and tossing it onto the floor before doing the same to his own. He dropped back against the pillows, looking up at Buck with a happy, hungry grin. Tommy’s hands settled on Buck’s hips just as Buck rolled them again, grinding down on Tommy’s lap before dropping down to his forearms, bracketed on either side of Tommy’s head as he kissed him again.

“Fuck,” Tommy panted into Buck’s mouth. He rocked up against Buck, his grip on him tightening as his eyes raked over him with a look that could only be described as insatiable. “Look at you.” Tommy’s voice was low, thick with arousal and something that sounded a lot like awe.

Buck blushed, heat rushing up his neck and burning in his cheeks as he dipped his chin, dropping his gaze with a shy smile. “Hey,” Tommy said gently. It was just one word, but it was unmistakably fond, so much so that it left Buck swallowing past a lump in his throat and pushing down a rush of emotion. Tommy’s fingers were beneath Buck’s chin again, tipping it up gently until their eyes met. “No hiding,” Tommy whispered.

Buck found himself relaxing almost instantly, shyness fading away as he held Tommy’s gaze. Buck’s mind instantly quieted as he stared up at bright, piercing blue that was somehow still soft and kind, gentle in a way that made Buck feel warm and safe. Tommy’s eyes are flanked in tiny, nearly invisible tan lines, courtesy of the way his skin crinkles when he smiles. The lines are barely visible, but Buck already knows them by heart. He’s kissed them and traced them and seen them when he closes his own eyes, in those heavy, floaty moments right before he falls asleep.

He sees Tommy’s eyes in his dreams, and in the ones when he’s awake, too. He loves the way they sparkle, the mischievous glint behind them that only Buck seems to earn. He could lose himself in them, could drown in the warm, wild, cerulean seas that set his heart on fire and his mind at ease. What a way to go.

Tommy smiled, leaned in and kissed him. It grew heavy quickly, breaking only when Tommy pulled back to draw in a shaky breath. “How d’you want me?”

Jesus Christ.

Buck’s throat ran dry, clicking as he swallowed and let Tommy’s words hang in the air between them. He placed a hand on Tommy’s broad chest, his fingers splaying out across the smooth skin shrouded in a smattering of dark hair. Tommy’s eyes flitted between Buck’s eyes and his hand, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, his eyebrows raising as Buck pushed him back until his head hit the pillows.

“Just like this,” Buck said. He took a deep breath, shaky on the exhale as he looked down at Tommy laid out beneath him, drinking in every inch of him, melting into every point of contact where their skin met. Eagerness and a sudden, unwelcome flare of uncertainty burned in his gut, a killer combination that had Buck’s head swimming and his breath catching as he swallowed nervously. “Tell me if I— if it’s not—”

“I will,” Tommy assured him, his hands skating up and down Buck’s flank reassuringly. “Won’t need to, though, cause you’ve got this.” He tipped his chin up, meeting Buck in a kiss that was slow and gentle and instantly chased away the waves of self-doubt rising in Buck’s throat.

Buck nodded, brushing his thumb over the apple of Tommy’s cheek before trailing his fingers down, his touch ghosting over the heat of his neck and the soft, dark hair on his chest. He got to work on Tommy’s belt, despite the way his hands were trembling with some combination of anticipation and restraint.

Tommy noticed, because of course he did. It’s what he does. He notices things. Because he’s so tuned into everything Buck does, every breath he takes. His hands left the spot where they’d settled on Buck’s shoulders in favor of covering Buck’s own, curling his fingers around Buck’s.

Buck opened his mouth to apologize, but Tommy must’ve picked up on that too, because he was leaning forward and kissing him again before Buck had the chance to get the word out. Buck– though, really, it was the self-doubt monster inside him rearing its ugly head– half expected Tommy to nudge Buck’s hands out of the way and unbutton his pants himself. But he didn’t. He just let their fingers sit tangled together as he kissed Buck for a minute, slow and steady and everything Buck hadn’t realized he needed until it was happening. He didn’t rush him, didn’t brush him off, didn't make him feel anything other than good and safe and perfectly capable.

He doesn't think he’ll ever get over it– how Tommy’s so in tune with him, how he’s able to read Buck so well. Not only does he know what it is Buck needs, but he gives it to him any time he can. Buck’s never felt seen like this before in a romantic relationship, and it’s all so much, so good, but so much. He didn’t know what to do with it other than sigh into Tommy’s kiss and pray he'd never wake up from the dream that his life has become.

They kissed and they kissed and they kissed, and finally, Buck started moving his hands again, this time with a certainty and a deftness that wasn’t there before. He got Tommy’s jeans unbuttoned, and then he was murmuring “Up,” against his lips, urging Tommy to lift his hips enough that Buck could pull the fabric down.

Tommy did as he was told, and Buck tossed his jeans and briefs to the floor before stealing another hungry kiss. He trailed a line of hot kisses along Tommy’s jaw, down his neck, across his chest. He had his hands on Tommy’s hips, holding him down as he licked at his nipples and Tommy all but writhed beneath him. “Evan,” he gasped, wild and desperate in a way that had Buck fucking floating.

He sucked and nipped and kissed his way down Tommy’s chest, leaving small marks and bruises that started blooming as he made his way down, down, down. And then he was face to face with Tommy’s dick– his beautiful dick, flushed red and glistening with precome that had beaded on the tip and was starting to drip down the underside.

The heady rush of pride and delight that came with the realization that Tommy was wet for him nearly knocked Buck over. God knows Buck himself had soaked through his fair share of boxers in the past few weeks thanks to Tommy, but having a front-row seat to the role reversal was almost too much for Buck to handle.

He pressed a hot, wet kiss to the tip, his tongue dragging over the slit. Really, he was helpless to do anything else, having given himself over entirely to the lust simmering his veins and thrumming beneath his skin, chasing after the heady rush that came as the salty, musky, irresistible taste of Tommy exploded on his tongue and lit him up until he felt like he was high on it.

Tommy let out a broken moan, and it was everything. Buck could gladly spend the rest of his life in this bed, coaxing that sound out of him over and over and over again. He wrapped his fingers around Tommy’s cock, relishing in the way Tommy’s breath stuttered and his eyes grew heavy. He gave an experimental stroke, focusing on twisting his wrist in the way he knew feels good when he does it to himself. He was rewarded with a punched-out sound that lay somewhere between a gasp and a groan, and then another as he did it again.

Tommy was leaking steadily now, and Buck gathered more precome and used it to slick him up. “Oh, fuck,” Tommy panted. His voice was raspy and breathless, and it did nothing but spur Buck on even more. “Just like that, yeah, just like that.”

“Yeah?” Buck hummed, confidence building with each passing second, with each delicious sound that fell from Tommy’s lips. “You like that?” Buck asked, pleasantly surprised to hear the rasp in his own voice. He didn’t sound quite as fucked-out as Tommy did– not yet, at least– but his breath was starting to come a little more ragged, his heart starting to hammer a little harder in his chest.

Tommy nodded, teeth digging into his bottom lip as he dropped his head back against the pillows. “Yes, yes," he practically chanted, the word punched out of him as Buck doubled down, wrapping his free hand around the base, twisting it opposite his other hand and earning himself a filthy, drawn-out moan.

Buck’s own dick strained against his jeans, harder than he thought he'd ever been as he watched Tommy fall apart beneath his hands. His hands. He was the one doing this to him, making him feel this good. That alone was enough to have Buck teetering on the edge, his skin hot and his mind hazy.

He dipped his chin down again, pressing another kiss to the head, before running his tongue down the underside as his fingers trailed down to Tommy’s balls.

Tommy jerked beneath him, his back arching and his hands fisting in the sheets so hard it was a miracle they didn't tear.

“Good?” Buck asked, pulling back just enough that Tommy could hear him, but not enough that the vibrations from his voice didn't send a jolt up Tommy’s spine.

Tommy’s toes curled and his breath stuttered as he nodded. “Good, yes, good,” he promised, his breath ragged. “Please,” he begged. For what, Buck wasn’t entirely sure. But he’d be damned if he stopped before he figured it out. “Please, baby.”

Buck loved it, couldn’t get enough of the way Tommy– one of the calmest, coolest people he had the privilege of knowing– lost his composure like this, how he started to babble and beg, his words slurring together as he gave himself over to the ecstasy rushing through his veins and started to come undone.

Buck kept one hand on Tommy’s cock, long languid strokes that were just shy of enough to get him off, but still enough to have him moaning and whining a litany of broken sounds beneath him. Buck took his other hand back, drinking in the strangled gasp that fell from Tommy’s lips as he watched Buck stick two of his fingers in his own mouth, licking and sucking at them as his eyes locked with Tommy’s.

There was fire burning in Tommy’s eyes, an insatiable hunger as he watched Buck, completely transfixed.

Buck released his fingers with a wet, filthy sound and wasted no time before slipping them between Tommy’s ass cheeks, grinning at the way Tommy absolutely whined. One of Tommy’s hands flew to Buck's shoulder in an attempt to anchor himself, the other staying where it was, twisted up in the sheets. Buck shifted his weight, keeping Tommy’s thighs locked between his knees so he didn’t arch off the bed.

It was something Buck never could have done with any of the women he’s ever slept with— he was always very conscious of his own strength, too worried about being too much, too strong, too powerful. But not with Tommy. Tommy’s big and strong, broad and muscular just like Buck is. They’re evenly matched— even if Tommy’s hands are bigger than Buck’s, something that still makes heat pool in Buck’s belly when he thinks about it. Tommy can hold his own, can handle himself. What’s even more, Tommy can handle Buck, too.

So Buck kept Tommy’s thighs in a vice grip, and Tommy’s breath hitched and his cock jumped in Buck’s hand, and Buck had to breathe through the wave of pure, unadulterated pride that swelled in his chest and broke over his skin. He felt like a glow stick, cracked open and glowing from the inside out for anyone to see.

He teased Tommy’s rim with the pads of his fingers, drinking in the tiny punched-out moans and broken gasps that were falling from Tommy’s lips as he did. And then he dropped a kiss to Tommy’s jaw and pushed one finger in, enveloped by warm, slick heat up to the second knuckle. Tommy cursed, spilling over Buck’s fingers and onto his chest as his orgasm rushed over him.

Buck was mesmerized, completely transfixed with the way Tommy’s back arched, the way his lips fell open on a silent sob, his fingers digging into Buck’s skin hard enough Buck found himself hoping they would leave bruises. Tommy’s beautiful always, but especially like that– coming undone beneath Buck’s hands, skin flushed as he rode out his orgasm with ragged breaths and tiny, uncontrollable jerks of his hips.

Tommy blinked slowly, his smile syrupy sweet as he came back to himself and saw Buck leaning over him. He reached up and cupped Buck through his pants, grinding his palm against the bulge where his cock was straining against the front seam of the denim.

“Good boy, let go,” Tommy practically purred, the words shooting straight through him. Buck felt like he was on fire, absolutely glowing as the praise washed over him and his orgasm built. He was helpless to stop the whine that fell from his lips, though he was so far past the point of holding back with Tommy, he didn’t even try. He still had a finger in Tommy’s ass, and when Tommy clenched around him, Buck’s vision whited out as he came with a strangled cry.

It took a minute for Buck’s brain to come back online, for him to relax into the sweet kisses Tommy was peppering across his jaw and his cheeks and his neck, to ease his finger out and take a deep, sated breath.

“Hi,” Buck slurred after a beat, his voice heavy in a post-orgasm haze.

Tommy grinned, tugging him back in as lazy kisses turned hungry, then lazy again. Buck pulled back to catch his breath, warmth exploding behind his chest as he sat back and took in the sight of Tommy before him. And a few minutes later, when he asked, with just a hint of trepidation creeping into the edges of his voice, if it had been good, he was instantly settled by Tommy's immediate and genuine assurance.

And now, as Buck lays on Tommy’s chest, he doesn’t feel the tackiness of the come cooling between them. He doesn’t feel the wet spot in his own pants, or the faint burn in his wrist. He just feels happy. And good. And proud.

And when, a little while later, Tommy will mumble “C’mon,” and ease Buck up to guide him to the shower, Buck will go easily, without hesitation. He’ll go anywhere Tommy asks him to, would follow Tommy anywhere he wants to go. Maybe that's how it was always destined to be. Or maybe not. But it's where they are now.

They're together, and nothing has ever made Buck feel quite as proud as that.

#my writing #this thing had a mind of its own #i blinked and here we are #bucktommy #buckxtommy #tommy kinard #evan buckley #tevan #kinkley #bucktommy fic #smut #minors dni #bucktommy fanfic #one day i will be better at tagging but evidently today is not that day #and a quick heads up to those of you who like to send me mean messages:#this one isn't buddie and that's gonna have to be ok #we're all big kids here i know you can handle it

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lakesbian · 1 year

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so i blinked & accidentally wrote 2.4k words of alec analysis, content warning for extended discussion of child sexual abuse

i am actually like. genuinely surprised by how common of an alec opinion it is that people would probably feel more negatively about him if we had a chapter from the perspective of one of his victims or if we had more details on his life prior to the undersiders, because the idea goes directly counter to one of the core Things you have to get if you want to understand alec: much like taylor, you should take absolutely fucking nothing he says about himself at face value, because--also much like taylor--he is Absolutely Fucking Terrible at understanding himself!

and speaking of taylor, she is also absolutely fucking terrible at understanding alec. nearly all of the commentary we get on alec is from taylor’s point of view, and she’s frankly incredibly ungenerous towards him.

her very first thought about his childhood mentally classifies him as not being one of heartbreaker’s victims, and the pity she’s offering him wears out pretty quickly when he doesn’t speak about the abuse in terms she finds palatable--while she does secondarily recognize that living with heartbreaker impacted him on some level, she regards him primarily as someone who does Bad Things because he’s a Bad Coldhearted Person.

she and alec are fairly similar--they’re both people who have been abused, people who are remarkably desensitized to violence because they’ve been abused, they’re both people who have ended up on the same villain team where they regularly commit terrible acts of violence, and they’re both people who are terminally oblivious to their own emotions while they commit those acts of violence. their actions are both similarly horrifying from an outside viewpoint, but by sectioning alec’s actions off in her mind as being horrifying because he’s ontologically a bad person w/ no interiority or justifiable reasoning for his actions, she doesn’t have to face that her own actions are horrifying regardless of how she justifies them to herself. neat little compartmentalization trick! alec stabbed that guy to death with a fork because he’s a Bad Person, but when she used triumph as a bargaining chip by filling his lungs with bugs, it was for Understandable and Interiority-Having reasons, so she’s fine.

what this means is that nearly all of the commentary we get on alec is from the perspective of someone who has a very strong psychological incentive to avoid being fair to alec.

much of what taylor thinks about alec is blatantly irrational and wrong, and the fact that he (similarly emotionally oblivious wrt himself + probably entirely unaware she feels this way about him) never directly confronts her misconceptions means that we spend the entire book being told “hey, here are the reasons you should think alec sucks” without any alternate viewpoints to consider. i think that if we saw the worst things pre-undersiders alec did without the repressed way undersider alec describes them or taylor’s biased perspective obscuring what actually happened, most people would feel Really Fucking Bad for him!

even in the very first discussion of his childhood, it’s clear that taylor’s reading of the events is wrong--aside from the fact that she’s not classifying the kids as victims (girl what), there’s these lines from alec:

“[He] pushed my limits, made me do stuff that was dangerous, stuff that was hard on my conscience.”

“I had convinced myself I didn’t care about the people I was hurting or about this guy I’d just killed, and maybe I didn’t. Maybe I don’t, still. Dunno.“

taylor’s response to this is:

“He’d been made to do it, he’d been in fucked up circumstances with no real moral compass to go by, still a kid. The way he described it, though, it didn’t sit well with me. Cold blooded murder.“

that is not how he described it.

1. he outright says that what he was forced to do was “hard on his conscience”

2. he outright says that he “had convinced himself he didn’t care about the people he was hurting,” i.e he was a 10-13yo child being forced into extreme violence by his ridiculously abusive father & he naturally repressed his emotional reaction to it because there’s no other way to feasibly psychologically cope with feeling the full brunt of the emotions that induces. he’s not a Cold Blooded Bitch, he was a kid desperately convincing himself he didn’t care because he couldn’t care if he was going to survive.

3. yeah, he says “maybe i don’t [care], dunno.” this is because the 3+ years he spent learning to cram every emotional response he had to his abuse into a box & then solder-iron that box shut do not magically disappear the second he escapes from his father. it’s not at all unreasonable that taylor (also 15 and horribly emotionally repressed) misses this, but the “maybe” and “dunno” are indicators that he genuinely can’t tell whether or not he cares! as imp points out after he dies, it’s not that his emotions aren’t there at all, it’s that he has no ability to read them--much like taylor, he’s great at convincing himself of things regarding his feelings and then genuinely believing those things. he’s fifteen and has been out of his abusive home for all of 2.5 years--he’s not capable of grasping the full impacts that the abuse had on his psyche, and the way he describes everything from a detached perspective and waffles about on allowing himself interiority is a natural result of that.

if we saw this or any of the other murders alec was forced to commit as they were happening, we would not be feeling less generous towards him, we would be thinking “i want to beat heartbreaker to death with his own bones, because this is an evil thing to do to a child.”

okay, that’s the murder out of the way. now onto the significantly more controversial aspect of what alec did as a 10-13yo.

taylor generally regards alec as a special type of ontologically real & distinct class of person called a rapist. many people in the fandom share her viewpoint on that one. and, like, objectively true--he is a rapist, he raped people. but applying “rapist” as a descriptor meaning “evil piece of shit who sucks, but i guess he gets some leeway since he was a kid, but he still sucks and is bad and probably a sociopath” is massively flattening the circumstances under which he committed sexual violence & severely underestimating how it impacted his psyche.

taylor--and again, most other people in the fandom--tend to unilaterally go “gross and fucked up, he sucks, moving on” during bits where alec discusses that aspect of his childhood. but if we actually pause to read between the lines for the details and then address the actual context (which alec is not capable of doing, because 1. emotional repression to hell and back and 2. it was, as he said, normal to him), it becomes very clear that it’s unjustifiable to slap the “Sucks + Evil Predator” label on him and then move on feeling comforted by the straightforward moral judgement.

“’Sure,’ Alec drawled. In a more normal voice, he said, ‘But what I’m saying is he wouldn’t mind. Now, it’s been a little while, but there was a time when I had someone in my bed every night.’

‘When you were with Heartbreaker,’ I said. From the look of disgust on Aisha’s face, and what I imagined was a similar expression on my own, I suspected we were on the same page. At least on this one thing.

‘Sure. Cape groupies, my dad’s girls, people I used my powers on toward the end.’

There wasn’t even a trace of guilt or shame on his expression, no regret in his tone. He just looked bored.

He went on, ‘What I’m saying is that I’m speaking from experience. Having someone cuddled up beside you, even if it’s a little bit of a pain in the ass, having that body contact isn’t so bad. Especially when you’ve had a bad day.’”

like, okay. let’s unpack all the implications there.

1. alec is bringing up this whole topic as an attempt at empathy--aisha is effectively saying “i’m pissy at taylor for being intimate w/ brian while he’s experiencing the worst pain of his life” and alec is effectively responding with “i support them, because when i was in similar circumstances, physical intimacy made me feel better.” it is extremely notable that he’s implicitly comparing brian’s “bad day” (getting fucking bonesawed!) to his own “bad day” (living with his dad)!

2. alec grew up in Emotional Neglect & Abuse: The Household. this is established in buzz 7.1--he recounts that there was zero attention paid to him & the other kids except for when heartbreaker was terrifying the shit out of them for either a perceived slight or in an attempt to force a trigger event. he also grew up in Sexual Abuse: The Household. as detailed in one WoG, the heartbroken were a massive group hiding out in significantly less massive houses--6-8 people sharing a room was common. alec was constantly in close quarters to normalized sexual abuse from the ages of zero to thirteen, e.g the memory mentioned in his interlude where he starts crying over not being given the TV remote and a sweaty, wearing-nothing-but-briefs heartbreaker stomps out of the bedroom to terrify alec for interrupting what was, very presumably, a marathon of sexual assault. exposing children to abuse happening in their environment is a form of abuse itself. there’s also the WoG in which this is mentioned:

“Look at it this way - at the age that many boys are raising an eyebrow at boobs, family members were saying 'hey, here are all the boobs you could want...’ Interested in dick? ... Dad's not that into it but a sister can hook you up. At an age when many are just figuring out enough of the world to ask 'what's heroin?' or 'what's weed?' he was given heroin and weed and everything else that was theoretically obtainable and told to only indulge if it was someone else's body. At an age when many are saying 'sex must be awesome' he was given free reign.”

which is sexual abuse! it is in fact exceedingly sexually abusive for alec’s father & older siblings to go “hey, 10-13yo son/little brother, i notice you are Hitting Puberty! here’s a fucking tidal wave of sex and drugs, have at it.” he didn’t magically get the idea to commit acts of physical violence w/o grooming & coercion from his family, and the same goes for the sexual violence. it’s not a hard extrapolation to make that after 10 years of isolation and abuse he leaps on the chance for physical intimacy, for something that actually makes him feel good when good is a feeling he’s never really gotten to have before--and how would he have a frame of reference for this being bad when his childhood was one long march of his own autonomy being violated + constantly seeing other peoples autonomy violated?

alec did not leave the house as a kid. alec Wasn’t Even Thirteen. the people he assaulted were victims, but he’s inarguably not the person with primary culpability for the assault--that would be the family members significantly older than alec who directly groomed him into hypersexual behavior, kidnapped + brainwashed victims also significantly older than alec, shoved them at alec, and said “have at it, buddy.” (which he, considering it to be normal and desperate for any positive attention or emotion, immediately adopted as a coping mechanism.) it would be absurd not to regard alec as a victim in this circumstance as well, and the fact that the way he was victimized led to him hurting people doesn’t change that. he was a chronically abused and manipulated preteen--he couldn’t issue meaningful consent or exercise any real autonomy in his decision-making. his lack of emotional reaction to casually sharing the story isn’t a moral failure, it’s an indicator of how badly the abuse skewed his perception of what’s normal.

and despite All Of That, taylor’s immediate reaction is to judge his lack of guilt, shame, or regret. which isn’t a wholly irrational reaction from her by any means--it makes complete sense given who she is and what information she has. but it does mean that the judgement we’re given on alec in this moment is nearly entirely detached from the material reality of what happened & how that reality should reasonably be regarded.

3. i think i’m literally the only person i’ve ever seen point this out--the first category of person he lists off as having slept with is “cape groupies.” as in, fans of capes.

what kind of person do we suppose would be a fan of heartbreaker’s cult? what kind of person would have a thing for heartbreaker’s sexual abuse and mind control cult? the fact that he specifically mentions “cape groupies” means these were people who liked the heartbroken and were picked up by it voluntarily--what kind of person would want to sleep with one of heartbreaker’s barely-pubescent superpowered children?

yeah, that one sounds less like alec committing rape and more like heartbreaker providing access to his children to pedophiles w/ a Thing for the powers involved, presumably because it was a fantastic honeypot for people he could drain for money or otherwise use as a resource (which was his primary method of staying undercover & getting by). which alec parses as normal enough to casually slip into a random sentence.

alec’s childhood was not a lengthy tour of him committing sexual violence because he sucked, it was him being sexually abused, and a portion of that abuse included him being groomed to perpetuate it onto others. because that’s one of the Core Things about his character: he was a victim of grooming to perpetuate a cycle of abuse, he ran away from it at an impressively young age, and he spent the rest of his life making stumbling attempts to jerry-rig a distinct system of ethics & decision-making so that he wouldn’t be like his father.

no, the abuse he experienced & the way he responded to it wasn’t straight-forward or palatable. he’s not a stereotypical or idealized Good Victim--none of the traumatized teens in worm are. the specifics of what happened to him & what he did as a result are uncomfortable. he participated in hurting other people very badly. he still doesn’t really understand everything that was wrong with what happened. he doesn’t open himself up for pity or add caveats when discussing it to make it clear that he’s viewing his childhood the Right Way. he doesn’t feel or talk about it the way he’s “supposed” to. he doesn’t understand why or care that it upsets and disgusts people. the abuse left him with low to no empathy, and he’s not ashamed about admitting that.

and absolutely none of that changes that he’s still undeniably a victim, and if we saw any of the things that happened to him from the perspective of anyone involved, if we saw the abuse he experienced without the normalized lens he views it through or the villainizing lens taylor views it through--everyone would probably feel really fucking bad for him.

or in other words: alec vasil is a little boy whose life fucking sucks, and we all have to be nice to him, okay?

#worm #parahumans #alec vasil #GOOD LORD I BLINKED AND THERES.#checks notes.#t. Two Thousand Four Hundred Words In Here!#adding this one to the alecnalysis canon ig #anyway yeah we already saw the worst thing he did w Moral Culpability onscreen during his interlude #everything else is like. that's not really a moral failing so much as it is really sad #alec essays #alec vasil heritage posts

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