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005: UP COME MY FISTS

CHAPTER FIVE: UP COME MY FISTS
song of the chapter: finally // beautiful stranger, halsey

Indiana already knows how this is going to end.

She's not a prophet, or a fortune teller, or the Oracle from the Percy Jackson books that her students adore. She isn't someone who can see through the lining of our days and predict everything that is going to happen.

This, however- she can see this crystal clear.

Here's how the story goes; Indiana and Buck separate from their kiss, Hugo stalks off because he can't stand the sheer awkwardness of the situation, and Buck leaves after he realises how bad of a kisser Indiana is so he leaves too. Then Indiana is alone, just as she is meant to be.

She can see the scene playing out in real time, as Buck lowers his hands from where they were cradling her jaw, pulling back with a dazed look in his eyes. He's staring at Indiana like she put a spell on him- Indiana would probably refer to it as a curse.

And Hugo, he's walking away-

Actually, no he's not. Hugo stays exactly where he was, a few footsteps away, with his jaw practically kissing the parking lot cement. Buck's hands are hanging uselessly at his sides, moving back and forth with the breeze. She stares at Buck, who, with his kiss-bitten lips and rosy cheeks, might be the best piece of artwork Indiana has ever seen.

Hugo, on the other hand, is almost green with what Indiana can only assume is either envy, or the impending vomit about to spew from his mouth.

"Indiana," Hugo says, eventually, breaking the heavy silence that hangs between the three of them. "It's good to see you."

Indiana weighs out the options for her response for all of two seconds, before she breathes out a loaded sigh and looks at him with a disdain in her eyes that she couldn't mask if she tried, "Wish I could say the same to you, Hugo. Is there something I can help you with?"

Buck looks between the two of them, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. He doesn't know who this man is, or why Indiana's hostility towards him ignites a flame in his chest. His chest feels tight as he watches the situation unfold.

Hugo's response comes with a bite, "Let's not-"

"Let's not what?" Indiana interrupts, venom on her tongue, "I don't have any interest in whatever you have to say to me, Hugo. Leave me alone."

"Indi," Hugo pleads, a slight whine to his voice. "Can we please just-"

Before Hugo can finish his sentence, Buck steps in. His hand is in the air in front of Hugo, stopping the other man from walking further towards Indiana. "She said leave it alone, man, so I suggest you leave it alone."

Indiana sees the difference between the two men, now, what with the four inches Buck has over him, and the extra fifty odd pounds of sheer muscle that he's packing. Really, Indiana thinks, Buck could give Hugo a single push and send him flying across the parking lot.

Indiana would just like to state that the butterflies in her stomach have absolutely nothing to do with the idea of that, thank you very much.

Hugo has to tip his head back so far Indiana worries he might snap his neck, but eventually he meets Buck's eye, a scowl on his face. "And who are you exactly? Her bodyguard?"

Bodyguard is the last assumption that Hugo should be making, given how Buck and Indiana were all over each other less than five minutes ago. She knows that Hugo can tell who they are to each other, the answers are staring him right in the face, with Indiana's hair in a state of disarray from Buck's hands and Buck's lips still swollen.

Still, Indiana thinks the main reason Hugo is acting oblivious is because he doesn't want to admit that he thinks Indiana is capable of moving on from him. In Hugo's mind, the world starts and ends with him, so Indiana's should, too.

Indiana will be fucking damned.

"Not that it's any of your business, Hugo," Indiana steps forward slightly, hooking her arm through Buck's and tugging him toward her. He steps back with reluctance, coming to her side. "But this is Buck. My boyfriend."

.・゜゜・  ・゜゜・.

"What the hell, Indiana?"

Indiana has a lovely home. She takes pride in the wallpaper in the hallway that she did on her own, from picking the paper to spreading the paste onto the wall. She loves the scent that emits from the scent diffusers in every corner of her home, and she sleeps well at night in her thousand-thread count bed sheets. She loves the burnt orange sofa in her living room, and the eucalyptus plants that sit opposite her, on either side of the television.

However, Indiana isn't sure if her home has ever felt less hers than it does now.

Buck is pacing back and forth on the rug, his feet bare except for the iron man socks that Indiana has pointedly not made a comment about. He's got his hands in his hair, tugging at it every time he gets a little too worked up. If the severity of the situation wasn't weighing her down, Indiana might find the sight entertaining.

Except, nothing about this is entertaining, because Indiana lied to Hugo about something major, and she didn't bother to clear it with Buck before the lie was practically tearing past her lips. This had never been Indiana's plan, and now she had dragged poor, innocent, gorgeous Buck into a messy situation that he didn't consent to being in.

Jesus christ, Indiana really needs to get a grip of herself. Is it overkill to ask Jasmine to muzzle her every time she leaves the house?

Probably.

Indiana ponders the thought all the same.

"Buck," she says, pleading. "You need to understand, I didn't have a choice."

"You didn't have a choice," Buck mimics, almost jokingly. "Indiana, you can't do shit like that without telling me. I'm more than happy to kiss you, but telling that guy I'm your boyfriend? I don't even know your birthday!"

Indiana scoffs, "Hugo doesn't need to know that."

"But he could have asked, and then we'd both have looked like idiots," Buck argues. "Listen, you don't strike me as the type of person who lies for no reason, so I'm waiting to hear your reasoning for that whole situation back at the restaurant."

The thing is, Indiana could lie. It would be ironic, seeing as Buck just told her that she doesn't seem like a liar, so she would have no issues getting him to believe it. She could tell him that Hugo is an old friend who she cut off contact with, or she could say that he was a fling who doesn't know how to take no for an answer.

Or she could tell him the truth, and say that Hugo was the love of her life at one point in time, and she made a split second decision that she will spend her entire life regretting.

Okay, maybe not her entire life, but at least a year or two.

"Will you sit down?" Indiana asks, gesturing to the other end of the sofa. "It's a really long story, I don't want you getting sore from standing too long."

"I'm a firefighter," Buck responds, even as he's taking a seat.

Indiana smiles politely, "Even more of a reason for you to rest while you've got the chance."

They stay in silence for a moment, or two, or three. Buck is sitting at the edge of the sofa, with his head tilted toward where Indiana is tucked up at the other side, her knees pulled up to her chest in a protective position. Something about it is so distinctively vulnerable that it punches Buck square in the chest.

"Did Athena tell you anything about my dating history before she set us up?" Buck shakes his head, lips pursed as he waits for her to continue. "That guy in the parking lot, Hugo, used to be my boyfriend. We were together for years, did everything together, and we loved each other. Undeniably. Everyone in my family loved him, my mom and dad were asking me when we were going to give them grandchildren.

Then, Hugo cheated on me. With my cousin."

The plot twist is like something out of a novel, Buck thinks, and the revelation smacks him across the face as Indiana's expression crumples. He wants to reach out, to comfort her, to tell her that it's alright, that it was Hugo's loss. He keeps himself at bay, which is a battle of its own, and Indiana continues.

"The thing is, I didn't see it coming. I had suspected for a while that something was going on without my knowledge, but, naively, I thought he was going to propose. Then, all of a sudden, he started acting normal again, and the proposal never came. So I took matters into my own hands. I bought a ring, cooked him his favourite for dinner, and I waited for him to come home from golf so I could ask him to be my husband."

"Then you found out," Buck breathes, without meaning to.

Indiana only nods, "Then I found out. Hugo went to shower, left his phone, and it just wouldn't stop buzzing. I thought something might be wrong, thought that maybe his mom had been in an accident, so I picked it up, and I saw Annabelle.

I remember it like it was yesterday, honestly. She was wearing this blue lingerie that made her look like an oversized cabbage patch doll, and all I could focus on was her fucking face. She looked smug, like messaging my longtime boyfriend in her underwear if asking him to come and fuck her was something to be proud of. Like she had won."

"Did she?" Buck asks, "Win, I mean."

She shrugs, toying with the threads on her pillow, "Depends on how you look at the situation. They're getting married, so in Annie's mind, she's the victor. From my perspective, I think that she's got a whole new thing coming to her when she realises that he'll disrespect her just like he disrespected me. People who cheat with you will cheat on you, it's, like, basic relationship maths."

Buck's not sure how to tell her that he doesn't know much about relationship maths, because he's not really been in a relationship. Not unless you count Abby, but that wound is still too raw for him to touch on.

"How long did you stay with him after you found out?"

A scoff comes from Indiana, "Physically, all of five minutes. I was mentally checked out the minute I saw the messages."

"Wow," Buck replies, almost in awe. "It must've taken a lot of strength to just leave, then and there. That's really admirable."

"So I hear," Indiana says, her mouth twitching upwards. "Anyway, back on topic. What happened with Hugo destroyed me. I didn't leave the house for weeks, I called in sick to work so often that they put me on a leave of absence because I couldn't get off of Athena's couch. I was drinking my sorrows away, glass after glass, just so I wasn't conscious enough to remember the pain.

It took years for me to get to where I am now, and it's not something that I'm willing to compromise for anything or anyone. Seeing Hugo today, it dredged up a whole bunch of trauma that I wasn't ready to deal with, so I put my fists up and took the easy way out. I'm really sorry that it resulted in you getting dragged into it, Buck, but I'm not sorry that it helped me get out."

The silence hangs in the air after Indiana finishes speaking, thick and heavy, like fog. Buck can barely see through it, his vision blurred and his mind hazy. His tunnel vision leads him to Indiana, who is curled into the corner of the sofa with a guilt ridden face that Buck wants to erase, wants to reach over and smooth over her features with his fingers, to promise her that everything will be fine.

But that's not Buck's

"Are you even ready to date again?"

The question comes out with a sharpness that Buck doesn't intend for, and it shoots Indiana in the chest. Buck wants to take the words back the minute they leave his mouth.

"Honestly?" Indiana muses, blowing out a breath through her pursed lips. "No. I wish I was, because you're such a great guy, but I'm just... not. I thought I was, and that resulted in me wasting your time, so again, I'm really sorry."

Buck frowns slightly, "It's just... I thought you liked me, maybe?"

"I do!" Indiana insists, "I do, Buck, believe me. I think you're probably the best guy I've ever met, and I wish I could tell you that I'm ready to take this further, but I nearly had a panic attack in the restaurant bathroom because I realised what going on a date with you actually meant."

"And what is that, what does it mean?"

Indiana shrugs, a sad smile on her face. "Opening up myself to the possibility of more heartbreak than I can handle."

She looks small, then, almost childlike. Buck can imagine her, curled up on Athena's (magical, all-healing) couch, pouring her heart out into a wine glass. He can see the heartbreak written all over her face, can practically hear Athena's voice in his head telling him not to let this slip past him.

The thing is, Athena had warned him. She told him how Indiana was, how she might act when she realised what this meant, what it would continue to mean. She told him that she might try to run, but if he knew what was good for him, he would do whatever he could to hold on to it.

Indiana is special, Athena had said, and I think you could do with a little bit of magic.

So, Buck wonders if it would really be so bad to take a page out of Indiana's book, to tell a little white lie. It couldn't be that bad to just, pretend, for a while. He could help her get Hugo off of her back, and he could get the 118 off of his own back about moving on from Abby. This could be mutually beneficial.

Buck knows in the back of his mind that this will only end in disaster. He knows that Indiana is everything he ever could want, and everything he can't have. But he told Athena that he would try, and everything that Buck has ever left has claw marks, so screw it.

Mutually beneficial, he tells himself.

"What if we just pretend?"

Indiana's head snaps up so quickly she might have whiplash, staring at Buck with a calculated look in her eyes. "Sorry?"

"Listen, I know that Hugo won't let you rest until you prove to him that you've really moved on. My team is still on at me for not moving on from my ex-girlfriend, and quite frankly, I'm sick of hearing the name Abby. Think about it, if we just fake it, then everyone will back off. All we need to do is come up with a good story, and turn up for each other when we need it. It can't be that hard."

She's studying him, almost smiling. "How many books have you read that involve the fake-dating trope, Buckley? You seem like an expert."

Buck scoffs, "Puh-lease. I've seen The Proposal."

"Okay," Indiana says, pointing a finger at him. "Say I agree to this, I think we need rules."

"Obviously," Buck replies, like it's the simplest thing in the world, "Rule number one, you're not allowed to fall in love with me. I'm not having you play with my heart twice."

"Fuck you, first of all," Indiana bites, though there's no real snark to her tone. "Rule number two, we can't see other people. If someone catches you out with another girl, it'll make us both look terrible."

"Cool," Buck agrees, "Rule number three, we need to go on a date at least once every two weeks. If we don't see each other outside of gatherings, people are going to catch on pretty quickly."

"Fine, but you're paying. Rule number four, we need to have some sort of social media presence. Hugo was all over my feed when we were together, so I need the same from you."

Buck nods, "I photograph really well. Some would say too well. You might need to put a filter on yourself or something, otherwise I might outshine you."

A half-laugh, half-scoff comes from Indiana, "Outshine my ass, Buck. Rule number five, we cannot tell anybody. If you meet someone that you want to pursue, then you tell me, and we'll figure out a story to give people as to why we broke up. We need to be clear with each other about everything, otherwise we're going to end up in a pile of shit without a way out. Does that sound good to you?"

Buck ponders, pressing a finger to his chin as he thinks. "One more rule."

"What is it, Buck?"

He casts his gaze to the corner of the room, where Clover is fast asleep in her crate, "You have got to let me pet my girl. Like, right now, Indiana. Open the damn crate."

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