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#between them. But it's going to clear the air enough that Eddie can heal in his own way
evcndiaz · 2 years
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Soooo. Which one of Eddie's parents is dying/will die, huh?
#Go with me here:#this episode was very Oldest Sibling Eddie coded. Again I am a youngest sibling Eddie truther#but this is the first time we have seen Eddie interact with May or ANYONE younger than him in the capacity which he did tonight#Usually when Eddie interacts with someone younger than him they are MUCH younger than him (i.e. Christopher/Charlie) or only#a few years younger (i.e. Buck/Ravi) so that the age difference doesn't matter.#May is an adult in her own right but she's also significantly younger than him and he immediately assumed a Big Brotherly role#like it was natural to him.#Keeping that in mind and also looking at the call with the mother who died#Maybe I'm reading too much into it but Oldest Daughter/Eddie seemed to have stories that follow the same/similar trajectory#both with a parent who is there but not#who goes through life thinking Everything Is OK not even noticing that their child has pulled away from them#I said it before but an episode that so heavily centers around choices (sometimes bad ones) having parents making choices for#their children that they think are for the best but only end up hurting them#and placing enormous burden of responsibility on their eldest (even unintentionally)....#Maybe Eddie goes home to face his demons but while he's there he is going to learn that either Helena or Ramon is sick and/or dying#and he's going to be the first one of his siblings to catch it. And whatever death comes next is... probably not going to fix everything#between them. But it's going to clear the air enough that Eddie can heal in his own way#just like the Oldest Daughter whose mom technically died before they got any real emotional closure but whose last words were enough#to buoy and anchor her so that she could be there for her younger siblings#End of Season 5 and beginning of Season 6 is not going to fuck around#Let's talk about healing when the parent who fucked you up is too dead to even fully understand the grasp of what they've done#to you and how you rebuild when - for all you said - there is still so much you did not get the chance to say to them#Holy shit. If this is how they take this story.... bye <3#tv: 911#911: 05 x 15#911 spoilers#jack.txt
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extasiswings · 1 year
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the more it heals, the worse it hurts
I’m not sorry, but I might be a little sorry.  Have some post-6x10 Eddie and Bobby in the hospital.
Bobby knows he should call Athena.  He’s dead on his feet, old ghosts circling around him and grief bearing down on his shoulders with the weight of the world.  He needs his wife.  It’s just that kind of night.    
He lasted longer than he expected though.  He’s kept the ghosts, the grief, the blood of long-scarred over wounds ripped open afresh at bay for hours, finding ways to keep busy.  Doing his job.  Calling the station to arrange coverage.  Speaking with doctors to explain what happened.  Taking care of his people—when Chim brought Maddie in, Bobby was the one to pass along the updates he’d been given from the medical staff.  When Hen needed to call Karen, Bobby found her a phone.  And Eddie—
Well.
Honestly, Bobby isn’t sure he’s done much for Eddie at all.  Not since that initial moment, pulling Eddie away, barking orders to drive the ambulance.  If he’s really honest with himself, he’s been avoiding the other man since they arrived at the hospital.  Because there is something in Eddie right now, a brittle fragility, that Bobby has seen before, that he feels himself in a different way, and he doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to be what Eddie needs.  He doesn’t know if he can help without breaking himself.  At least, not without setting up a safety net first.  
He calls Athena.  
He closes his eyes.
He breathes.
He prays.
And then, he pushes himself off the wall of the stairwell he had ducked into and resolves to be Atlas for a little while longer.
He can take it.
Bobby finds Eddie at the furthest edge of the waiting room, a corner that’s a little more empty, a little more private.  He’s quite far from the Buckleys, Bobby notes absently.  
Eddie doesn’t react when Bobby settles into the chair next to him.  His gaze is fixed on the wall, but also distant, like he’s somewhere else completely, seeing something else completely.  Silence stretches between them for so long that at first Bobby almost wonders if he’s misjudged the situation, if Eddie really doesn’t want to talk after all.  But Bobby waits—patient, steady, calling on all the wealth of experience his life has brought him to keep himself composed.  And finally, Eddie cracks.
“He didn’t get to say goodbye,” Eddie says.  He doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t look at Bobby at all, but it’s something.
“What?”
Eddie’s throat works as he swallows.  His hand comes up to wipe at his mouth roughly like he’s clearing away some invisible stain.
“Christopher,” he clarifies.  “When Shannon—I was in the ambulance, I got to say goodbye, but she was gone as soon as we got to the hospital and there was nothing—”  He shakes his head, his eyes growing even more distant.  “I just had to go home and tell him she was gone.  And I’ve always felt like that was unfair, but at the same time part of me is grateful that he didn’t have to see her like that, that his last memory of her doesn’t involve a tube in her throat.”
Bobby opens his mouth, then closes it.  Waits a moment more.  Because he can see the cracks in the man in front of him, see the fraying, fraying threads, and while he’s willing to pick up the pieces, he doesn’t want to be the reason Eddie shatters.  So he waits, and lets Eddie wind his way to whatever he needs to get out.
“But…he didn’t get to say goodbye,” Eddie repeats, his voice cracking.  He squeezes his eyes shut.
Bobby’s chest aches when he draws in his next breath.  The weight on his shoulders tips precariously, threatening to crush him.  But he resets, rebalances.  
He does what he has to do.  
When he sets a hand to Eddie’s shoulder, Eddie flinches but ultimately leans into it.  After a moment, he lifts his head and finally meets Bobby’s eyes.  The look in them steals the air from Bobby’s lungs—it’s raw, agonized, wild…and familiar.  Bobby’s seen that look before, in his own eyes.  In his mirror.  For years after he lost his first wife and his children, he saw it reflected back at him every morning.  And now he’s seeing it in Eddie’s, far deeper and sharper than the last time they had been in this situation, because this time Eddie’s allowing himself to really feel everything.
For better or worse.
“I don’t know how to go home,” Eddie confesses.  “Because when I get there, I have to wake him up and tell him and bring him here.  And I can’t do that—I can’t put him through that.  But I also can’t not do it either, because if Buck—”  Another crack.  Another pause.  Another swallow.
Bobby squeezes Eddie’s shoulder.  And his heart bleeds.  
“He didn’t get to say goodbye last time.”  A whisper.  And yet somehow also a plea.  To God?  The universe?  “He deserves the chance to do that.  He deserves the option.”
“Yes, he does,” Bobby replies quietly.
“It’s not fair,” Eddie snaps, his hands coming up to rake through his hair in frustration.  “He finally moved on, he built something new, he got attached to someone else, and now—it’s not fair.”
And there it is.  The flare in Eddie’s eyes, the hitch of his voice that tells Bobby everything Eddie is trying not to say outright, provides final confirmation of the truth of all the stray thoughts Bobby has had over the years, questions that he’s kept locked away and elected not to fixate on because they weren’t his business.
Because before, they really were talking about Christopher.  But Bobby knows better than to think that’s still all they’re doing now.  
“I don’t know how to do this,” Eddie admits, and Bobby knows he’s referring to more than just going home.  “I don’t know how to do this if he doesn’t wake up.”  
And that right there is why Bobby had been avoiding this.  Because he’s not sure he knows either.  
He’s not prepared to lose another son.  
At the end of the hall, the entrance doors open.  Athena walks through.  And suddenly, the weight on Bobby’s shoulders eases.  
“You don’t have to have the answers yet,” he replies, pushing himself up from the chair.  “You just have to start somewhere.  And you don’t have to do any of it alone.”
“Come on,” he adds with his hand still firmly fixed around Eddie’s shoulder.  He nods in Athena’s direction.  “We’ll take you home.  And bring you back if you want.”
And with a heavy sigh and one last pause, Eddie allows Bobby to help him to his feet.  
This, he can do.  The rest…they can work all of that out later.      
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rebelspykatie · 10 months
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Something’s in the air tonight
Link to AO3 | 10.5k | Rated T
Complete | 12 chapters | 70k total
Robin Buckley might just be a genius.
One would think solving Russian codes during the apocalypse would be enough to cement this fact. But, no. It takes figuring out the weird tension between her best friends for her to fully come to realize the complexity of her superior intellect.
In the aftermath of Vecna, Steve and Eddie became tentative friends. They weren’t quite sure how to act around each other at first, hesitant to hang out alone, using Robin and the kids as buffers. That summer was tense, even though the battle with the upside down had concluded, they were all recovering and apprehensive about accepting that things were truly over. All of them still healing and plagued by nightmares.
A gradual shift happened. It wasn’t overnight and it was so subtle that it took Robin entirely too long to catch on, but their relationship changed. At the start, they only hung out in group settings, keeping distance between them that seemed silly to Robin. She figured if you’ve held someone’s guts in your hands to keep them alive, you can bypass acquaintances and go straight to unhealthy codependent platonic soulmates, like her and Steve.
Obviously, she was friends with idiots. Months of dancing around each other, trying to figure out if the other person really wanted to be friends, or whether they were polar opposites incapable of being anything to each other outside of a multidimensional war. Several times she wanted to just grab both of them by the ear and knock their heads together, or at least lock them in a room together until they worked through whatever issues they had with one another.
But by the end of that summer, she really didn’t have to interfere at all. Comfort crept up on them all, allowing them to relax and find their place in the world again. For Steve and Eddie, that was a growing friendship, one that had them spending increasing amounts of time together and realizing they had more in common than they originally thought.
They bring Robin along for the ride, as her and Steve are kind of a package deal at this point. And she loves Eddie. They’re both quirky in that way that is off putting to a lot of people, always struggling to pick up on social cues and never making friends easily. Hell, it took almost dying together for Robin to really trust that Steve wasn’t going to hurt her. But she recognized something in Eddie that made her latch on with no questions asked. That kind of otherness that was reflected back to her in the mirror everyday.
Steve was a tad more reluctant. Something about not wanting to get between him and Dustin. It was almost sweet, but Robin saw the truth. She recognized that Steve was scared. Without the upside down breathing down their necks, he seemed a little lost. So much of his worth came from putting himself in front of danger to protect the kids, and his relationship with Dustin was the catalyst for all of that outside of the shit that happened with Nancy. It was clear that he was afraid of losing Dustin after everything calmed down, especially if Dustin thought Eddie was cooler.
After Eddie’s confession in the upside down, which Robin heard all about one night when insecurities poured out of them into the quiet of a sleepless night in Steve’s bed, Steve seemed to realize how important they both were to Dustin. Before it all started, they mostly kept their distance and didn’t acknowledge that they both befriended the same nerdy, little weirdo. Robin thinks this all was a long time coming, that their jealousy was bound to boil over and either bring them closer or turn their relationships with Dustin sour.
Robin doesn’t know what would’ve happened if Eddie hadn’t been brought into the fold, if all of it would’ve fizzled out over time, with maturity and distance that inevitably occurs with growing up. Instead, they’ve become this bizarre family. A mish-mash of people that never would’ve come together otherwise. Fondness and protectiveness that inherently developed out of a fucked up situation they all somehow survived.
Eddie and Steve just took a little longer to get there than everyone else.
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terrifyingstories · 10 months
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@lingeringscars, continued.
distance was his curse. moving across the country, out of state, away from the people he loves as his heart breaks. all in the best interests of jenny, so he  could never regret the decisions, but it didn’t make it easier when peyton sent him an email, nor is it easy now when he sees eddie around campus. getting caught in a custody battle as a teenage, peyton getting shot…it seemed like chaos followed the people of tree hill, but learning there were different types of vampires and assassins after jill meant more trouble than he was asking for.
he would have taken it all without question if not for jenny. he would have risked it on forever if he didn’t have a daughter to look after. 
he’s learning that maybe he can still have that. eddie thought the worst, and like syndey said, it makes sense knowing his history. eddie watched people he cared about, people he loved, get tortured and die. it brings tears to jake’s eyes to think about the horror it must have been, and the thought that anything could happen to eddie is enough to take the air out of his lungs, too. 
sydney thought the chances were minimal that knowing this put him or jenny at risk of any additional danger, though. so he could take a chance. he could go against what everyone says is right and kiss the half-vamp and things would finally work out…right? hope. hope was everything, and he knew that if it came down to it, he could run for jenny’s sake. why not try for something beautiful instead? someday. today. 
the tune came to him last night, and for once in his life, his hands were sweating as he pulled out the guitar. time for his cheesy 80′s moment as he started strumming it for the school, with one audience member in particular the dedication. 
he’s thirteen when he starts to notice how it makes him feel - how all of the boys in his year talk about girls, about each other, the crass language they toss back and forth so casually. none of it is directed toward him, but he turns inward all the same, feeling small and self conscious, like he has a secret even his closest friend in the world doesn’t know. mason helps - it’s easy with him. he’s warm and friendly, easy to joke with, and he rarely boasts a temper. eddie knows what part to play with him. it hardly takes any effort at all. but mason still laughs at the jokes and jumps in from time to time, and nothing makes eddie feel more alone than that.
he’s fifteen and he knows he’s done the worst thing. he’s in love with his best friend. he’s always been in love with his best friend, but it’s harder now. mason teases him about girls, and it’s clear as day he feels about rose the way eddie feels about him. eddie is having a harder time masking how he feels, and it hurts more and more each time. rose helps; they have a good natured rhythm between them, and when he jokes with her it feels like less of a strain. but then rose is gone, a crucial part of the only family he’s ever had missing, and all the locker room talk grows worse and worse, and sometimes it seems impossible mason doesn’t notice him bleeding. a thousand little paper cuts, bleeding him dry. 
he comes to palm springs, and he does the worst of all. it was selfish, falling for jake the way he did. he’s on a mission, he had no business, and that it ends how it does feels like the culmination of a lifetime of wrongdoing, confirmation of a lifetime of shame. he’s put everything in jeopardy, and caused more pain than he can bear. no one would believe him, how easily it happened, how little cognition he had of it at all. it had been pure, his longing for jake.
he hadn’t wanted anything except to be around him, and every moment had felt like healing. how could it have turned to something that inspired such an ache?
jill has to pull him down the stairs. he allows her to mostly because jill has so very few sources of joy in her life now, and he can’t deny her one that doesn’t compromise her safety, nor resist her pure desire to share it with family. if jill wants to listen to some music in the quad of amberwood, he’ll tag along even if he isn't exactly needed as her bodyguard, as much as he’d prefer to sit in his own misery. but what they find at the end of the steps is not some random student, is a display that is so clearly not meant for jill. before he can fully process that it’s jake, tears fill his eyes. his throat grows so thick it’s a wonder he can breathe, and everything except jake turns into a quiet blur, even jill’s excited tugging on his arm. 
then the music starts to fade, quieter and quieter as if lulling the world into a peaceful slumber. except eddie has never been so awake, and before he can consider any particular course of action, he's taking jake's face into his hands and kissing him.
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tawaifeddiediaz · 2 years
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in shadows (made of you and me)
Spoilers for episode 5x05, warnings for mild language, anxiety, mentions of canonical storylines (also nuance is wonderful)
[AO3 Link]
Word Count: 2366 words
“Would you have done it?”
The question breaks the easy air between them, a tangible tension settling in the room. It feels suspiciously like glass, shattering at the slightest touch, at the slightest nudge to peer behind it. If he looks close enough, Eddie thinks he can see some of those shards piercing the fragile normality that they’ve curated — pretending that everything’s normal when it’s not. 
Eddie doesn’t flinch when Buck whips his head around to look at him in a move that makes his own neck twinge in sympathy. Just as sudden, Buck drops his gaze back to the peanuts he’d been rifling through, absently picking shells and threads from them. “Do what?”
Eddie’s quiet as he moves around his kitchen, coming to stand where Buck can’t hide from him anymore. He stops next to the counter Buck’s staring hard at, pressing their shoulders together and waiting patiently. 
“Transfer,” Eddie clarifies after a few minutes. The word is heavy, makes something in Eddie’s chest contract, and the weight of it was the whole reason he tried to avoid saying it in the first place. It’s an ugly feeling, curdling in Eddie’s stomach with a resignation that if Buck went, Eddie would probably go with him, too. 
It’s ridiculous to even think about, no matter how true it is. Eddie’s worked with thousands of people, stood back to back with them when bullets and rubble were flying at them, has walked through fire countless times without Buck watching his back. He’s perfectly capable of not working with his best friend. 
Or so he thinks. 
Eddie watches Buck’s expression close in on itself, and thinks to himself that no, he couldn’t work without Buck by his side permanently. 
The months Buck was out because of his leg were uncertain ones, filled with am I going to work again? and what if I can’t be a firefighter anymore? and any other number of doubts flitting across his best friend’s mind.  Eddie has never been in the business of lying, but he does know a thing or two about being blunt gently. It was pure instinct to turn Buck’s focus from his leg not healing into what he can do to make it better. But privately, he missed the constant presence of Buck by his side like an arm, like a missing limb.
Without Chimney, work feels like it did back then. He presses his own worry for his friend down in favour of making sure Buck and Hen are coping okay, but Eddie’s picked up the phone to text him more times than he cares to count. 
(He'll take the sparse replies if it means Chim and Jee-Yun are safe, too.)
Eddie takes it in stride when he and Hen encounter a few clashes, because they’re both working differently without the implicit understanding their regular partners bring to the job. Eddie can’t hold out a hand and expect for his partner to read his mind anymore, and he knows that Hen can’t do that with him, either. Both of them miss that seamless understanding, but they try their best to adjust, and that’s enough for Eddie.
Moving to the paramedic circuit doesn’t bother Eddie — he could use the break for his shoulder, could do with going home aching less on that side. The thing that does bother him is not being able to make sure Buck’s alright, not being able to make sure he’s got someone watching his six, because he knows Buck in and out. 
Buck focused his whole attention on making sure that Ravi’s prepared for any situation that may come at him, but the idea that Buck was preparing Ravi to replace him is painful in a way Eddie doesn’t expect.
When Eddie turns back to the conversation (or lack thereof) at hand, Buck’s still sorting through those damn peanuts that Eddie only buys for him, pointedly not looking at him. It’s a clear dismissal, but somehow, the fear that’d tucked itself in the corner of Eddie’s ribcage won’t let him leave it alone.
Sighing, Eddie touches the back of his wrist and pulls the peanut bowl away. “Buck.”
“I-I don’t know,” he answers finally.
Something had gone through Buck’s mind to prompt him towards the idea of transferring, and Eddie wants to know what it was, because it sure as hell wasn’t nothing. 
“You do know,” Eddie says quietly. “I just want you to tell me why you thought about it.”
“You wouldn’t have let me transfer, anyway, so this conversation is pointless,” Buck snorts. His tone is edged in a sharp warning, a petulance that Eddie knows he’s putting up to protect himself. He’s not quite itching for an argument at eight o’clock at night, but his voice isn’t far from it either.
Eddie allows the dig, knowing that he did entertain the fleeting thought that he’d follow Buck wherever he went. Instead, he softens his tone more, ducking to meet his eyes. “Last I checked, you’re an adult. It’s not my decision to make. If this was something you genuinely wanted, you know I wouldn’t have said anything.” 
The fight drains out of Buck instantly, and he deflates, nodding. Eddie waits a beat, then continues. “But that’s not why you said it, is it? You were saying it because you think it’s your fault that Chim left, that the firehouse is adjusting to not having him around on top of training a new probie. But it isn’t. None of this is on you.”
The silence is deafening, and Eddie knows he’s hit the nail right on its head when Buck gives an imperceptible wince and focuses his hands on gripping the counter, dropping his head.
“Then why couldn’t I stop him?”
His voice is already wobbly, and for a second, Eddie doesn’t know what he’ll be able to say to make him feel better.
The truth is a good place to start, he decides. “Buck, Maddie is Chimney’s partner. No matter what, he was always going to go after her.” Like I would for you , he doesn’t say. “Wild horses wouldn’t have been able to stop him. Hell, even if all of us said no, he wouldn’t have stopped, because he loves Maddie and he’s scared for her.”
It seems to sink through Buck’s head, just like the last time they were standing in Buck’s balcony pressing ice to his eye over a couple of beers. Eddie relaxes a bit, pulling himself up on the counter next to Buck and letting his legs swing over the cabinet.
“It just feels like the 118 has gone through too much in the past six fucking months. And-and Bobby once said Chimney’s the heart of the firehouse, and it’s true, Eddie. Nothing feels the same without any of us missing, let alone him. We always said the 118 was more than a team, and it just...doesn’t feel like that right now.”
Eddie stays quiet, knowing that six months ago, it was his absence that they — and especially Buck — were feeling. But Chim’s been a vital part of the 118 for years, far before even Bobby. Missing him is exactly as Bobby said — like the heart of the firehouse has been ripped away from them.
“Why didn’t you tell me Chim talked to you?” Buck turns to him then, and like this, standing inches apart, Eddie’s acutely aware of how much bigger Buck is than him. With him propped on the counter, this close together, they’re eye-level. Eddie can count every shade in Buck’s eyes, and knows that it wouldn’t take much for him to get lost.
It’s not the sort of thing he should be focusing on right now, but he can’t stop himself from noticing it. 
“Wasn’t my story to tell. I went to see him, make sure he was okay, and he was packing his and Jee-Yun’s bag,” Eddie tells him.
Buck shakes his head. “I just wish he’d talk to me, forgive me already.”
“He’s only focused on Maddie right now. I don’t think he has the space to think about anything else, but that’s okay , Buck,” Eddie explains patiently. “He’s going to come back and you two are going to be back, cracking gross jokes and puns in no time. You both just need some time and space, that’s all.” 
Buck looks like he wants to protest but when he opens his mouth, it’s only to say, “You love our puns.”
Eddie laughs, returning the peanut bowl and hopping back down. “Does it matter if I do? You’re gonna crack them anyway.”
They manage to restore some of the levity from before,
“So, not gonna tell me I’m making it all about me?”  Eddie pauses, turning to face him. Something must be written on his face, because Buck drops his gaze again, fiddling nervously with his fingers as he stammers out a reply. “J-Just making sure.”
“This does involve you,” he says after a minute. “She’s your sister. And you’re allowed to feel scared for her, and torn because she asked you not to say anything to someone else you love. That’s not making it about you. If you need to rant, rant away. It’s what I’m here for.”
Eddie thinks about the frantic way Chimney had been shoving clothes into his bag, probably not even checking if he’d packed the same socks or if he’d even packed underwear. The only bag that had been neatly set aside was Jee-Yun’s, and as Eddie cradled her and watched Chim pace around the apartment grabbing things off the shelves, all he could do was pray that they’d find Maddie, safe and sound.
Eddie knows what it’s like to be in both positions — he’s been the one to leave, and the one to be left. 
He says as much to Buck now. “When Chris was born, I didn’t think I was worth being his father. A big part of me still doesn’t.” Buck goes to interrupt but Eddie holds a hand up. “No, wait. Chris was seven by the time you met me, but those years in El Paso, they were a struggle. We didn’t know how to do anything . Shannon and I were barely adults ourselves, and then we added a kid to the mix. Suddenly, everything was just...so overwhelming and it didn’t feel like I could control anything. 
“I fell into these roles that I was raised with, started making decisions without my wife, and Buck, I may regret that now, but back then, I had no way to tell my head from my ass. I didn’t know how to do anything else. I came to LA because I hoped we could be near Shannon. That it would be easier to reach out, get in touch, but she was struggling with her own form of guilt, too — one I didn’t even know about until she came back. If we’d been better partners, maybe we could’ve understood that about each other before we broke apart.”
Buck’s expression changes multiple times as he listens, and Eddie thinks carefully before he says his next words.
“I’m not saying it’s the same. It’s different from Maddie, in so many ways, but what I’m trying to get you to understand is that Maddie needs someone to help her see that she isn’t a bad mother, and that Jee-Yun is always, always going to be safe with her. You love her with all you have, and Maddie knows she has you in her corner, but that person will be Chimney, because he’s her partner. He’s the one she’ll let take care of her in ways she might not want you to, or need you to.”
He waits again, watches realization dawn across Buck’s face, watches the puzzle pieces fall into place. “You’re basically saying what you did the other day.”
“Yeah,” Eddie replies, nodding and tapping his fingers on the countertop. “You and Chim love Maddie in different ways. Everyone has versions, and the version Chim sees isn’t necessarily the version you do. Thought you, Mr. Software Update, would get that,” he teases gently.
It works, because Buck chuckles, swiping a hand down his face. “Yeah, yeah. Chim’s got her, this isn’t something I can fix.”
“Not everything needs fixing. You’ve done the best you can, Buck. Now’s the hard part — the wait.” The same shattered look enters his best friend’s eyes, and Eddie’s heart clenches. 
He reaches forward then, curling a hand around the back of Buck’s neck and squeezing once to ground him. “Chim’s going to come back, probably with Maddie and Jee-Yun in tow. And when he does, I’m going to get my partner back, because he won’t have transferred.” He hesitates, and then masks his tone with a playful one he doesn’t feel with his next words. “But if he does, I’ll go with him.”
Buck nods, sniffing and clearing his throat like Eddie can’t see the glisten of his tears under the low light of the kitchen. He lets him think that he’s gotten away with it, clapping him on the shoulder once before pushing off the counter to grab his own bowl of chips. 
“Come on. Let me beat your ass at Mortal Kombat a few times.”
“You wish, Diaz,” Buck laughs wetly, knocking their shoulders together as they plop down on the couch. “Thanks, Eddie.”
“The 118 isn't a family without you, either, Buck. Just remember that.” 
Buck nods and Eddie knows he's been heard. He smiles and t urns on the game. 
They settle back into this familiar pattern of snacks and video games, one piece of normality when everything feels afloat. Eddie ribs Buck when he loses five games in a row, and Buck throws a peanut at him for his troubles. The two games Buck does win are accentuated with the worst victory dance Eddie has ever seen, but by that time, the two of them are laughing hard enough that he can’t bring himself to care.
But throughout the night, Eddie watches Buck’s grin return, shining like a beacon in the middle of his own damned living room. It casts familiar shadows across Eddie’s home and he thinks to himself...everything’s going to be okay.
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kitchenscene · 3 years
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forever & a pond for the word place thing
until you say i do forever + a pond [ao3 link] _____________
It’s a late summer night. Water flows below them, passing under the bridge. Trees hang low, branches swaying in the wind. He has to duck his head to avoid the leaves. It’s all in vain, they still fall into his hair only to be plucked away by another breeze or Buck’s gentle hand.
The creek flows into a small pond, stepping stones carving a path across the water. Frogs croak and leap from rock to rock, chasing each other in circles, cheering each other along from the tall grasses growing along the sides. Crickets echo their calls, though their bouncing is more discrete.
Stepping side by side, the wood creaks as they pass over the bridge. Slow steps, soft steps, barely moving along. Their hands swing together in the little space that remains between them, interlocked. Shoulder brushing against shoulder, soft circles against his palm.
There’s a gentle weight in his right pocket, a platinum ring against his thigh. It should scare him, but it doesn’t. If anything, it’s grounding.
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“I never thought I’d have this,” Buck breaks the silence, holding up their joined hands. Eddie turns away from the path ahead to look up to him. His curls sway in the wind, tangling around his hairline.
“I hoped I would,” Eddie admits, “didn’t always believe it, but I hoped.”
Stolen glances, lingering touches, he hoped. Movie nights, family day trips, he hoped. Take out containers and desserts without recipes, he hoped. For a long time that’s all he could do. Settling into his feelings and settling too late, Eddie truly had terrible timing. His breakup led perfectly into Buck’s newest relationship. Seven months, all he could do was hope. Hope and wait. Buck and Taylor, he knew they wouldn’t last, and most days he felt awful, praying for Buck’s broken heart, praying he would heal and move on. Longing hurts. It hurts and hurts and hurts.
It took time, but they healed together. There wasn’t a grand confession, no dramatic declarations. It was a car ride, driving home from a slow day. Buck called it home without hesitation, and Eddie begged for a red light, wanting nothing more than to take his face in his hands and say, “You. You’re my home.”
They didn’t stop until they reached the driveway, parked on the left, Buck’s parking spot. Eddie took his hand before he could reach for the door, pleading for him to stay, knowing his confidence soon would fade.
“Stay,” he said, holding on tight, “not just for tonight.”
“I don’t plan on leaving,” he assured, “Not ever.”
Eddie didn’t fall for Buck, no, it was a choice. He didn’t trip over the edge, stumble into love, but rather jumped off the cliff, diving head first, knowing he’d be caught somewhere along the way. He chose to lean closer and whisper promises into the air between them. He chose to hold Buck’s face in his hands, a reassurance that he wants this, them together, as long as he can have it. Buck may argue it was the other way around, but Eddie kissed him. All the hoping, all the waiting, he kissed him first, leaving no room for doubt in between. He made a choice, there in the driveway. He’ll make the same one, time and time again.
The bridge turns off into a boardwalk, a solid oak platform suspending them over the water. Information plaques prop up off the outer railings detailing the plants and wildlife surrounding them. They stop walking. Buck stares out onto the pond, lilies overgrowing and dragonflies swarming. It’s beautiful, the moon reflecting off the water, ripples outlining the shore. Eddie stares at Buck instead.
“There’s dirt on your face,” he laughs, wiping it away with his thumb. Eddie leaves his hand against Buck’s cheek long after the spot is wiped clean.
“And there’s dead leaves in your hair,” Buck says, turning towards him, ruffling his hair. The dirt and leaves float to the ground, falling between the wood panels, lingering on the water’s surface. He reaches up to fix his hair, but Buck messes it up once again. His laughter is bright, the frogs and fish and hidden crickets all return to laugh along.
“You’re the worst,” he teases, sliding his hand from Buck’s cheek to his hair, shaking out the curls. Buck swats his hand away before letting it rest on Eddie’s arm.
“You love me,” Buck says with absolute certainty.
“How could I not?”
With a heart so full, so willing to give and give and give, how could he not? Loving Buck is the easiest choice he’ll ever make.
His face softens at Eddie’s question. A smile lifts that he could not possibly force down. They lean against the edge of the boardwalk, a dark night, though he can see as clear as ever. Somewhere above is the moon, lighting the way. A little further is the stars, leading the way. They see the ring in his pocket, and they twinkle with anticipation.
“I love you too, y’know,” Buck says, still holding Eddie’s arm. His own hands trace Buck’s ribcage, counting the bones, shifting with each breath.
“I never doubted it,” he says. “Even when you mock me, even when I misunderstand you, even if we’re fighting. You’re still easy to love.”
They sway together with the breeze under the watchful eye of the stars. He pays attention to Buck’s gentle hold, to the soft chirps and the splashes. It’s a good moment, one of the best. He’s right where he needs to be, and he never wants to forget.
“You’re easy to love,” Buck returns, “you’re also easy to mock.”
Eddie pinches Buck’s side and he laughs at the touch. “I’m telling you how much I love you, and you’re making fun of me?”
“You make it too easy.”
The weight in his front pocket feels a little lighter.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he says. “You and me, forever. That’s the deal.”
Buck is his best friend. They became something more, boyfriends, life partners, but underneath all that, they’re still just best friends. They make stupid jokes that become incomprehensible to anyone around them. One word, two words spoken is worth essays and speeches, even in silence, they understand one another.
“You’re sure?” Buck asks, though his smile is evident. “Forever’s a long time.”
Eddie shakes his head. “Not long enough.”
One lifetime, one thousand, it could never be enough, though he’ll do what he can with the time they have. God knows they’ve already wasted enough.
He pulls one hand away from Buck’s waist. Somewhere in his pocket, buried deep, there’s the ring. It spins between his fingers for a moment before surfacing, just above the seams. He squeezes tight, not willing to let it go. Eddie looks down, watching the metal shine in the moonlight. He doesn’t fall to one knee, no, he doesn’t fall. There’s a fraction of a speech in his head, though he could never find the words to fully encompass his thoughts. He’s muttered hundreds of, “I love you’s,” over the years; it will never be enough.
Buck doesn’t look down at the ring, he looks to Eddie instead with such softness. He’s noticed it’s a look reserved for only him, just as Eddie’s loudest laughs are only for Buck and Chris, and how he only lets himself be held by Buck.
He lifts the ring a little higher, finally catching Buck’s eye. His breath hitches as he glances between Eddie’s hands and his eyes.
“I want forever,” Eddie says, “but I’ll take whatever I can get.”
“You can have forever,” Buck nods, pulling him impossibly closer, “I’m not going anywhere.”
He leans down to kiss Eddie like it’s a promise, a pinky swear. It’s a feeling he’ll never tire of, being molded by Buck’s touch, firm and gentle. No rush, no booming in his chest or flipping in his gut. Safety, that’s all it is. It’s coming home, it’s a solid landing. Buck kisses him with determination, as a reassurance. He’ll never leave, it’s laced in every kiss, somewhere between their lips. Eddie leans back, lifting the ring once again with a laugh. There’s a question he forgot to ask.
“Marry me?”
Bucks nods again, nose brushing against Eddie’s. He nods once, twice, kissing him again and again. Even if he never asked, he’s certain the answer would’ve been yes. Buck could say nothing at all, and he’d still know the answer.
He pulls away long enough to slip the ring onto his finger, hands tangling, platinum shining in the moonlight. Another leaf falls in his hair, he makes no effort to move it. It’ll fall with the breeze, while Eddie stands with Buck. Hands roaming, kisses repeating, he stands with Buck.
send me a word + a place and i'll write you a short buddie fic
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tripleaxeldiaz · 3 years
Text
darling let me trace the lines
a flower shop fic for my beautiful @elisela <3
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I. Birth Month Flowers
The bell above the shop door rings, but Eddie ignores it in favor of putting the finishing touches on the wedding arrangement he’s working on. There’s only one person who’d come in after closing anyway, and he’ll make his way to the back room soon enough.
He smiles as he feels strong arms wrap around his waist from behind and a chin come to rest on his shoulder. He puts the last of the peonies in place before turning around to greet Buck properly.
“Hi,” he says, arms coming around Buck in return. Buck’s smile gets bright and Eddie melts, like he always does. 
“Hi,” Buck whispers, leaning in to kiss Eddie softly, sweetly. “Happy anniversary.”
If anyone had told Eddie a year ago that this is where he’d end up — happier than he’s ever been with the best man he’s ever met, business going better and better each day, Chris continuing to shine — he’s not sure he would have believed them. He would’ve kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for every good thing to be met with something even worse, for the inevitability of sinking back into the darkness that constantly followed him.
But now, he has Buck and Chris and the rest of their little makeshift family to pull him out and remind him that he gets to keep these good things, that he deserves them. He still has days where that’s hard to believe, where everything goes a little grey, but then he’ll hear Chris’ laugh ring through the shop or see Buck smile, and colors come seeping back in again.
He kisses Buck one more time before stepping back to get a proper look at him. The first word that comes to mind is mouthwatering — dress pants cut just right, dark blue button down making his eyes even brighter. He looks like he just stepped out of a J. Crew catalogue, and it takes every ounce of willpower Eddie can muster to not drag him upstairs right now and forget about their dinner reservations. 
There’s one glaring problem though, and Eddie reaches forward to undo the buttons at Buck’s wrist to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. Buck tries to pull away, but Eddie’s grip is firm.
“Eddie, come on, this is a nice place, they won’t even let me in the door if they see all my ink.”
“Well, it’s my anniversary, and I want to see it. If my very Catholic, ‘your body is a temple’ abuela can accept your tattoos, the maître d' at this restaurant can too.”
He gets both sleeves rolled up to Buck’s elbows and takes a minute to admire the ink underneath. They’re all more than familiar now, and he’s spent hours asking Buck about each one, like Chris did when they first met. He likes knowing these things about Buck, the little bits that are so obvious on his arms but have meanings that go much deeper. It’s a privilege, a blessing really, and it’s not something that he’ll ever take for granted.
Buck’s blushing by the time he’s done, and Eddie kisses his nose to get a laugh out of him.
“Okay, okay, go get dressed, we’re gonna be late,” Buck says, shoving Eddie towards the stairs. Eddie does as he’s told, quickly changing and fixing his hair, and he feels himself smile as Buck’s jaw drops when he comes back downstairs.
He knows he looks good — both the lady at the store and Sophia on FaceTime said that maroon was definitely his color — but it’s nice that the main person he’s trying to impress agrees too.
“You look— damn, babe, are you sure we have to go to dinner?” Buck asks, pulling Eddie closer by his belt loops and kissing him deep. 
Eddie lets him, just for a minute, before pulling away, ignoring Buck’s groan as he grabs his hand and pulls him out the door.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dinner goes by without incident (minus a brief makeout session in the bathroom between courses) and is overall perfect. Eddie is full of food and flushed from wine and swinging his and Buck’s clasped hands back and forth as they walk back to his apartment because he’s so happy he doesn’t know what else to do. The smile Buck shoots his way only makes that happiness grow.
The nerves settle in a bit once they finally get upstairs. “So, I know we didn’t talk about gifts or anything,” he says, pulling Buck towards the couch to sit down. “But I had a vague idea, and Chris wanted to help, and one thing led to another so...I do have something for you.”
Buck looks almost relieved. “Good, because I kinda have something for you too.”
Eddie laughs and rolls his eyes — of course they did this with no planning — before going to his bedroom to grab the gift.
“Close your eyes!” he yells before walking back in. He gently places the gift in Buck’s lap and sits back down beside him.
“Okay, open.”
Buck does and looks down, eyes widening as he does. He traces a finger reverently over the leather cover of the book in front of him, stopping as he gets to the edge of the picture laid in the middle — the two of them and Chris at the beach, matching sunglasses and big smiles. It was their first “family day” after they got together, and the first time Eddie knew, with complete certainty, that this was all he wanted — all he needed — for the rest of his life.
“These are all from the past year,” he says as Buck starts flipping through, like that wasn’t obvious. But he’s nervous and Buck hasn’t said anything so he’s just...riffing. “Even Abuela had some that I didn’t know about. Chris added all the drawings, the ones you two have been working on, and he suggested the pressed flowers because I was teaching him how to press them anyway. It’s mostly jasmine because I know those are your favorite, and they mean ‘sweet love’ so it...fit.” Buck’s still quiet, slowly flipping through the pages. “I know it’s a little cheesy, but—”
“It’s perfect,” Buck says, voice rough. When he finally looks at Eddie, his eyes are shining. “I just can’t believe it’s only been a year and we’ve done all this.”
“There’s blank pages too,” Eddie says, tapping the back of the book. “For when we need them.” Not if we need them, because Eddie doesn’t feel presumptuous in thinking — knowing — that they’ll need those blank pages, and probably a couple thousand more.
Buck smiles and reaches up, cupping Eddie’s cheek. “I love it. I love you. Thank you.” He kisses him once, twice, three times before closing the book and setting it on the coffee table.
“My turn?” Eddie asks. Buck nods and stands up, smile gone and replaced with a nervous grimace. 
“So, first things first, I meant to talk to you about this before it happened,” Buck says. “But then I told Chim and Maddie about it, and they said it would be better as a surprise, and they’re very persuasive when they want to be, and she didn’t have a lot of time last week, so I—”
“Buck,” Eddie says, standing up too. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll love it.”
Buck’s eyes flit back and forth between his for a minute before he nods and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
“Oh, it’s that kind of present?”
Buck just laughs and rolls his eyes. He finishes unbuttoning and shrugs his shirt off, revealing his bare chest and more tattoos that Eddie’s become intimately familiar with over the past year. He’s traced each of them with his fingers and his tongue, knows their stories, could probably draw them from memory if someone asked him to.
Except one.
It’s healed but still fresh, stark on Buck’s skin compared to some of the older, faded ones. The design is simple but clear, and obviously Maddie’s work: a marigold and a daisy, crossed at the stems, tied together in a perfect bow by a piece of twine. And it’s right over Buck’s heart, in a spot Eddie knows has been reserved for something truly special.
“It’s beautiful,” Eddie says, “but how is it for me?”
“Come on, Eddie, you know what flowers mean better than anyone.”
“Sure, and I know marigolds are for pain and grief and daisies are for innocence. But what does that have to do with us? Unless you mean—” 
He loses his breath a little because it clicks. Tears sting his eyes as he looks up at Buck, because he knows what he thinks it means, what he wants it to mean, but he wants to hear Buck say it too.
Buck smiles, soft and beautiful. “A marigold for an October birthday, like yours, and a daisy for an April birthday, like Chris’. The bow is actually a rose vine for a June birthday.”
“Like yours,” Eddie whispers. 
Buck nods, but he quickly looks nervous again. “I know it’s kind of a lot, and maybe it’s assuming too much, but you guys are it for me. Really, really it. This is the best way I could show you that.”
Eddie reaches a hand up, traces gently over a petal, feels Buck’s heart thumping underneath it. Underneath them. A symbol of their family, so solidly formed that Buck wanted it to be a permanent part of him, woven into the tapestry of the stories he paints on his skin.
Eddie’s at a loss for words — so many big things he wants to say, but they’re all getting tangled in his brain, mixed with the sheer awe that this is even happening. Buck must take it as a bad sign though, because his face falls a bit and he starts looking around the room at anywhere but Eddie.
“It’s okay if you don’t like it,” he says, trying to grab for his shirt on the floor. “Like I said, I should’ve told you first—”
Eddie grabs Buck’s face and pulls him into a searing kiss. He’s getting better with words, with communicating his thoughts and talking through what he’s feeling, but sometimes actions still serve him much better. He does his best to pour the tangle of love and devotion and thoughts of forever into the kiss, and if his enthusiastic response is any indication, Buck seems to pick up on everything just fine.
They come up for air eventually, but Eddie keeps holding on to Buck, his thumbs gently tracing the blush on his cheeks. He just looks, takes this moment in, floored by the fact that even when he thinks things can’t get better, that he’s used up all his good fortune and reached the peak of whatever happiness he’s been allowed, Buck comes in and blows the roof clean off.
“You’re it for us too,” he says softly, earnestly. Buck’s smile is big and bright, and Eddie falls in love all over again.
II. Matching Rings
“You know you’re gonna have to get this redone, like, every year, right?”
Buck shoves Chim’s shoulder, almost knocking the ink out of his hands in the process. “You said you’d give us anything we wanted as a wedding present. And you’re only doing mine, so it’s like half a present. Be grateful we didn’t ask for money, too.”
Chim holds his hands up placatingly and finishes loading his machine. It’s just the three of them on the floor, Maddie in the back office doing something with accounting. The sun is going down, lighting the whole room up with soft, golden light. It hits Buck just right too where he’s laid back in Chimney’s chair, making his skin glow in all the places it peaks out beneath the ink. His hair is soft and loose and his smile is easy, and Eddie feels his heart pick up, like it’s the first time he’s ever seen it.
Eddie can’t believe he has to wait a week to marry this man. He’d do it right here, right now if he could. But it’s only seven days, and today they’re doing something just as permanent, just as lasting as they are.
This wasn’t part of the original plan. Everything else was set for the wedding — the venue, the food, the cake, the suits, everything, except the rings. They’d spent three separate weekends going to stores all around Los Angeles, scouring Etsy shops, talking to designers, and still nothing felt right. Nothing they saw felt true to either of them, as a couple or as individuals, and it was (on top of the general stress of planning a wedding) starting to get to Eddie.
“Screw it,” he’d said after another two hours of searching, closing out of another store’s website. “This is so stupid. The rings are the least important part of this, why is it so hard to find good ones?”
Buck pats his shoulder and sets down a mug of tea in front of him before sitting down next to him. “We could just get cheap ones for the actual wedding and keep looking after. Or skip the rings altogether?”
“No, I still want them,” Eddie said. “I just want them to be special. To be us. We’re going to be wearing them for the rest of our lives, we should like them.”
Buck nodded, tapping the side of his own mug, lost in thought. Eddie tried to search some more, typing every combination of “male wedding ring not ugly” in Google and hoping something stuck, until Buck suddenly grabbed his wrist, his eyes bright.
“What if we do tattoos instead.”
“Ring tattoos? Is that even a thing?” He liked to think he’d absorbed a fair amount of tattoo knowledge in all his years of knowing Buck, but he can’t remember a time anyone ever came into the shop for something like that.
Buck nodded. “They’re more popular than they used to be. And we could design them ourselves. They’ll need touch ups, but what’s more permanent than ink being shoved into a layer of your skin?”
He was right. Tattoos meant a lot to the both of them — what better way to truly bond them for life? Eddie smiled back, kissing Buck’s cheek. “You’re a genius.”
So now, three weeks later, design finalized and on their only free evening for the next seven days, Chim starts up his machine and starts on Buck’s left hand.
It’s a simple design — black, interwoven strands, tied together by each other’s initials on the palm side. To Eddie, the strands look like a ribbon of DNA, which makes perfect sense for how much Buck is a part of him, heart and soul and everywhere else in between. He’s intrinsic to Eddie’s very being at this point, and now everyone else will get to see it too, will know from just a glance that he is happily, permanently, taken.
He feels Buck snake his free hand into his own, interlocking their fingers and squeezing gently. He looks up, worried, but Buck seems fine, easy smile still on his face, brighter still now that it’s night.
“You okay?”
Buck nods. “Doesn’t hurt. Just like holding your hand.”
Eddie smiles and rolls his eyes, but squeezes his hand back just as gently.
Chim takes his time, meticulous as always, but he’s still done fairly quickly. He wraps Buck’s finger and cleans up his station before heading to the back to find Maddie, yelling “Congrats you two, don’t touch any of my stuff” over his shoulder as he goes. Buck just rolls his eyes before standing — his hand still clasped in Eddie’s — and leading them over to his own station. Eddie gets comfortable in the chair while Buck gets everything ready, and while he tries to take in the shop around him, noting the new artwork and paint job that Maddie just finished last weekend, his eyes always drift back to Buck, hands moving sure and quick as he cleans and fills his machine. Buck finishes up and catches him (though he wasn’t really trying to hide), smiling softly as he sits down in front of Eddie and takes his hand. The machine buzzes to life, and Eddie lets out a hiss as it touches his finger.
“Remember the last time you were here?” Buck asks, eyes trained on his work.
Of course Eddie does — he couldn’t stop staring at Buck that time either, no matter how hard he tried. He also remembers being scared, not of the tattoo, but of his growing feelings for Buck, how they were getting harder and harder to ignore but he still hadn’t felt like he deserved Buck or the pure light and joy he’s made up of. 
Some days he still doesn’t, even after three years together and a week away from getting married. 
But then Buck will come into the shop and launch into a story about a terrible client he just had, or come through the back door and plop down next to Chris to help with homework or an art project, or just look at Eddie with his steady, sure gaze, press a kiss to his cheek, and tell him he loves him like it’s the only thing he knows for certain. And Eddie will remember how well Buck fits into their lives, how easy it is to love him and be loved by him, and those doubts wash away as quickly as they came.
Buck shows him more love every day than any person should be capable of showing. Eddie can’t wait to spend the rest of his life giving it right back.
“Done!” Buck says. Eddie looks down at his hand and feels a beautiful warmth spread through him that threatens to bubble over in a laugh or tears or maybe both. Buck’s smiling too as he wraps Eddie’s finger and places a gentle kiss to the knuckle right below the ink, the promises of forever they’ve made to each other now permanent on them for the whole world to see
“So, a touch up every year huh?” Eddie asks as they leave the shop and head back to the apartment. Buck throws an arm around Eddie’s shoulder, pulling him closer as the cool night breeze whirls around them.
“Think of it like a permanently scheduled vow renewal,” Buck says, and Eddie does, his mind suddenly fast forwarding to see them 10, 20, 30 years down the line, renewing their commitment to each other year after year within the now sacred walls of Armageddon, older and greyer but still just in love as they are right now, if not more. It makes Eddie feel that warmth all over again, coursing through him until a laugh does bubble out of him as he presses a kiss under Buck’s jaw. He stops them walking and pulls Buck closer, kissing him for real — slowly, thoroughly, tangling their hands together and gently tracing over Buck’s ring finger, excited beyond words for the start of the rest of their lives together.
III. Ursa Major and Minor
Chris is being weird.
Which isn’t actually unusual — he’s almost 18, and teenagers are always a little weird about certain things. Eddie’s still not allowed to look in the bottom drawer of Chris’ nightstand, and at this point, he probably doesn’t want to.
But still. He’s being weird. And for that matter, so is Buck.
He can tell they’re hiding something — it feels like every time he comes into the back room, they’re huddled over the table, whispering about something. He tried to look over Chris’ shoulder once to see what he was scribbling in a notebook, but Buck had yanked it away and sat on it before Eddie could get too close. Whenever he tries to ask what’s going on, they just smile at him, the picture of innocence, and start talking about schoolwork or graduation or anything else until Eddie finally moves on.
And he loves it, really, that Chris and Buck have their own little thing at the moment, something that’s just for them. But he’d also really like to know what the hell is going on.
He’s sitting at the kitchen table, answering emails about orders after dinner, when Buck and Chris walk in. Buck has that mischievous, self-satisfied glint in his eye that always raises Eddie’s blood pressure a few points, but Chris looks nervous. He’s fidgeting with the notebook in his hands and has the same wide-eyed look he had when he opened every one of his college acceptance letters. 
Eddie shuts his laptop and pushes it to the side. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Chris just has a question for you.” Buck nudges him gently with his elbow before sitting down at the table. Chris follows suit, taking the seat across for Eddie, looking nervous still but more determined. He takes a deep breath and finally looks Eddie in the eye.
“So,” he starts. “Tomorrow’s my birthday.”
Eddie nods. “Same day every year.”
Buck snorts and Chris rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Dad. And I know we already have plans, but I wanted to add one more thing for us to do.”
“Sure, buddy. What did you have in mind?”
Chris takes another deep breath and answers quickly on the exhale so it comes out like Iwannageddatattoo. Eddie tilts his head and leans forward. “Come again?”
Another breath. “I want to get a tattoo. Tomorrow. For my birthday.” He flips through the notebook in front of him, landing on a page and sliding it towards Eddie. There’s things scratched out all over the page but the final design is clearly circled — the Big and Little Dippers, each point made of small, hand-drawn asterisks and connected by even lines of dots. It’s clean, simple, and Eddie thinks it looks beautiful (though mostly because Chris put a lot of effort into putting it together).
“They look great, Chris,” he says, “and you technically won’t need my permission to get it tomorrow, but I’m sure I can sway someone at Armageddon to get you an appointment.” 
Buck smiles and nods. “Already on the schedule. But there’s something else Chris wanted to ask.” He looks pointedly at Chris, who rolls his eyes again and nods.
“So I want to get this one,” he says, reaching across the table and pointing at the Little Dipper. “And I thought, if you want— you don’t have to, but—” he moves his hand to the Big Dipper. “I was wondering if you would get this one with me?”
Eddie could cry. He very well might with how fast he feels his eyes welling up. He and Chris have always been close — something he’s been thankful for every day of his son’s teenage years — but this is something else entirely. He got his first tattoo out of spite towards his parents, and now Chris wants to get one with him?
He’s quiet for too long, because Chris looks even more nervous. He clears his throat and reaches across the table to take Chris’ hand in his. “I’d love to. If you’re sure. This is a pretty permanent decision.”
Chris smiles. “They’re our stars. I want us to get them together.”
Now Eddie’s definitely going to cry. He remembers summer nights in El Paso after Shannon had left — when neither of them could sleep, so they snuggled in the hammock in their backyard instead and stared up at the stars. He didn’t know many constellations, but there were two that he could always find.
“They look like spoons,” Chris had said once, still small enough to fit snuggly to Eddie’s side. 
“They do,” Eddie said. “But they’re not just spoons, they’re part of bigger pictures — Ursa Major and Minor, Big Bear and Little Bear.”
“Like a dad and a baby?” Chris asked. Eddie’s heart clenched — because he’d burrowed impossibly closer when he asked that, because he hadn’t asked about a mom, because he loves this kid so much he’d grab every star in the sky for him if he wanted them — and he ran his fingers through soft curls, trying to stay in the moment for as long as he can.
“That’s right,” he said, voice rougher than he wanted. “They’re always together, always protecting each other. Just like you and me.”
“Forever?” Chris asked as he placed his hand in Eddie’s.
Eddie swallowed, pressing a kiss to the top of Chris’ head and clasping their hands together. “Forever and ever.”
He meant it — he still means it — but the fact that Chris kept that promise with him too all these years, turned it into something precious, something worth immortalizing, it makes Eddie wish he could go back in time and tell his younger self that everything would be fine. That whatever doubts he had swirling in his head while laying in that hammock were for nothing — that he was and is a good father, who raised the best kid in the world to be full of joy and happiness and love, just like he promised himself he would the minute Chris was born.
He laughs as he feels tears fall for real, and Chris laughs wetly too, coming over to him and hugging him tight around the neck. Eddie holds on just as hard, reaching down to grasp Buck’s hand too when he feels him squeeze his knee.
He hopes those lucky stars are listening when he sends up a thank you for giving him this family.
“I love you, Dad,” Chris says.
Eddie untangles them enough to take Chris’ face in his hands, get a good look at his son — his beautiful, perfect boy, who’s becoming a better man than Eddie could’ve ever hoped for.
“I love you too, kid. Forever and ever.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Chris goes first the next day, brave face on until Buck starts up the machine and brings it to the inside of his bicep.
He grabs Eddie’s hand and squeezes hard. Eddie doesn’t let it go.
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cakelanguage · 3 years
Text
A very self-indulgent fluffy piece for RiVer. I just want these two to have a happy ending so I’m giving it to them! I hope you like this :)
You can also read this on AO3
--
It wasn’t even noon when V got a ping on her Agent from River. A small smile graced her face despite being in the middle of taking out another gonk for Wakako. The gig wasn’t hard - a simple in-and-out retrieval of some intel that’d fallen into the wrong hands, but even simple jobs sometimes involved taken out a guy or two. This one was harmless, not even worth the street cred it might get her for taking him out so she simply knocked him out and stuffed him in one of the bins conveniently posted outside the room.
Really it was like they were asking for people to just dump bodies in them. Actually, that was probably exactly what they wanted to happen. Fewer cleanups for the police to have to deal with and all.
Pocketing the shard that’d been on the desk, she pulled up River’s text.
Hey babe, you busy?
She grinned and quickly sent a negative to him. She barely found time to hang out with River, what with all the Arasaka and Johnny bullshit she’d been dealing with the past few months. Now that she wasn’t in imminent death from the Relic she honestly just wanted to spend some time with her boyfriend. Fuck if she wasn’t going to take advantage of River and her not being busy.
You available to call?
For you? Always. xoxo
She could almost hear Johnny groaning at her being mushy. She felt a pang of loss as she thought about the rockerboy and placed a kiss on her fist before she raised it to the sky. She hoped Johnny was out there somewhere giving the corpos hell from the deepest levels of cyberspace.
The call popped up and she quickly answered as she walked toward the drop-off point.
“Hey River,” V chirped, quickly taking in his appearance in the little window in the upper corner of her vision.
“V, hey yourself,” River said, a lop-sided grin settling easily on his face. “How’ve you been?”
She hummed noncommittally. “Can’t complain too much, definitely been missing morning cuddles though.” And perfect cups of coffee. And the polarity of temperatures between River’s cybernetic hand and the warmth of his skin. And kisses.
She felt needy, missing him so much and all the little things he did. But maybe needy wasn't so bad.
“I’ve missed them too.”
“Think we can change that then?”
“Yeah, case is closed and I’ll be back by this evening.”
If V could’ve purred with delight she would have. “Mm, I’m a lucky girl.”
River laughed, shaking his head. “I’m the lucky one.”
Warmth flooded her cheeks and she didn’t even try to hide her pleased grin. “As much as I’d love to just talk about how lucky we are to have each other, something tells me this isn’t strictly a pleasure call.”
Her boyfriend gave her an abashed smile. “You caught me,” he admitted.
She laughed. “Well go on, let’s hear it,” V teased. “What do you need? A contact? A lead? Someone, to do some super sleuthing?”
“No, no, nothing like that, it’s uh- it’s actually kind of a favor for me and Joss.”
Since she’d met River she’d steadily been getting closer and closer with Joss. It was nice to have another girlfriend, though with Judy and Panam, not to mention Misty and Rogue (if she could count Rogue), she wasn’t exactly lacking in them.
But Joss was different. She was a single mom who busted her ass to provide for her family. It reminded her starkly of her older sister back when the Bakkers were still around. And though Joss sometimes brought up painful memories for her, she loved the woman.
“I don’t mind helping you two out,” V reassured, finally dropping off the shard. She’d get the eddies within the next half hour and if need be she could split her earnings to give to the family. “Anything you need, I’m your girl.”
A husky chuckle echoes over the coms. "Anything, huh?"
"I helped take down one of the leading corpos in the world with an engram of a rockstar slowly taking over my brain - I'm open to just about anything at this point."
"Fair enough." River let out a breath of air. "Joss asked me if I'd meet her this afternoon at Heywood General Hospital to pick up Randy."
V's eyes widened. "He's been cleared for release?" She hadn't thought Randy would be released for another few weeks. It'd been touch-and-go at the beginning and although he'd come a long way since the farm, he still had plenty of recovering to do.
"Yeah, I was shocked too, but I've been visiting him and he's doing a lot better than he was."
Anything would've been better than the drug-induced catatonia that he'd been in when River and V had found him in that barn. She was still haunted by the half-lidded eyes and slack jaw that had been behind that plastic mask. "That's great," her shoulders relaxed from their previous position, "I'm glad he's doing better."
"Me too, and Joss is happy she gets to bring him home."
"He gonna be in his trailer again?"
River made a noncommittal noise. "That's up to him really. We don't know how he'll feel about being alone now but we've decided to let Randy feel his way through this one."
Made the most sense to V. "Alright so you and Joss are going to pick up Randy and you want me too…?" V asked, shifting their conversation back to the favor River and Joss wanted.
"Oh uh right yeah," River scratched the back of his neck. V wanted nothing more than to ease the man's nerves about whatever he was going to ask. "Since Joss and I are going to be getting Randy, we need someone to watch Dorian and Monique." He didn't pause to let her get a word in edgewise. "Usually one of the neighbors can watch them but most of them are busy and then I might've suggested that we could ask you." He scratched at his cheek and shifted his gaze to the side. "You can say of course, but I figured-"
"Babysitting the little rugrats?" V asked with a grin, interrupting her boyfriend's spiel. "You trust me to watch 'em?"
"V," River had that tone to his voice that was part scolding and part fond, "you're their 'Auntie V,' they'll be cheering when they find out you're watching them."
"I don't know, you did joke that I was the one who needed a babysitter."
He snorted and raised a meaningful brow. "And sometimes you do, but I have total faith in you on this. As does Joss."
"Well I guess I can trust Joss' judgment," V teased. "I can be there in twenty."
River's shoulders sagged at her acceptance. "Thanks, babe."
That mushy feeling returned with vengeance and V was sure she had some stupid look on her face. “Want me to make something for dinner?”
Her boyfriend whistled. “Got myself a lady who can kick ass and offer to make dinner.”
“Riv, come on,” she rolled her eyes trying to appear stern, “Dinner a yes or no?”
“Dinner would be great, to be honest. Joss and I were planning on picking something up on the way home.”
That wouldn’t do at all.
“Uh-uh, nope, no way am I letting Randy’s first meal out of the hospital to be some fast food soy protein that’s no much better than the shit you can get with a kibble card.”
“Hey, I’ve seen you eat that crap before,” River argued, though he looked more amused than anything.
“Details, details,” V waved a dismissive hand, “Randy have any food restrictions or favorite foods?”
Food had been a big part of V’s life growing up with the Bakker’s. Food didn’t just mean fueling the body, but feeding the soul. Her mother had once told her that a good meal could heal the body just as well as medicine. Looking back, V knew her mother had been exaggerating but she’d taken the statement to heart because a good meal showed someone you cared for their wellbeing.
Her boyfriend pondered her question as she pinged Jackie’s bike to meet her so she could leave.
“Well, he liked my jambalaya when I snuck some in for him to try last week.”
“Hot or mild?”
“Believe it or not, spicy.” His smile took on a bittersweet edge. “Told me it was the first thing he’d been able to taste since everything went down.”
“Then it’s good he got to taste something delicious,” V said.
River’s smile lost that edge and regained the softness he only showed when he was talking about his family or V herself. “Feel free to keep stroking my ego.”
V shook her head with a snort. “Maybe later,” she offered while mentally going through the repertoire of recipes she still remembered. Something spicy, strong flavors that the whole family would like. “Think he’d eat gumbo?”
“Gumbo?”
“Yeah, learned to make it back when my family was still together...”
She remembered the crowded prep stations, her underfoot as she helped as much as she could under her mother and sister’s tutelage. She remembered her uncle sneaking bits from the cutting boards and popping them in his mouth, sending her a wink and an exaggerated shushing motion to not say anything.
River didn’t interrupt her musing, instead, he waited patiently as she sorted her thoughts. He understood that if he interrupted V she wouldn’t finish talking about her past.
“Mealtime was one of the few times we all tried to be together and pause from our other duties,” V explained. “We made all kinds of stuff depending on who was in charge of dinner, but I know gumbo was my favorite and it’s similar to jambalaya.”
“A family recipe and your favorite, huh?” River commented, “I look forward to trying it.”
It didn’t matter that V hadn’t made gumbo in two years. She wanted to do something for her new family. "It’ll probably take me a little longer to get home since I’ll stop and get them on the way.” She revved the engine and patted the side of the bike. “See you, River, tell Randy we'll be waiting for him at home."
The silence stretched over the line and V had to make sure her Agent hadn't malfunctioned and dropped the call. But River was still connected, just stared at her with this shocked look. "You okay?" V asked.
Her question shook River from his stupor and he gave her a besotted look. "Yeah I'm fine," he reassured, "see you at home after Joss and I pick up Randy."
"Preem."
She snagged the veggies from an Aldaecado who sold some of their crops at the Sunset Motel and picked up some synthetic meat that didn’t look too bad and set course for the trailer park. The ride was as peaceful as ever and V cranked Jackie's bike to the max speed down the straightaways, shaving off five minutes from her ride. The Badlands were some of the best places to go full-throttle without having to worry about a bunch of traffic.
Joss stood on the porch while Monique and Dorian listened to whatever she told them, playfully jostling each other as much as they could get away with. As soon as they spotted V though, they dashed towards her with the exuberance that was only ever found in children. V knelt down with a laugh and opened her arms in invitation.
"Auntie V!" Monique cheered, reaching her first and throwing herself into V's waiting arms, scooping the little girl up into a full-body embrace.
V had quickly discovered how much the two kids liked their hugs and who was V to deny them that?
Dorian quickly followed, wrapping his arms around her legs. "Mom told us you're gonna watch us while she and Uncle River bring Randy home," Dorian said. "Which means we can play together again!"
V laughed and shifted Monique to her hip so she could ruffle Dorian's hair. "Only if you're willing to take this rookie under your wings," V said.
The two giggled and reassured her that they'd show her the ropes, both puffing up with pride.
She managed to slowly walk towards Joss with the two limpets clinging to her laughing and cheering. She saw the poorly hidden laughter that Joss was trying to cover up as just a smile. V was glad she could make the crow’s feet on the women's face crinkle instead of deepening the worry lines that were far too prominent on her friend's face.
“Hey Joss,” V greeted, shifting Monique enough so that she could pull Joss into an awkward one-armed hug.
“Hey, V,” Joss replied, pulling out of the hug. “Thank you so much for being willing to watch the kids.”
“Willing? I’m more than happy to watch them, you know that.”
V and the kids got along like a house fire and she cherished all the little games they’d play together. It gave V an excuse to check-out of adult stuff and focus on entertaining River’s niece and nephew. It had done wonders for her mental health.
Joss smiled and reached out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Monique’s ear. “Still, I know it’s last minute. Neither River nor I were expecting them to give Randy the okay to leave the hospital.”
“And Randy’s probably been chomping at the bit to leave that place, right?”
The woman scoffed, shaking her head. “If he could’ve, I’m sure he would’ve broken out of there after the first five days.”
“A boy after my own heart.”
Despite going to a number of ripperdocs, regular hospitals, and trauma centers left her nervous and itching to leave ASAP. River practically had to drag her to the hospital just to get a full brain scan after the Relic incident.
Joss rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “We shouldn’t be more than a few hours at most. Pretty sure it’ll mostly be paperwork and finding out any home care we need to know about for Randy’s recovery.”
As usual, Joss was fairly matter-of-fact about the whole thing but she couldn’t hide her worry. V figured she’d be just as worried if her baby had gone through what Randy had. It didn’t help that her relationship with her son had been strained before and no matter how much they’d talked since the incident there was still the unknown of how their relationship would go once he was home again.
“He’ll be excited to see you,” V said, setting down the girl in her arms.
Monique tugged at Dorian’s shirt and the two were off chasing after each other.
Joss remained silent but her shoulders relaxed some. Finally, she seemed to shake herself out of her thoughts. “If the kids get hungry-”
“Feed ‘em something that won’t give them a sugar rush,” V dutifully replied. “I know, Joss don’t worry, I can handle these two just fine.”
Joss sighed. “I know you can, but a mother can’t help but worry,” she managed to give V a sly smile. “You’ll understand when you and River have a kid.”
V made a choking noise as her face flushed. “J-Joss, we-we haven’t even talked about marriage yet.”
“Hop to it, V,” Joss joked with a clap. “Need you to make an honest man out of my gonk of a brother and I want to be an aunt at some point in the near future.”
It was a nice thought, getting married and starting a family with River. It sounded terribly domestic and kind of wonderful if she was being honest.
But her and River could talk about that later.
Much later.
“Go on, get going,” V shooed, “Randy’s waiting.”
“Alright, alright, we can talk about giving me nieces and nephews later,” Joss relented. ‘If you want to get takeout, I have a few menus in the kitchen with Dorian and Monique’s favorites circled.”
“Actually I was gonna make gumbo,” Seeing Joss’ surprise she continued. “It’s a family recipe and I haven’t made it in a while but River said that Randy liked his jambalaya so I figured he’d probably like gumbo too since it also has a strong flavor. But uh if they won’t like it-”
“V,” Joss interrupted with a grin.
“Hm?”
“I really hope River does marry you.”
V blushed and returned her grin. “Yeah me too.”
She’d managed to make the roux for the gumbo while Monique and Dorian were playing tag and now she just had to let the gumbo simmer which meant she was completely free to play. The two were more than ready for her to join them, bouncing around her as she quickly donned the AR set.
The blue tint to ‘Trouble in Heywood’ flooded her vision and she took in the kids’ game personas: Captain Joan McClane and Lieutenant Henry Callahan. It still made her laugh when she saw them, the two rough officers that looked like they were ex-Militech before joining the force. It didn’t help that the backstories they’d given them were so serious.
“Didn’t know if you’d come back, rookie,” Captain Joan, Monique said, her arms crossed and her face stern behind her shades. “Thought what you’d seen when we took down El Chamuco Endiablado was still clinging onto ya’.”
Lieutenant Henry Callahan, Dorian scoffed. “Nah, the two rookies we worked with for the takedown were good, and that’s coming from me,” he argued.
“Sounds like we might’ve grown on you two lone wolves, huh?” V teased, cocking her hip as she checked her gun.
“Don’t get cute with me, rookie,” Captain Joan said.
V raised her hands. “Fine, fine,” she bounced her eyes back and forth between the two. “What’s the situation today?”
“With El Chamuco Endiablado gone, we created a power vacuum and the force is flaggin’ under the pushback,” Captain Joan explained.
“Which is why they’ve called us in,” Lieutenant Henry added, “Regular force just won’t cut it, gotta call in the best of the precinct to take these goons down.”
“We called you in for backup, rookie. All you gotta do is keep up and watch our backs, we can handle the rest.”
“No doubt about that,” V said, “But y’know, I gotta make it home to my partner, promised him I’d make it back.”
“The other rookie?” Lieutenant Henry asked.
“The one and only.”
Captain Joan shook her head and cocked her gun. “Battlefield’s no place for emotion, rookie,” she advised. “We need to dedicate ourselves to taking this filth out.”
V nodded her head and squared her shoulders. “Yes, ma’am,” she saluted, “Are we ready to start?”
Lieutenant Henry gave her a wild grin. “Those bad guys can’t escape justice.”
They ended up playing three different rounds of ‘Trouble in Heywood,’ each round further expanding the narrative. In the last game, Lieutenant Henry had gone rogue to zero José Luis, a Valentino who’d gotten away with murder because the NCPD “didn’t have enough evidence to convict him.” According to Captain Joan, Lieutenant Henry had been harboring secret feelings for the murder victim and he was out for blood.
Honestly, V wasn’t sure where the kids pulled these plots from, but they were endlessly entertaining.
She looked up from the pot she was stirring and made sure the kids were still sitting at the table she'd sat them at with a snack. It didn't look good to her, but Monique and Dorian cheered at the sight of it so at least they liked it.
She tapped her spoon against the rim of her pot and set it to the side. "What do you two wanna do now?" V asked, taking a seat beside Dorian.
"Mom usually makes us practice our reading and math," Dorian grumbled, his eyebrows scrunching together. "We aren't even going to school yet, it's like lightyears away."
"Lightyears, huh?" V mused, propping her chin against her hand. "That's a pretty long time."
"I know!" Dorian threw his hands up. "She says she wants us to be ready and stuff but it's so boring."
"The worst," Monique agreed. "But maybe since Mom isn't here…" She trailed off and gave her puppy dog eyes.
Yeah, that wasn't going to work on her. "Oh no-"
"Please, V?" Dorian begged.
Then it became a cacophony of pleading words and promises to work harder tomorrow. Taking them on one-at-a-time, but both of them at once? Not even worth considering arguing.
"If I let you skip this lesson time," she started, the kids already whooping beside her. "I said if. "
The two nodded seriously, “We’ll do it,” they promised readily.
V shook her head, squinting at them with a skeptical look. “I haven’t even said what you have to do if you skip your lessons.” Monique and Dorian traded confused looks before turning back to her. “The first rule of any kinda deal,” she held up one finger, “you gotta listen to the whole deal, otherwise you might be signing yourself up for something worse.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Dorian insisted.
“How can you be sure?”
“Cause you’re nice,” Monique said. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe not to you guys, but I’ve conned my fair share of gonks.” Their faith in her left a warm feeling in her chest. “Alright, but back to the deal. I let you guys skip, but you guys have to help me make a welcome home sign for Randy.”
Two pairs of wide eyes stared at her, mouths agape. “We’re gonna make a billboard?” They asked.
V bit her lip and shook her head. “Not a billboard, little short on time and really out of our budget.” She rifled through her pockets and pulled out a small device. “Had this bad boy for a while now, usually I use it to pull up my schematics or tweak one of my daemons, but I’ve got an app that’ll just let us create a design we wanna display.” She fiddled with her Agent and turned the phone towards them. “I’ve got the words, but I need two experts to really make it shine, figured you two would be perfect for the job.”
“Really?” Dorian whispered.
“Really really.” She leaned back, her smile relaxed and open. “I can do some graffiti or graphic style stuff, but you guys know Randy best.”
Monique kicked her legs back and forth and stared at the screen with a frown. “Last time we saw Randy, he didn’t want to hang out with us and said we were annoying him,” she mumbled just loud enough for V to hear.
Her heart sunk at the solemn tone of the girl’s voice. That was when Randy had been in Peter Pan’s grasp when he was being gaslighted with promises of understanding and promises of help.
You can tell a kid that their sibling loves them and what they were going through, but it didn’t erase the hurt that kid felt. And they didn’t fully understand.
Even so, reassurance was better than nothing.
“When Randy last talked to you,” V stated, making both kids look at her. “He was going through some tough times.” She picked at her nail as she tried to find the right words. How much did they know about what happened to Randy? “Do you know what happened with Randy?”
Dorian hesitantly shook his head. “We knew he went missing, and Mom said that you and Uncle River found him and brought him back,” he said.
“And he’s been at the hospital because he was hurt when you guys found him,” Monique added.
V nodded her head. “That’s the gist of it,” V admitted. She hesitated before continuing. “Randy thought he had a… friend, but when he went to meet this friend, he turned out to be a bad guy.”
“Like… the bad guys in our game?” Dorian asked.
V fought a grimace. “Worse.” When her statement was met with silence she continued. “Randy was captured and was hurt real bad while he was held captive.”
She’d never get the image of those kids gassed up and comatose, hooked up to those fucking machines out of her head. No matter what she did, she still remembers the frantic way her hands shook as she checked pulses on cool bodies and tugged out crusted IVs from limp arms.
“According to your Uncle River, Randy’s doing much better,” she reassured, trying to assuage some of their unease. “But he’s gonna need you two to help him, even if he’s grumpy and being mean.” She playfully punched her palm. “Sometimes you just gotta break through their defenses and make them understand. Which is why,” V gestured to her Agent, “We’re making him a special welcome sign.”
“And… it’ll help Randy?” Dorian asked.
“Showing him you care and are happy to see him can sometimes be exactly what a person needs.”
Monique and Dorian turned to each other and nodded before turning back to V. “You can count on us!”
V clapped her hands. “That’s what I like to hear!”
41 notes · View notes
anon911andbuddie · 4 years
Note
Prompt: While Buck is on the outs with the team, one of Eddie's buddy pays a visit and immediately takes a shine to Buck. Really needing the kindness, Buck and the friend hang out after work. The friend is married to a lovely guy so it is purely platonic between them. The friend decides to teach Eddie a lesson. Cue the friend and Buck faking a relationship. Eddie is left fuming until friend's super flamboyant husband arrives and rips Eddie a new one before encouraging him to get his man.
Claimed by Red💋
So I changed this slightly, so I hope it’s alright. I did end up using Tarlos (9-1-1: Lone Star) as the visiting couple…I wouldn’t mind doing a few more crossovers between these lovely disasters. Kinda long….like most of my fics.
Warnings: cursing, depressed Buck, wrongful treatment of teammates. 
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Buck watched as the fire truck pulled away from the station. He let out a sigh as he looked down at the mop in his hand. It had been months and the team was still treating him like he didn’t belong…he was beginning to think that he didn’t belong anymore. Maybe everything he did to get back to them meant nothing to them, but it meant everything to him. This was his heart laid on the line so that he could come back to a family that, apparently, didn’t want him anymore.
Buck had finished mopping half of the floor before someone cleared their throat. Buck turned around, giving a small smile. “Hey, Man. What can I help you with?”
The man was about the same height as he was. He looked to be latino…and boy was that a pretty face. The man smiled and Buck felt his heart stutter. “I’m actually looking for Eddie Diaz? He’s an old friend from Texas. I had to come out here for a training conference and decided to check in on him and Chris.”
Buck’s smile dimmed slightly. Of course this man would be friends with his best friend…well, could they even be considered best friends anymore? Buck cleared his throat. “Yeah, the truck left about,” Buck trailed off, looking at the clock, “fifteen minutes ago. Don’t know how long they’ll be. You’re free to go sit in the loft if you’d like?” 
The man nodded, but didn’t move. “You okay, Chico? Aren’t you the fireman that was crushed under the fire truck? Glad to see you back at work!”
Buck sighed, a self deprecating smile making its way onto his face. “You’re the only one.” He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. 
The man raised an eyebrow and stepped closer. “Troubles adjusting back in?”
“That’s not even the half of it. Honestly, I’m sure Eddie’s told you about everything that happened here. If it helps, I’m Buck,” he extended his hand. 
The light bulb that went off in the man’s brain was visible to Buck, and he almost rolled his eyes at it. “You’re Buck? I’m so glad to have finally met you! Eddie talks about you all the time!”
“I hope only good things, though recently, I suspect he’d avoid all conversation that involved me.”
“He’s mentioned things have been rough. Didn’t tell me why though.”
“Figures,” Buck scoffed, turning to get back to his work.
“Hey,” the man reached out, grabbing onto Buck’s arm. “Don’t do that. I get enough of that from my husband. Talk to me, I’m a blank slate. Carlos Reyes at your service.”
Buck looked at him, really looked at him. He seemed genuine…and it would be nice to talk to someone who couldn’t completely judge him from his past. Buck found himself nodding. “How about a coffee while you get prepared to hear a pretty long story?”
Buck led Carlos up to the loft, fixing him a cup of coffee and motioning to the sofa. “You’ve mentioned part of the problem already. I was crushed by our ladder truck. The amount of work I had to put into getting my leg to work properly was astounding…but I pushed through it, most likely too fast like I always seem to do. I worked myself to the bone because all I wanted was to get back here,” he motioned around them. “This is my home and I felt so lost without it. Eddie had to pull me out of bed most days while I was healing up.”
Buck puffed out air before continuing. “I passed all the tests to get back to my crew, but I threw an embolism at my welcome back party. I literally coughed up blood on my captain’s patio. That set me back months. I had to go on blood thinners and I was so depressed. Again, Eddie had to force me to do anything that resembled being human…him and Chris got me through it though. Finally, the doctors cleared me to come back to work.”
Buck sighed, looking down to his hands, “but some people didn’t think I was ready to come back. I learned later that it was Bobby that kept me from coming back to work…Bobby’s our captain, if you needed to make that connection. He recommended that I be put on light duty until I was completely off the blood thinners and not at risk to bleed out from a simple cut. Bobby said it was to protect me…but I couldn’t do that. I quit. After a bit, I came back and worked the light duty job to show the department that I could be a good sport…but everything was moving so slowly. Then, I trusted Bobby and told him everything I was doing to disprove the department and show them that I was fit to go back to my regular job…and Bobby told me that he was the one keeping me from my job…keeping me away from my home. By the way, this was only shortly after the tsunami hit us. I was at the pier with Chris…and I lost him. I was dumb enough to take Chris to the pier on the day a tsunami hit…I seem to have the best of luck.”
Buck let out a chuckle, squeezing the bridge of his nose so he didn’t cry. “Hey, don’t do that. You can’t blame yourself for a natural disaster! You had no way of knowing.”
 Buck continued talking as if Carlos hadn’t said anything. “Then I did the most stupid thing I’ve ever done in my life. When Bobby told me that he was the reason I wasn’t back at the 118, I let a sleazy lawyer help me make the biggest mistake of my life. I sued Bobby and the department and I won.” Buck looked at Carlos, just stared right at him. “They offered me millions, but I turned it all down to come back here where everyone hates me. I thought after a couple of weeks, things would go back to normal, but that’s not the case. I can’t see Chris, I don’t hang out with the team. Any time I show up, they get quiet. They don’t invite me to join them or come over for team dinners. I get that I messed up, that I told that lawyer things I thought wouldn’t be shared beyond the two of us, but everyone makes stupid mistakes. From the beginning, I’ve been known as the stupid kid of the team, it makes sense that I fuck up the most.” 
Buck looked to his lap, angrily wiping away the tears that had fallen. The couch shifted and Carlos wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Chico. That sucks. Eddie didn’t even allude to how things had gotten out of hand. But listen to me, none of this is your fault. You did what you had to do to get back to your family, and that’s understandable. Were there other ways? Maybe, but those didn’t present themselves to you. Do they know you turned down millions of dollars for them?”
Buck shook his head. “I don’t want them to forgive me because I turned down being rich. I want them to understand that everything I did, I did to get back to them because they’re all that matter to me. I’m nothing outside of this job. I don’t have anyone else. This is who I am, and they can’t seem to see that. I know I fucked up. I left Chris to deal with the tsunami aftermath by himself. I wasn’t there like I promised and I hurt both him and Eddie by doing that. If I had known…I would have dropped the lawsuit. Chris matters more than my job…but I didn’t know. I didn’t keep that line of communication.”
“Don’t do that. You can’t change what happened in the past. Eddie had plenty of opportunities to call you to help with Chris and he didn’t. The amount of times he told me that he wanted to call you to help with Chris alluded to many failed communication attempts on his part. That’s not your fault.” Carlos looked to where the truck was beginning to pull in. They’d have to table this for a later conversation. “Alright, they’re back. How about we give them a show? Show them that they’re missing out on your life and should be ashamed?”
Buck looked questioningly at Carlos, “what do you mean?” 
Instead of answering, he ushered Buck to the kitchen with his mug. Buck went, planning to fill it up for the man, but still confused. He could hear his team coming up the steps, laughing with each other. “Babe! Make sure you put two spoons of cream,” Carlos winked. 
Buck blushed, ducking his head as he did what he was told. He brought the coffee back over to Carlos who pulled him down to sit right next to him. Carlos wrapped an arm around his waist and Buck relaxed into it. Next followed a forehead kiss that had Buck turning an even darker red. 
A throat cleared and Buck looked up to see Bobby giving him a tight smile. “Who do we have here, Buckley?” 
Before Buck could open his mouth, Carlos responded. “Carlos Reyes, sir. His boyfriend,” he extended his hand after setting his coffee down. 
“Boyfriend,” Eddie asked from behind him, voice gruff.
“Yeah, I looked him up after you told me about him. I remembered seeing a story about a fireman who was crushed under a ladder truck, did some digging and found out his full name. Looked him up on facebook and started a conversation. That turned into video calls and eventually us meeting up together when we had time to travel. I’m in town for a training conference, so I decided to surprise Buck. Hope I’m not imposing,” Carlos stated, but the tone of his voice suggested that he wasn’t worried about imposing. 
��You have a boyfriend,” Chim asked, voice raising a couple of octaves. 
Buck was pretty sure his face couldn’t get any redder. He bit his lip and nodded. “Y-yeah. There never seemed to be a-be a good time to tell you…so…surprise?” 
“Why would there never be a good time to tell them, Mi Amor,” Carlos asked, even though he knew the answer. 
Buck looked to him, biting his lip harder. “N-No reason…guess I just wanted to keep you to myself a little longer.”
Before the team could ask anymore questions, the alarm rang again. “Are you not going to join them, Quierido?”
Bobby looked back at them, his face hard. “Buckley was actually supposed to be doing inventory. He can’t go out on a call until we’re sure of everything we have for the rigs.” 
___________________
By the next day, Buck had met TK Strand, Carlos’ husband. TK and Buck immediately hit it off. To Buck, it felt nice to finally have two people who understood him and seemed to care about him. After the past few months, he severely needed people that seemed to care. 
For the first time in months, Buck walked into the station with a smile on his face. They had talked and decided that Carlos would come by the station and act all lovey dovey with him in order to get under the team’s skin. He was honestly happy to finally be able to have a reason to smile at work. 
Within a couple of hours, Carlos showed up during his lunch break from the conference. He had brought food and milkshakes with him, Buck’s favorites to really sell the idea that they were dating. They ate at the table in the common area, laughing and joking with each other. Carlos even acted like the cutesy boyfriend, stealing food from Buck’s plate and drinking from his milkshake. 
By the time they were halfway through their meal, Buck had noted that they had gathered a crowd. Another joke from Carlos had him almost choking as he had been taking a sip from his milkshake. A few coughs and Carlos scooting closer to rub his back soothingly had them pressed right up against one another. “Okay, Corazon?”
Buck smiled, cheeks red from coughing. “‘M fine, Papi,” he stated quietly, but by how quiet the common area was, he knew that everyone could hear him.
Buck startled as he heard a cup slam down on the table behind them. He turned to see Eddie rushing down the stairs. Buck turned to Carlos with an eyebrow raised. Carlos merely winked at him while going back to his food. 
_________________
Eddie couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t watch his Buck be with another man…another friend of his. He thought Carlos knew that he was in love with Buck. He thought Carlos was seeing someone else…maybe Carlos had been seeing someone, but didn’t want to admit to him that it had been Buck. Honestly, the longer he watched them around each other, the more he wanted to murder Carlos for touching what was his.
Eddie shook his head, Buck wasn’t his…especially after how he’d been treating Buck these past few months. Eddie just…he couldn’t-wouldn’t let Buck in after Shannon. But somehow, he wormed his way in and Eddie didn’t know how to deal with it. 
A throat cleared in front of him and Eddie looked up to see a man about his height with greenish eyes. “Do you need help,” Eddie asked, a little more snippy than he intended. 
The man raised an eyebrow, “wow, I can’t believe you’re friends with Carlos and Buck. If you’re like this all the time, I can’t see how Buck is still in love with you.”
“Excuse me?” 
“You heard what I said. Can you get your head out of your ass long enough to tell Buck how you feel about him so that I can have my husband back? I’m all for showing your ‘fire fam’ how shitty they’re being, but I’d much prefer to have my husband not wrapped around another man.”
Eddie blinked at the man in front of him. The only thing he could muster was, “what?” 
The man groaned. “Seriously, dude. My husband is pretending to be your ‘friend’s’ boyfriend to make you and the crew jealous that you’re treating him the way you are…especially you. That man cares more about your son and you than you know. All he could talk about with us was how much it hurt that he couldn’t be there for you and Chris and how he blamed himself for everything involving Chris and the fallout from the tsunami.”
The man looked at him expectantly before rolling his eyes and pulling Eddie back into the station and up the stairs. “Pendejo,” he groaned once he finally made his way to the top of the stairs. “Evan Buckley, Eddie Diaz is completely in love with you and very jealous of Carlos being so close to you. Please tell him of your undying love so that I can have my husband back. I like you, but if I have to watch you two act like a couple for much longer, I will have to punch that pretty face of yours, Buck.”
Buck opened and closed his mouth a few times, going red to the tips of his ears. “I-I don’t think that-that Eddie…he doesn’t…he doesn’t feel the same,” Buck looked away from TK. 
“I swear to God, Evan,” TK growled before pulling Eddie over to Buck and sitting him down next to Buck. “The amount of times that Carlos has told me how in love Eddie is with you is astounding. Eddie has even admitted to Carlos verbally that he’s in love with you. Right, Eddie,” TK gave the man a hard stare.
Eddie could only nod as his throat dried up. Carlos moved to stand next to TK, wrapping an arm around his waist and kissing the side of his head. “You-You love me,” Buck asked quietly. 
Eddie looked down before looking Buck in the eyes. “I’m in love with you, you idiota. I’ve been in love with you since before the tsunami and if you had just talked to me instead of going to that lawyer-”
“Stop holding that against him. Think if you had gone through everything he did only to learn that the man you look up to as a father is holding you back from getting back to the only people who matter in your life…to the only home you’ve ever known. Tell me that you wouldn’t have done everything he did,” Carlos glared at Eddie and all Eddie could do was look away. “That’s what I thought.”
___________________
Buck hesitantly got out of the car. He wasn’t sure what he could and couldn’t do…they had so much to figure out. Thanks to Carlos and TK, he now knew that Eddie was in love with him…but he wasn’t sure how that affected how he could act. Eddie had explained that Chris was at Abuela’s so Eddie and Buck had the house alone.
Buck followed Eddie silently. He hated this. He hated not being able to act like Buck and Eddie. Eddie silently offered him a beer and Buck took it just so he’d have something occupying his hands. “Buck-”
“Eddie-”
They both stopped, looking at each other. Buck motioned to Eddie and Eddie sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry for how I’ve acted…I just didn’t want to get hurt by you.” The silent again was loud and clear to Buck.
Buck looked away from Eddie, frowning. “I never meant to hurt anyone. All I wanted,” Buck’s voice cracked, but he cleared it and went on. “All I wanted was to be back with you…with the team. You guys are my family…and I don’t trust anyone to watch your back other than me, Eds. I-just…just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Just tell me how to make things okay between us and I’ll do it. I-I promise.”
Eddie moved closer, placing a hand on Buck’s cheek. “None of that, Corazon. I…it’s my fault too. If I had just talked to you from the beginning, none of this would have happened. I’m sorry I treated you like I did. That’s on me.”
Buck shook his head, eyes tearing up as he looked at Eddie. “If I hadn’t been so stupid-”
“Evan,” Eddie’s voice held a warning tone. “Not everything is your fault. You did what you had to so you could come back to me. I didn’t appreciate that enough, and I’m sorry. I promise that it’ll never happen again.”
Eddie moved closer and Buck’s breath hitched. “But-”
Eddie kissed him, slow and gentle. Buck hesitated before melting in the embrace. Eddie pulled back, leaning his forehead on Buck’s. “No buts. We have a lot to talk about…but I’d like to just lay with you in bed and rest….if that’s okay with you?”
A smile lit Buck’s face. “I’d be okay with that.”
288 notes · View notes
marvelslut16 · 4 years
Text
Can’t live without you
Pairing: Stanley Uris x reader (adults)
Synopsis: (Y/N) finds out that her best friend didn’t arrive back in Derry with the rest of the losers club, and finds out that he tried to kill himself. Glimpses of her past with Stan are seen as she visits him in the hospital. Will the best friends that have been pining over each other since they were kids finally get their happy ending, or will Patricia and the very different lives the lead get in the way?
Word count: 5,314 this is a lot more than I originally planned, guess I got carried away.
Warnings: Attempted suicide. Talk of self harm. Blood/gore/violence, typical for the IT fandom. Brief implication of domestic violence from a father and a wife. A little angsty at times, but fluffy. Swearing. Tooth rotting fluff near the end.
A/N: Stan may be OOC, but I tried my hardest for my first IT story. Stan the man Uris is fantastic and deserved so much better. AU where the characters I love don’t die. The reader in this story isn’t Jewish, if you are Jewish, I apologize. There is a cute little story-line that relies heavily on the reader not having the same faith as him.
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It had been just over twenty years since you were last in your home town of Derry Maine, and you hadn’t thought if it once. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to remember, you just couldn't. There were days when the name Stan would randomly pop in your head, and from a place buried very deep in the back of your brain, you were sure he was an important person in your adolescent life. 
When Mike Hanlon called to tell you that Pennywise was back, your heart started pounding so hard you were convinced it would leap from its place inside your chest. You didn’t exactly remember Pennywise, but you remembered the fear. You also remembered a mop of curly light brown hair that you immediately associated with Stan. 
Upon arriving at the Chinese restaurant in Derry flashes of your childhood came back, they were so unfamiliar it was like watching somebody else's life. Stan was the center of almost all of them, your old best friend and boy you had been in love with since you were six. It was great catching up with your old friends, but it didn’t feel right without Stan. 
The other six members of the losers club opened their fortune cookies, spelling out; ‘I,’ ‘cut,’  ‘not,’ ‘it,’ ‘guess,’ and ‘could.’ Your heart falls into the pit of your stomach as you open your own and see the thick black letters spelling out Stanley. 
“No,” you gasp out a plea to no one in particular. You lean forward and numbly move the papers around to say, ‘I guess Stanley could not cut it.’ The rest of the losers club had remembered enough over dinner to remember just how much Stan meant to you, causing them to stare at you as you try to blink back tears. 
The group running from creatures breaking out of fortune cookies happens in a blur, your head isn’t clear until the cool night air hits it. Mike gives you Stan’s number as soon as he comes to his senses. You walk away from the group, wanting privacy for whatever you get on the other end of the call. 
“Who is this?” a female voice answers the phone. Your furrow your eyebrows in fear and glance over at Mike who is watching you closely. 
“Uh, (Y/N) (Y/L/N),” you state nervously, picking at your already chipped nail polish. “I’m sorry, I thought this was Stan Uris’s number.”
“It is,” the voice says slowly. “How do you know him?”
“We grew up together, we were best friends,” you smile as you remember gripping onto his hand as the wind whipped around you two the first time you jumped into the quarry. “Our friend group was having a mini reunion back home, and we got worried that he didn’t show up.”
“He’s in the hospital,” she says with no real emotion in her voice. 
“What?” you ask in disbelief. Not your Stan. 
“He’s in the hospital,” she snaps. “Do I need to say it slower for you? He slit his wrists and lost a lot of blood.”
“Oh my God,” you murmur, knees going weak at the thought. “Which hospital? I’d like to visit him before I go back home.”
She tells you the name of the hospital and hangs up before you can say anything else. Your knees buckle as soon as the line clicks dead, causing you to fall and scrape up your knees on the dirty pavement. Tears stream down your face and silent sobs shake your body. Ben and Bev immediately rush to your side, Bev kneeling beside you as she rubs soothing circles into your back. 
“(Y/N)?” she asks nervously. 
“He’s in the hospital,” you sob out weakly. “He tried to kill himself.” Bev helps you stand and sets you in Richie’s car so you can head to the hotel.
The rest of your time in Derry is a blur, it’s over so quick, but feels painfully slow. You instantly knew that your token was the menorah necklace that you’ve worn everyday since you had gotten it in sixth grade. Stan had bought it for you for Christmas as a joke, his father had made a not-so-pleasant comment about you not being Jewish the week prior. You knew you loved him the moment you tore the ribbon off of the box; he knew you better than anyone else, he let his guard down when he was with you, and he was the kindest, sweetest boy you had ever met especially when he stood up to his father about your religion.
Before you know it you’re assaulted by the smell of bleach and shiny white floors as you walk into the hospital Stan is in. After finding out the room number from the receptionist you slowly head to his room, wondering if you should really be there. 
Through the small window of Stan’s hospital room you see a blonde woman sitting on a couch on the far side of the room, typing away on her laptop. When you enter the room she slams her laptop shut and walks over to you, making sure to stand between you and Stan’s bed. 
“I’m Patricia Uris,” she makes no move to stick her hand out for you to shake, but makes the diamond on her left hand noticeable. 
“I’m (Y/N),” you give her a small smile that drops as you look behind her, seeing Stan’s body lay there unmoving. “We briefly spoke on the phone the other night.”
“Right,” her eyes squint as she looks you up and down. “What happened to your face?” She’s referring to the healing cut that reaches from your hairline diagonally to your eyebrow, you should really look into getting side bangs or something. Pennywise was always great at mentally and physically scarring everyone. 
“I was taking a shortcut through the forest in Derry when I slipped and cut it on a sharp piece of bark,” you lie effortlessly. She rolls her eyes but seems to believe your terrible excuse. “Is Stan getting any better?”
“The doctors say he should wake up any day now,” she doesn’t sound as excited about that as a wife should. “They say he should be awake, he just doesn’t want to. It’s all psychological apparently. It’s just like Stan to not want to do anything, always wanting to bird watch instead of going shopping with me.”
“Stan always loved to bird watch,” you smile at Patricia, pushing away the anger you feel at her ignorance and disdain she seems to hold for her husband. “He used to always drag me to the park in Derry to show me the different types, I was the only one in the group to enjoy it with him.”
“Yeah, well, it gets old fast,” she rolls her eyes, turning around to pack her laptop in her bag and grab her purse. “I’m gonna go home and shower, sit with him as long as you want to.”
Her heels click loudly on the linoleum flooring as she walks past you without a second glance towards Stan. You frown at her back as she walks down the hall to the elevator. You pull up a chair next to Stan’s bed and lightly grab his limp hand, running your thumb over the back of his hand.”
“You can’t leave me alone in this shit world, not after I finally remember,” tears spill down your cheeks. “I need you Stan the man. I’ll even go bird watching with you. Richie said, and I quote, so you can’t get mad at me for saying this when you wake up and remember me saying this, that you need to wake your ass up Urine, there are still a shit ton of birds to go look at. It’s all over Stan, we killed IT. And we all made it out, so you definitely need to wake back up. I’ve lived twenty years without you Stanley, I can’t go twenty more without you. I can’t even go one more without you.
Richie and Eddie finally got together, it was really cute. Eddie thought he was dying, he got stabbed by IT, so he confessed his love to Richie. But Richie was determined to get him out of there alive, and he did. So now they’re finally together, even though he married a woman that’s essentially his mother. Ben and Bev finally got together, we used to always say that they were made for each other. Ben is super fit now, but he’s still the biggest sweetheart I have ever met. And Bev is still so strong willed and fierce. 
Bill is a horror writer now, which to me is pretty ironic. They’re making his stories into movies, where they always change the ending because they want something happy. He married some actress, who he’s divorcing as we speak. She isn’t great, insulting his work and not really caring that she’s hurting his feelings. Mike has been living in Derry this entire time, he took over his family's business. He was waiting these past twenty-seven years for IT to come back. Trying his hardest to protect the next generation from the horror that we faced. 
I guess that just leaves me, I moved to Colorado, far far away from Derry. I worked my ass off to become a lawyer, the dream you always pushed me to go after. Even when I couldn’t remember you, your encouragement was in the back of my head, keeping me going when it got difficult. There were days that I would get foggy images of us getting ice cream, or splashing each other in the quarry, all of those times when you would let your guard down and have fun with me. Even after the losers club drifted apart as we went into high school, you stayed at my side. You defended me to your father when he hated that we were so close, even though I wasn’t Jewish. We were always there to pick each other up when Bowers or Greta and their friends would tease or beat us up. Stanley Uris, please wake up. I need you, we all miss you, and I definitely miss you the most.”
--
After spending hours with him, you head to the nearest hotel for the night. The next morning you stop by the hospital with the intent to say goodbye to Stan before heading home. When you walk up to the room Patricia and the doctor are talking. 
“There was more brain activity yesterday,” the doctor’s voice drifts out through the open door and into the hall where you’re standing. “Whatever you did, do it again, because it was the first time we saw evidence that he could wake up.”
“Great,” she has a fake grin on her face, and she’s using a fake tone. Why doesn’t she want Stan, the most amazing man you have ever met and her husband, to wake up? “What are you doing here again?” she snaps as she notices you in the doorway. 
“I have to head back home, so I wanted to say goodbye to him,” you nervously fiddle with the hem of your sweater. 
“Didn’t you have enough time with him yesterday?” she glares at you. Why is she so defensive about you seeing Stan again?
“You were here yesterday?” the doctor's eyes widen as he looks at you for the first time. 
“Yeah,” you answer shyly, flattening the side bangs you cut last night. Making sure they cover your stitched up forehead. His eyes light up in excitement and goes to talk to you once more, Patricia cuts him off. 
“Well, as Stanley’s wife, I’m not sure I feel comfortable having you spend more time with him,” as she goes to continue with a string of complaints, a hushed and broken sound comes from the hospital bed. 
“Oh my God,” you whisper, your hand covering your mouth. Your knees go weak, almost collapsing with relief as Stan repeats the sounds he had just made. 
“I’m right here Stan,” Patricia forces her excitement once more, limply grabbing his hand. 
“(Y/N),” his voice is clear this time, and your heart flutters as your old best friend says your name again. You rush over to his other side, gently grabbing his hand since that's where his IV is.
“Stan?” your voice breaks as you try to keep a relieved sob from escaping. Stan slowly and carefully flips his hand over, threading his fingers with yours. “It’s over. IT is gone, we got rid of IT this time.” His eyes open at your words, head turning to look you in the eyes. Tears finally escape the moment you can finally look into his deep brown eyes again. 
“Did you call me urine?” his voice is rough and scratchy from not being able to use it for a week. More tears spill down your face as you laugh, because that was the first question he decides to ask you. 
“I said I was quoting Richie,” your whole body shakes as you laugh, far too relieved to care if Patricia thinks you’re being over the top. 
“I can remember,” his voice is softer, just like his eyes. “I remember everything. What ever happened to your necklace?” his other hand reaches across his body, but stops and hovers a few inches away from where the necklace once hung. You instinctively reach up to touch your chest where the pendent once fell. 
“We needed tokens of our past, the most important thing from our childhood, that was mine,” he grips your hand tighter, the other one falling to his lap and away from Patricia. “I wore it everyday these past twenty seven years.”
“What necklace?” Patricia’s strained voice brings you back to Earth. You carefully let go of Stan’s hand and pull it back to your side. You had forgotten about Patricia, forgot that you aren’t allowed to love him anymore. 
“I got her a menorah necklace,” Stan laughs at the memory, not noticing that you got awkward and pulled away. “She’s not Jewish, and my dad always hated that we were so close and she wasn’t. I used to joke that I would convert her one day, so I thought it would be funny to get her it for Christmas.” The doctor grins at you and Stan with a knowing look before backing out of the room quietly. 
“Cute,” Patricia rolls her eyes and glares at you. You frown in response, wondering what on Earth you ever did to her. Ignoring Patricia, you hand Stan the unopened water bottle from your bag, sure that he’d need some water. He smiles gratefully at you before taking a large sip.
“What are you even doing here?” his stern gaze landing on Patricia. You furrow your brows, the Stan you knew would never treat his wife this way. 
“I’m your wife!” her voice is shrill, hurting your ears and making you cringe. Stan on the other hand doesn’t seem amused with the outburst. 
“We aren’t married anymore Patricia,” Stan’s voice is harder than you have ever heard before. “I divorced you three years ago, the only reason you're here is because I haven’t changed my emergency contact.” 
You run your hands through your hair as you process the new information, Stan was available. You could love him without being guilty. You could finally tell him that you love him, that you always have. 
“Well have fun with your deformed klutz over there,” she gestures towards you with a mocking grin. You had pushed your bangs back a moment prior without realizing it, Stan’s gaze on you quickly goes from confused to anger as he pieces together what happened to you. 
“Leave Patricia,” the anger in his voice is kinda hot. “I never want to see you again.”
“Don’t come crawling back to me when you get bored with her,” and with that she leaves, slamming the door loudly behind her. 
“What happened?” Stan brings his hand up and gently glides his fingers over the stitches Eddie put in. 
“You aren’t married?” your heart is beating so fast you swear it would break out of your chest and fly away. 
 “No, I divorced her a while ago, I realized she was treating me terribly,” you start crying at his words. “Why are you crying?”
“I thought you were dead, and then I thought you were married and slowly dying,” you sob. “But now you’re suddenly single and very much alive. It’s a lot to process. 
He lifts his hand back up to your face, wiping away your tears even if they’re being replaced as soon as he moves his thumb away from your skin. His hands are a little rough, but soft enough to know that he works behind a desk. His hand starts to caress your cheek, you have to fight the heat from rising to your cheeks and push away the excitement you feel from the tender touch. You’re just an old friend he hasn’t seen in twenty years, nothing more. 
“What happened to your forehead?” his voice is soft again, and his fingers brush along the angry red cut once more.  
“I was facing my fear,” images of a young Stan abandoning you in order to save himself, saying that you mean nothing to him, after you had fallen and your abusive father was closing in on you, race through your mind. “And Pennywise, as my father, cornered me after a young you pushed me down and ran away. As my father was hovering over me with a knife, he morphed into IT and he used his long sharp nail to cut my face, and try to gouge my eye out. I got lucky because there happened to be a large rock next to me, which I hit IT with so I could run away.”
“I would never leave you,” Stan says sadly, a hurt look in his eyes as he stares at you but can’t look into your eyes. “I’m sorry you had to see him again, even if he was just IT’s illusion.”
“It’s fine,” you reach up to play with your necklace, forgetting it’s not there anymore. Playing with the necklace had become a coping mechanism for your anxiety. The nervous tick had developed almost immediately after you received the present. “Really, everything is in the past now. I’m fine.”
Stan gives you a disbelieving look, you look around the room to avoid his gaze. Your eyes lock onto the clock, causing them to widen as you take in the time. How had that much time passed already? It felt like you had entered the room five minutes ago, it certainly didn’t feel like two hours had come and gone. 
“What is it?” Stan grabs your hand, keeping you from standing from the uncomfortable hospital chair. 
“I have a plane to catch, in an hour,” you pull your hand from his grasp, standing and backing away from the bed as well. “I need to go now if I have any chance of making it through TSA and to my plane in time.”
“Don’t go,” his voice is soft, broken even. “I lost you once, I can’t lose you again.”
“You’ll be fine Stan,” you flash him a watery smile. “You have healing to do, and then you can go bird watch all you want. We’ll remember each other this time, we can keep in touch.” You walk over to the side of his bed, pushing the curls off his forehead so you can give him a soft kiss. A tear slips down your cheek and lands on his curls as the fall back into place. “Goodbye Stan.”
--
It had been weeks since you had left Atlanta, and you’ve thought of Stan every hour of every day since. It’s like your mind is punishing you with thoughts of him since you had forgotten him for so long. You and Stan texted a couple times, you still had his number from when Mike gave it to you. And just like Mike gave you Stan’s number, he gave Stan your address. Because two and a half weeks after you arrived home, a small package from Stan arrived in the mail. 
You stare at the package in shock for a few minutes, before finally opening it. You gasp as you see a menorah necklace inside, almost identical to the one you had gotten so many years ago. Your heart thumps against your rib cage at the thoughtful, heartfelt gesture. 
You immediately send Stan a text, thanking him for the necklace, while lightly chastising him for spending money on you, and asking him to give you a call as soon as he could. It has been almost twenty four hours since your text, and you've gotten no reply. You start to fear the worst, that this could have been his last act before trying, and succeeding, to kill himself. As you contemplate finding a way to get a wellness check on him, there's a knock on your apartment door. Probably just the guy from down the hall that doesn’t understand that rejection isn’t playing hard to get. 
When you open the door Stan is standing in front of you; his dark brown curls are styled instead of the chaotic mess they were at the hospital, his face clean shaven, his striped button up and pressed khakis are reminiscent of the outfits he would wear as a child. This is how you always imagined Stanley Uris would look like as an adult, well without the small almost unnoticeable scars on the side of his head. 
“Come in,” you finally snap out of your trance and step to the side, leaving more than enough room for him to walk into your modest two bedroom apartment. He takes in the living room and kitchen, but his eyes light up when they land at the necklace hanging delicately from your throat. “Wh-what are you doing here?” you glance down at the small carry on he’s holding.
“I thought I should tell you why I did it,” his voice is strained. “And I didn’t want to do it over the phone, since I know you were getting ready to make some smart ass remark about telephones.” Stan really was your best friend, because he’s spot on with his prediction about what you were just about to say. “I don’t know if it’s because I saw the deadlights for so long or something, but as we kept getting closer to twenty seven years I started to remember. It started with you and the rest of the losers a few years ago, but as soon as Mike told me IT was back I remembered all the pain we went through. I knew that we all needed to go back to Derry, but I knew I couldn’t do it. I knew that if I went my fear would be putting you in danger. I thought suicide would be the only way to keep you safe and where I didn’t have to face IT again.”
“Bev saw visions of everyone's death, how we would all die if we ignored IT. She saw you in your bathtub, and ironically she saw me bashing my own head in with a law textbook,” you laugh awkwardly, changing the subject from his reasoning and proof that he isn’t alone in this. “IT found a way to get to us, no matter how strong we are or how far away from Derry we were. Do I think you and Bev had it worse because you two saw the deadlights? Yeah, I do. I’m sure you got memories back as IT was waking up, you saw the deadlights the longest. You never should have made it out of those sewers alive that summer, but I’m glad you did. That probably made you more susceptible to that rush of fear you got again. And I just want you to know that you aren’t alone Stan.”
“I’ve missed you,” his voice frail as he pulls nervously at the bottom of his button up. 
“It’s been two weeks Stan,” you try to ignore the warm fuzzy feeling growing in your stomach. “You couldn’t have missed me that much. Plus, you could have called to talk.” Stan takes a deep shaky breath, and you frown in concern at his actions.  
“I’ve loved you my entire life (Y/N), it’s been two and a half weeks and I can’t stand to be away from you,” Stan says earnestly, his words warm your broken soul. “Not for two weeks and three days, I don’t think I can even go a day without you near. I love you (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”
“I love you too, Stanley Uris,” a grin spreads across your face, the joy mirrored in your eyes. “I knew I loved you the moment I got my first menorah necklace from you. It showed me just how special I was to you, you stood up to your father for me and you got me something that would forever remind the two of us of that moment.” 
Stan doesn’t say anything, he just leans forward and captures your lips with his. The kiss is electric, you swear there are fireworks, just like those cheesy movies. With your left hand you caress the scars on his head from all those years ago, and your right tangles into his styled curls. Stan’s hands grip your hips tightly, like he’s afraid you’ll float away if he lets go. When you pull apart your lips are tingling, both you and Stan panting heavily. 
“Can I stay here tonight?” Stan breaks the mood smiling shyly, causing you to laugh. “I kinda just threw stuff in a bag and got on the first flight out of Georgia, didn’t really plan ahead.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with my Stanley?�� you laugh lightly, his ears turning red at your teasing. “He would never leave the house without having a well thought out plan first.”
“What can I say?” his smile grows, and so does yours as you watch the dimple on his right cheek deepen. “Your spontaneity and want for adventure always rubbed off on me.”
“You can stay for as long as you want,” you lean in, gripping his shirt and pulling him into you. This kiss isn’t soft this time, it’s rough and needy. Twenty seven plus years of wanting this and it’s finally yours. The kiss is all teeth and tongue, you sure as hell weren’t going to complain about the amount of passion in it. The kiss was finally a way in which the two of you could express every deep and long buried feeling. 
--
It was four months to the day since Stan showed up at your doorstep, and the two of you had only been apart for a week the entire time. You couldn’t get away from work again so soon and Stan had to go back to Georgia to pack up his belongings. The apartment that you had resided in soon turned into a home, all thanks to Stan. You two invited the rest of the losers over to visit, figuring that you had settled into your new relationship so easily you didn’t want to hide it from your friends. This time there would be no IT, no life threatening tasks to complete, and it’s the first time in twenty seven years that you would all be together. What you don’t know is that Stan is planning a big surprise, with the help of the most important people in your lives. 
You run out to grab salsa from the store you swear you picked some in preparation for today earlier in the week, but Stan said there was none in the fridge. You drive as fast as you can, the losers club should be over within an hour, and you didn’t want them to beat you home. 
The apartment is strangely quiet as you swing the door open; Stan isn’t muttering to himself as he goes over a client’s finances, and he isn’t sitting at the table working on a puzzle. Where is your Stanley?
Before you can get too worried, your brain immediately racing to the possibility that he is in your bathtub, that seeing everyone after all this time was too much for him, Eddie appears from the kitchen. You go to guilty greet him, feeling bad for being a bad hostess and not being there when he and Richie arrived, bet the hypochondriac cuts you off. 
“Your smile that can light up a room,” he grins cheekily at you, like he knows something you don’t. 
“Your smokin’ bod,” Richie joins the two of you, his laugh ending when Eddie smacks his gut. “Fine, fine, your eyes that sparkle when you’re truly happy.”
“How incredibly smart you are, especially when you find holes in the other lawyers arguments,” Bev winks at you, you look around desperately for Stan. Where is he? And what's going on?
“Your perseverance, you always make the hard days look easy,” Ben walks out and wraps his arm around Bev’s shoulders.
“How caring and understanding you are,” Bill stands beside Richie, the grocery bag with the salsa in it, on the floor and long forgotten.
“And that your voice can calm me with just one word,” you furrow your brows at Mike. 
“Those are all things I love about you,” Stan’s gentle voice comes from behind you. You whip around to see his grinning face, no trace of fear or sadness from his past anywhere to be seen, only excitement for the promising future. “I could write a whole book of things that I love about you, but that still wouldn’t cover it all.”
“Stan?” your heart leaps at the glint in his eyes and the softness of his voice, things you want to experience for the rest of your life. 
“I love you (Y/N) (Y/L/N), with my entire being. I always have. When we were kids I knew I would marry you one day, I knew, even then, that there was no way I could live without you. So (Y/N)-” Stan pulls out a little black box from his pocket as he gets on one knee. 
“Yes!” you exclaim a little too loudly as soon as he flips the lid open. The diamond is sparkling up at you, your eyes fill with tears. 
“I didn’t even get to finish,” Stan pouts, humor and happiness twinkling in his eyes.
“I don’t care,” he laughs, sliding the one carat ring on your finger. It’s a perfect fit, meaning good luck through some old superstition. “Just kiss me.”
Stan shoots up from the ground, grabbing your cheek in one hand and caressing it softly, the other slipping into your hair. You pull greedily at the front of his freshly ironed button up as he deepens the kiss. A moan escapes one of you, and from the sounds of how deep it is, you’re sure it was Stan.  
“Get a room,” Richie wolf whistles, you and Stan pull away embarrassed. 
“I can't wait until I can finally call you Mrs. Uris,” he breathes, ignoring Richie, as he rests his forehead on yours. 
“Neither can I,” you close the distance and kiss him again, not caring about the audience, or the quiet sound of disgust from Eddie. Just because he makes out with Richie often, it doesn’t stop the thought of thousands of germs being passed back and forth when he sees someone else kiss.  
You finally get your happy ending with Stan, after all of those shitty years without him, you two will never be apart again. And there is no better way to start the rest of forever together than with the help of the losers, your chosen family.
Permanent tags: @crimson-knuckled-queen​ @rexorangecouny​
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evcndiaz · 3 years
Text
also on ao3
post buck begins, because we all need some therapy after that episode
summary:
"In the moment, Eddie is grace incarnate. In the moment, he is Ares on the battlefield, calm and measured, steady and sure. But when the moment passes—when Buck steps out of the truck, healthy and whole, if not entirely happy, when he ascends those stairs to meet with his parents—it's like all Eddie’s cords have been snapped, like all the fight is being drained from his veins, Hera sitting on Mount Olympus telling him to lay down his sword and come rest."
or; this fic is directly inspired by eddie's heart eyes in the last few minutes of Buck Begins
It's only after everything calms down that he starts shaking.
He's used to it by now—the crash of overwhelming emotion that rocks him damn near off his feet every time something happens. He's used to it, but that doesn't make it any easier. Chris is at Abuela's tonight, not around to see his father shake apart like a leaf. All for the best, he knows. Eddie’s trying to be more open with his feelings, create an atmosphere of vulnerability with his son, but some things he needs to do on his own.
The shaking starts in his hands. Hands that took up position on that rope at Buck’s back, hands that came alongside Buck when he needed them the most.
What would have happened if they'd gotten there just a second too late? What would they have found?
Eddie makes it a habit not to think like that, can't think like that for his own sanity. There’s always a nightmare waiting to unfold when he lets his mind wander, so he lets himself move on.
They got to Buck, that's all that matters.
He pulls a beer from the fridge, drops down at his kitchen table and rests his forehead on the cool surface.
He's used to this too— the incessant replay, the home movie that only he can see where every moment, every action, every word rewinds and repeats over and over again. Eddie watches it all, everything from yesterday afternoon up until the point where they all went home after shift.  He watches himself watch everything unfold around him, dazed, as if it all happened to someone else.
He'd come so close to losing everything last night. Maybe that's why he's having such a hard time letting the panic and fear go. He'd come so close to losing Buck—not physically, of course; they were never going to let him go down alone, all of them or none of them is the deal—but if Buck hadn't been able to save Saleh, he would have lost him for good. He knows it like he knows his own name.
For two weeks, Buck has been spiraling, circling the drain of self-doubt, and worthlessness, and achingly deep loneliness. For two weeks, he's watched Buck withdraw into himself, watched those bright eyes grow dimmer and dimmer. Watched that mouth grow tighter and tighter, and he hasn't been able to do a damn thing about it.
Eddie's never been good at feeling helpless. He's never been the waiting room type, never been the one to sit this one out, son, let someone else handle it. He's a doer, always has been; a fixer when no one else can or will step up to the plate, and watching Buck suffer this week—for there really is no other word for it, it's suffering, plain and simple—has been like asking him to neglect the most crucial part of himself, asking him to bury the one thing that makes him Edmundo Diaz.
His hands ached with the need to crawl inside Buck and hammer away everything that was broken, to sew together everything that needed to be patched, and each time that ache threatened to overwhelm him, it was like being met with a wall every time. Even though Buck has been more open with him these last few weeks than he has ever been, coming to his house and simply letting himself find healing in Eddie’s home, it was very clear that what he was going through was something Eddie couldn't fix, and Eddie didn't even have the courage to do what he wanted to do which was to wrap Buck in his arms and hold him through it.
And so remained his hands at his sides, useless useless useless up until the point when he needed them the most. Up until Buck needed him the most.
Because that's what he does, right? That's what they do for each other. Show up at the last second, what, you didn’t think I'd let you have fun all on your own, did you?
His hands are a love language of their own and they tell the story of his love far better than any sonnet he writes ever could.
Eddie raises his head and takes a sip of his beer, swishing the liquid around in his mouth before letting it glide down his throat.
His heart gallops in his chest. Always such a delayed reaction. When he was in the moment, he felt calm. Serene, even, because fighting fire, saving the day—this was something he could do.
Walk into the gates of hell for Buck? He could do that.
Hold onto that lifeline and pull his boy back from wherever he was falling? He could do that too.
In the moment, Eddie is grace incarnate. In the moment, he is Ares on the battlefield, calm and measured, steady and sure. But when the moment passes—when Buck steps out of the truck, healthy and whole, if not entirely happy, when he ascends those stairs to meet with his parents—it's like all Eddie’s cords have been snapped, like all the fight is being drained from his veins, Hera sitting on Mount Olympus telling him to lay down his sword and come rest.
He'd hurried through his shower, hurried out of the parking lot, pulled into a Target parking lot and tried to breathe for the first time in twenty-four hours.
He still feels like he hasn't quite caught his breath.
A key turns in the front door. The familiar sound of boots walking across the floor, the sound of a chair being pulled out beside him.
Buck sits down and takes his hand in both of his, wrapping long fingers around his, practically swallowing his hand whole.
"You're shaking," he says after a moment.
"Yeah." Eddie doesn't lift his head. "Happens."
"Hm." Buck doesn't let go. He doesn't say anything more either. Eddie feels the beer bottle slide through his fingers, condensation left dripping from his skin as Buck takes a sip.
"Can you look at me?" Buck finally asks.
Eddie looks up. Buck is already staring holes into him, eyes warm and soft in a way that shouldn't be reserved for him, but somehow is.
"I never got to thank you."
"You don't have to thank me," Eddie replies automatically. "It's our job, it's what we do."
But that's not what Buck is thanking him for and they both know it. Buck doesn't let go of his hand; he strokes the back with his thumb, tracing light circles that make Eddie want to do something stupid like run away. Or cry.
"You know," Buck says quietly, "I don't think I could have made it through their visit without you. You... you were everything these past two weeks."
"I didn't do anything."
"Yes, you did. You—” Buck cuts himself off with a laugh. It’s at that moment Eddie realizes Buck is wearing one of his hoodies. Buck continues, laying his previous train of thought to rest. "I've got a lot to learn about a lot of things, Eddie. I've got a lot to learn about... love. And the people who love me, the way they love me. I've got a lot to learn about accepting it."
The fact that he's talking about this is a victory alone. Eddie is so proud of him, his skin feels thin with the enormity of it all. He's sure his pride is bleeding from his pores.
"You'll figure it all out," he says. It's true even if it's not quite what he wants to say. Emotional come down is a bitch; he couldn't put the words together even if he wanted to.
Buck laughs, soft, his face reddening. "Yeah, I will. But I say all that because…” He takes a deep breath. “I say all that because I'm realizing some things about myself. And I'm realizing some things about you. And I'm realizing some things about us."
Of course Buck would be the first one to say it; of course he'd give voice to the thing they've been dancing around for almost a year now.
"I don't want you to run away." Buck whispers.
Eddie doesn't even realize he's tried to pull his hand away until Buck's fingers tighten. Not hard that he couldn’t break out of it, still so gentle even now, but enough to let him know that he doesn't want him to leave.
"What do you want then?"
Whatever he wants is his, doesn't Buck see that? How could he not?
Buck shrugs. "What I want is to love you, properly, the way you deserve to be loved. What I want is to be in Chris’s life for as long as I live. What I want is to hear you say you love me and believe it, to not doubt it for a single second."
The war of emotions flooding through Eddie's veins right now. Maybe this conversation is a battlefield of its own. Only instead of being Ares, he is the blood on the blade, the chest on the other end of the sword, carved open from top to bottom.
"But you're not ready yet," he finishes for Buck.
"I'm not ready yet,” Buck confirms. “But neither are you."
The words are delivered so kindly that Eddie almost misses the fact that they reach right inside him and wring him dry. He wants to flinch away from the truth of it, from the knowing. For a brief moment, he wants to go back in time to when Buck was some insecure, intimidated asshole and he was the newbie firefighter and there wasn't this much intimate knowledge permeating the air between them. For a brief moment, he wants that wall back between them so all his private, tender spots can be kept safe.
When he was seven, his parents used to force him to sit through Sunday School at Mass and listen to the teacher talk all about the impenetrable walls of Jericho and how all it took was an act of faith to knock them down. At the time, he'd thought it silly, in the way kids think the most profound things are found in animated movies and badgering their parents with incessant questions.
But there's truth to that now, he realizes, because it takes all his faith to sit in this chair, to look Buck in the eyes, to be seen in return, and to know that, whatever Buck sees he's not going to run away.
It takes faith to be known, to knock against his walls until they're nothing but dusty piles of rubble and ivory.
He doesn't deny Buck’s statement, doesn't deny the truth of everything Buck sees.
There's no denying a reflection in a mirror, anyway.
"Tell me what you want, Buck."
Buck sighs. He brings Eddie's hand up to his mouth, kisses every knuckle. Belatedly, Eddie realized that at some point he stopped shaking. He only notices because he's started again, and this time, it has nothing to do with fear.
"I want to know that we're a sure thing. And that when—" he punctuates this statement with another kiss, this time to the palm of Eddie’s hand, "—we come together, we make it last forever. That's what I want. But we’re not ready"
Buck sets his hand down just as gently as picked it up and sits back in his chair.
Inexplicably, Eddie feels his throat tighten. He could flip through every single page in the dictionary and still not be able to find a word to describe how he's feeling.
“No. We’re not.” His voice is hoarse when he says, "But I'll be here. For when we are."
Buck shrugs again. "I know." Easy, like he’s never doubted it. That, of all the things he struggles with, of all his disbelief in the people he loves, that is the one thing he is sure of—Eddie's unwavering, steadying presence in his life. His love for him, no matter what form it takes.
"I have a date," he says randomly. Buck looks at him curiously. "The teacher from Christopher's school. Ana."
He watches Buck mouth the name, feel the weight of it on his tongue. He hadn't even realized he'd been holding his breath until Buck nods, but he catches it again when Buck says, "I do too. Not with Ana, of course, but. Another firefighter. Someone from the 221."
Eddie considers that for a moment. This feels like a break-up, only there’s nothing to break. If anything, it’s the promise of more, the delaying of the inevitable so that they know for sure they won’t break themselves apart when it is time. And yet, the thought of this pseudo-loss of this sits wrongly in his stomach. Eddie considers the idea of someone putting their hands on Buck’s waist, their mouth on Buck’s neck. It doesn’t hurt but it’s not pleasant either.
He stares out the window. Rain spatters and rolls down the windowpane.
“Why does this feel like this?” he wonders aloud.
It’s so vague, hardly even a question, but Buck seems to understand. Of course he understands.
“Hey.” Buck’s voice, the earnestness in it, draws Eddie’s eyes back to his face. “We’ll get there. You and me are always going to be you and me . We’re a team, and I’m not going anywhere, Eds. We’re not done yet. We’re just…”
Buck runs out of words, but that’s okay, he doesn’t need to finish. Eddie gets it anyway.
“I love you,” he says, because it’s true, in all the ways. And because Buck needs to hear it, and because he needs to say it before he loses his nerve.
Buck’s face does something complicated. “I love you too.”
Buck rises to his feet. He stretches, all the knobs and joints in his body popping. In his peripheral vision, Eddie can see the cloth of his hoodie ride up, the jut of Buck’s hips on display. The pang of that not-quite-loss hits him all over again, but it’s duller this time.
Buck is right. They’ll always be a team, always be them , but if they’re going to be more, they both need to be a lot healthier than they are, a lot stronger in themselves before they tie themselves to one another. Because it’s not just going to be them in the mix either; it’s going to be Chris, it’s going to be their families, it’s going to be the team at the fire station who will depend on them being a cohesive unit. They need to discover who they are before they become a pair, because once they fuse together, there’s no going back. Only forward, come what may.
Not yet, but eventually.
Buck jingles his keys in his pocket. “I’ll call you when I get home, okay?”
Eddie looks up at that beautiful face and those gorgeous eyes. He’s had it all wrong, he’s not losing this at all, he’s gaining it. Maybe not today, but some day. There’s a promise in Buck’s eyes, one he knows is reflected in his own, and the last ache of that pseudo-loss fades away to nothingness.
He nods. “Okay.”
Buck’s mouth turns up into a sweet smile. Not kissing him right then and there is both agony and relief. Buck lets himself out, leaving Eddie to stare after him, the smell of his cologne lingering in the air.
No, not yet.
But soon.
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moth-and-raven · 3 years
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Julian manages to stand up on his third try, though he still leans heavily against the bloodied stone wall. I wrap his arm around my shoulders myself when he makes to step away from it. He smiles weakly to feel me tucked into his side, but most of his concentration is focused on staying upright; he turned white as a sheet as soon as he got his footing. I remember what Mazelinka said, about him passing out after using his healing mark. I’ll just have to make sure he’s in bed by the time his strength gives out.
I hear voices filtering down from the barracks when we reach the foot of the stairs, but there are far fewer than before, and they sound familiar. Portia laughs, though there’s still a catch in her throat, and Balam’s fast-flowing speech wraps around the murmur of the others like eddies in a river. Julian and I take the stairs slowly, one at a time, until we emerge in the now-empty room.
“Oh, Ilya!” Portia sees us first and scrambles to her feet to rush to his side, dropping Balam’s hand. She swallows hard seeing the blood soaked into his clothes but gives him a gentle hug anyway. “I’m gonna tear them apart,” she hisses as she pulls back. “Piece by fucking piece.”
Skylar moves to Julian’s other side and takes some of his weight. “With any luck, Salsa will have already found them and gotten a good head start on that. She’s a great tracker when she wants to be.”
“Tracker?” I ask. “What happened?”
Portia growls. “They up and vanished. All of them. The whole court.”
“What?!”
“Valdemar, Vlastomil, and Vulgora, anyway,” Balam says. She’s sitting on Yazakh’s lap in the corner with her arms around them. She sighs and leans her cheek against theirs; they don’t react, focused on a spot on the opposite wall. “We don’t know about Valerius or Volta yet, officially, but it seems only likely that all of them disappeared at once. Yaz just got the report a few minutes ago, that all of their estates and suites are empty.”
No wonder Yazakh isn’t responding. Just glancing at them, I can see the calculation in their amber eyes, putting together what they know about the courtiers. They’ve been Nadia’s bodyguard, and head of palace security, for a long time; I think they worked for Lucio before that, too, in his mercenary company, so they know what they’re doing.
I’m a little surprised I don’t see anger in their face, though. If Valdemar, or Vulgora, or whichever other V-name, had a contingent of guards at their beck and call, that would mean that some of their staff went rogue. Maybe it just isn’t in their nature to get outwardly upset; I get the sense that they’ve been through some shit. In any case, being around Lucio for as long as they were could turn anyone off of huge displays of emotion, I think.
“Is Nadia still here?” I shift closer to Julian. “We really need to talk to her.”
Balam nods, looking at Yazakh as if for permission to continue. Whatever she sees must grant it. “She’s been briefed on what happened and wants to see you both right away.”
That’s convenient. At least we’re all on the same page. “Where is she?”
Abruptly, Yazakh stands, shifting Balam into their arms like she weighs no more than a doll and setting her back down on the bench they left. “I will escort you,” they say, their voice betraying nothing. “It may no longer be safe to walk the halls of the palace alone.”
Their words linger in the still air. Portia and Balam glance at each other as Yazakh strides to the door. Skylar hesitates before urging Julian to take another step, and I follow.
“I’m right as rain, truly,” Julian complains, trying feebly to duck away from our support. “This is nothing. Actually, it’s strangely similar to—”
“If you’re about to tell the pregnant war elephant story again, I will hit you,” Skylar says bluntly.
“Or the pirates who taught you how to fence,” adds Portia.
“Or the leech farmers.”
“Or the—”
“Alright, alright!” Julian sighs dramatically. “Tough crowd.”
Skylar laughs, then pats him on the shoulder. “If you really think you’re fine, I’ll let Reyja deal with you. She seems to know how to handle you already.”  
“Oh, does she ever.” Julian lolls his head onto mine and places a sloppy kiss on my forehead.
“Same horny bastard as always, aren’t you?” Skylar says fondly.
Before Julian can respond, Portia takes Skylar’s hand. “If you’re not gonna go with them, come with us. We have something… interesting to show you.”
Skylar cocks his head, intrigued. I assume, by the looks on their faces, that Portia has filled Balam in on what we learned from Lucio, and now she’s only too eager to see their touching reunion. If Balam is a magician too, the three of them should have no trouble connecting to him. Part of me is certainly curious, especially because Skylar doesn’t seem to have known that the Count was lusting after him the whole time, but I have bigger problems to deal with first.
One of which, pressingly, is that Nadia’s bodyguard has now been told, nearly directly, that Julian and I are romantically involved. If they hadn’t figured it out earlier, now it’s clear. 
I don’t want to leave him to walk on his own, but he shrugs my touch away and heaves a steadying breath, following it with the best smile he can muster in an attempt to reassure me. For a moment, I’m frozen, stuck between declaring my affection openly to Nadia by staying at his side and at least pretending I haven’t been lying to her all along. Julian senses my hesitation and reaches for my hand, dropping a kiss to my knuckles. I suppose he’s right: we couldn’t hide this even if we wanted to, not in person. 
So be it.
Portia and Balam file into the hall behind us, arms linked, with Skylar bringing up the rear. We linger; it feels like everyone has something to say, like this is some sort of turning point. Nothing will be as it was once we part. Even Yazakh rests their hand on Balam’s shoulder before stepping aside. 
Skylar breaks the tension first: “Well, we’ll see you later, then. At dinner, maybe?”
“Oh, yeah! That’s what we can do afterwards!” Portia beams. “We’ll get something nice from the Masquerade practice food. I’m sure the cooks are going crazy right now.”
“I saw surmai when I went past the kitchens this morning,” Balam says. “And cardamom mishti.”
“Yum! Yep, that’s what we’ll do. Um…” Portia trails off, then drops Balam’s arm to surge forward and give Julian another quick hug. “Stay safe, Ilya,” she murmurs into his chest. “Please.”
He responds in Neviv, and she laughs. But it isn’t enough to staunch a fresh burst of tears.
“I’ll see you soon, Pasha,” he says, ruffling her hair as they part.
“Last time you said that, you disappeared for ten years.”
“This time I mean it.”
“You fucking better.”
------
Portia, Skylar, and Balam take the southern branch of the hall. Yazakh waits until they’ve turned the corner at the far end before catching us in their calm golden gaze and starting in the opposite direction. Julian and I follow, fingers linked, nerves growing with every step we take closer to Nadia.
By the time we reach the door of her salon, my heartbeat is lodged firmly in my throat. Yazakh glances at us and I feel the command to stay put as surely as if they had said it aloud. They aren’t even gone long enough for Julian and I to speak to each other; he squeezes my hand, once, a silent reminder that we’re in this together, then lets go. I’ve just drawn a breath when Yazakh returns and beckons us inside, shutting the door behind us.
The room is a picture of elegance with its cream-colored upholstery and dark wood, gold-accented lamps and drawer pulls, purple-and-red gauzy drapery framing the evening through a wide window on the opposite wall. And in the middle of it, in a large suede armchair, sits the Countess herself, sipping jasmine tea. She sets the cup aside — carefully aligning it on its ceramic coaster — and rises to greet us.
“Reyja. Doctor Devorak.”
Julian shifts. “Countess Satrinava,” he says hesitantly. 
“There is no need to stand on ceremony, Doctor. Please, call me Nadia.”
“May I insist, then, Nadia, that you call me Julian?”
“Very well. Do come in.” She indicates the sofa across from her chair. “Would you care for some tea?”
I don’t like this. She’s being too nice. If she’s going to condemn him, I wish she would just do it so this tension has somewhere to go.
“Ahm…” Julian stops himself from looking at me, but not before his hand twitches towards mine. “I must say, dear Nadia, that this isn’t the welcome I was expecting.”
She levels her dark gaze at him, smiling faintly. “I believe my courtiers saw to your welcome already, did they not?”
“Ah, right.”
“And rest assured, they will be soundly, fully, and completely punished for such a foul act of cruelty.”
What? What? Julian seems as baffled as I am. In her eyes, he’s still a criminal… isn’t he? 
Nadia gestures to the sofa again. Both of us sink onto it. This… this isn’t going according to plan at all.
“I sincerely apologize for their horrific treatment of you, Doctor—” She catches herself. “Julian. Anything at all you need to assist in your recovery, do not hesitate to ask. I will see to it that you leave here as spritely as you arrived.”
“L-leave?” Julian asks weakly. “Erm, forgive me, but aren’t you—? Weren’t you, erm, searching for me?”
“I was. I employed a skilled magician to follow your trail, and here you are.”
I open my mouth, but I’m not sure why. My tongue is too dry to speak.
“Indeed, skilled magician—” Nadia turns to me. I swear she winks. “Would you kindly regale me once more with the evidence you have gathered?”
“Um,” I say eloquently. “Um, s-sure.” 
I pause for a moment in a futile attempt to gather my poise. It isn’t until Julian’s fingertips brush mine, in a move he attempts to disguise as repositioning himself on the sofa, that I find my voice.
“So. Three years ago, this man, Julian Devorak, came to work here at the palace. Vesuvia was in the midst of the Red Plague, a horrible disease known for killing thousands. He was searching for a cure, like many others, and worked in a large group of medical providers to learn as much as he could while also caring for the sick. He took copious notes and sought out the opinions of colleagues and friends in other areas of expertise. By the end of the Plague, he was one of, if not the only, doctor still working.”
Nadia is listening raptly. I take a breath and continue.
“He looked after Lucio himself, noting his condition and complaints. Even though multiple sources indicate that he himself had suffered some sort of loss prior to coming here, he worked very hard to keep Lucio comfortable. All the way to that final Masquerade, he pushed himself to do more.”
I hope Julian’s listening too.
“He worked under Quaestor Valdemar, employed by the palace then in the same capacity they are now. They were getting close to a cure, though their methods were…” I trail off, thinking fast. The swelling around Julian’s plagued eye has lessened enough for him to open it now, though he’s been keeping it closed out of habit. I turn to him and brush his bangs back; he catches on and blinks, showing Nadia the vibrant scarlet sclera. “... less than ideal.”
“You were infected?” she asks, surprised.
“I was,” he answers. “At the end, they, erm… Of course I don’t want to speak ill of any of your esteemed court, but—”
I interrupt bluntly. “They held him down and infected him on purpose.”
Nadia’s eyes widen. “How horrible,” she says, almost to herself. 
“Yes, erm, it certainly wasn’t—”
I cut him off again. As much as I love hearing him talk, now isn’t really the time to be mincing words. “It nearly killed him. And from what I’ve found out, several things happened around the same time right after that: Valdemar left when they saw evidence that the Plague had taken root, possibly to visit Lucio’s chambers themself. Julian followed, though by then he was hallucinating vividly and, by his own admission, can’t remember what he did or found. But based on what remains of Lucio’s suite, a huge explosion took place, burning everything inside, including Lucio, to ashes. The only power I know of that can affect such a large area without leveling the entire building is magic. Even then, most magicians couldn’t handle something like that alone.”
Nadia nods. “And after that explosion?”
“I think it’s safe to say that that’s what killed Lucio,” I offer. “And I also think it’s safe to say that Julian is not a magician. I spoke to many people, including other magicians, who’ve known him for a long time, and none of them said anything about it.”
“I see.”
I swallow hard. It might hurt my presentation to admit this, but it also feels too obvious to leave out. “So I don’t know who it was. Yet. But I can almost guarantee it wasn’t him.”
Nadia leans back in her armchair and stares at us. As my conclusion fades away, it takes more effort than I expected to stop myself from leaning into Julian’s arms. I’m very tired; from the heaviness of the shadows under his eyes, and the pallor of his skin, I can tell that the reserves of strength he’s been drawing upon since I brought him out of the dungeons are almost depleted too. He needs to rest. We both do. But our next move is out of our hands now.
After what feels like an infinite moment, Nadia sits up again and takes a sip of her tea. “You have certainly been busy, Reyja,” she says. I wonder if I’m imagining the hint of laughter in her voice. “And, indeed, your work has paid off. I see no evidence of a crime in your actions, Julian, nor do I see motive or intent. I no longer believe you killed my ex-husband. Therefore, I have no need or inclination to prosecute you further.”
In the beat of silence that follows her words, my heart surges. 
“B-but—” Julian stutters.
“I understand this may come as a shock. While I cannot truly atone for the mistaken accusations leveled at you three years ago, I fully intend on providing restitution in the form of lost wages and the reinstatement of your South End clinic, should you wish to resume seeing patients. The records of the building’s purchase remain, though you may have some cobwebs to clear out.”
“But I—”
“Shall I word it plainly? Very well: Doctor Julian Devorak, I, Countess Nadia Satrinava, hereby award you an official pardon, clearing you of any culpability in the murder of Count Lucio of Vesuvia.”
I could cry. I might still cry. I barely dared to hope we would come out this cleanly. Yes, we still have a mystery to solve: the Hanged Man’s involvement, Lucio’s actual murderer, and now where the courtiers ran off to. But this is a victory. Once again, I have to hold myself back from sagging against him.
Julian, apparently, has no such qualms, and turns to me with joy in his mismatched eyes, barely hesitating before he cups the back of my head and kisses me soundly.
When we part, Nadia is grinning like a cat. “Do you need a moment?” she asks, laughter spilling out from behind her mask of courtesy.
I smile sheepishly as Julian clears his throat. “Did you know all along?”
“I guessed. You were hardly subtle, Reyja, though I expect you were trying to be. Yazakh confirmed my suspicions when they announced your arrival, as, clearly, have you.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
She holds up her hand to stop me. “You need not explain the twists of fate,” she says. “I understand all too well.”
“I’m, um… thank you.”
“You are quite welcome. And, truly, if you wish to retire, please do so. I will have Portia bring dinner to your room, unless you would prefer to be alone.”
“No, that’s fine.”
“And you do not mind being waited upon by your sister, Doctor?”
Oh. She really does know everything, doesn’t she? 
Julian blanches. “I swear to you, Countess, on my parents’ graves, Pasha had nothing to do with—”
“Portia is my trusted handmaiden and confidante, and will remain so. Her relation to you is irrelevant in that regard. And, indeed, you have no more reason to worry: you are a free man.”
I think it might take him a little while, and some sleep, and a solid meal, to realize that. 
Nadia sees us to the door. Julian’s leaning heavily on me again, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Nevertheless, he smiles broadly at the Countess as he shakes her hand, dropping a grateful kiss to her knuckles and bowing as low as he can manage. “Thank you, Nadia. More than I can ever articulate, thank you.”
She smiles back before turning to me. “I had hoped yours would prove an unbiased perspective, Reyja,” she laughs. “More fool me for thinking so. It would seem there are few in this city unaffected by the Plague even now, though in the most remarkable of ways. I could not have predicted this.”
“Me neither,” I say. 
“Indeed! Sleep well, both of you. We shall speak more in the morning. I’m afraid this is merely the end of a chapter, not the whole story.”
I nod. But I’ll sleep well tonight, regardless.
------
Portia brings us the food she promised alone, skillfully balancing a tray laden with heaped plates in one hand as she closes the door of my room. She sets it down on the desk and throws herself into Julian’s arms, near tears with happiness at the good news. He hugs her tightly in return.
When she pulls back, she’s grinning through her sniffles. “Well, let’s eat before it gets cold.”
We settle down to the sumptuous meal. Luckily for me, it’s not fish, but thick coconut curry sauce slathered over chicken on beds of sticky rice, with sweet samosas and yogurt and a handful of crispy chickpeas each. I’ve never had such delicious food before; if this is a preview of the Masquerade, I’m in for a treat.
It’s gone quickly, though, with how hungry we are, and Portia soon stands to go.
“I guess I’ll leave you two alone for the night,” she says.
“Okay,” I tell her, eyeing Julian appraisingly. I think he ate as much as he could, but he’s flagging fast, sprawled in the evening-colored armchair on the other side of the room. “Go be with Balam. You two are cute together.”
She giggles. “Thanks. I’ll tell her you said that.”
“Please do. Anything happen with Skylar and Lucio?”
“Ooh, don’t make me rush that story. I’ll tell you later.”
Julian snorts. “Runs in the family, you know,” he slurs, near-drunk from exhaustion. “We’re story-tellers. Always have been.”
“Shh, Ilya,” Portia says softly. “You’ve been through the wringer today.”
“I’m fi—”
“I swear to god, if you try to tell us you’re fine, I’ll kick you.”
“Couldn’t reach anything… critical…” he mumbles.
Portia rolls her eyes. “Bet I could. But I won’t. Not tonight, anyway. You’re sure you don’t need anything else, Reyja?”
I pause to think for a moment. “If you could, or if you know someone who could, maybe I should try to send a message to Asra? I don’t even know if he’s back in town yet, but he’s next on the list to talk to.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll ask Yaz, or maybe Balam and I will just go on a little forest adventure looking for him ourselves.”
“Thanks, Portia.”
“Don’t mention it!” She gives me a quick hug too. “Sleep well, okay? And I know I don’t have to say it, but take care of my brother for me. I kinda like him.”
I smile. “I kinda like him, too.”
Portia sticks her tongue out as she leaves, making sure the door shuts behind her. I wait for her footsteps to fade down the hall, then cross to Julian’s side, sinking to my knees beside his chair. 
“Hey,” I murmur, sweeping his sweat-damp hair from his forehead. “How are you feeling?”
With effort, he opens his eyes. But the smile that breaks across his face like dawn when he sees me is effortless. “My darling, my Reyja,” he says. “You did it.”
“What did I do?” 
“Oh, without you… never would’ve gotten here. Saved me.”
My heart flips over. “You saved you, Julian. It was all there just waiting for someone to see it.”
He shakes his head slowly. “You,” he repeats. “You did the work.”
I don’t want to argue with him. Especially not now. “If you say so.”
“I do. Can’t thank you enough. But I want to try.”
I run my nails over his scalp. “What do you mean?”
He lets his head loll, still smiling. “Probably shouldn’t talk about it now. But in the morning, when I, erm… after I get some sleep. I might not be at my best at the moment.”
A shiver of excitement rolls down my back. I shouldn’t speculate, but… “Okay. What do you want to do right now, then?”
He blinks at me. “Kiss you.”
I can’t complain about that. I stretch up to meet his lips, cool and soft against mine. He falls back after a moment, exhausted again, but reaches for my hand instead. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that feeling, skin on skin, his long, slender fingers meshed with my thick ones. It’s his branded hand, too. I trace its heavy lines with the fingertips of my other hand, stopping when he sighs.
“You alright?” I ask quietly.
“That mark defined me for so long,” he says, staring at it. “Strange that it no longer has to.”
“Good, though?”
“Fantastic, darling. Utterly fantastic.”
I kiss him again. It’s just as strange, and just as fantastic, for me to know I can keep doing that. In public now, even, any time we want.
There’s still some blood and dirt smeared across his skin. Water magic has never been my forte, but I call a trickle to fill my cupped hand and gently wipe it away. I wish I had a dish to use instead, but everything in here is dirty already. For tonight, though, this will do. I just want him to be comfortable.
When I’m done, I let my hands wander down his neck, over his broad shoulders, along his arms, pausing at the hardest knots and working at them with my thumbs. He sighs again, softer and sweeter, as some of his tension dissipates. I’m entranced by the constellations of freckles and faded acne scars on his back, tracing patterns between them until he hums his contentment. I’ve never gotten to touch someone like this before, so tenderly.
So lovingly.
“Hey, Julian?” My voice is barely above a whisper. I don’t think I can say what I want to say any louder. Not yet, anyway. “I… I, um—”
But he’s already asleep, slumped in the armchair, a beatific smile still curving his lips from the comfort of my touch.
—————
Skylar belongs to @ollifree​.
Balam belongs to @atypicalacademic​.
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oliverstarked · 4 years
Text
where I belong
[PG-13, 3.4k words]
"Buck's not sure of the exact moment that he knew Eddie was it for him, but it’s been that way for so long now it’s become a part of who he is. He used to be good at pretending his feelings didn’t exist, but he’s so tired these days."
A little bit of introspection, a lot of idiots in love.
[read on ao3]
The ocean is so beautiful at dawn. 
Under the soft pink-orange sky the water looks bruise-purple, whitecaps leaving foamy trails on the sand. The sun is only just peeking over the horizon, edging towards another gorgeous LA day. But before that begins, before the hustle and bustle and wailing sirens, Buck sits on the beach on the cold sand and feels caught in a moment so peaceful, so nice, just the squalling of gulls and the gentle crash of the waves for company. 
He pushes stale air out of his lungs and breathes the fresh in deeply. The chill feels good, raises goosebumps on his skin and reminds him that he’s alive. A reminder he’s needed a lot lately. He’s been struggling, even though his leg has healed, even though the tsunami is months behind him, even though his relationship with his 118 family is better than ever and he has no reason to be struggling. Nightmares come and go, cold sweats, little niggling thoughts that burrow their way into his brain throughout the day. 
He tries not to talk about it. There are so many people who have it worse than him and he doesn’t want to become some kind of social… leech around his friends, constantly draining them of energy by going on about his issues. You’re exhausting , Eddie said to him once. Buck knows it’s true, knows he takes inches and runs them into miles. His heart may be in the right place, sure, but he doesn’t know when to shut up, when to slow down. If there’s one thing his lawsuit mistake has taught him, it’s that his actions, his selfishness, has consequences on those around him. 
So what if he has bad dreams occasionally? He’s not a kid, he can look after himself. It’s more important right now that he’s there for his friends: asking Bobby how Michael’s doing, bridging the relationship between Chim and his brother, being there for Maddie always, listening to Hen talk about how Nia is settling in, being whatever Eddie needs to stop him doing stupid things again. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for his own problems.
It doesn’t matter. That’s just what Buck does for the people he loves.
The warmth of the sun creeps onto his face as it rises higher, prickling his skin. Buck squints into it, seeing nothing but gold, then sighs and gets to his feet. He brushes sand off the seat of his pants before slowly turning and making his way back up the beach. 
At least he gets to go to work. 
   Eddie’s getting changed when Buck walks into the locker room, and Buck manfully pretends he can’t see the miles of bare skin on display. Hen is sitting on the bench, laughing at something Eddie must have said, and it’s easy to grin at the two of them and say, “Well, good morning.”
“Hey,” Eddie smiles, shrugging into a t-shirt, thank god. 
“Buck, I have to show you this.” Hen holds her phone out, a video paused on the screen. Buck takes it, taps play. It’s Nia, holding onto Denny’s hands and bouncing up and down in time with her blonde curls, screeching in delight as a catchy pop song plays in the background. 
“That’s pretty damn cute,” Buck says. “When do I get to meet this li’l nugget?”
“Soon,” Hen tells him, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “It’s a lot for her, the social worker says we need to introduce new things and people gradually.”
Eddie, tucking his overshirt into his belt now, says, “Well, whenever you guys need a babysitter, hit us up. Chris and Denny can play and Buck and I will dote on that gorgeous girl.”
Hen snorts, looking between them. “Should you be volunteering Buck for that?”
Honestly, it didn’t even occur to Buck that he wouldn’t be there. The automatic assumption on Eddie’s part too makes him feel warmer than he did five minutes ago. 
“Hey, you know I’m down,” Buck beams, “you just name the day.”
Hen squeezes his arm as she heads towards the door. “Thanks boys, we will definitely take you up on that.”
When she’s gone, Buck finally moves towards his own locker to start getting changed. Eddie is still there, tapping away on his phone. Buck wonders if he’s texting Ana . If they’ve even reached the ‘exchanging numbers’ phase yet. 
“Hey, man, you wanna grab pizza tomorrow night? You, me, Chris and Mario Kart at my place?”
“Sure,” Eddie agrees, hardly glancing up, definitely distracted. “But, uh, Chris won’t be there, he’s got that overnight field trip at the observatory tomorrow.” 
Damn, Buck should have remembered that. Christopher had been chattering excitedly about it for a couple weeks now. Eddie had mentioned it several times too, although decidedly less excitedly and more in worried-dad-mode. 
“Oh yeah, that’s right. Well, in that case you definitely gotta come over. We can drink beer and watch a movie that doesn’t involve some kind of talking animal.”
“Sounds good.”
He’s still typing. What is he doing, writing a goddamn article? Who could he possibly have that much to say to? 
Buck takes a breath, remembers he’s not being a selfish asshole anymore and gets changed quietly. Ana sounds like a nice person, she’d probably be good for Eddie. Buck’s feelings, his stupid feelings that he’s shoved so far down they make him feel a bit queasy more often than not, shouldn’t even factor into it.
“Are you okay?”
Buck startles at Eddie’s question. He’s not on his phone anymore, but looking straight at Buck, a little crease in between his eyebrows.
“Fine… why'd you ask?”
“You look tired.”
“Yeah. I, uh, got up early to go for a run on the beach. Anyway, not even eyebags could ruin this handsome face so you shut your mouth,” Buck blusters with an exaggerated wink and a bit of swagger as he closes his locker. 
It works, and Eddie rolls his eyes. “So glad that your ego remains unaffected.”
They argue playfully back and forth as they head up to the kitchen together and by the time they sit down to plates of Bobby’s French toast, Buck has all but forgotten his weird start to the day. 
Luckily, work keeps them busy. Any downtime they get is spent either stuffing their faces with food, showering the grime and sweat away, or trying to catch a few minutes of sleep. The entire twenty-four hours passes without major incident, unless you count Chimney tripping on a firehose and falling ass over teakettle on the freshly-waxed station floor. They’re still laughing about it as they get changed to go home the following morning, exhaustion making it hard to stop.
By the time he gets back to his apartment and collapses into bed, Buck’s tired enough that falling asleep is the easiest thing in the world.
 He wakes late in the afternoon, hot and sweaty from the sunlight pouring in through the windows. He showers, eats a sandwich, and texts Eddie to ask what time he’s coming over. 
Some sort of clarity must have crept in while Buck slept, because his head feels a little clearer. Still, he wonders what it means that a clear head feels like some kind of miracle these days. He thinks it means that he might need to talk to Frank again.
Buck grabs his phone and fiddles around on it until he pulls up his contacts. Frank’s name is sitting there right underneath Eddie’s. Before he can think about it too much, he calls and makes an appointment for his next day off. Part of him feels that old anxiety come back, worries that he’s slipping backwards instead of moving forwards, but another part of him is ultimately relieved. He doesn’t have to worry about burdening Frank, it’s his job to listen. He’s not allowed to be exhausted by Buck and his issues. 
By the time Eddie arrives not long after seven, Buck has cleaned his entire apartment, gone grocery shopping to get that beer that Eddie likes, and watched a Nat Geo documentary on bears. It’s been easy, simple, and he’s feeling okay. 
Eddie lets himself in with a smile and a tupperware container, and even though they only parted ways that morning, it’s still good to see him. “Hey, sorry I’m late, Ana called just as I was leaving.”
And just like that, Buck’s stomach sours. 
“She called you?”
“Yeah, I asked her to update me on Chris. She said he’s good, that they’ve just eaten dinner and he’s with his friends.” Eddie pauses, makes a face. “Guess that means I should stop worrying, right?”
“So you guys just talked about Christopher?” Buck asks because he’s an idiot who likes to torture himself. 
Eddie frowns, putting the tupperware on the kitchen counter. “Yeah. What else would we talk about? I emailed the school his overnight care plan this morning and she just wanted to reassure me. Anyway, Abuela made you tamales, shall I put them in the refrigerator or d’you wanna have them with the pizza?”
Buck still doubts that any other parents are getting personal calls from their kid’s teacher, but it makes him feel better knowing that Eddie’s only thought is the well-being of his son. 
Maybe this whole Ana thing is something he should talk to Frank about, too. 
“I’m going back to therapy,” Buck blurts, his brain to mouth filter nonexistent. “I have nightmares. I stopped talking about it because I thought I was being selfish but it’s fucking me up so. Yeah. I’m going back to therapy.”
Eddie’s eyebrows hit his hairline. Buck silently begs him not to make a big deal out of it, and is relieved when all Eddie says is, “Good. Thank you for telling me. The tamales?”
A mildly hysterical laugh bursts out of Buck. He comes forward and wraps his arms around Eddie, so fucking relieved that after everything, he still gets to have this. 
Eddie goes with the moment gracefully, pats him on the back a few times, and when Buck pulls away, Eddie leaves a hand on his shoulder and says, “I’m here for you. I know I haven’t always been great at that before, but I am. You don’t have to do this by yourself unless you want to.”
And Buck knows it’s true, can tell by the fierce determination in Eddie’s eyes, and thinks that maybe this means he’s not so exhausting to deal with after all. That maybe Eddie was exhausted with himself just a little, too. 
“We’re good, Eddie,” Buck says honestly. “I’m gonna call the pizza place, you take those tamales and the beer over to the couch.”
 They’re one and a half movies, two pizzas and half a dozen tamales in when Buck opens his mouth and “So are you and Ana dating?” comes out of it. 
Eddie chokes a little on his beer. “No? I don’t really know.”
It’s not quite the answer Buck was hoping for. “How can you not know, man?”
Shifting uncomfortably, Eddie leans back on the couch until he’s looking up at the ceiling, like he can’t meet Buck’s eye. “She’s nice, and pretty, and good with Chris. I dunno, Buck. It feels like it could go somewhere?”
Buck swallows hard. He knew it. He should definitely have waited to have this conversation until after he’s seen Frank though, because he has no goddamn clue how he’s supposed to be the supportive best friend when every fiber of his being is burning with jealousy. He’s not sure of the exact moment that he knew Eddie was it for him, but it’s been that way for so long now it’s become a part of who he is. He used to be good at pretending his feelings didn’t exist, but he’s so tired these days.
But what he has with Eddie and Christopher right now is the best thing going on in his life — he’s not going to risk losing that. 
“I wouldn’t even know how to ask her out,” Eddie continues, laughing a little at himself. “Out of practice would definitely be an understatement, I have no clue what I’m doing.”
Buck mirrors Eddie’s position, staring up at the beams under the loft. “I think you just say ‘would you like to go out with me’, Eddie. It’s not that hard.”
“Easy for you to say,” Eddie snorts. “I bet no girl has ever turned you down.”
“Ha, you should speak to Joe Levinson from high school,” Buck tells him. God, he thought Joe was so cute. He never told anyone, especially not his parents, and Maddie was off at college, but he used to trail around after Joe like a lovesick puppy. “We’re talking the crush of all teenage crushes here, man. I was so gone on Joe and it was senior year and then prom was coming up, and I—”
“Oh no,” Eddie laughs, “you got turned down?”
“I got humiliated,” Buck grins. “I thought I’d go classic, y’know? A love note in the locker, little hearts doodled on it and ‘I really like you, will you be my prom date?’ written in glitter gel pen. Imagine my surprise when the next morning my note is not just in Joe’s locker, but on the front of every single locker, in the halls, the cafeteria, even the damn teacher’s lounge. He made sure the last few weeks of high school were not good ones.”
“Wait…” Eddie tips his head sideways, confusion written on his face. “Joe was a boy?”
Shit. Buck isn’t ashamed of being bisexual at all, but it occurs to him now that he hasn’t actually told anybody besides his sister. “Uh… yeah?” 
“Did you just come out to me?”
Buck shrugs. “I kinda forgot you didn’t know?”
Their faces are pretty close at this angle, their heads cushioned by the back of the couch. Eddie doesn’t look hostile or disgusted though. He looks thoughtful. 
“That was really brave,” he eventually says, quieter than before. “I can’t even imagine asking a boy out in high school.”
There’s something in the way he says it that gives Buck pause. “Did you want to?” he asks carefully.
“It wasn’t an option.” Eddie doesn’t sound sad, just matter-of-fact. “Besides, I met Shannon in college. And I really loved her, Buck. There were… occasions, while I was in the army, but I never acted on it. I’d made vows, they meant something to me.”
Buck can’t look away from Eddie’s face, pulled in by the wide-eyed openness and the thought that he didn’t know this about Eddie — that they didn’t know this about each other. 
“And now?” he asks, not sure why he’s whispering.
“Now I don’t know,” Eddie says honestly. He licks his lips. Buck couldn’t tell you which of them moved first but all of a sudden their lips are touching, pressing. It’s dry, a little chaste, but most definitely a kiss. Buck shifts, brings his hand up towards Eddie’s face, and barely touches his jaw before Eddie is springing backwards, shock written all over him. 
“Buck, I’m sorry—”
“No, dude, that was all me, I was totally over the line.”
“We just got — caught up in the moment,” Eddie says, and Buck’s not sure which of them he’s trying to convince. 
“Yeah, all that talk about dating and my tragic high school trauma. Woulda been weird if you hadn’t wanted to kiss me,” he smirks, aiming for cool and cocky and probably missing by several miles. 
Eddie lets out a bark of laughter that’s more panic than amusement. They’re quiet for a minute. Eddie’s knee is still pressed against Buck’s, warm and solid. Buck doesn’t know what’s happening here but he knows he really liked kissing Eddie, can still feel his lips tingling. He knows he’s not going to lose Eddie over this though, can’t lose him. He’ll do whatever it takes for that not to happen.
“It was a moment,” Buck concludes, for both their sake. “Moment’s over.”
Eddie’s throat visibly bobs when he swallows. “Right. Y’know, I should probably take off. Before—”
He cuts himself off. The tips of his ears go bright red. It takes every ounce of willpower Buck has not to ask him ‘before what?’
He follows Eddie across the apartment to the door, but he really doesn’t want this to be weird when they get to the station in the morning. He lays his hand on Eddie’s forearm and asks, “We’re okay, aren’t we, Eddie?”
To his relief, Eddie smiles and it seems real. “Of course, Buck. Nothing’s changed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As he lets himself out, the door closing softly behind him, Buck can’t help thinking what a bad liar Eddie is. Of course something has changed. Everything has changed. That kiss will hang over them for the rest of their days as partners — as friends. You don’t just ‘accidentally’ kiss your best friend and then act like it didn’t happen. 
Buck wanders into the kitchen, fists his hand in his hair, scrapes them over his face, repeatedly bangs his forehead into the cupboard door. Stupid stupid stupid . 
Restless, he clears away pizza boxes. Drops empty beer bottles into the recycling. Seals the lid on the tupperware and puts the remaining tamales in the refrigerator. Shuts off the TV — how didn’t he notice the movie was still playing? 
He’s wiping down the kitchen counters when there’s a knock on the door. 
Eddie’s standing there on the other side, looking just as wide-eyed as he was when he left. 
“Hey,” Buck says uncertainly, ignoring the swoop in his stomach. “You forget something?”
“Yes,” Eddie says and he takes a step forward, holds Buck’s face in his hands, and crashes their mouths together. 
This kiss is nothing like their last. 
Eddie is demanding, relentless, tongue tracing the seam of Buck’s lips straight away until Buck opens up for him and everything gets hotter and wetter and so much more amazing. His own hands, which had been floundering in surprise, land on Eddie’s waist and Buck walks him backwards until his back hits the open door and closes it with a bang. He leans into Eddie with all his weight, pushes him against the wood, shoves their hips together and groans the filthiest sound he’s ever made into Eddie’s mouth.
It’s incredible, feels absolutely perfect. Buck moves his hands, slips them under the soft fabric of Eddie’s shirt, finding warm skin and hard muscles and a stomach that trembles when his thumb flicks over a nipple. 
With a gasp, Eddie pulls back and smacks his head against the door. Buck removes a hand and places it gently behind Eddie’s head to cushion it, kissing a lush apology to his lips. 
“You feel so good,” Eddie mumbles. “Buck.”
Buck kisses down Eddie’s neck, their stubble rasping, his lips fluttering over Eddie’s thundering pulse. He shoves their hips together some more — once, twice, and again because he can’t stop — and he can feel Eddie’s dick through their jeans and he’s so turned on he can hardly breathe. 
“We should talk,” he says to Eddie, breathlessly, “but first we should fuck.”
“Best idea you’ve ever had, Buckley.”
A grin spreads across Eddie’s face and Buck copies it, kissing him again because he just can’t help it and grabbing his hand, dragging him away from the door and up the steps to the loft.
Two orgasms, one set of clean sheets and one shower later, Buck feels brave enough to say, “I want this every day forever.”
Eddie’s nearly asleep, head right next to Buck’s on the pillow, one arm slung across Buck’s stomach. He cracks open an eye and presses a tiny kiss to the corner of Buck’s mouth. 
“Guess we’re on the same page then.”
“I don’t want you to date Ana.”
The other eye pops open, trademark Eddie Diaz exasperation all over his face. “Buck.”
“Just checking!” Buck laughs, drawing patterns on Eddie’s arm. “Y’know, I’m still gonna need therapy.”
“I’d be worried if you didn’t. Unless sex really is a magic cure.”
Buck tries to smile but instead finds himself softly saying, “I might have a nightmare.”
Eddie kisses him again, for longer this time, then shifts closer and nuzzles his nose into Buck’s temple, his hair. “I’m not going anywhere. Go to sleep, Buck.”
They settle in, warm under the blankets, and Buck closes his eyes, falling asleep quick and easy, between one breath and the next. 
98 notes · View notes
blankdblank · 3 years
Text
Brother Dearest Pt 26
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Six notepads full of notes with a stack of typed notes for the subjects were bound up with ample notes you had taken from the countless textbooks you had powered through the week before to try and keep up with the advanced math course you weren’t certain of how you would fare. Trying to over prep so that maybe your Professor might take you seriously, even going so far as to pick up even more advanced math form textbooks from a trunk upstairs that Victor had found for you. Catching onto your doubts the brothers sat up with you on your sleepless nights guiding you through the process of the equations and formulas that in their rainy and winter seasons at home they mastered on their own.
Self taught in so many of their own subjects and languages, taking great pride at how hard you were working. Not a month past having to deal with your first voting season back home being abruptly cut short as a technicality barred unwed women to vote and even with James named as your fiancé and Eddie as former guardian you were turned away. One low blow after another, refused the vote you dealt with a man you nearly hurled off your front stoop demanding to meet the owner of the house wanting to sell something. An hour he spent on the stoop after you slammed the door in his face and neighbors told him that the men were inside and they weren’t going to speak to him after he’d made you angry.
So around you they sat wishing they could do more other than say they would take you to vote the hell out of the next year. Even just small matters of schools and town hall meetings you were silenced until you were married with certain common items in shops refused to women as well and no doubt would have to scrape for any fair chance in the male dominated courses. Sleeplessly however between Victor’s readying of the roast to slowly cook on low you changed to head to Mass. Eagerly the Father hoped that supper would come sooner as he had been boasting on the exclusive invite.
Using a diagram from a book you lined up the table luring smirks from Eddie and James who peeked in at you. Dawn strolled in with a vase in one hand she settled in the center of the table with a selection of short purple and orange flowers from the bushes out back she fluffed up a bit saying, “Best I could do.”
Smiling at her you said, “They’re lovely.”
Looking you over she said, “Up for some liquid courage?”
Shaking your head you said, “With my metal control alcohol and pain medicines wear off within moments in my bloodstream.”
“Oh,”
“Feel free to have a nip if you like.”
Curiously she asked as Victor and James came to set rolls on the table with butter and the salt and pepper shakers, “What else can you two do?” They smirked looking at her adding, “I know what they can do, to a degree. People in town said you were, a bit, odd, but they never clarified. And you can talk to animals and trees…”
Victor said, “Well, we have healing abilities, like hers but without the metal. On top of the talking my nails grow and Jimmy has bone claws.”
Dawn asked, “Bone-?”
James made a fist with his claws extending drawing her closer and accepting his offer to poke at his claws with clear flecks of iron imbedded in them. “They used to be all bone but Jaqi found a way to leech iron from our blood into our bones to make them stronger. Used to be so easy to break our bones when we fought.”
She looked to Victor who said, “Oh, we’re also really strong and really fast compared to others. Much easier with the iron bones, and since it’s our own iron our bodies created our bodies don’t try to get rid of it.” Releasing his hand she moved to Victor who extended his nails making her brow inch up and him chuckle, “I know, not as impressive, but if I grow them long enough I can snap them off and throw them really far.”
Loud and clear the doorbell rang and Eddie said, “I’ll get it.” Watching as Victor retracted his claws and Dawn went to help you finish readying the tea set.
Dawn patted your hand saying, “You’ll do lovely.” Teddy began to fuss in his playpen and she hurried over, “Oh, does someone need a changing?”
Nipping at your lip you hovered the tea tray into the tea room and centered it onto the table adjusting the tea cups before straightening up and brushing your hands over your skirt. Behind you James came up untying your apron planting a kiss onto your cheek, whispering to you sweetly, “I love you, breathe Darling.”
Steps echoed and a quick kiss was stolen in a glance back at him before his winking step back to put your apron up in the kitchen. Victor came out content that the food was staying warm in the oven for the drinks before dinner. Warm greetings came after a quick tour of the main floor including the library earning a whistle from the impressed Priest. Into the tea room he strode smiling taking in the details and looked to you ask you asked, “Would you care for some tea?”
Father Thomas replied, “No, however I would take a nip of brandy, if you have it.”
Eddie flashed you a wink hurrying to the bar having stocked it and broke out the glasses, of which he poured himself a bourbon and a gin for Victor. Dawn smiled returning with Teddy on her hip to sit beside Eddie who took his son to cuddle with on his lap granting her hold of the tea you poured out for her. James hummed as the Father sampled his brandy, “I’ll take a cup, Darling.” Smiling at you lovingly as you poured it making sure to brush your fingers in accepting it. Your tea was next and after adding a pair of sugar cubes to your tea you gracefully held stepping to your seat beside James once lowered into signaled the crossing of your ankles tilting your knees to lay against is thigh. A single sip however had your mind tapping James’ to ask, “How is the tea?”
James, “Not bad. Fairly strong.”
“I think it needs something.”
“Perhaps honey?”
“Honey is so expensive here. The sugar was absurd enough.”
“I will write to Dot back home for some of her uncle’s honey.”
Pleasant conversation lasted through to the bottom of your cups signaling your move to the dining room where Father Thomas accepted a glass of milk from Dawn to go with the meal you helped Victor and James bring to the table. “Bunny and Dawn, you have outdone yourselves, truly.”
Subtle shakes of heads at Victor and James had you both smiling at him in return while you poured yourself some milk as well after bringing James his juice he had asked for. Eddie kept his bourbon to sip on and Dawn fed Teddy in his high chair. Pleasantly the meal continued, pausing for Dawn to take Teddy to sleep in his nursery, rejoining in time for some pie that you skipped on, helped by Eddie to clear the table and brew up some more tea for yourself and James. Victor finishing his own second slice of pie watched as you came back to share a bowl of ice cream with James to go with the one you brought Dawn.
Dinner had come early leaving tons of time for cards, which downstairs Victor and James lit up cigars while the Priest indulged on his weekly cigarette to a cup of coffee he had asked for that you gladly filled his formerly ignored teacup with. Their game came in your friendly match against Dawn in pool while Eddie played Dealer to the card game. A subtle glance to the window in the back yard helped you ease open the window to air out the basement aided by a fan in the corner you kept spinning without having to turn it on. The ventilation pleasing Dawn as well, who you shared hushed giggles and conversation with in French about the guys and their moneyless chipped game to simply help the Priest keep track of who had won each round. The phone ringing upstairs had you going up to answer the call sending you back down to lock eyes with the Priest whose brows were raised, “Father, that was Dennis Tilby on the line, his dad’s taken a turn.”
Instantly he popped up saying, “Right, well, thank you for the lovely time.”
Putting his cigarette out in the ash tray beside him nodding his head to Victor and Eddie as James said, “I’ll show you up.”
Passing you Father Thomas said with a pat of a hand on your arm, “You have worked wonders on this place. Haven’t had a home cooked meal like that in a good while, quite a kindness.” He patted Dawn’s as well adding, “Should last me well through the night and into the morrow.”
Exhaling sharply when he was out of sight you sat down on a stool against the wall making Victor smirk gathering the cups he downed and stacked to carry along with the put out cigars and cigarette saying, “I’ll put the ash tray outside. You did wonderful.”
Lifting your hands you tried to take the cups he eased out of your reach, “I’ll-,”
“Take a load off. Quite a meal.” Your head tilted and he smiled wider, “I don’t want credit. Women like you can cook like that, that’s something, we know how to cook like that and aren’t pro’s, just sad. I would rather be the man behind the curtain Miss Oz.” he passed you two and went upstairs while you sat stealing a glance at Dawn who was racking up the balls again for the next person who would play.
Rapidly the fan you hovered around the room cleared the smoke out amusing Dawn who put up the cards and chips then joined you when you had set the fan down and closed the window again. Together you went up the steps shutting the lights off as you did finding James on his way from locking up the front doors. “That went swimmingly.” Once at your side he lifted you up in his arms, “And you, my Darling, off your feet.”
Victor, out of the kitchen said, “Cups are rinsed, plates too, and the dishes are soaking so you guys go to bed.”
Dawn, “You cooked.”
Victor said, “And I clean as well. Eddie’s got work early and he needs you, Olive and Pepper are outside handling their business so I have some time. Jimmy, off to bed.”
The younger brother chuckled obliging the order to take you upstairs, help you wash up, change and lay out for another of his snuggle followed full body rub downs. Victor grinned returning your finger wave on the path to the stairs truly glad he helped blow your first dinner guest away hopefully helping to boost your confidence at being a hostess in your own home for future guests.
“You’re both absurd.” You said in a nightgown on the bed while he rubbed your feet looking to you adoringly. “Making dinner, giving us credit, then he washes up alone.”
James, “We love you, you hosted marvelously.”
“There was something about the tea.”
“It was great tea, might just be the sugar, you haven’t tried it with regular sugar. I’ll fetch some tomorrow and we can test it out.”
You sighed saying, “It shouldn’t be this hard. Just tea.”
He chuckled again, “Sugar was rationed, right? Through the war and before?” You nodded and he said, “Could just be an old batch, or could be a stronger grain in the cubes to make it stick, or some syrup. Trust me, you have un-cubed sugar no one will fault you for it. The service alone you gave was perfect, you will find your groove for it, and when you are at school all day and hosting dinner parties to a meal like that we’ve prepped for you no one could hold a candle to you.”
“But, that’s cheating.”
He chuckled, “You really think any of those hoity toity ladies who thumbed their noses up at Portia doesn’t have a maid or cook at home to prep their meals for them? Moving up takes impressions and impressions take team work. You helped serve and clear the tea, serve the dinner it’s only fair me and Vic clear up after you had to air out the basement. We can cut back if it bothers you.”
You shook your head, “I don’t mind you smoking, I just don’t want it lingering, ruins wallpaper. We just put it up.”
He chuckled saying, “I get that. And we will keep it away from Teddy, Squishy’s genes or not, smoky room is no place for a baby.”
“Thank you. Nobody says anything but I’ve read up about lungs, Steve had asthma, I thought maybe I could find something someday to help him. I got tangled up in reading about house fires and smoke inhalation and tobacco isn’t that different when inhaled. It has to do something. Our lungs heal, or I might push you to quit-,”
“If it makes you uncomfortable I will.” Your lips parted and he said, “Think on it, if you want me to, I will, and we will ban smoking from the house.”
“You give me too much power sometimes.”
That had him smirking and humming back, “Nowhere close to enough, Darling.”
“Do I have anything I do you want me to stop?”
“Not a thing.” He wet his lips moving his hands to over your ankle asking, “Though Vic was wondering why you didn’t want any of the pie?”
“I think it was the tea, or the sugar. Something about it mixed with the sauce, which was amazing, but when I smelled the pie I just knew it would taste bitter when I ate it.”
Lowly he chuckled and said, “Good, then I can calm him down saying you will have some at lunch.”
In a giggle you replied, “I didn’t mean to upset him.”
“You didn’t. Just was worried you might have been overly anxious about our guest enjoying himself.” He looked you over, “We’ll find your stride.”
You nodded and said, “What sort of college starts on a Tuesday?”
He chuckled saying, “The sort that doesn’t know what’s coming for it.”
A knock at your door announced Victor’s peek through it to ask, “Up for guests?”
James nodded, “Didn’t think it’d take you this long to show up.”
Behind his back he held something wrapped up crossing the room making you say, “I knew you couldn’t resist hiding something from me.”
The pair of them smirked at you playfully and Victor said once seated by James on the bed, “Not much flair to offer for students, we were left to belts in our day. However we are not sending you out Pipsqueak with a belt.” Onto your lap he set the box you smirked as he said, “Not the flashiest, but it’s one of a kind.”
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Pulling back the wrapping paper you lifted the top of the box and smiled at the carpet bag styled purse with a red based pattern and leather accents and handles at the top. James, “More of a purse but you can fit your notepads in it, maybe a book or two so you won’t lose your loose papers.”
“Come here,” you said setting it down making them smile as Victor came closer accepting your first tight sniffle filled hug. “You didn’t have to do this, you’ve spent so much on me already.”
James, “Says who?” You pulled back in his own scoot forward setting your leg down again to fold you into a tight hug, “Not nearly enough, Darling. You deserve so much more.”
Victor, “And you just watch those ladies show up with carpet bags in a week. All hideous and out of fashion no doubt compared to yours. No one compares.”
James planted a kiss on your lips sweetly and pulled back to rub your leg again, “We’re all here for you, Darling. Anything you need let us know.”
“What about what you two need?”
Victor, “We need you to succeed.”
James, “And be safe and happy.”
“You two still need something.”
James, “You’re already giving us everything we could ever want.”
.
A short sleeved peach blouse tucked into a black skirt was joined by your black heels and a cardigan you added on your way out of the kitchen. Eddie also was on his way out and James joined Victor in pecking Teddy’s forehead around where you had mid hug to Dawn who wished you luck. James had your bag and Victor said, “Deep breath, let’s get you to school.” Out the front door you walked petting Whiskers, Olive and Pepper on the way, each of them curious about why today seemed different than other times you had left. The doors were shut behind you and down the steps you found your way to the station.
From bustling train car and out of the station two hands remained on your back keeping other men stealing glances your way far away from trying to approach you. Even on the third time out there the ride seemed so familiar already, just half an hour still you took the ride to relax exiting in the sun rising. Not far from there the school was surrounded already by lines of students heading for the big opening. With a peck on your cheek James said outside the front gates, “We’ll be here to walk you back.”
“You are not walking around all day.”
Victor chuckled, “We have plans. To keep busy, promise.” With a nod you stepped out to pass through the gates joining the others on foot, those mainly men while the females rode in lines of cars with bikes no doubt to keep them mobile on the campus from their dorms. The brothers watching on until you were out of sight sighed and turned to head back again planning on taking Olive and Pepper for a walk to the nearest park.
Curious glances your way in breaking off came at a quickening of your pace to pass between two stopped cars to the next walkway leading to the main entrance of Barnard. Seeing you walking a few ladies chose to be let out here and walk themselves, mainly those not moving into the dorms choosing to seem more independent as you did. Poised and walking alone one more opening ceremony came for those absurdly early like you, the Professors split allowing you through. Hall after hall each turn found you outside your first class, against the wall you stood waiting with fingers fixed on the handles of your bag. Soft taps echoed announcing your arriving Professor who smiled and unlocked her door allowing you and the trio of young ladies lined up behind you straightening up as well to claim your seats.
Off to the side of the far wall in the final two rows of seating you walked inspecting the few titles on the shelves against the wall and the odd poster every few feet on the wall to claim the second seat in. On top of your lap your bag settled and in crossing your ankles one of your notepads and a pen was added to the desk along with the textbook for this class out of the few books not able to fit in your bag left on the side of your desk. Steadily more students began to trickle in and elegantly in cursive across the board the Professor wrote her name and the title of her first lesson.
Right away she delved her opening speech saying, “Welcome Ladies, to the start of your higher education. For the first task,” she held a stack of papers and passed it to the woman in front of you, “Take one of these and pass it back,” doing the same in each row, “This is a contract, of basic requirements for this class. Weekly there will be a quiz, bi-weekly there will be a paper due. Between those there will be expected visits to museums that I would like you to take full advantage of and pay attention because there will be a paper due on the exhibit you choose as well, I will be expecting ticket stubs to prove that you have gone with your papers.” Following along on the page she said, “You are allowed two absences in my course before I start reducing points on each test and quiz after your third absence. I expect a B average, if you dip below a B then you are granted one test to try and lift your grade up before I will remove you from my course myself. This is just one semester Ladies, rise to the challenge or have yourself traded to Miss Margen’s course which is far less stringent.”
For a history course it was rather strict and you couldn’t help but smirk internally in listening to the list go on with details of what heading she expected on each paper that you copied down in your notes. Following the lesson along when she actually began the start of her year, unknown to you while you continued to focus on your notes her eyes kept shifting to you, the only woman to not look up except for when she wrote on the board. It was an old habit to focus on the work and not draw attention to yourself like you did back in high school. Already having asked four other students questions that turned into mini debates crumbling as they couldn’t give her the book proof she was expecting.
“You, second seat back, your opinions on the gold rush?” Her eyes fixed on yours when you glanced up had her looking you over as you shifted your pen between your fingers.
“In what aspect? The travel, those who took it up, the effects on the spread of cities West and South, or the changes to clothing and social standards shifting from Colonial to a Rural environment. Unless you mean the effects of medicine limitations and the effects it had on the lives and funeral industry until the railroad was settled and granted a modicum of ease in stabilizing town populations?” Her brow inched up and you said, “Economically it was a risk, but fools who dream big change the world. Case in point there is hardly any patch of land in this country that hasn’t been explored or attempted to have been settled in. Even if the territory is eventually found inhospitable to human life. In full the Gold Rush sparked a rise in several aspects, both positive and those increasing in less noble topics.”
“Such as?”
“Crime, for one, and the beginning of the discovery of the profiteering of the funeral business.”
In a scoff she asked, “And just what experience would you have of the profiteering of the funeral business?”
Looking at her flatly you replied, “I buried both of my parents before I was thirteen,” her smirk dimmed as you added, “Then I lost my brother in the war. Every cent my mother had saved up went to paying off her funeral and we still owed hundreds. My brother was buried easier because the military paid for it. You shouldn’t have to go down in a plane to not bankrupt your family who wants to lay you to rest.”
Clearing her throat she got back to the lesson while you glanced down again to delve back into taking notes ignoring what you knew to be pitying stares had you glanced around to the other ladies trying to remain calm at their own open wounds of those lost in the war. Right back to the same pattern of calling students out the lesson continued and you were nearly forgotten when class was called and you all stood to head to your next class. One by one you passed her the signed contracts and with a soft grin from you she accepted yours, stealing a glance in your turn away to read your signature at the bottom parting her lips recognizing your name. Hushed comments of support came from your fellow students in the hall who split heading to their own classes while you hurried to get there to have a choice on your seat.
Italian came next and near to the front you sat across the hall from your Latin class. The middle aged Professor straightening a pin in her nest of a bun littered with hints of grey matching the color of her dress and shoes flashed you a grin watching you sit in the second row along the wall then turned to erase part of what was written on the board. Not quite as strict, but no less dedicated to ensuring each student gave their all gave the instruction that for the second semester there would be no speaking in English at all.
A sentiment copied by the Latin Professor in the class right after this one who seemed to enjoy getting to be friendly with his students right away. “Miss Pear, I was intrigued to hear you were taking my course. Might I ask why?”
Looking up from your notes you had copied from a rule in pronunciation he had given you caught his grin tugging wider as you answered, “One of the last books my Dad gave me was a dictionary on Latin. My high school didn’t allow females in their Latin course.”
“And what a shame that is,” he said turning to his board to write another tip out. “One of the main things you have to know is that we won’t just be learning how to read and write it but how to speak it, how to breathe some life into what some deem a dead language.” All class he tried to build up some passion in each of his students and by his challenging grin it seemed you were added to the list of students harder to break out of their focused shell.
Pt 27
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peachywise · 4 years
Text
intemperance
richie tozier x eddie kaspbrak (reddie)
– one-shot
– synopsis: Eddie wasn’t really expecting to have to spend this cold winter night walking a drunk Richie home. Yet again, he really didn’t expect it to end as it did either. Not that he’s complaining. (age; twenties)
– notes: this is literally just fluffy and angsty pining on eddie’s end!!! enjoy!!! i’m thinking about writing a part two, so let me know if you enjoyed it! also i’m literally rushing out the door for dinner so forgive me if the editing’s not great, i’ll go through it again when i’m home lmao 
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Whenever Richie was drunk, Eddie tended to stay away.
Richie had always been one to make jokes and tease him. Still, when he was drunk, it always turned too jokingly flirtatious, too hard for Eddie to rightly ignore without going red in the face. Eddie lashed out when that happened, like an elementary school kid who didn’t quite understand their own feelings. He yelled at Richie and stormed away, regretting whatever false words he had said. It took effort to not turn around and look at the pout that would inevitably befall Richie’s face. 
His dumbass, cute face.
Ugh.
In truth, Eddie wasn’t so much afraid of being around Richie when he was like that, but more fearful of what Eddie might say in reply. Yelling at him was bad enough, but it was better than the alternative—confessing his feelings. Those feelings that had weighed on him for years.
It was his secret. His own burden to keep and protect. He couldn’t risk things changing for the worst.
Yet here he was, outside of whatever bar Bill had called him to in the middle of the night, ready to face Richie on a long walk home. Bill had to leave for some emergency and Richie had been too stubborn to leave sooner than he had to. Since all their other friends were already busy or inevitably asleep, it was up to you to escort him back to his apartment all in one piece since the cabs were unusually busy tonight. It would take to long for them to get him, in turn, giving him too much time to do something dumb and impulsive like start an intentional barfight by saying something stupid.
It had happened before. Richie asked a man if he had a cat, and when the man dumbly played into it by saying no, Richie quickly replied with, “really? Because you have pussy written all over you.” That black eye had taken a while to heal. Eddie thought Richie’s shame at telling such a bad joke would have taken even longer to recover from, but he still thought it was pretty funny.
Eddie walked into the poorly lit bar, hardwood sticky with whatever drinks had been sloshed over it for as many years at it’s been open. He’d barely taken two steps inside before a boisterous voiced called from somewhere in the back corner, “is that my Eddie Spaghetti?” No, this is your Eddie About-To-Kick-Your-Ass.
All too suddenly, floppy-haired Richie shoved through the couple people left in the bar to wrap his arms around Eddie in a tight hug, lifting him up and slapping him on the back. “It is Eddie!”
Struggling against his grip in an effort to breath, Eddie swatted at Richie and huffed out, “okay, put me down or I swear to God—”
Richie dropped him back to the ground and grinned, rosy-cheeked and eyes a little glassy, “or what? You’ll fuck my mom? Go ahead. It seems only fair since I fucked yours.” 
Eddie rolled his eyes, wiping the tops of the shoulders of his jacket to get the snow off. “You’ve used that line ever since we were kids. Can’t you get some new material?”
Richie’s grin stayed plastered on his face, and bending down, so he was more eye level with Eddie, offered instead, “well then, you can fuck my dad.”
“Already did.”
Richie’s face fell a little at Eddie’s deadpan retort, fully expecting some sort of more significant reaction out of him. Eddie just turned back around and started making his way to the door without a second word, leaving Richie to scramble behind him and grab the crook of his elbow to stop him. “Don’t abandon me!” Richie huffed out.
Eddie flashed him a look from over his shoulder. “I only came here to walk you home. Are you coming or not?”
“What am I, a dog?” Richie stated, pushing his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose.
“Do you really want me to answer that?” Eddie cocked up an eyebrow.
Richie bit his bottom lip, narrowing his eyes slightly. Well. “Fair enough.”
Yeah, no shit.
“Then let’s go!” Richie belted out, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s shoulders from behind, all but pushing him out the door now. Eddie’s hands flew up to grip Richie’s arms to stop from falling down the slippery concrete steps outside of the door.
Eddie gritted out, “be careful!” as he ducked out from under him, only to slip a little on the ice. Thankfully, Richie wasn’t too drunk that his reflexes were gone entirely, as he shot out his arm to grab hold of Eddie’s arm. Unfortunately, he was drunk enough that he forgot to actually pull Eddie up, so they both ended up falling down. 
“My bad.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
This walk was officially the longest walk of Eddie’s god damn life. Seriously. Richie had fallen twice more, made about ten inappropriate jokes— two of which Eddie couldn’t even begin to comprehend— and he’d chased one dog which Eddie was actually sure was a duck.
Now, Eddie was struggling to keep upright as the taller boy leaned against him. He was getting more flustered as Richie practically pawed at every inch of his body; his chest, his neck, arms. His face was so close to his own that his breath was like wisps of flame against his neck in the cold night, sending shivers raking through his whole body. He just hoped the boy in his drunken stupor just figured it was because he was cold, or better yet, didn’t notice it at all.
Richie reached out a hand and squeezed Eddie’s cheeks together, forcing his mouth into an outward pout and his body to stumble on the icy sidewalk. “Eds, you’re so cute,” Richie grinned, his glasses slightly fogged from breathing into the scarf tightly wound against his neck.
Eddie ripped his face away with a small huff, reaching up a hand to massage his jaw slightly, “Richie, shut up,” he complained, his frostbitten cheeks starting to feel a little warmed.
“No!” the boy whined back, “you are! I’ve always thought so. My cute little Eddie.”
“Boys shouldn’t be called cute,” he murmured in reply, softly, more to himself than the boy hanging off him like a monkey to a branch.
“Bullshit.” His words were spat out like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “It’s a good thing. People like cute things. No one’s ever called me cute. When you see something cute, you should just say it. Let the whole world know.” As if to elaborate it, Richie opened his mouth wider like a banshee to the wind, taking in a sharp breath of air before beginning his shout of, “Edward Kaspbrak is so fucking cute that I want to—” Eddie’s slap of his hand over his mouth stifled the rest of the sentence before he could disturb any more people who were probably already fast asleep in their apartments.
Hissing a repeated, “shut up, Richie!” Eddie dropped his hand after feeling Richie smiling beneath it. He wiped his hand on the side of his pant leg, giving a roll of his eyes.
 They continued walking in silence for a minute or two, the fog of their breath intermingling in front of them, the smile still firmly planted on Richie’s face as his eyes stared blankly in front of him, the trash mouth totally caught up in whatever his mind was currently fixated on. He looked happy. And not just the joking happy he usually was around them, or the fake happy he sometimes believed he was using to cover up whatever it was he really felt. His cheeks and ears were rosy, the apple of his cheeks and nose speckled with freckles Eddie was always a little jealous of. Even those stupid glasses of his suited him perfectly.
“You’re cute too.” 
“What?” Richie’s head snapped right over to look at Eddie, his eyes wide with shock as a sort of confusion riddled his features. His body jerked to a stop as well, though they now were right outside Richie’s apartment building doors. Eddie’s cheeks grew even hotter, and he ducked his face slightly down to hide it in his own scarf. Embarrassment and anxiety overtook his body in one fatal swoop. But he said it. Admitted what he too had always thought. He was drunk for Christ’s sake! Richie probably wouldn’t even remember it in the morning. Eddie might as well ride this wave of bravery since it was here.  
Rubbing a hand over his mouth as if stifling the words would somehow help, Eddie muttered once again, “I said I think you’re cute too.” He resisted the urge to cover it up with some half-hearted angry joke like he was used too. He felt vulnerable and unprotected. He felt nervous. Scared.
Richie gently reached out his hand—never having done anything gently in his life—and gripped onto Eddie’s hand, removing it from his face as he half-cocked his head like a curious puppy. “Are you sure you’re not the drunk one?” He half-laughed, though his question seemed less teasing and more imploring. Like he was offering a way for Eddie to back out.
Eddie said nothing, but also didn’t try to pull away. Both just simply stared at each other, unsure of what to say or do. Snow softly landed on their now intertwined fingers, melting at the touch of their shared heat. It wasn’t like Eddie had confessed his feelings or anything, but it was the closest he’d gotten to it. There was a charge in the air, brought upon by a shift between them neither could name or place.
Laughter from behind them broke the moment, as both eyes flashed over to a group of people crossing their path, walking home in the late night as well. Eddie dropped his hand and slightly cleared his throat, stating, “we should probably get you inside.” Richie wordlessly nodded his head, almost like he was in a dazed stupor as he shoved his hands in his pockets to try and dig out his keys. Once he’d gotten them out, Eddie sighed and took them from his grip, unlocking the front apartment door and walking inside, Richie trailing behind him. 
Walking up the single flight of stairs, Eddie went and unlocked the second set of doors that actually led into his apartment and held it open for Richie to step inside. Flicking on the lights, he watched as Richie struggled to get out of his boots as he leaned against the wall, nibbling nervously on his bottom lip. His body still felt charged and uncertain at the same time. 
“Well, I should go,” Eddie murmured softly, turning towards the door before a hand shot out to rest on the wall behind him, caging him there. Eddie turned a startled eye towards Richie, who’s hair had gotten curlier in the wet of the snow, falling into his eyes so much so that it was hard to read the expression there. 
“Wait, I, uh,” Richie stammered, unusually so. Looking down at his feet, he dropped his arm and glanced back up, offering a quiet, “thanks... for walking me home.”
Eddie stared at the boy, only for a moment, before a smile broke out on his face, and a small laugh escaped him. Man, it was weird seeing him act this way. It was like the roles had been reversed. “Yeah, well, you’re pretty useless if you don’t have a baby sitter,” he joked, reaching out to swipe some of the hair out of his eyes.
Richie’s eyes were wide in surprise, tension melting, but his lips curved up into a similar grin. “Oh, please, you do it because you love me.” 
Eddie snorted, shoving his shoulder as he said, “that may be so, but—” before quickly shutting up and averting his gaze anywhere but his friend in front of him. Shit. This is what happened when he let his guard down.
He fucking just inadvertently told him he loved him. Hopefully, he didn’t think anything of it. He was drunk after all, and it wasn’t like it was—
Oh. No. Yeah, the trash mouth totally understood if his reaching out to touch Eddie’s jaw to get him to look back at him was any indication at all.
“Richie,” Eddie started, but before he could finish, soft lips were on his in a needy and desperate way. Eddie could barely react to what was happening as his body was pressed hard against the wall behind him, Richie pinning him there with his own weight as his hands moved to grip his face. He could taste the dull alcohol on his breath, but honestly, Eddie couldn’t care less. His thoughts got cloudy, and he just simply let himself react back, gripping Richie jackets and trying to tug him closer if that were even possible.
Richie was the one to break away first if only to catch his breath. His hands were on Eddie’s face, inching upward to curl themselves into his hair and messing up all the effort it took for Eddie to tame it into place. Eddie sighed into the touch, releasing his grip on the man and letting his hand trail up to brush his fingertips lightly across his freckled cheeks. He studied them one by one and Richie’s own eyes explored Eddie’s expression.
“Is this real?” 
Richie’s voice, though soft in tone, jarred Eddie out of whatever state he had been in. Dropping his hand, the realization of what just happened crashed over Eddie, and he all but squeaked out a “what?” in a lame reply. Did Richie not know what he was doing? Did he regret it? Oh shit. Oh, Fuck.
“I just want to make sure I didn’t actually slip and crack my head on the pavement out there. I don’t want this to be another dream.” 
Did he just say another dream?
“Then what do you want it to be?” Eddie hesitantly asked.
“Real. Do you know how shitty it’s been waking up with blue balls all these years? I can’t fucking—”
Eddie rolled his eyes, cutting him off with a curt, “beep beep, Richie,” before lifting his face back up and giving him a hungry kiss back. Richie took that as all the incentive he needed. Almost without breaking their lips apart, Richie struggled Eddie out of his coat, just as Eddie slipped off Richie’s glasses and tossed them to the floor, before fighting him out of his shirt just after. Hands were everywhere, skimming across skin that was growing increasingly hot, gripping at anything to keep each other cemented in place.
Eddie moved away only to trail his lips against Richie’s jaw, nibbling slightly as Richie groaned into his ear. Moving his hand up, Richie dragged Eddie’s lips back to his as the smaller of the two let out a low moan. Richie used to opportunity to taste Eddie with his tongue, his hand slowly moving closer to the waistband on the other’s jeans— 
Eddie shoved him back and a huff of breath, repeatedly saying, “wait, wait, wait.”
Richie stepped back immediately, chest still rising rapidly as he attempted to catch his breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to push you further than you were willing to go,” he breathed out uncertainty in his face. 
Eddie shook his head, cheeks coloured red from growing embarrassment. “No, it’s not that. You’re still drunk, and I uh, I think we should stop before you do something you regret.” 
Richie paused at that before he let out a boisterous laugh. “Regret? I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. Come back here,” he stated, as he reached out to Eddie once again.
Eddie slapped his hand away. “Richie,” he said in a warning tone, “just … we’ll see how you feel tomorrow, okay?”
Richie rolled his eyes as he dropped another kiss to Eddie’s soft lips, a little more gently this time and resigned. “Fine. Will you stay?”
“If you do stay, can you two be a little quieter?”
Jumping apart, both Eddie and Richie turned a shocked look towards a sleepy-looking Stan, curls mussed and bird printed boxer shorts wrinkled from sleep. “You were slamming each other up against the wall of my room, you dicks.”
Eddie stood there with a horrified look on his features, wondering how he’d forgotten at that moment that Stan was Richie’s roommate. Richie, however, couldn’t stop the laugh that came out of him at Stan’s grumpy features. Or at least, he couldn’t stop it, not until his face suddenly dropped, and he began running to the bathroom with a called-out statement of, “I’m going to get sick.” There’s the alcohol catching up to him. Douche.
Stan shook his head, moving to the kitchen with a passing comment of, “yeah, I think I am too.” Still, Eddie didn’t miss the slight grin quirking up Stan’s lips.
In fact, it looked a lot like his own at that moment.
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annecoulmanross · 4 years
Text
A World That Was Meant for Our Eyes to See
I realized that I’d never seen a post-canon canon-compliant (aka afterlife) rossier fic à la some of the beautiful afterlife-fitzier fics I’ve read. So, I tried my hand at a short rossier thing.
For @frauncis, whose beautiful playlist “To The Ends of the Earth” was an excellent source of inspiration, and a wonderful writing soundtrack for this insanity.
(for the @theterrorbingo square “out in the fog” | pairing: Francis Crozier / James Clark Ross, background James Clark Ross / Anne Coulman Ross | word count: 2185 plus endnote | rating: T | warnings: blurred boundary between dreams and reality; nightmares; angst with a happy ending)
How I do miss you, how I do miss you…. the words hung in the air, whispering like arctic wind around Sir James Clark Ross, who lay curled around himself in bed, gathering the energy to open his eyes.
He was so tired, so very tired.
And these last years had been exquisitely painful.
How I do miss you, believe me; believe me, believe me yours….
It was time to face another endless day: without Anne, without Francis. Ross steeled himself, thinking of the tasks to be done for the Admiralty, the letters he didn’t have the will to write.
With a great effort Ross opened his eyes, expecting to see the yellow-patterned walls of his bedchamber at Aston Abbotts, but the sight that greeted him was a solid sheet of grey. He realized that he was surrounded by a devouring fog, a thick soup that blanketed the landscape around him in all directions. In place of his bed with its crisp white sheets, he lay in a pile of furs on the smooth flat surface of the pack-ice.
Ross scrambled up and turned about, looking around for some landmark, and his eyes quickly found a dark shape towering over him. Looming out into the fog was the hull of a very familiar ship. Ross lifted up his hand and felt the icy boards of Erebus beneath his fingers.
I cannot bear going on board Erebus, how I do miss you….
Ross sighed. However real it felt, it was just another dream, he knew now.
Many nights he had been visited by these visions; they had become only more frequent since his dear Anne had passed away five years ago.
Each night he would awake in the fog, lit only by the dim shadows of the arctic sun’s departed flame, like a piece of sail-cloth pulled over Ross’s eyes. He would peer frantically through the mysterious gloom, searching, always searching and never finding.
Well. Almost never.
On the worst nights, Ross would be stumbling over the frozen flood of the ice-field, and he would slip, and the ice would crack, and he would drop into the dark oblivion of the sea. Deep in the icy depths, he would see nothing but darkness, and yet he would feel cold, dead flesh beneath his fingers and shudder at the touch.
Or even worse than that, Ross would lose his footing and crash onto the unforgiving ice, only to find himself lying amongst the “relics,” the scraps that Rae and McClintock had brought to him, offering up those clothes and bones and fragments like triumphant crusaders displaying the remains of some poor saint ripped from a peaceful grave in the holy land. And Ross would not be able to move for fear of crushing some precious object, in terror of breaking some fragile bone that had once belonged, perhaps, to a man he had loved.
Those were the bad nights.
One night, Ross had slipped on the ice and fallen and dropped right into his own parlor room at Aston Abbotts. Ross had been certain that he had awoken for real then, but all at once he heard a voice calling to him, as if from the next room over.
…. I would like to have seen your place…. said that familiar voice, and Ross had leapt to his feet, frantic. He rushed toward the sound, but it floated ever further and further away, through the corridors of the house, still speaking in that lovely, sardonic, Irish burr ….that I might often picture to myself your little employments….
Ross had wandered through room after room, chasing that dear sound as the voice of Francis spoke to him, growing more and more distant: ….one thing is certain, meet when we may it will be to me a source of heart felt pleasure.…
Eventually, the echo faded into the quiet air, and Ross had found himself sitting beside the water behind the house, looking out through the thin mist toward where he knew the two little islands lay. His very own unmoving Terror and Erebus – surely their shores were now ringed with ice, just like the rime of hoarfrost around the bank where he now sat. He had shivered, but could not feel the cold, only imagine it, only imagine how cold it must have been, like his days with Parry, or with his Uncle John – but, for Francis, unending, fatal, freezing the breath out of his lungs.
After that dream, when Ross had awoken to the real dawning day, he had gone down to the water and held his hands under the surface until they were blue, and Anne had scolded him mightily when she awoke, pressing his cold fingers to her neck to warm them.  
But now even his dear Anne was gone, and Ross was truly alone, amidst this growing gloom.
The sky above, though still gray, darkened as though with oncoming night, and Ross huddled closer to Erebus’s hull. He turned his face in toward her planking, and breathed in, pretending he could smell the familiar blend of salt and pitch and paint and caulking. The fog might continue to curl around his back, but Ross took no notice, until –
“How I have missed you, James.”
Ross couldn’t bring himself to turn around. That familiar voice sounded so close, so real, but had it not always? This was just another dream. He would turn around and Francis would be nowhere to be found. Francis would disappear into the air like so much smoke.
“James dear, will you not come to me?”
Ross trembled and would not turn. He pressed his hand more firmly to the curved wall of Erebus, imagining that the wood grain was novel to his touch, and not just a well-known and well-loved sensation conjured up by a grieving mind out of many years’ memories.
“James?”
Ross heard firm footsteps behind him, but he would not turn – not if it meant the voice would cease, vanishing into the fog around him.
And then –
– Ross startled, feeling a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Francis was still speaking, so close, “James dear, please tell me you are alright–” and Ross was in chaos, trying to explain how he might be able to feel Francis’s hand. Surely such a thing could not be possible.
Ross kept his eyes firmly shut, but he reached a shaking hand up to his own shoulder. There he found familiar fingers, and slotted his own in between them, marveling in the warmth and weight. Ross tried to speak, “I–”
Francis’s thumb moved comfortingly against his neck, and Ross could find no more words.
“I am here, James, truly.”
Ross could resist it no more. He gripped the hand on his shoulder tightly – so that this specter could not slip from his grasp – and, finally, he turned.
It was like seeing the glowing pole for the first time: bright, overwhelming, the tenderness in Francis Crozier’s face as pure as the heaven’s own light. He looked just has Ross had remembered him from their earliest days together – that bright hair still golden, not yet dulled to grey, and his mouth set in a wide smile that showed the charming gap between his front teeth. Even his dress uniform was gilded and bright and twenty years out of fashion.
“You–” Ross swallowed. “Francis, it is you.”
Francis tightened his lips and arched a brow, as Ross knew him to do when he was hiding a laugh.
“Yes, James dear.”
Ross gripped the hand that he held more fervently. “How–” his voice was rough, labored. He began again, “How are you here?” Ross managed to get out in a flood of wonder. “Where have you been? Why do I dream you now?”
Francis tilted his head. “You are not dreaming anymore – that is why.”
“But then what am I doing, Francis?”
The look in Francis’s eyes held such tenderness as he spoke, “You are speaking with me again, at last, my friend. We are past dreams, now.”
“Past dreams? Francis, you never used to talk in riddles!”
“Oh James,” Francis said. “You’ve passed over at last. You’ve passed – on.”
Ross gaped. Surely he hadn’t been cruel enough in life to earn a place in some hellish purgatory of fog? But he now realized that the thick mist was clearing, its weak eddies swirling only around his legs, as the vast concave arch of the sky glittered above with stars. The beauty of the Arctic, his best friend standing before him once again – what more would Ross wish from heaven?
Perhaps Ross had in fact passed on; he had recently  felt tired enough that it could be true. And it did explain Francis: found, after all those years. Had he been lost in the fog that whole time? Ross shuddered.
“Then – Francis, tell me you haven’t been trapped here since–”
Francis shook his head. “I admit I have been here not long, but no, James. This place is bigger than it seems. We are not trapped at all, but free to wander between wonders, both Erebus and Terror, the comforts of home and the wide world. We are even given leave to see the ones we’ve lost at our leisure. All we lack is those we’ve left behind, and they come back to us one by one. I’ve waited for you, my friend – though, I admit, not for as long as you might suppose.”
“Then you are alright?” Ross asked. “You seem well.”
Francis nodded. “I’ve had my time to heal and mend – as will you. Only those with the ice in their hearts awaken out here on the pack; many find themselves awakening at the house, in comfort. I hoped that for you.”
“The house?”
“Well, the one our merry band uses,” Francis said. “Back on the cliffside not far from here. You can come meet the others – they’ll come back to the ships later, but most are at home tonight.”
“So, your men, they are all here?” Ross asked.
Francis nodded. “Among others – their loved ones, as many as have arrived. I think you’ll find one or two loved ones waiting for you too.” A mystery twinkled in Francis’s eye, but Ross allowed him this secret – for now. The grim reality, though apparently far from Francis’s mind, had captured Ross’s thoughts. What all those men had suffered, that they should be here, now. What Francis had suffered.
“I am sorry,” Ross said firmly. “Pleasant as you make this place sound, you should not have been made to endure what you did. The things the Esquimaux told me – god, Francis.” Ross fought back the urge to sob.
Suddenly, Francis’s palm was warm against Ross’s cheek, soothing.
“I looked for you – oh god Francis, I’m so sorry. I wish I had never let you go. I wish I had gone with you. I wish I’d gone instead.”
“James.” Francis’s voice was all warmth. “I would not wish that for all the world. It is over now, and you are here, and there is nothing that cannot be mended.” He was so close now, cradling Ross’s face with one hand, while the other hand was grasped tightly in both of Ross’s own.
Ross could bear it not a second more. He broke his hold of Francis’s hand so that he might throw his arms around Francis’s shoulders. “God–” he gasped, having knocked the breath out of himself with his unexpected forcefulness.  
Francis laughed, truly this time, and passed a hand through Ross’s fiery hair, brushing the waves away from his face, and Ross shivered. Francis was looking at him so intently, Ross almost could not bear the weight of his gaze. It was like all sensation had come back to him after five years, after nearly twenty, and the sudden rush of feeling threatened to fire his blood into something more youthful.
Almost without a thought, Ross leaned toward Francis and kissed him, deep and true.
Francis hummed into the kiss, and Ross broke off with a gasp, shocked at himself. But Francis smiled on, and pressed his lips slowly to Ross’s red-stubbled jaw, and then his smooth cheek, and then the corner of his mouth.
Ross felt his breath linger, sharp and high, quivering in the air between them.
They were beyond the edge of departed fame, here. The floating clouds of fog had dispersed, and there was nothing left but Francis before him, the crisp cold air around them, and the splendors of Aurora’s fire that rolled, unceasing, above them.
The second time, when Ross kissed Francis it was slower and more hesitant, but no less welcome by any measure. A soft blazing flame burned between them. Ross treasured every warm, velvet touch of Francis’s lips.
Finally, Ross broke away to wrap his arms more firmly around Francis’s shoulders, and felt Francis’s answering embrace around his ribs, those strong arms gathering him in. He leaned into his dear friend, burying his head in the shallow curve of Francis’s shoulder, and at last, at long last, James Clark Ross wept.
~
Source notes: The title is from title from “Ends of the Earth” by Lord Huron, from the aforementioned lovely rossier playlist. The quotations in italics are from a letter Francis wrote to Ross on July 9th 1845. You can read it here if you like crying. Interspersed within the text are a number of phrases stolen indiscriminately from a poem Ross wrote when he was a young man on the Parry expedition, called “Lines Suggested by the Brilliant Aurora, January 15, 1820,” which was published in The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle, no. 14, January 31, 1820. You can read it here. The historical timeline relevant to this story is that Lady Anne Ross died in 1857, and James Clark Ross died five years later, in 1862. In my version of this universe, Francis Crozier passed on sometime between the two, perhaps around 1860, at around the age of 64. (I’m sorry to kill him so young but he still lasted longer than Ross did, historically! Ross was only 62 – ouch, I hurt myself there.) Visually, I imagine that they’re somewhere around their 1839 selves here, perhaps; just a bit younger than in the show.
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