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2025-07-29
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"Fuck Off"

Summary:

In an alternative universe, where the first words spoken to a person by their soulmate are marked on their skin like a tattoo, Buck has "Fuck off" written over his heart.
He's spent most of his life worried about just how much of an asshole his soulmate is going to be, and what that means for their future relationship.
Then he meets the guy outside of a juice bar, and it doesn't exactly go as Buck thought it would.

Notes:

More or less based on a story prompt I read on Instagram a few years ago about someone having "Fuck you!" as a soulmark. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it again to give proper credit. But if you recognize this and know where it's from, please let me know :)

Work Text:

Fuck off

The harsh words had marred the skin over Buck's heart since before he could even remember. Matching in color to the birthmark above his left eye, and written in neat, friendly-looking handwriting that seemed to contrast with the words themselves. 

Everyone had a mark. Somewhere on the body were the first words spoken by a person's intended Someone - their soulmate.

Buck's mark had always been a source of either amusement or disapproval from the people who saw it. 

He'd heard the whispers, "Poor boy," and later in his teens, the occasional "Well...can you blame them?"

Logically, he knew he couldn't be the only one with an insult as a mark, but more often than not, it sure felt like it.

His classmates teased him while showing off their soulmarks: polite greetings, a few questions, compliments, and the occasional joke.

For them, their marks were a source of anticipation and mystery, a first little greeting from the person they were supposed to end up with. Something they could look at and know that somewhere out there was someone who would one day love them.

For Evan Buckley, the mark was nothing but a source of dread and worry.

Because if those were the first words his soulmate spoke to him, what did that mean for the rest of their lives?

Buck had always dreamed of finding the Big Love of his life. As a kid, he and Maddie had watched romantic movies with an almost religious fascination, consuming everything they could get their hands on.

Afterwards, when the end credits were rolling and the room was dark, Buck asked her if she thought it was real, if love could really be like that?

Buck remembers Maddie stroking her fingers gently over the words on the inside of her wrist; You must be Maddie. I'm your safety guy.

"I hope so," she'd replied.

The movies lost their shine eventually, for both siblings, and the DVDs were left to gather dust in the back of a cupboard in their parents' living room.

Maddie taught him to cover up his mark, using makeup, to avoid comments. Buck never thought to ask why she also covered up hers.

*****

"Well, Evan, you know you can be a lot sometimes," his first serious girlfriend told him when he'd finally gathered up the courage to show her his mark. Her tone wasn't mean, but the words hurt regardless. They had been dating for almost a year, and Buck had done his best to match her calm, to only talk about the things he knew would interest her, and keep the rest of all the stuff that fascinated him bottled up inside.

When they eventually broke up, Buck was the only one who cried. She was waiting for her "I think you're perfect", after all. 

Buck's "Um, hi," had never stood a chance.

The closest he got to someone with a similar mark as his was Taylor Kelly, LA reporter and certified force of nature.

 She'd laughed when Buck had pulled his shirt off in the back of her news van, and he'd braced for the jokes and the teasing. But Taylor had just continued grinning as she pulled off her own shirt and gestured to her right hip and the words scrawled there: 

"There's a restraining order with your name on it, Ms Kelly, unless you back off. This is my crime scene."

"Some pair we are," she'd said with an impish grin, and Buck had fallen a little bit in love with her then and there.

They hadn't lasted. They both knew they wouldn't, but it was a fun ride nonetheless.

Taylor had also been the one to teach him that he had a choice. 

Late one evening, Buck had confessed his fears about his mark, about what it meant for the relationship he would have with his soulmate. 

Taylor had turned in his arms, caressed his cheeks with her perfectly manicured nails, and leveled him with her patented no-nonsense look.

"Just because they're your soulmate, it doesn't mean you owe them anything, Buck. If you meet them and they turn out to be the asshole you fear, if they don't make you feel good and safe, you always have the choice to leave."

"But if they're my soulmate…" Buck began to protest.

"My mom and dad were soulmates," Taylor interrupted, her voice wavering slightly. 

That shut him right up.

The mark lost some of its fearful magic on him after that. The future felt less like an inevitable cage when he could hear Taylor's voice reminding him that there was always a choice.

But with the receding fear came the anger and the bitterness. Because even if he wouldn't have to be trapped with an abusive soulmate, this person could still very well rob him of the one thing he'd dreamed of finding all his life, his happily ever after. They still held the power of making Buck end up alone, left behind, and forgotten while everyone else paired up.

*****

Buck does not expect to meet his soulmate outside a juice bar.

It's 8.30 in the morning and Buck's just leaving the place - his post-workout breakfast sandwich in one hand and a bottle of Gatorade in the other - when he spots a man sitting by himself at one of the otherwise empty tables next to the parking lot. 

The guy is leaning forward, his face in his hands, and the black t-shirt with the cut-off sleeves is stretching over broad shoulders and revealing strong arms, making him look a bit imposing, despite the hunched-over posture. There's an open bottle of water and a phone next to him on the table.

It's probably not Buck's place to butt in, but that's not the pose of a man having a wonderful morning, and Buck feels the urge to check on him and see if there's anything he can do to help. 

So rather than heading back towards his Jeep, Buck redirects his course towards the other man.

He schools his features into friendly concern as he approaches, but before he has a chance to say anything, the man speaks. 

He says exactly two words. They sound tired, bordering on exhausted, rather than angry, but oh boy, are they familiar:

"Fuck off."

It stops Buck dead in his tracks. The words have been on a constant loop in his head for over thirty years, yet it has done nothing to prepare him for hearing them out loud. From a man who won't even look him in the eye as he says them.

Buck has been afraid of this man his entire life, and here he sits, hiding his face like a coward.

Suddenly, Buck's seeing red, as he feels the familiar bubble of emotions he knows he won't be able to contain.

It's a lost cause, but he tries taking a deep breath, like Maddie taught him, but all that does is add oxygen fuel to the fire building inside.

"'Fuck off'?" He spits the words out like bullets. "Wow, that is some greeting right there... Real nice. Look man, I just came over here to check if you were okay, because you kinda looked like you weren't, and I wanted to see if I could help. And that's the thanks I get? A fuck off? First of all, rude, which, you know, would have been bad enough on its own, but guess what? You're my soulmate! Ta-da! So I've had to live with your bad mood etched into my skin my whole life, and with people mocking me for it. I even had to learn how to do makeup because of you! Do you know how expensive foundation is? I do! Because of you! I wanted something romantic! Something we could one day show our grandkids and have them go 'aww, grandpa, that's so sweet'. Instead, I got this!" Buck punctuated his words by pulling up his shirt, for all intents and purposes, flashing the other man his tits, but what-the-fuck-ever. He was pissed. "Do you know what it's like to live with the knowledge that not even your soulmate wants you around? To have the first words they say to you be an insult. Well, I'll tell you. It fucking sucks!"

The man is looking up at him now - staring, actually - his brown eyes wide and unblinking. He looks a little dazed, mouth half-open with the expression of a man who's not sure what he's watching.

It's a pity he's an asshole, really, because he's stupidly beautiful, Buck thinks bitterly.

The silence hangs between them for exactly three seconds before the other man seems to return to the present, and his confusion shifts into the loudest deadpan look Buck has ever been on the receiving end of.

"Oh?" he says, voice dripping with sarcasm, as he stands up. 

Buck has just enough time to wonder if he's really about to get in a fistfight with his soulmate when the man pulls his shirt over his head, tosses it onto the table, and turns around.

It takes Buck a second to realize what he's watching. The muscular back and slutty waist are distracting enough that Buck's brain sort of short-circuits for a moment. Then his eyes register the goddamn essay written in a messy chicken scratch down the man's back and... oh. 

Buck pales when he realizes exactly whose words those are and, for the first time in his life, Buck is rendered completely speechless.

The man turns his head to look at him over his shoulder.

"I get the performance anxiety. All of this," he says, gesturing to his back. "Must be tough act to follow."

The sound that leaves Buck's mouth can't be classified as a word in any known language, but it must sound apologetic enough because man's mouth twitches like he's fighting back a smile. 

"How about a name?" he says.

"Buck," Buck answers quietly, feeling a little dazed and a lot ashamed.

"Hi, Buck, I'm Eddie."

"Hi, Eddie."

"Hi. So... are we done with whatever we're measuring here? You got your feelings about your shitty soulmark out of your system, and I finally got to be a petty asshole and show you mine. Your face, by the way, is better than I hoped. In more ways than one." The man is full-on grinning now, and Buck feels like, unless he does something about his own face, a family of birds is gonna move in and make a lovely home in his gaping mouth.

Eddie waits for him to speak before seemingly realizing that he's gonna have to carry the conversation just a bit longer. His grin dims a little, giving way for something more subdued but no less sincere.

"Look, man, I'm sorry about the insult. My kid's school just called. Apparently, I missed yet another bake sale, and I just got off a 24h shift, so I'm kind of dead on my feet here. Hence the bad mood."

"You have a kid?" Buck asks, finally finding his voice as his interest piques at this new information.

"Yeah," Eddie says, sounding pleased about whatever he sees in Buck's expression. "Yeah, I do. His name is Christopher." He picks his phone off the table and shows Buck his lock screen. It's a picture of Eddie, smiling brightly, next to a kid with curly brown hair and an even brighter smile. 

"Man, he's super adorable! I love kids," Buck confesses.

"I love this one." Eddie looks down at the screen with such a fond expression that it almost hurts to look at, before he pockets the phone and looks up at Buck again. "And if this," he points over his shoulder to his back, "is your usual speed, I'm sure you two yappers will get along just fine."

"You'll let me meet him?" Buck asks, disbelieving and almost certain he must have misheard Eddie.

Eddie gives him a fond look, too.

"Of course!" he says, kindly. "We've been waiting our whole lives for you, Buck."