Props to you for giving it your all and completing all thirty days! Give them a big hand, everyone!
If I missed any of you because of Tumblr being dumb and not showing me your posts, I'm so sorry! Let me know and I'll add your name to the list 💖
Thanks for hosting such a great event! I’ll be sure to be back next year!
In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
Stand There and Bleed || BG Sparrow || Rated T
ALTERNATES:
Crutch || Brain Fog || Contagious || No Appetite || Reassurance || Blanket Nest || Eyes Rolled Back || Allergic Reaction || "You're pathetic." || Reluctant Whumper || "Why didn't you tell me?" || Caretaker Makes It Worse || "You brought this on yourself."
And with that, my first @whumpril is in the books! I had a lot of fun hanging out with Marty and Buford this month and giving myself more fic ideas. But now we're onto May — lots to do before June of Doom!!
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
The list of charges were read; the sentence, announced. A hawk screeched across the sun. Those gathered in the square squinted up through the blowing dust at the gallows, stone silent and stone still as they reverently bore witness to history in their tiny tent town. Marty and Buford found one another’s eyes for the final time. No blame, but no peace, either. They’d stuck it out this long together. Why not this? The ropes were placed around their necks. “Do the condemned have any last words?” “Yeah,” Buford snarled. “Fuck you! I’m comin’ back just to haunt your ass—!”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
Buford’s saved this kid’s ass from a lot. But when the ground gives out and Marty falls knee-deep into a fire ant nest, Buford hesitates. Marty screams and scrambles out, beating ants from his pant legs, trying to crush the ones under his clothes. “Do something!” He gets Marty to a shallow section of the Rio Grande. Marty runs in like a madman, flinging every stitch of clothing off so the river can eradicate the infestation. He cries, head bobbing atop the water; his skin is aflame with otherworldly pain. Buford’s “plant mush” helps, but drinking the whiskey helps more.
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
CW: animal dressing
“I don’t get you, Eastwood.” Buford hacked and sawed into a fresh deer carcass. The wet, aggressive tearing of fur from flesh puckered Marty’s shoulder blades together. “You can’t hunt, you can’t skin…” Marty stifled a vile lurch as Buford discarded the doe’s innards in a slop pile between them. “Can’t dress a deer without turnin’ green—“ “I can’t help it!” Marty pulled his bandana over his nose. “It’s disgusting!” “It’s a goddamn feast, is what it is.” Rabbit got old fast. “Make yourself useful. Clean that up.” After, Marty couldn’t stomach the waiting steak. He let Buford have it.
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
Their train was derailed by a tornado in Texas. Fifteen people were trapped in the two twisted cars draped over the edge of the canyon, and even more were scattered around the wreckage. Buford was one of them. The winds preceding the next line of storms roused him. He felt glass and wood embedded in his skin as he ambled toward the train on a twisted ankle. On the other side of the overturned seat that pinned Marty’s shoulders to the ground, Buford did little to mask how gruesome the damage was. How mortal. Marty weakly gripped Buford’s sleeve. “Stay.”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
When it came to Marty and Buford’s partnership, betrayal was an assumed, inevitable eventuality. It was a given. One day, Marty would have enough of Buford’s shit or Buford would get sick of Marty dragging him down, and one of them would walk into the nearest sheriff’s office just to report the other and make off with an easy bounty. Marty had the sense to send someone else in exchange for a cut of the money. Buford stared at Marty's empty bedroll as the shackles closed around his wrists. Betrayal was so expected, it was unexpected that it was… unexpected.
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
“No, no, no, no, no, please! ” Marty held out his trembling hands, but Buford caught them and pinned them to his heaving chest. “Please, please…” Scared sobs stuttered out of him at the sight of the glowing knife. “You know I have to.” “No, no, I can’t,” Marty whined. He was already hyperventilating. “I can’t, I can’t, please —“ Marty’s yowl buried the obscene hiss of burning flesh. His flailing necessitated a second application. “No! Sto–!” Buford coldcocked him. Marty’s eyes crossed before he passed out, finally affording Buford the peace to work on the wound. “That’s enough of that bullshit.”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
They’d done it a dozen times. Marty ambushed the stagecoach from the bridge while Buford rode up from behind, a storm unable to be outrun. Not all drivers were compliant or frightened. Marty regrettably had to shoot a few feet to be taken seriously. Buford did worse. And they walked away richer men. Until one day, a disgruntled passenger fired his shotgun through the roof. Marty fell into a cactus – and hit his head on a rock. He struggled to stay conscious as Buford dismounted. “Eastwood!” Marty’s eyes rolled back. Closed. Buford sighed. “Figures you’d fall in a fucking cactus.”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
Deep underground, the scrape of chains in the dirt interrupted the distant trickle of rainwater in the mineshaft. Buford drew his revolver, pointed it to his right— And lowered it. “Eastwood?” Under his bulbous black eye and layers of aged blood, Marty was emaciated — skin sallow and muscles atrophied. Black flesh festered around the rusted chain on his bony ankle. A weak wheeze snaked up his parched airway. He wore the same clothes he’d disappeared in – four months ago. Buford knelt. He planted his torch in the ground. Not a crumb of food. Just chains. “Who did this to you?”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
Buford’s eyes inched open. The small tail of the gray-and-black-striped kitten stroked his cheek as it curled against his shoulder. Its noisy purring reverberated down his arm and into his chest – and aggravated the tickle in his nose. Buford sneezed hard. “Aw, hey,” came Marty’s sleepy drawl. He picked up the kitten under its belly and stroked it between its ears. “Smokey’s back.” Buford sniffed, wiping the tears from the corners of his burning eyes. “You named the cat?” “Well, yeah. This is what, the third night he’s been here?” “Don’t you know,” Buford growled, “cats and dogs don’t mix?”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
The rope snapped. Marty met the whites of Buford’s eyes as the thundering rush of brown floodwaters swallowed him. As he clung to the canyon walls, Marty screamed Buford’s name – long after he knew he’d been swept away. The water receded. Marty hauled Buford from a pile of broken debris eight hundred yards away, laid him on the muddy rocks, and put his ear to Buford’s chest. After two cycles of rescue breaths and chest compressions, dirty water bubbled over Buford’s lips. He rolled onto his elbow, coughing and shoving Marty away. “What the hell was that?” “CPR. You’re welcome.”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
“I’m not sittin’ around a damn fort all winter with this,” Buford said, shaking his new crutch at Marty. Marty raised his eyebrows at Buford’s broken leg. “You’re not robbing trains and stagecoaches with that, either.” Buford harrumphed, casting the crutch to the saloon floor in disgust. He glared at the onlookers — “I can still shoot you from here!” — and shrank over his beer again. Marty propped the crutch up against the wall, sat, and sighed. There wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to put Buford in a good mood right now, not that it ever did. “Cards?” “Shut up.”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
There’re a lot of ways to say it without saying it. For Marty, it’s ripping up Buford’s bounty posters and letting him do the talking; the first mug of coffee and the last say; sewing a button, mending a tear (thank you, Home Ec); the desire to prove to himself that some days — just some days — Buford’s morality is a lighter shade of gray than he lets on. For Buford, it’s… complicated. You don’t survive out here alone, not if you’re smart. So, you sharpen his razor when you sharpen yours. Hold your tongue; put out fires. Watch his back.
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
Marty fled up the snowy forest slope after Buford. His heartbeat pounded in his temples, skewing pines and distorting songbirds. The snow yielded a soft crunch when he dropped to his knees. Buford whipped around. “Ain’t got time for this, runt…!” A trail of dark blood stained the sparkling snow. Marty slumped against a tree. Buford growled, trudging back into the wind. Marty was unconscious by the time he got there. A glass shard, gleaming in the winter sun, protruded from his abdomen. Buford’s face fell; he heard the window break in his memory of the escape. “Fuckin’ hell, Eastwood…”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
Marty awoke with veiled sunlight on his eyelids and fever heavy in his muscles. Several blankets and a wolf pelt applied a deep, comforting weight to his body while his head swam in murky, incoherent twilight. Through half-lidded eyes, a bleary silhouette loomed at his bedside. Marty tried to blink his eyes open wider, but his lethargy was too great. He couldn’t even muster the strength to formulate a question, let alone open his mouth to speak it. Sweat was dabbed from his skin. He sank slower into time, and, feeling slightly nauseous, closed his eyes. “Eastwood?” “Mm…?” “Wake up.”
Fandom: Back to the Future || Rating: T || Genre: Whump, Angst, Some Humor || Summary: In which Marty finds himself living an outlaw’s life alongside Buford Tannen in the Old West, where danger, death, and disease abound.
Marty entered the quiet Spanish mission after nightfall. He removed his hat when the llavera’s grim smile greeted him. Buford’s violent cough beckoned. Marty eyed the bowl of soiled rags, the perspiration beading Buford’s ashen brow; the way his chest shuddered from each shallow, wheezing rumble. The open book on his lap. TREASURE ISLAND Marty’s throat constricted. A smile flickered in the corner of his mouth; a pirate story sounded right up Buford’s alley. “I thought you couldn’t read.” “Thought I’d try.” Anything to keep his mind off dying. Marty took the book, sat down. “I’ll read it to you.”
