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liz-allyn · 1 year

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sugar and vice, pt. 18 [mob!tasm!peter x fem!reader]

summary: everything you need to know about the woman with no name.

words: 6.4k

chapter warning: heavy chapter warnings for s-lf h-rm/ s--cide. Read at your own risk.

series warnings: mob-typical bang bang violence, wh-mp. hurt/comfort. s-xu-l situations. spousal ab-se. family trauma. dr-g use. coercion. manipulation. kidnapping. gore. blood. toxic/yandere!peter (maybe, sorta), negative self talk, shameless forced proximity trope. ‘only ten one bed oops’ trope, imprisonment. slowest burn. a dash of questionable and/or morally grey intentions. extremely toxic relationships.

This version of TASM Peter is not canon. The relationships and characters here are not healthy.

Don't date a mob boss.™️

18+ You’re responsible for your own media consumption, but if you never laid awake at night in a cold sweat, afraid the FBI was going to break down your door because you downloaded a Metallica song on Kaazaa, then well, wait was it just me? oh. okay then. minors dni.

Back to Part 17.

Part 18

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5),1 defines dissociation as a disruption, interruption, and/or discontinuity of the normal, subjective integration of behavior, memory, identity, consciousness, emotion, perception, body representation, and motor control.

This was another dream.

She was dreaming again.

The DSM-5 dissociative disorders (DD) are:

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID);

Dissociative Amnesia (DA);*

Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder (DPDRD);

Other Specified Dissociative Disorders (OSDD);

Unspecified Dissociative Disorder (UDD).

She was having an out-of-body experience. Like astral projection. Everything she saw through her own eyes were the actions of someone she was ghosting over.

Her life wasn’t happening to her.

She was dreaming.

Having a really bad dream.

*In DSM-5 Dissociative Fugue (DF) is now a subtype of Dissociative Amnesia (DA), and not a separate disorder.

That’s what she kept telling herself.

This is a nightmare. It’s only a nightmare.

This is a nightmare.

This can’t be happening. Can’t be real.

The DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) now include a Dissociative Subtype (PTSD-DS). Dissociative amnesia as a symptom is a diagnostic criterion for both DID and for PTSD. Criteria for PTSD-DS are that reminders of the PTSD Criterion: A traumatic stressor lead to depersonalization/derealization symptoms. In DSM-5, the DD section is specifically placed after the Trauma-and-Stressor Related Disorders to show their relationship to traumatic experiences. 1

She was calm.

Heart steady.

She wasn’t sweating this time. Wasn’t pissing herself.

Why would she? This was all a dream.

A strange dream—with John and Peter looking at her like she was a sight for sore eyes. They both wore a smirk. Both of them sharing a secret.

And Felicia was there. And Eddie was there. Johnny Storm, too. Miguel was there—magically reanimated.

What a strange dream. Who else was going to make an appearance? Jesus? Her third-grade teacher? Tod?

None of that really mattered, though. Nothing really mattered. So much so, she wouldn’t even remember what happened next.

How surprising was it, then, to wake up standing in the middle of Peter’s office. Felicia and Eddie lingered near the doorway. Peter stood across from her, eyes wide and alert.

He was speaking to her. Muddled words. It really looked like she should be listening.

But how did she get here?

Oh well. It didn’t matter.

This is a dream. Nothing can hurt you in a dream. Even if you die, you don’t really die. There was nothing to worry about. Everything was fine.

Her fingers were cold, though, wrapped around cold metal. Black as night. She was holding a gun. How strange.

Peter was standing at the barrel end of it. The pistol that had been hidden in his desk. Her finger was on the trigger. Hand shaking.

“Honey,” Peter's voice echoed against her eardrum. He sounded far away. He sounded like he was inside her head. “Please, just talk to me.”

Suddenly, she was awake.

Her heart sped up, eyes focusing sharply as the color drained from them, swallowed up by the black holes of her pupils. She took deep breaths through flared nostrils. Cold perspiration trickled down the nape of her neck, sending shivers down her spine.

She stood with her back to the office windows. Blinding daylight drenching the horrified expressions of the people surrounding her. Boxing her in. Closing a gap around her. Locking her into a trap.

That wasn’t going to work. She had the key in her hands. She had the key to it all.

“Honey,” Peter repeated, his voice featherlike yet full of terror. He fixed her with wide eyes, hands up at his shoulders to placate her. He inched closer.

“Stay back!” she barked, eyes feral. She suddenly noticed the tears on her face. Goddamn it, she’s crying again. When did that happen?

“It’s me, baby,” Peter cooed at her. “Jus’ me—”

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice cracking with the force of thunder. It was a wretched, vicious sound. “Who the fuck are you, really?”

He blinked in confusion, reeling in a step backward. Too far to reach for her. Her eyes darted frantically, searching the faces of Felicia and Eddie. Searching for danger. Searching for safety. Searching for any way out.

John wasn’t in the room. He could be hiding around the corner for all she knew. Hiding in her closet or under her bed.

Her lower lip wobbled. There wasn’t a way out.

Her heart wrenched in her chest. “Why did you pick me?” she desperately whimpered, returning to Peter. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Her voice was small and fragile, like a sugar glass figurine. Blinking rapidly, he furrowed his eyebrows, staring at her in confusion.

“Okay, Honeybun,” Felicia chimed in, singsong. “Let’s all just calm down, shall we?”

Honey jerked her arm, pointing the gun at Felicia. She shrieked, jabbing her with each word, “I wasn’t talking to you, you lying bitch!”

Felicia raised one of her brows and muttered barely above her breath, “Not with that tone, you’re not…”

“Cat,” she heard Peter gently admonish, a warning in his tone.

Slowly, he took another step towards the gun, mapping the distance between him and the bullet's path. Honey responded to the subtle movement like the cracking of a whip. In an instant, she was back on him, her watery glare and shaky aim directed at his chest.

“Is Miles in on this too?” she wept breathlessly, rage filling her lungs and suffocating any sense of trust. “Is Bella already dead? Did you fucking hurt her? Tell me the goddamn truth, Peter!”

Peter shook his head, exasperated. “What—I-I don’t—what are you—?”

She cut his sentence short. “I saw what you did to that woman!”

Peter froze. Eyes wide, lips parting.

Fury surged through her, bulging her veins and twitching her muscles.

“You asshole—you fucking tell me that you love me, that there’s no one else, and you had that fucking stripper-whore all over you!”

His jaw locked, eyes filling with remorse. Voice dropped to a whisper. “I can explain—”

“And then you murdered her!” she spat, words burning like acid. “You mutilated her! You fucking monster!”

Hot tears spilled down her cheeks, blurring her vision. Sharp crimson splatters and deep umber stains replaced it like frames of a snuff film on celluloid.

“Dumped her body like a used condom, you motherfucker!”

He lifted his chin, shame shadowing his face. His expression was as good as a confession in her eyes.

“Is that what you were gonna do to me?” she hotly demanded.

Peter grimaced at the question like she’d already fired the bullet. Finally, desperation overtook him as he opened his mouth to speak.

Eddie blurted out, “That ain't how it happened—”

Peter shot a warning glare over at him, face turning pale. Eddie bit his tongue, but the damage was done. Angry eyes were now fixed on him, their black holes threatening to tear them all apart.

“You knew about this?” she hissed, horror spreading across her face. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?” She was vibrating with self-righteous rage, her features melting into a vicious sob.

Eddie buttoned up his lips, helpless against her betrayed expression.

Jaw agape, Felicia shot a frustrated glare at both men. “Jesus Christ.”

“I know what it looks like,” Peter cut in, desperate to regain her attention and refocus her wrath on him alone. “But he’s tellin’ the truth, okay? You’re right, you're right, but that’s not how it went down. I swear it, I-I don’t remember—I-I didn’t even know what happened—”

“You know everything, Peter, you always know everything!” the heartbroken woman sneered lividly, mocking him. “You know everything about me, doncha? What’d he tell you? Huh? Did you already know I was married?”

The room fell silent. Peter gazed at her, a crease painted between his brows. He glanced at Felicia, who mirrored his expression, before turning back. “I… didn’t.”

“You didn’t, huh?” she seethed, her anger simmering with anguish and shame. “You couldn’t find the marriage certificate? You wanna know why?”

He stared at her, blinking. Jaw opening and closing.

“Because I forged my sister’s signature and stole the savings in her bank account! I used it to pay off an old creep at the county clerk’s office!” She hissed with a twisted mouth, as if the words tasted rancid on her tongue, “Five grand and a blow job were all it took to erase the shittiest mistake of my life.”

Peter stared with eyes like saucers. Despite his desperate attempt to keep his face neutral, he reflected silent shock.

“I was high when I met John,” Honey added, her voice trembling. This time, she leveled her contempt toward Eddie. “Did he tell you that, too?” She pictured every sentence as a knife wound. Each punctuation was a twist of the blade.

“Stole two of my mom’s Xanaxs,” she hiccuped, swallowing her sobs in an effort to force out the words. “Let him fuck me in the back seat of his car with a camera in my face. He came in my mouth, and I cried on camera, and I told him I wanted to kill myself and asked him to murder my mother.”

The words spilled out of her in a frantic blather, vile puss spewing from old wounds. “I used to sneak into the kitchen at night, turn on the gas, and think about blowing up my family. Me. My little sisters. I didn’t care! Did he tell you about that?!”

Peter’s eyes shimmered with tears. Opening his mouth felt like prying apart steel. Despite that, he kept his words gentle. “Honey. Whatever happened, we can talk it out—”

She blurted out a livid laugh, hot tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, you wanna talk to me?” She pointed her finger, jabbing it at the doorway. “Talk to him!” Felicia and Eddie glanced at the door, both of them perplexed. “Let him tell you how he used to get drunk and pass me around to all his friends like a fucking Fleshlight!”

Peter flinched at the noise her voice made, cracking like glass. Her lip wobbled as she fixed him with giant, horrified eyes. She looked as if a sudden realization struck her.

“Is that what you were gonna do to me?” she cried in a tiny voice. “Were you two gonna share me after you fucked with me? Was that the plan all along?”

His face was clouded with bewildered horror.

Conversely, her vision was crystal-clear. Everything suddenly made sense to her. She didn’t know how he did it, but she knew.

John and Peter were working together. They were always working together. She had never escaped either of them.

John knew where her apartment was. Peter did too.

John was waiting outside of her mother’s home. Peter was waiting inside.

Peter kidnapped her whole family. He held Bella hostage. John knew where to find them.

John had pictures of Bella. He had pictures of Gabriella.

Peter had pictures of her, too.

John was Peter. Peter was John.

She was stupid. Stupid, stupid girl.

“Nothing is free!” she was muttering aimlessly, babbling without realizing it. Giant sobs racked through her. “Nothing is safe! Can’t trust anyone—they’ll do anything they need to to survive. That’s what I did! I survived!”

“Please,” Peter’s voice cut through, recapturing her attention. “Please, please, baby.” His eyes shimmered with desperation. “You got this all wrong. I don’t know—I-I-I never meant to hurt you like this. I swear.”

She shook her head, fat tears spilling down her cheeks. “Were you lying to me about Gwen, too, you fucking bastard? She didn’t fall, did she?”

“Honey—”

“Did she?!”

“She jumped!” Peter yelped, his heart shattering as the words escaped his throat.

The gasp that followed seemed to reverberate off the walls. It was as if every sound in New York went quiet. A blaring, piercing silence that made eardrums ache. Peter looked devastated, on the verge of collapse. She settled her stern gaze on him, watching his face crumple. He brought his hands up through his hair, tugging his scalp hard enough to tear. He bit down hard on his lip to keep from screaming.

Gobsmacked stares from the other side of the room confirmed that this was a piece of information that no one had.

Looking stoic and shattered, he sucked a big breath in and out, keeping his jaw firm. Wiped at his nose. Dug his fingers into his hips.

“I didn’t want this life for her,” he finally muttered, silent tears flowing. “She was a smart woman. Smarter than me. She was supposed to do something—something amazing with her life. She wanted to help people.” He swallowed hard, apparitions playing in his gaze. “The fear. The violence. It took a toll. She tucked it away inside. Never let it show.”

He gulped, running a hand down his face to clear his watery eyes. “They, uh, came after us, and-and she killed someone. She had to. I tried to tell her that but... she never was the same. Somethin’… somethin’ ate her alive. From the inside out.”

His brows furrowed, heartache seizing his expression. “I didn’t see it.” He sounded like a wounded animal. In many ways, he was. “I didn’t see what it was doing to her. Not until it was too late.”

He went quiet. The tears that rimmed his eyes flowed free. He marinated in agony and self-resentment. His voice was calm with resolve.

“I destroyed her,” he said. “And I’ll never forgive myself for that.” He lifted his heavy eyes. “I don’t know how else to say it to you. But I’d rather die before I let that happen again. So if you’re gonna shoot one of us, shoot me.” They locked gazes with each other, his eyes swelling with tears. “I’ve had it comin’ for a long time.”

Her arm was beginning to shake from the weight of the weapon.

His doe eyes fixed on her. She couldn’t read them anymore. Too afraid of the next chapter. Too weary for the following sentence.

But none of that mattered anymore. Because this was all just a dream.

“Maybe she had the right idea,” Honey whispered, her lip wobbling. She closed her eyes. Put the gun to her own head.

The sound of the gunshot deafened her, swallowed up by an unholy roar.

She didn’t expect the falling sensation. She was expecting pain—maybe. She was expecting a tunnel or a big white light. Or maybe for it all to go pitch black. Maybe she was expecting nothing at all.

But she was falling backward unexpectedly. The gun tumbled from her reach. Tentacles wrapped around her arms, oily, cold, and slick. Like a primordial monster out of the ocean depths.

They encircled her entire body. Constricting around her waist. Wrapped around her throat. Locking her ankles in place.

When she looked up, Hell wasn’t what she expected. She didn’t expect the Devil to have oozing, inky, onyx flesh. Or dead white eyes that wrapped around its skull. She expected horns. But not a mouth the size of a Great White’s with twice as many teeth.

Certainly, not that tongue. Twisting. Dripping. Like a black serpent slithering from his mouth.

“Pete, no!”

Eddie was here too. How did Eddie get here?

Then, she felt the pain.

The still-healing crack in her bone buckled as her ribcage was compressed. She thought her pelvis would be next as the tentacle's heavy, crushing, constricting force closed around her hips and waist. Another thick mass squeezed her throat. The air was being forced from her lungs as the ooze gripped tighter.

“What the fuck is that?”

Felicia. She sounded surprised. She sounded terrified.

Honey was terrified too. Opened her mouth wide to scream. But she couldn’t. No air. She couldn’t breathe. All she could do was gaze up at that horrifying Cheshire smile as it grew wider. The monster loomed larger. It was getting bigger. Towering over her.

It would be over soon, she hoped.

“Pete!” Eddie again.

This time, the beast let go.

She was tossed backward, flung through the air, landing hard against the side of the desk. After taking a deep, painful gasp, she fine-tuned her attention to what was happening in real-time.

A steel blade glinted in Felicia’s hand as she buried it deep into the black tentacle of the monster beneath her.

Miguel was in the room now, keeping himself from being dragged off by the creature with repeated jabs into its flesh. He flexed his wrist, and a set of razor-sharp blades, curved like talons, retracted from a device mounted on his forearm. He hit the monster with the spines of his arm guard, causing it to cry out with a shrieking squelch.

The real damage was done by Eddie. He held a pressurized canister of dust cleaner in one hand and a lighter in the other. Igniting a spark turned the spray into a blow torch. A column of fire shot out, lashing at the monster’s body. It shrank backward, retracting its shape.

“The window!” Eddie shouted, his voice nearly lost in the creature’s shrieks. “Felicia, take out the window!”

Gunshots rang out. Honey covered her ears as glass rained down into a crashing cascade. The monster screamed with a noise similar to nails on a chalkboard as cold air rushed into the office.

In a moment, everything was silent. The monster vanished.

And so had Peter.

An hour had passed. The great room was eerily silent, even with the gang gathered there.

John was in the wind, having slithered away. Johnny Storm had been escorting him to the garage just as Honey was retrieving Peter’s gun. Walker was gone before anyone knew what was happening.

Honey gazed down at a wound on her right thigh—a scrape from being tossed across Peter’s office. The ring in her ears from the gunshot was only now fading. Her head was throbbing. Although if Peter had been a quarter-second later knocking the weapon away, there’d be a hole in it.

Whatever healing her rib had accomplished had likely been undone by the desk. Or the—fuck, is tentacles even the right word?—the fierce grip of the monster.

Whatever healing she had accomplished was undone. All of it, out the window. Whisked away with the monster living inside of Peter.

Which the Spider family had now seen.

Once her sense of hearing had returned, Honey tuned in to the conversation again.

They had questions for her. They had questions in general, minds swirling with confusion and doubt. They were squabbling over facts, terrified by truths they weren’t ready for. Everyone, except Eddie, holding a solemn gaze on the windows outside.

Felicia was beyond questioning and had progressed to action. She paced the floor in the room, eyes firm. It wasn’t a nervous tick, although fear was not an inappropriate response. Instead, she looked more like a general strategizing in the war room.

That’s precisely what this was—a war. Honey could see that now—with secrets, spies, and death. Everyone was a casualty. The lines were blurred.

Even amongst Peter’s team.

Johnny sat on one side of the sectional with a pout on his face, and his arms crossed against his chest. “Wait, none of you were going to tell me that he was a psycho?” he protested. “Christ, I walked that guy to his car! I could’ve been killed!”

Miguel held an ice pack to the welt on his face. His response was colder. “Clearly, we were worried sick.”

Disgusted, Johnny whined, “You all left me out of your plan!”

“You’re not the only one,” Eddie muttered bitterly, staring at the black sky.

Felicia spun on her heel, facing the beefy hothead. “Johnny,” she began calmly, “I appreciate that this has been a real challenge for you. It’s been hard on all of us. And I want to be able to address your concerns. But for now? Do me a favor. Put a pin in it. And Shut. The Fuck. Up.”

Her raised voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling. With a scowl, Johnny wedged himself back further into the sofa. But he was silent.

Felicia turned her ire towards Eddie. “And you’ve got a lotta nerve bitching about secrets, Brock. You and Pete left out a couple of crucial details about Vegas.”

“Look, we can point fingers later,” Miguel sighed, agitated. He slapped the ice pack on the sofa cushions next to him. “Right now, we have bigger problems.” He fixed Honey with a stern gaze. “You’re the one who's been in communication with him. What can you tell us?”

Honey glared up at him coldly from beneath the fringe of her lashes. Didn’t bother to move her head or her slouched position in the armchair. “His name is John Walker,” she glowered. “He’s a Leo. And a vegetarian.”

Miguel’s lips straightened into a line. “Preferably something useful.”

“He’s a Fed and an asshole.”

Miguel huffed sardonically, “Okay, then. Something we don’t already know.”

Eyes flashing red, she hissed, “If you knew anything, you would know not to fuck with him!” Now sitting up in the chair, her vicious bite gave him pause. “He’s the devil,” she said. “He’s ten times worse than anything you’ve come up against.”

“I highly doubt that,” Miguel scoffed.

“You think this is a joke?” she snapped back, seething. “I’ve watched him destroy lives. Not just end them—destroy! The more violent, the better. He’s a cancer. He’s everywhere. He’s inside everything. He’s the man behind the curtain. The monster at the end of the book.” She fixed them with a grave expression, full of bitter resentment. “And one way or another, he always wins.”

Miguel shook his head with a sigh. “Look, no disrespect to what you’ve gone through, but you’re not—”

“You don’t know a goddamn thing about what I’ve gone through!” Her voice snapped like a whip, crashing like thunder. Miguel’s mouth snapped shut. “If you did,” she spitefully said, “if you knew what he was—you wouldn’t breathe the same air as him, let alone work with him!”

Felicia stepped into her field of vision, fixing her with a firm gaze. “Listen to me,” she said, her voice low and calm. “We are not with him. Never were. I need you to understand that right now.”

Honey blinked up at her skeptically, the corners of her mouth downturned.

“We were never against you,” Felicia explained, lips tight. She downcasted her eyes with a bitter scowl. “He came to us about the same time you did. We knew ‘Steve Rogers’ was a sham. The social security number on his accounts belonged to a real Steve Rogers, who died in 1945.” Honey’s brow furrowed curiously. Felicia continued, “Figured he was a Fed, but we couldn’t crack his identity. Whoever hid him hid him well. We knew he was important. That he wanted to help us. And he was lying to us. That’s all we knew.”

Honey glanced down, her tear-laden eyes suddenly heavy.

“I promise you,” Felicia declared, her steel gaze locking onto Honey’s. Her words were weighed with sincerity. “We didn’t know how you were connected.” A moment passed. Her face fell somber, eyes going cold, “Or why you were working for him.”

Honey stared at her, offended. “You say it like I had a choice!”

“Let’s hear it, then.” Felicia threw her hands up with a ‘come here’ gesture. “Why did you agree to help him?”

Her eyes narrowed defensively. “Because,” she answered with a razor-sharp edge, “if I said ‘no,’ he would’ve murdered everyone I ever cared about. So. I said ‘yes.’”

It was a simple enough answer, and Honey tossed it at her as such. The two women held an uncomfortable stare for several breaths. It was difficult for Honey to accept that this was Felicia whom she was skewering with her gaze, and the realization only made her heart sink further.

Honey’s face softened as her guilt settled in. “He had pictures of Bella. Peter said that he’d protect her, but that was a lie. It was never possible. Not when John’s involved.”

Miguel gazed at Honey, disappointed. “That’s not true,” he softly replied. “Peter wouldn’na let anything happen.”

Felicia shuffled her feet and continued to pace again. “Evidently not,” she muttered scornfully, “considering what we just saw.”

Miguel scowled at her. “We’re talking about Peter here!”

“Go suck his dick, then!” she cracked back like thunder. Miguel pulled his chin back as she jabbed her manicured finger towards him. “Letting a Fed into our backyard was your stupid idea,” she growled as she leveled her cold gaze, “and Peter was an idiot for agreeing to it! If you’d both listened to me, this Walker creep would have a bullet in his head already! And instead of dealing with that mistake right now, we have to focus on finding Peter and... killing whatever that thing is that’s got ‘em!”

“It’s not that easy,” Eddie replied, his back towards the group. “M’not even sure it can be killed.”

“What do you mean by it?” Honey looked over at him, wide-eyed. “Isn’t this about the drugs? The stuff he shoots up with?”

“Pete’s on drugs?” Johnny exclaimed, further irritated. “Whatthefu–are we Breaking Bad now?!”

“It’s not a drug,” Eddie said. A graveness weighed heavily on his voice. “It’s not... easy to explain.”

Felicia gritted her teeth. “Try.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, finally turning to face them. “It’s— it’s a living organism. A symbiote. Gets inside you and holds on. Like a parasite.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “We call it ‘Venom.’”

“Where the hell did that thing come from?” Johnny asked, eyes wide.

Eddie cast his gaze towards the floor. “From me.”

The room fell silent for a moment.

The gruff man tightened his lip, clearing his throat. “Pete helped me contain it,” he explained. “He studied it. And we thought... we thought we could use it to our advantage.”

“How exactly is turning into a giant squid helping our cause?” Miguel asked snidely.

“It feeds off of you—yeah, but it also makes you stronger,” Eddie said. “Makes you practically invincible. Makes everything better—gives you abilities you couldn’t imagine.” He sighed, then added thoughtfully, “If any of us was gonna take a bullet, Pete wanted it to be him. ”

“Yeah,” Felicia groaned skeptically, “That sounds like our boy. But I’m not sure ‘better’ is the word I’d use to describe it.”

He swallowed hard, bitter remorse returning to his eyes. “It doesn’t have the same effect on everybody,” he explained. “Everybody’s different. The way it responded to Pete was... different. His body was adapting to it too quickly. Kept needing more, using more. Sometimes... Sometimes he’d black out. It would take over, and he wouldn’t remember a thing.”

Eddie turned his attention to Honey. “That’s what happened in Vegas. The woman you saw was hired to kill him. Almost did. Ran him through with a sword. Then It took over. She never stood a chance.”

Honey glanced down, biting her lip as she contemplated the information.

Eddie turned his attention to the others. “That’ll happen to all of us if we’re not careful,” he warned.

Miguel said thoughtfully, apprehensive eyes fixed on Eddie, “You keep talking about this thing like it has a consciousness. Does it?”

“It has a mind of its own,” he answered. “It takes all your thoughts and scrambles them. Implants its own. Pete’s not in the driver’s seat anymore. And Venom will kill us if we get too close.”

“Not all of us,” Felicia said, gears turning. Honey followed her voice to see the silver-haired woman’s gaze fixed on her. “It kept her from shooting herself,” she said. “Maybe Pete was the one in control. Maybe he can stop It from killing her.”

Honey’s eyes bugged out of her skull.

Miguel was already thinking the same thing. “If we find Peter, we can use her to snap him out of this. Get him somewhere safe and—uh... ? Detox him? Exorcize him—whatever, I don’t know—find a way to get that thing out.”

“Bait?” Honey exclaimed. “Are you kidding me?!” She shot a glare at Felicia. “You can’t be serious—”

“It’s not the best plan, but it’s what I’ve got,” Felicia replied, holding up her hand to silence any protests. Her tone was cold. “And considering this is your mess, too, I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

Honey blinked up at her, stunned. “Are you mad at me?”

“Yeah, I’m mad,” she said with an eerie calm. “Not because you lied. I don’t care that you kept secrets from us. I can even understand why you did what you did.” Her somber expression gave way to bitter anger. “But you put a gun to my friend’s head,” she said through gritted teeth. “And that I can’t abide.”

Honey blinked up at her several times, her jaw agape. The image of Peter’s desperate expression as she pointed the gun at him echoed in her mind, filling her with shame. “I-I don’t think I would’ve actually shot him,” she murmured, more of a whimper than a statement. “I-I’ve never fired a gun before—I don’t even know where the safety is!”

Johnny raised a finger, offering his two cents. “Guns like that don’t have a safety.” He was ignored.

A hard crease had formed between Felicia’s eyebrows as she glared down at Honey, crossing her arms across her chest. “I’m not talking about him,” Felicia glowered.

Honey blinked again, pursing her lips shut. Then, reading her stern expression, confronting the betrayed look in her eyes.

Felicia didn’t have many friends, that was certain. But she had counted Honey as one of them. And with the same fierce protectiveness that she used to defend her, she also used to admonish her.

Buttoning up her emotions, Felicia turned to the others, “Alright, we can't afford to look vulnerable right now. We keep this quiet to everyone that’s not a Spider.” She looked at Miguel, Johnny, and Eddie. “We need to spread out. Cover all the ground we can until we find Peter. Eddie and Honey, you’re with me. Everyone, keep your eyes open. Not just for Peter but for our enemies. Feds included.”

Honey gasped, a terrifying thought crossing her mind. “Miles,” she said with alarm.

Felicia went still. “What about Miles?”

Honey glanced up at her, only taking a split second to decide. “John threatened to go after him,” she explained urgently. “He’s in danger.”

Felicia rolled her eyes, growling, “Fuck me! You shoulda led with that!”

Johnny leaped to his feet. “Don’t worry, I’m on it.”

Felicia said to Honey and Eddie. “Let’s go.”

Honey came to a careful stand. Eddie joined her side. “Where are we goin’?”

“Empire State Building,” Felicia grimly replied.

The first time Honey had been to the Empire State Building was on a class field trip. She remembered experiencing overwhelming vertigo from the sidewalk, one that almost kept her from being able to go up the elevator. She was equally unsettled now as she looked up at the orange sky.

Eddie stood beside her on the sidewalk, both in the glow of a convenience store. He was less interested in the building and more interested in lighting his cigarette. Felicia wasn’t present, having instructed them to wait for her.

“Did you know it only took, like, 400-something days to build?” Honey said.

Eddie glanced over only briefly, uninterested. “You don’t say.”

She looked over at him incredulously. “So you’re mad at me, too?”

“Why’d you do it?” Eddie asked, tossing out all pretense.

Honey pressed her lips in a line and returned her gaze to the sky. “I told you,” she said. “He threatened—”

“I’m not talkin’ about your ex,” Eddie argued. “I mean, what you did back at the office. Why’d you put the gun to your head?”

Honey didn’t have an answer for that. “So, you are mad.”

He bristled, stewing in his frustration. “Didn’t say that,” he muttered, then took a long drag from his cigarette. “It wasn’t the smartest move.”

She let out a long sigh, an edge of sarcasm in her voice, “You know, I looked inside my bag of ‘good ideas,’ and as it turns out—it was empty. Just like my bag of ‘fucks to give.’”

Eddie blew the smoke out of his lungs. “That doesn’t sound like you. ‘Specially after what Pete told you about how his girl died.”

“I never said I was a good person, Eddie,” she remarked with a clipped tone. “You want to judge me, that’s fine.”

“I’m not speaking from the point of judgment,” Eddie replied quietly. “I’m speaking from experience.” She turned to him curiously. He took another long drag. “That’s how I met Pete, y’know?”

She stayed silent, shaking her head, ‘no.’ He shoved his free hand in the pocket of a far-too-thin hoodie for the weather.

“Yep,” he sighed, avoiding meeting her gaze. “You’re not the only one that ran out of good ideas.”

Her head tilted at the admission, eyes softening. Idly, he scratched the scruff on his face, rubbing the back of his neck. He fidgeted in a way that reminded her of Peter.

“It was a couple of years ago, actually,” Eddie explained, only glancing up briefly. “I used to be a reporter back in San Francisco. I was covering this shady corporation— pretty sure I was about to expose them for illegal human testing. Instead, I, uh...well... Venom found me.”

His eyes darkened, shadows falling across his face. She stayed quiet.

“It was, uhm... rough,” he continued. “I couldn’t control it. Then the company I was investigating accused me of stealing their ‘property.’ I was trying everything I could to get rid of it. Lost everything. My job. Apartment. Girlfriend. Came here to start over, but... I pissed off the big guys in Silicon Valley. You don’t start over from that. They made sure of it.”

He paused, tensing with wet eyes. Sucked another breath through his cigarette, then continued. “I was angry,” he snarled under his breath. “Not just at them. Not even at the Symbiote. I was angry at me... for getting into this mess in the first place.”

The words slowed down, almost getting lost in his thoughts. “I got low. Decided that I didn’t care, either. All that mattered was killing this thing. Even if it killed me first.”

He stared at the passing cars with calm, haunted eyes. By contrast, she was shocked.

“Pete stopped me,” he said. “He saved me.” The fading sunlight reflected a shimmer in his gaze. “He’s the only one that tried to help me. He’s the only one that ever understood that this thing—Venom— it’s a gift and a curse. ‘Oppenheimer’s Genie,’ he called it.” A brief smile crossed his lips before it faded into his memories. “He’s the only one that understood the burden and wanted to help me carry it.”

She gulped hard as a burning sensation piled up behind her eyes. Her jaw tensed as she tried to blink the moisture away.

“When I met him, I didn’t realize that, of course,” Eddie added. “He had to knock my ass out. Carry me fireman-style out of a belltower.” A lump formed in his throat. He swallowed it down. “He coulda just let me die. I’ve never understood why Peter would go out of his way to save me. Until today.”

She stayed silent, although her heart ached so much she was confident the throb was audible. The pain she felt for him shimmered in her eyes.

“Nobody that tries to do the right thing is a bad person,” Eddie said, glancing over at her. “You’re not a bad person.”

His soft words felt like a knife to her heart, cutting open the thick muscle walled up around it. Tears welled up in her eyes. She fought the urge to collapse into a pile on the sidewalk.

“I know it seems like sometimes the world wants you to be your worst,” Eddie added. “Sometimes, you want to be your worst. I get that too. You think it’s easier that way to deal with all the bad shit that’s happened to you. As if it can make you immune.” He turned to face her, and for a moment, she felt like they were in their own little world. A snow globe amongst the chaos.

“Stop trying to be whoever you’re pretending to be,” he concluded thoughtfully. He put the cigarette up to his lips, taking a final draw. “Accept who you are, and work with that.”

He fell silent, taking in the sounds and sights of the city at twilight. She stared up at him with her lips pursed and her heart aching. Her first impression of Eddie was amusing to her in retrospect—the stoner-loner with a mouth full of cupcake— and now he had proven himself to be one of the wisest people she’d ever met.

They turned their attention towards Felicia as she jogged up to them breathlessly. Her look of barely-concealed dread told them what she had confirmed. “He’s not here,” she sighed in frustration. “Christ - do we really have to comb through every landmark that this pathetic emo boy could possibly mope on? We’ll be out here for days—”

“Why were you in a bell tower?” Honey asked Eddie. Both he and Felicia looked baffled by her question.

Eddie’s brows furrowed. “Huh?”

“You said you wanted to get rid of it,” Honey explained, “and you were in a bell tower? Why there?”

Eddie shrugged, “It doesn’t seem to like loud noises very much. Thought I could kill it.”

Honey gazed at him, her mind spinning as she plugged in pieces. “That’s what his plan is.”

“What?”

“Maybe Peter is in control,” she explained, turning to Felicia. “Maybe he’s trying to find a way to kill the Symbiote.”

Eddie shook his head, stunned at the foolishness of such a plan. “So, what, you’re saying he’s banging his head against a giant bell somewhere?”

Felicia’s eyes widened, before they rolled into the back of her head with frustration. “Shit.” The two of them turned to her worriedly. “I know exactly where he is.”

Continue to Part 19

[back to masterlist]

A/N Thank you for your patience on this update everyone! We are in the home stretch. The next two chapters will feature almost everything you've been waiting for. :-)

To be tagged when they release, you must reblog so I can keep track of all 100+ of you!

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augustghosts · 2 years

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Just a little blurb I wrote while listening to antichrist by the 1975 lmao. Eddie survives and reminisces on his new mindset.

This is kinda boring I think? but I'm just trying to get better at posting regularly because I love writing, and I have sooo much in my docs that I'm too anxious to post after 1988 flopped lmao. So I'm starting again with little blurbs like this, this is only 800 words. This is kind of sad though and hints at depression. So if that's not your thing, that's totally fine - keep scrolling <3 (to my masterlist perhaps?)

“Like ghosts?” She asks him softly. Eyes focused on the way his hands fumbled with the lighter. Sat in the back of his van - doors open, sundown. Oranges and blues. And big, dark browns, not looking into hers anymore. Watching the sky.

“Yeah, kind of.” He mumbles, he sounds sad. Sometimes he feels like something is haunting him. and it seems to be specifically here. Hawkins. His own kind of fucked up metaphor. He liked metaphors. Sitting here, the lake. Being surrounded by water - isolation. His own mind, perhaps. Sometimes he still sees the blood on his hands. She knows he’s been through a lot, so she listens. She always listens. He loves that about her. When they make eye contact, he laughs dryly. “Sorry.” He mumbles around the cigarette between his lips.

“It’s okay.” She smiles, she wants to take his hand. “I like ghost stories.” She jokes, she knew he wasn’t really talking about ghosts. He also knew that she knew that. He liked that she was going along with him.

When he closes his eyes, blood-covered hands. Sometimes he blamed himself for the pain and misery in his life - perhaps for the pain and misery in Hawkins, as of late. Could he have done more? He thinks back to March, thinks back to when his hands were dirty and covered in blood. Did that mean he was to blame? Everyone told him he wasn’t. The ghost he sees in his dreams - that follows him home. Himself - the past.

Eventually, as he keeps talking - she does take his hand. His rough skin, rings - brushing soft and bare. His eyes flicker to their hands for a moment. He knows that nobody can know the answers he wants. He knows that she tries her best to understand. To listen to what he is going through. But she doesn’t share it. She can’t relate, no matter how much she tries. Her comfort helps. But sometimes it leaves him feeling more isolated. Trapped - haunted by the ghosts of his thoughts - his former self.

“Sometimes I feel like I'm just treading water.” He trusts her enough to open up like this, it makes her chest hurt. Love and pride. “I feel like I failed at so much. In such a short period of time.” He knows she likes to reassure him that he did nothing wrong. He’s heard it so many times, maybe he even believes it himself. He knows deep down, but he feels like that isn’t enough. He doesn’t feel connected to anyone. She can’t relate to him. He knows she can’t help if he can’t speak. He feels stuck - tired of this hollowness. Eddie has always internalised his thoughts and feelings. A habit he developed young, a habit he continues to practise. A habit he hates.

He also doesn’t understand the agony she sometimes feels. How she feels as she tries desperately to keep him. Sometimes she also feels like she is starting to fail, like she is starting to fail him. He falls apart and all she can do is listen and watch. His life had taken a capricious turn, and she wished she could have stopped it. She desperately wanted to protect him. Her old Eddie comes and goes, but this new Eddie. She wanted to protect him, needed to. He loves her, he loves the house they live in. The love he has for her and his family is so all consuming, he doesn’t have room for this sadness. But still, it remains. It was thought provoking for him, had it always been there? Did it just need something like this to crawl to the surface? Has this shadow always followed him? Watching and waiting?

“You know I love you, right?” Her voice interrupts his thoughts. Her voice, the voice that always brings him back. He looks at her for the first time in a few minutes. She looks beautiful in the light. He looks down at their hands, still gripping each other. A lifeline. He knows, but sometimes it still shocks him. Love? Him? Has that ever been on his agenda? It was now. This person that sits in front of him, that listens to him and supports him and loves him. He says it back, he says it the same way he says it a million times a day. Sometimes it feels like a million. She brings her hand up to the back of his neck, pulling his head down to press a kiss to his forehead - another to his cheek. He smiles, she loves it when he does. Rare now.

“I love you too, so much.” He whispers it into her skin. He tries to show her, the same way she shows him. Recently, he feels like that's all he can do - try. And he will.

#Eddie Munson #Joseph Quinn #eddie munson x reader #stranger things #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson angst #Joseph Quinn x reader

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the-furies · 2 years

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hi, i trust y'all've been well? we've been busy but we do have all halloween off of work. y'all's recommendations were stellar as always, runs in the family is one of those means-a-lot-to-everyone sorts of songs for us it's in a lot of our playlists. i have never heard sin shake sin before but the song eddie suggested sounds like something i should already have memorized, it's very good.

my suggestions for this evening are: wriggle by clipping. and worldwide torture by jazmin bean for billy, becky by be your own pet for steve (it reminds me of the shit that went down between you and hagan), you'll end up looking like the scary bitches by the scary bitches for eddie, my nocturnal serenade by yohio for kaz, redmageddon by sodikken for will, and my mom by kimya dawson for your jonathan (ik y'all've prolly heard it before but i've been in my feelings about 1981 lately and this is a song that Gets it).

dr. crane recommends gorehound by harley poe for poe.

Hello hello!!! We've been,, Eehhh. *gestures vaguely*. Okay I suppose. ZhfjzfjsHFJDJD. mental illness innit </3 HowEVER! ultimately we'll be just fine!!

Y'all deserve tht break off tbh we hope Halloween goes well for y'all!! omg!!

And!! Your recs are also absolutely wonderful as always!!! Very Very A+ Choices this time around!!,, tho yr choices are always A+ let's be real JFJDJDJJFFJ

semi related but Redmageddon sounds like something our Collector would also super enjoy omg,, we. Need to sit down and bingewatch T.OH sometime soon now that the final season is out (or. almost out?? @ sys check on that jfc JFJDJSJ) -Eddie

Here's our recs!!:

Celebrity Skin - Hole (my rec!!)

TOP TEN SONGS that give me gender euphoria. Cannot explain how. I think it's synesthesia related but i honestly don't knoe I just Really like the sound and colours of this song HFJSISKFKFK -Eddie

Pro Memoria - Ghost (Kaz's rec)

Another song that's ended up on many of our playlists, from what I'm seeing. We collectively quite like this band, especially their more quieter songs.

I don't quite have a Music Taste yet, but songs like this are definitely Good in my opinion! -Kaz

Attunement - Clipping. (Billy's rec)

oooookayyyy suicidal ideation tw for this one hdiaiskf

but uh!!!!! Clipping. holy shit!!!!!! we don't listen to them often but when we do we tend to listen to nothing else for a LoNG WHILE FJDJKF their songs are all so. Stimmy in a way!! Love love LOVE the way the lyrics r sung always tbh

especially with this song!! Really really fast which we love but the ambient noise in the background is also. Brain Scratchy! Polyrhythmic music in general is so brain scratchy JFJSJF -Billy

Spaceship - Art Sorority (Jonathan's rec)

This one's also a song that like,,, just Gets It, imo. Upbeat but kinda sad lyrics?? sign me tf up lmao. -Jonathan

The Song With Five Names - Will Wood, AND Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches - Emilie Autumn (Will's recs)

WAIT WE'RE ALLOWED TO RECC MORE THAN ONE SONG??????????? WHAT A GAME CHANGER! /LIGHTHEARTED

I've been driving everyone insane (word reclaimed!!) with The Song With Five Names™ and I dare say that it's My Capital S Song™ (a fuckin,, system thing basically uhhh if someone here has a Song™ it's basically like. super super SUPER important to them and tells others in-sys who they Are rlly. tl;dr just a Super Fcukifn Relatable Song X 10000000)

as for my second rec?? literally just me vibes tbh. sound-wise i mean. Ajdjkakfkf -Will

Voices - Shaman's Harvest (Both Steves' recs)

Okay I chose this one because of the beat and how it Sounds while younger Steve moreso chose it because of the Lyrics. overall a really good song tbh! -Steve🧋

Water Fountain - Tune Yards (Poe's rec)

eheeheeheee. Perhaps not quite yours or Dr. Crane's type of Music Of Choice? sorry in advance, but! We recently Remembered This Band Existed and Remembered THIS SONG Existed! And I! Am Quite Happy!

It is very! Colourful and tasty—very much our synesthesia talking there, yes. Also gives good Brain Scratchies too! -Poe

#anon friend #music recs anon

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hmslusitania · 3 years

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Prompt: AU to 2.01. during the workout scene Eddie brings up Abby and Buck feels hurt and betrayed that Chim would share his private life with basically a stranger. When Chim says Eddie’s cool Buck says he can be wary of the new guy who gets so comfortable right off the bat when Buck himself got hazed like crazy as a probie. When Chim says Abby’s not a big deal Buck turns to Eddie and asks if he found his abandonment amusing. Eddie feels horrible and Chim finally understands his screw up. Buddie

Hi Anon! I’m not 100% sure this will satisfy your prompt, for which I apologise. That said, in a longer fic I’m currently working on, this scene gets examined hardcore from both Buck and Eddie’s POV and I hope to post that fic soon, so if this does not quite do it, hopefully that will. All that said, I do hope you enjoy this:

The kid is like a brother to him, but good god. It’s only Eddie’s second shift and they haven’t even all clocked in yet, and Buck is already being a dick. Chimney sighs – on the inside – and keeps buttoning his shirt while Buck slams locker doors and Eddie just tries to change.

When Buck finally stomps out of the locker room, Eddie takes a second and then turns to Chim.

“So, is it just me, or…”

“Try not to take it personally,” Chim recommends. He likes Eddie, has liked him since they met. It’s nice to have another medic on the shift, even if Eddie isn’t certified as a paramedic like him and Hen. Bobby’s and Buck’s EMT certification is great and useful but sometimes that little bit of extra medical knowledge comes in handy.

“So he’s just a dick to everyone?” Eddie asks.

Chim sighs. “Nah,” he says. “He’s just – look, the kid’s got a heart of gold, he really does, and most of the time he’s the sweetest guy you’ll meet, like a giant 6’2 golden retriever, but his first serious girlfriend just dumped him and then ghosted him, and he’s been a bit…in a bad mood.”

Although, now that he thinks about it, Buck’s straight up denial about Abby having dumped him has kept his mood afloat well enough. Up until Eddie showed up at the 118. But Chimney can’t fathom how the two would be related.

Eddie nods like that makes sense and they continue getting ready for their shift.

Chimney does his best to stay out of Buck’s way for most of the morning. It’s only by coincidence he finds himself in the gym at the same time as Buck and Eddie. Buck, clearly trying to comfort himself with the hot firefighter calendar, starts taking selfies over by the bench press.

Chimney does not know why Eddie decides to start something.

“You’re in the wrong light, man,” Eddie says. Chim frowns. Light? For a selfie?

“Some of us don’t need lighting to look good,” Buck shoots back.

Chim glances at Buck, but he’s distracted by himself.

“Hey, Eddie? What did you mean by the wrong light?” Chim asks.

Eddie explains about warm side lighting as opposed to flat blue light, and shows off the pictures his niece had taken for him. Chimney doubts that most of the effect is just because of lighting. As he’d pointed out on Eddie’s first shift, that is a beautiful man.

Still, having well done photos can’t hurt.

“You think she’d be willing to take my pictures for me? I’m told I photograph like an Asian Fabio,” Chim says, which gets him a laugh from Eddie.

“Sure she would,” he says.

And then, of course, Hurricane Buck.

“You shouldn’t get his hopes up,” he says to Eddie, all glower. “No offence, Chim.”

Chimney isn’t sure how he’s supposed to take that as anything but offensive. But—

He’s got a heart of gold, Chim reminds himself. He’s got a goddamn heart of gold.

“None taken,” he says, heading back to his bench dips. “Evan.”

He gets maybe two reps in before he hears Eddie say, “Okay, man, what’s your problem?”

Chimney winces and looks over to see Buck getting up in Eddie’s face.

“Okay, you,” Buck says. Chimney frowns. Eddie? It really is personal? “You’re my problem. Your comfort level. You’re – you’re not supposed to just walk in here like you’ve been here for years. There’s supposed to be a getting-to-know-you period. You’re meant to respect your elders.”

That’s what Buck is pissed about?

“You’re not his elder, Buck,” Chim points out. As he says it, he realises he doesn’t actually know how old Eddie is. He’s been assuming due to his work history that he’s on the other side of thirty from Buck, but he doesn’t actually know.

“Look,” Eddie says. He sounds calm and rational, in complete contrast to Buck’s anger and irritation, which Chim takes as a good sign. “I in no way meant to, uh, be too familiar or step on anybody’s toes. I know you’re going through some personal stuff right now.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Chimney can see Buck flinch.

“What personal stuff?” he asks.

Whoops.

“I know your girlfriend recently broke up with you and you’re coming to terms with that,” Eddie says.

“No, I’m not,” Buck says. Which, points for honesty, Chim thinks. “And she didn’t break up with me. Who told you that?”

When they both turn to look at him, Chim tries to melt into his exercise equipment.

“I’m just saying, I hear you’re a good guy, and I’m sorry you’re going through pain but you don’t need to take it out on me,” Eddie says.

“I’m not in pain,” Buck snaps, wounded.

Chim doesn’t mean to heave a dramatic sigh, but it happens. Buck rounds on him.

“And why are you telling all of my personal shit to strangers?” Buck asks.

Chim winces. There are a lot of reasons – Eddie asked; Eddie is already a clear part of the team, not a stranger; because Chimney’s worried about him and gossip is how they deal with things at the 118; but he doesn’t think Buck’s in a mood to accept any of those.

“I asked if you were pissed at me or something else,” Eddie says. “And I’m sorry about your girlfriend, man, I know what it’s like to have someone you thought loved you disappear on you in the dead of night.”

Chimney stops doing his dips and turns to scan Eddie, concerned. But Eddie’s just looking at Buck.

“She didn’t – I drove her to the airport,” Buck says.

He sounds so damn small and vulnerable that despite how much of a dick he’s been recently, Chim kind of wants to just hug him. He’s spent so much of the past four months since Abby left acting like he was completely fine most of the time, and so they hadn’t really…

Well, they hadn’t been there for him. Bobby’s got his reasons, Chim knows, since Hen’s almost certainly right about the secret Bobby-Athena relationship going on in the background. But Chim and Hen could’ve done better.

“Look, man, all I can tell you is that staying in denial isn’t gonna help,” Eddie says. “You’re still gonna get the divorce papers in the mail eventually.”

“We weren’t—” Buck starts and Chimney almost jumps into the conversation to make sure Buck isn’t actually that stupid. “Oh.”

“Truce?” Eddie asks, taking off one of his boxing gloves and holding his hand out in Buck’s direction.

Buck swallows and, after a long, awkward moment, takes Eddie’s hand. “You’re still a probie.”

“I promise you, there is no worse hazing you can do to me than the guys in Afghanistan already did,” Eddie says.

Chimney wonders if he feels like eating those words later that night when Eddie and Buck get into an ambulance with a live grenade. Chim and Hen aren’t on the call with them, since they were already doing a transport from the previous call, but when they all get back to the station, something has clearly shifted between Buck and Eddie.

“You two idiots got in an ambulance with a live grenade?” Hen demands, hands on her hips. Chim has seen her deploy this expression at Denny before. It usually gets her immediate apologies and chagrin.

“Eddie was an army medic,” Buck says. “We were totally safe.”

“Until the ambulance exploded,” Eddie points out.

“Yeah, but we weren’t in it anymore,” Buck says, knocking his shoulder into Eddie’s while they sit at the kitchen counter together. Hen shakes her head slowly, like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “And besides! We saved the patient.”

“Which is what matters,” Eddie adds.

Hen throws her hands up, exasperated. “I’m so glad there are two of you now.”

She stalks off and Chim watches while Buck and Eddie exchange bright smiles. Chim couldn’t say for sure, but he thinks the last time Buck smiled like that, he was talking to Abby. Which is certainly a development Chim didn’t see coming.

He finds Buck later in the bunks.

“Hey,” he says, knocking on Buck’s partition. Buck isn’t asleep, he’s just scrolling through his phone. “Got a sec?”

“Sure,” Buck says, sitting up and dropping his phone into his lap.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Chim says. “Telling Eddie about Abby, I mean. I don’t think any of us really realised how much you’re still hurting over that.”

“I’m fine,” Buck says. It’s too quick, and just a bit too sharp to be genuine.

Chim just waits.

“I’m – I’ve – I’ve been single for four months, haven’t I?” Buck asks quietly.

“Yeah,” Chim says, because Eddie had pointed out, denial just hurts more.

“Great,” Buck says. He clears his throat a couple times like he’s trying to get rid of a blockage. Chimney takes that as an opportunity to clap him on the shoulder.

“You’ve still got your family,” Chim says. “By which I mean the 118, because as far as you’ve said, you may as well have sprung out of the ground fully formed.”

Buck snorts. “I’ve got a sister,” he says, which is the first biological family member Chimney has ever heard Buck mention. “Maddie. She’s actually sleeping on my couch right now.”

“God, a female Buck,” Chim says. “I can’t even imagine how terrifying that must be.”

Buck scoffs and elbows him. “She’s not like me at all. You might even like her. She’s basically the best person ever, just a heart of pure gold.”

Chimney doesn’t quite trust Buck’s judgement when it comes to his sister, but if he’s right, well…

“Certain shitty comments you’ve made recently aside, that sounds exactly like you, Buckaroo,” Chim says.

“Thanks, Chim,” Buck says and sounds like he means it. “And I’m sorry for being a dick.”

Chim nods and claps him on the shoulder again before turning to head back to his own bunk.

“Hey, Chim?”

Chimney pauses.

“Do you think Eddie’s—”

Chimney waits, but all Buck says is “never mind.”

Their next call isn’t until morning when they find a group of idiots who have cemented their friend’s head into a microwave. When the kid falls into a pool, Buck jumps in to save him without hesitation and Eddie is only a split second behind him.

Chim doesn’t think about it until they’re all back at the station and changing out for the end of shift, but he thinks that this particular level of drift compatibility between Buck and Eddie might be a bit of a dangerous thing.

When they’re all back in civvies, Eddie says goodbye to everyone and starts to leave, only for Buck to follow him out, calling, “Hey! Eddie! There’s a really great brunch place down the street if you want to grab something, maybe?”

Chim and Hen watch them go, and wait until they’ve both driven off – together, even if in separate vehicles – before commenting.

“They’re gonna give us all heart attacks, aren’t they,” Hen says, resigned.

“Oh yeah,” Chim agrees.

“At least Buck seems happier?” Hen asks.

“Small victories,” Chim replies. “I’ll see you on Thursday.”

“See you then,” she says, going back to cleaning her locker.

Chimney only makes it as far as the parking lot before he’s stopped dead in his tracks by a breathtakingly beautiful woman. He’s never been a poetry kind of guy, but he’s pretty sure he could wax poetic about the bright stars in her eyes for several days if pressed. It doesn’t hurt that she’s holding a large Tupperware of baked goods.

“How can I help?” Chim asks, swallowing his gum. There’s nowhere to spit it out and no way to do that in front of a pretty girl that doesn’t look tacky.

“I was actually looking for Evan Buckley,” she says. “I wanted to surprise him. He said he was having a kind of intense shift.”

Chimney feels an instant spike of envy, and then realises who she is.

“You must be Buck’s sister,” he says.

“I am,” she agrees. “Maddie Kendall. Well, Buckley, again, I guess.”

“I’m Chimney,” he says, offering her his hand to shake.

She balances the container of baked goods on one forearm and shakes his hand. “It’s nice to put a face to a name. Buck says you’re one of the best guys at the station.”

Chimney can’t help but smile at that. “That’s funny, I was just saying the same thing about him.”

Maddie laughs and Chimney is struck by the desire to make her laugh always.

He stands there, grinning at her like an idiot, for much longer than he should until Maddie finally says, “So, where would I find him?”

“Oh! Sorry! You just missed him,” Chimney says. “He already left for a brunch date with the probie.”

Maddie’s eyebrows lift, delighted. “A date?”

Chim shrugs. “I’m not sure either of them knows that part, but definitely.”

“How about I put these down somewhere and you tell me absolutely everything,” Maddie suggests, holding up the box of muffins.

“I don’t know if I should,” Chim says, showing her up the stairs to the loft where D shift are working on the coffee maker. “I kinda got in trouble for telling people things about him recently.”

“Mm, big sister’s prerogative,” Maddie says, happily accepting the cup of coffee Chimney offers her.

“Okay, but if he yells at me again, I’m blaming you,” Chimney says. He takes one of the muffins from the now open container and groans. So not only is she gorgeous and the best person ever by Buck’s estimation, she can also cook and she thinks Chimney is funny. “These are amazing.”

“Thank you,” Maddie says. “And I’m sure we can work something out about Buck re blame. So long as you dish.”

Chimney grins. “Deal.”

#the ghost ship scribbles #the ghost ship answers questions #9-1-1 #9-1-1 fic #pre-buddie #pre-madney #2x01 revisioning #Anonymous

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wackybuddiemewbs · 3 years

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Random Buddie Fic Snippets - no title, just (bad) vibes

Here’s to another snippet of things that ghost through my Word files. This one’s particularly headache-inducing for me personally. For one, trigger warnings galore. And then I have *checks file* 41k (!!!) words worth of non-fic noted down, but it’s really just unassembled bits and pieces of mostly dialog. Grrrrrrr. 😖

Since such a fic would take a lot more planning... which is basically the antithesis of me for all intents and purposes... I pester you with snippets like they are pestering me. Said it before and can only reiterate: I make you suffer with me. *cackles*

Basically, the story plays on the idea that Eddie and Buck grew up together due to plot convenient purposes and meet again at the fire station after years apart. Anyway, here’s to more madness mingled with angst! Cheers!

Buck slings his duffel bag over his shoulder when his phone vibrates. Sighing, he shifts his weight to take it out of his pocket and take the call. A smile creeps up his lips when he sees the picture flare up on his screen.

“Hey, what’s up, Mads?”

“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that you were right about that little bakery downtown. It’s so worth the twenty minute trip,” she nearly groans. And Buck can relate. When he found that authentic Mexican bakery on a long run through the city, he may or may not have shed a few tears of happiness. And he may or may not have bought pastry worth a hundred bucks.

Totally worth it to run all those extra miles for the carbs, though.

“How many conchas did you have?” Buck asks, chuckling softly.

“I’m pleading the fifth.”

“Did you drive back to get more?” he questions, though Buck is fairly sure what the answer is already, which comes promptly, “Which is why I might be late for work.”

Buck laughs, leaning back against his car. “They are in the top 5 of conchas I ever had, which is saying something. So yeah, I get the feeling.”

And he should really know, he’s had the best in the world and no. 2 and 3 also. Though those are not up for sale.

“So, I need a bit of distraction to keep myself from digging through the remains of the bag before I make it to the car,” she tells him.

“Sure, what do you want to hear?”

“Howie told me that you’re getting someone new on the team today. Are you excited?”

“… Oh, ugh, sure.” Buck can feel his jaw cramping at that.

“You know you just sounded more excited about me being on a sugar high thanks to Mexican pastry than you are about your new teammate arriving.”

He’d hoped to avoid that conversation before he got over with it. Because that’s how he normally rolls with it. He gets over with it.

Works with band-aids and most situations that give you discomfort.

But Maddie has maybe not the sixth but seventh sense apparently big sisters seem to inherit by birth, so it appears that not even the most amazing conchas up for sale in all of Los Angeles will spare him having that conversation now. Which is the equivalent of tearing duct tape off, but slowly.

“I’m a huge concha fan, what can I say? And sure, it’s cool. It’d be nice to have a partner on the team, like, permanently, like Chim and Hen, more like.”

Buck rolls his eyes back as far as they will into his skull. It’s a small wonder that Maddie doesn’t buy his bullshit. He was fine just dodging the topic until now, it’s what normally works best for him. But yeah, Maddie just knows how to coax it out of him, and he loves and hates her for it.

“Talk to me, Buck.”

Buck looks up to the sky. “… I guess I’m just a bit nervous.”

“You are nervous? Don’t you think it’s up to the new teammate to be a bundle of nerves?”

“That’s kind of my thing, though,” Buck argues.

He has been ever since Bobby announced that they’d get a newbie, not a probie, but someone to be on the team with them. Dutifully, Buck laughed at the comments about how Bobby seemingly hired him a babysitter to make sure he doesn’t do reckless stuff all the time.

The nervous energy settled in when he got home that day and his leg wouldn’t stop bobbing well into lying in bed, trying to sleep. He only fell asleep halfway through reading the Wikipedia list of minor planets named after people.

“Then why do you feel nervous?”

“It’s nothing.”

“You know you can tell me,” she says softly.

Buck closes his eyes. He understood by now that yes, he can. But that doesn’t mean he wants to. Most of the time, Buck wished he didn’t have to tell anyone anything ever again and simply exist in the here and now. Because the here and now is sunny and tastes of pretty damn awesome conchas.

“I know it’s stupid, but…” His voice trails off.

And maybe she can read his mind, Buck wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be the case, because Maddie goes on to say, “You know he’s not taking your place, right?”

“What? Yeah, I mean…” Buck chews on his bottom lip. Whenever Maddie starts to talk like that, he feels like he’s sitting with a therapist. And suddenly, what he wants to believe are just his antics sounds like food for the shrinks.

“This is supposed to be your partner. Someone to have your back, not stab you in the back,” Maddie points out.

“Rationally, I know all that. It’s just…” He stretches out his legs.

“It’s just what?” she asks in a gentle tone of voice.

“What if he’s better than me?”

What if they realize that he’s expendable after all? What if someone comes along who can do things better than Buck without the attitude? What if he can’t prove his worth anymore because that guy can do it just as well, maybe even better?

“Then I will be glad because that means someone capable is watching out for my baby brother,” Maddie answers, pulling Buck back to the current conversation, not the fictional ones inside his head.

“What if we end up hating each other’s guts?” Buck continues. He had to restrain himself from actually typing a list of all those questions on his phone when his mind went spiraling upon receiving the news. Because that’s what’s been going on ever since Bobby announced. And Buck knows how stupid it is, but his brain didn’t get the memo. There are so many what ifs that it’s making him dizzy thinking about them.

“Then you talk about it like actual adults. And anyway, no one can hate you to your guts. You’re amazing.”

Buck has to fight hard not to blush. “Thanks, but you’re biased because you’re my sister.”

His heart still beats a little faster every time he says those words out loud. Something that comes so light and casual these days, though it isn’t. It is closer to what it should be. Because it should be casual, natural, given.

But apparently, the world didn’t get that memo yet. Seemingly a pattern.

“And as your sister, I’m also always right.”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

He laughs. She chuckles back.

“Listen,” Maddie continues. “Just be yourself. You’re going to figure it out. This is exciting, Buck. More people to add to your family, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks,” he croaks.

“I’ll call you during lunch time, unless you’re out on a call. And then I want all the details on the newbie.”

“Alright. Pro tip: Put the bag of pastries in the trunk of your car. Only way to keep your paws off of them while driving.”

“I may actually crawl back, but yeah, it’d require a lot more effort.”

He smiles. “Drive save.”

“Will do.”

“Alright, I’m heading in,” Buck says, pushing away from his car. “Or else I will be running late, too.”

“Love you, little brother.”

“Love you, too. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

Buck hangs up and stuffs his phone back into his pocket.

Maddie is right. There is nothing to be nervous about. He has a team now. No one is leaving. New people are arriving. That’s how it works. That’s normal. And he gets to pester the newbie. So he should really be excited, as Maddie said. Buck knows he should focus on that. On how great this could turn out to be. On having a partner. Someone to have his back. All the time.

He sucks in a deep breath as he comes to stand in front of the door leading inside the fire station.

“The door is not closed,” he mutters with closed eyes, grabbing the handle. Buck pushes inside. He is greeted by the familiar hum of the fire station coming to life. People are talking over coffee, some are still fastening the buttons on their shirts as they make up the stairs.

And there’s no place he’d rather be. Buck knew that the moment he first walked into the station for the first time, and that assessment hasn’t changed since.

Buck makes for the locker rooms to change, not wanting to run late like Maddie. Once changed into his uniform, Buck finds himself a little more at ease. Athena once pointed out that they wear those uniforms as a way of protecting themselves. You take them off after work and leave all the bad behind that you’ve witnessed on a call. For Buck, the other way is just as true, though.

When he puts on that uniform on, he can leave his anxious, knee-bobbing self behind and do something meaningful. Because that’s what he found here, beside the team that means so much to him. He found a purpose. A way of answering a calling that lies far back in a past he can’t and won’t remember. To save lives.

Buck looks at his reflection in the mirror, straightens out the collar, makes sure his hair sits perfectly. His glance lingers on the name tag a moment longer, brushes his fingers over the metal plate, the one thing he can’t fix or straighten out.

But that won’t make me flinch. Ever.

“Buckaroo! Time for coffee and talk! I need new material on that show Denny and you are watching and that you need to update me on, so I don’t have to watch it!”

Buck smiles as he closes the locker to see Hen standing there with two cups of coffee.

“Coming.”

But that fixes a whole lot already.

-------------------

Hen sips her coffee in silence as Bobby goes on about who is doing what for the day. She is glad that she isn’t assigned truck cleaning duty. That’s one of the best things about newbies and probies coming in. They get to do the dirty work for a bit. She had to jump those hoops, too, like everyone did, so it only seems fair.

Chim nudges her in the side, pulling her out of her musings. “Have you seen the newbie yet?”

She nudges him back a bit harder to tell him wordlessly that he is supposed to stop doing that. “If I had, don’t you think I would’ve told you by now?”

“Just saying, being late on the first day is not a good sign.”

“Can I help you with something, Han, Wilson?” Bobby calls out. “Care to share with the rest of the team?”

Buck laughs beside them, earning himself a nudge from Hen. That kid is going places sometimes, but Hen learned to love him fiercely after he stopped being a punk.

Fine, he’s still a punk sometimes, but we got to see there’s a heart of gold underneath all the punk and muscle and hair gel.

He grew on her the way he managed to grow on anyone, even the Captain who doesn’t like to admit that more than anyone around the station. He fired the boy first week in, and it was well-deserved, but he proved capable and kind.

Hen knew she was done for this humanoid golden retriever when she fussed over not having a babysitter for Denny and Buck jumped in after he’d just done a double-shift. She and Karen were still working things out and he just made the room, even though the boy deserved bed more than anyone else. Still, he took Denny to the park, finished homework with him, and got him to go to bed even though the kid is not so much a negotiator as he is a small dictator when it comes to bedtime. Karen and she found Buck passed out, snoring like a lawnmower, a book still in his lap while sitting next to Denny’s bed.

“Nothing, Cap,” Chimney answers. “Just sharing excitement about the newbie.”

“You’ll meet him shortly. He had to pick up his gear first and talk to the higher-ups another time. Once he arrives, you can pester him with questions as I know you will.”

“On it, Cap.”

Bobby rolls his eyes, but then his mind goes back to the clipboard and the rest of the chores yet to be divided among the firefighters on shift. The rest of the morning routine goes without further incident, so the three are soon walking down the stairs to their designated task of checking their stocks on medical equipment.

“Okay. That is a beautiful man,” Chimney says, suddenly stopping in his tracks.

Hen trains her eyes on the dark-haired Latino, putting on a shirt. That should be the newbie, then.

“Where’s the lie? And I like girls.”

“Eddie…,” Buck breathes beside her.

Hen whips her head around at the sound.

“Wait, you know this guy?” Chim asks, but Buck doesn’t say anything. Instead, he starts to walk towards the new guy, or almost staggers, she should rather say. The newbie only takes notice of him when his head pops out from the shirt.

“Buck?”

To Hen, it feels like the two just go in slow motion while the rest of the fire station is crazy and busy as always. As though the whole world disappeared around them.

She can’t make out whatever words may be exchanged between them before the new guy covers the last few steps between them and pulls Buck against him in a tight hug. Shock is written all over his face, but also huge relief. Though Hen honestly wished they stood the other way around, because she would like to know just what expression is flitting across her little golden retriever’s face.

“What on earth is going on here?” Chimney mutters.

“I ain’t got no clue.”

The newbie pulls away, smiling over both ears, both hands deftly resting on Buck’s arms. Even though Hen still can’t see Buck’s face, it seems that the guy is doing all the talking for a change. Then he is hugging him all over again.

“I repeat, what on earth is going on here?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Before they can overcome their paralysis, Buck starts to move, gesturing behind himself. The new guy nods with the brightest of smiles, not once letting go of Buck’s arm as they start to walk towards them.

Her confusion is multiplied by the way Buck carries himself, eyes downcast, looking nothing but nervous.

Did someone exchange the 118’s golden retriever this morning, or what’s going on here?

“... can’t believe we meet again in this place of all places,” she can hear the new guy say as they approach.

“S, same.”

Buck is stuttering. To repeat the repeat: What on earth is going on here?

“We have so much catching up to do.”

“Yeah.”

“Buckaroo?” Hen calls out, or maybe demands. She no longer cares for the details here. She needs to get down to the bottom of this. Fast.

“Oh, sorry, I just… this is Eddie.”

“Hi.”

“Hi Eddie, it is a pleasure meeting you. We will greet you good and proper in only just a moment. Hold the line,” Hen says, before turning her attention back to Buck. “Now to you, Buckaroo. Spill the beans.”

“Yeah,” Chim agrees.

But Buck is not forthcoming. Boy looks like a fish out of the water, his mouth opening and closing without any sounds coming out. This makes the sirens ring inside Hen’s head, not the ones at the station. Because their Buckaroo never stops talking, even when he should sometimes, and even when he wants to stop talking, he will keep talking. So him not finding anything to say may or may not force Mother Hen to have to look after her punk chick here.

“We grew up together,” Eddie says after a pause, still all soft smiles and maybe even softer curls, by the looks of it. Hen will worry about that later, too. “I honestly had no clue he was working at this station, let alone that he was in L.A. Color me surprised. Abuela will not believe this.”

“Abuela?”

“My grandmother. She’s the one who fostered him before…,” Eddie continues, but then stops himself when he notices the look of sheer panic on Buck’s face. “They do not know this.”

Buck shakes his head.

“Dios.”

“Wait, you were in foster care?” Chimney almost cries out.

“In Texas?” Hen adds, her mind still short-circuiting thanks to that input.

“Yeah. I was adopted by the Moores after that.”

Chimney gapes at him. “You were adopted?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait, they don’t know about that either?” Eddie asks, now almost as frantic as they are.

Welcome to the club, hon.

“Now they do,” Buck mutters.

“But Maddie isn’t adopted. I should know.” Chimney lifts his index finger.

“Right,” Hen agrees.

Eddie makes a face. “Who’s Maddie?”

“My girlfriend, Buck’s sister.”

“You have a sister?” Eddie slaps his hand against Buck’s arm, shock taking the place of confusion.

“Wait, you grew up with him and don’t know his sister?”

“It’s a long story,” Buck sighs.

“Like how you’re Texan?” Hen scoffs.

Buck holds up his hands. “Okay, guys, can we stop spiraling for a second?”

Hen opens her mouth to give him a piece of mind, but she’s abruptly cut off by their captain standing at the top of the stairs. “Buck! I could use a hand up here!”

“On my way, Cap!” Buck yells back, the amount of relief to opt out of the conversation more than imminent. “Sorry, duty calls!”

“Hey no,” Chim hisses, but Buck isn’t having it. He pats Eddie on the shoulder. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

“Okay.”

With that, he starts to jog, or rather run, up the stairs. All watch him go, before their eyes fall back on the people standing right in front of them.

Well, if that’s not awkward.

“So, ugh. Hi again,” the new guy says, smiling sheepishly. “Eddie Diaz, your newbie.”

“Hi. Hen Wilson.”

“Howard Han, but you can call me Chimney or Chim. And why I’m called that is between me and God.”

“Okay. That may be only the second most confusing thing to happen on my first day.”

“We don’t normally act like this,” Hen tries to reassure him.

Chim makes a face. “We don’t?”

Hen nudges him in the side hard enough to make Chim gasp.

“Wilson, Han, you’re supposed to get on with the stocks!” someone calls out.

“You’re not our boss!” Chim shouts back at what turns out to be that jackass Lambert from B-roll no one likes because his attitude stinks about as much as his aftershave.

“But Cap is and he told me to tell you to move it!”

“I hate that guy,” Chim grumbles.

“I think I’ll like it here,” Eddie chuckles.

“They are so young and innocent when they join,” Chim snorts.

“Welcome to the 118,” Hen says, giving the younger man’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I suppose you should go up there as well and talk to the captain.”

“Alright, I’ll see you around.”

“Most certainly.”

“That was only mildly threatening,” Chim laughs, rolling his eyes well before Hen jabs him another time.

“Good to have you here,” he adds.

“Indeed.”

“Good to be here. See you later.”

“Later,” both say in unison.

Eddie smiles at them before climbing up the stairs.

“You try to get a hold of your boo, I’ll see what info I can squeeze out of Cap or Buck, whoever I get my hands on first.”

“Aren’t we supposed to get on with…”

Hen glowers at him.

“I said nothing.”

“Less talking to me, more talking to your girlfriend.”

Chimney makes a mock salute, before walking away while fiddling with his phone. Hen let’s her gaze wander up to the gallery with a grimace. Something is not right, but she is going to figure it out. Because Hen Wilson keeps all her little chicks on track, even more so now that they got a new one to take care of.

-------------------

Eddie tosses the sponge into the water bucket. Getting some of the crappier chores for the day is something he fully expected to happen. What he didn't expect, not in a million years, was running into Buck. Eddie’s head is still reeling because of it. And for what it seems, the same is true for Buck.

Buck.

To say that he seemed shocked is an understatement. Eddie knows the way Buck expresses panic. He’s grown up making sure the kid breathed instead of keeling over when it hit him, so Eddie knows that this was not just surprise, this was fight-or-flight level panic. Eddie knows by now he was so panicked because his colleagues didn’t know about the fostering or adoption – and he could still kick himself for bringing it up unawares.

He jumped to the conclusion because Buck used to talk about it freely to anyone who asked, especially after he was adopted by the Moores. Because it was his way of signifying to the rest of the world that he’d made it from being abandoned to finding friends and family. So Eddie assumed that Buck wouldn’t act any different around his colleagues.

Far from it!

“Eddie, my friend.”

Eddie nearly jumps when Hen and Chimney materialize next to him.

Speaking of…

“Hi,” he greets them.

“How’re you liking it thus far?”

“The detergents smell not as bad as some others do,” Eddie snorts. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not what you came here to ask me about.”

“Just so that you know, you can tell us anything,” Hen says in that mild tone of voice, though Eddie is pretty sure she only says it this way not to scare him away.

“You are looking for bribing material on Buck, I take?”

“We always appreciate it, but we are more like… trying to get up to speed. Until you came to the station, we didn’t even know he’d been fostered,” Hen answers.

“Or adopted,” Chimney adds.

“In Texas.”

Eddie chews on the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, about that. So he actually found his sister?”

If seeing Buck nearly floored him, hearing about his sister was definitely not adding to Eddie’s calm.

“Yes, she’s my girlfriend. You’ll get to know her soon enough.”

There is a part in Eddie that’s very much relieved to hear that Buck found at least part of his family, but another part of him hurts at the news just as much. Because that means Buck likely learned some very uncomfortable truths about his past that won’t have added to the man’s confidence.

“Back in Texas, we knew nothing about where he came from, including whether he had siblings or not. There was an assumption, but no one could be sure.”

“How old were you by the time your grandmother fostered him?”

“I was eight years old.”

“Eight years old… Buck made it sound like he and Maddie were out of touch like, only by the time she got to know Doug.”

Eddie frowns. “Who’s Doug?”

“No one you want to know.” Chimney shakes his head.

Eddie shakes his head. All of this starts to make less and less sense. Why didn’t Buck tell them about any of this? Why didn’t he when he apparently found his sister? Why are they about as clueless as he is, even though they’ve been working side-by-side with him for how long now?

“We lost sight of each other when the Moores moved away from Texas. So they aren’t around anymore?”

Hen shrugs at that. “Let’s say we’ve never met them, never talked about them, or seen any pictures.”

“Kid arrived here with a travel bag and the will to become a firefighter,” Chimney adds.

Eddie can’t help but smile at that. “That sounds like him.”

“You sound pretty clueless actually, and not gonna lie, that is strangely reassuring,” Chimney snorts.

“I prepared for meeting many new people today. Not my best friend back from childhood.”

“Aw.” Hen clutches her hands in front of her chest.

“I just hope he’s not mad at me.” Eddie grimaces. There is something tugging at his heart, just thinking about it. A memory that goes way back in time. When he thought he’d messed it up with Buck forever and always, but he forgave quicker than Eddie could forgive himself.

“I don’t remember our Buckaroo being capable of keeping grudges for long.”

“Then that hasn’t changed at least,” Eddie sighs.

“I think you two should definitely get something to drink after work, reminiscence about the good old times. Catch up. Report back to us in the morning,” she says, her voice trailing off.

“You are aware that they are childhood friends.”

“But I can be far more intimidating.”

“I think getting something to drink and catch up is actually a good idea,” Eddie ponders. “So thanks.”

“You, I like.”

Eddie grins.

“You still missed a spot, though.”

Eddie chuckles, shaking his head. Buck made some good friends here, for what it seems. And he is more than glad for it. They can surely figure this all out.

-------------------

Waking up this morning, Buck thought his biggest worry would be to sort himself out with regards to the newbie and his standing on the team as a result. While that remains true, he just didn't imagine for one hot second it may be Eddie of all people in the entire universe.

Eddie.

When Buck saw him at the station, he didn’t know how to breathe. Even though he hadn’t seen him in years, he knew instantly, only to know that he suddenly knew nothing anymore. Buck used to think he made his peace never seeing Eddie again after they moved away, but then Eddie was hugging him and all those things Buck made sure to bury deep in the ground started to crawl up through the dirt, scratching at a way too thin surface.

And now he is sitting at a bar, nursing his alcohol free beer – because he doesn’t drink when driving, he has to get people out of cars thanks to that behavior way too often, thank you very much. He is at a bar. With Eddie. His Eddie. Because Eddie invited him to get a beer after the shift, and Buck didn’t know how to say no.

Story of my life, isn’t it?

“… I don’t even know where to begin,” Buck admits after a while of awkward silence spreading between them, wherein both men just started peeling the label off of their bottles of beer.

“Same. I mean, you got a sister.”

“Yeah, ugh, I would have told you that, but Chim is still over the moon with her, so of course he mentioned her before I could. They are cute together, but at the disgusting kind of stage,” Buck ponders.

“I’m just so happy for you that you found your family, Buck.”

He manages a feeble smile. Because Buck knows that Eddie means it, understands it perhaps better than most. Because he had to deal with it growing up, had to deal with Buck dealing it growing up.

“I didn’t really find Maddie. We just… happened to meet again. Like us two did today.”

Eddie blinks at him. “Really?”

Buck nods his head. The universe always had the strangest kind of humor when it came to him.

“She’s a dispatcher now. We talked over dispatch for a while, not knowing who we are to each other. We decided to hang out. As friends. She didn’t know people in the city after she moved there only recently, so we also went to a pub and… we started to talk.”

Déjà-vu much, huh?

“Over time, I told her some stuff about my past and, well, Maddie realized that the timing seemed oddly familiar to the brother she thought had died,” Buck continues. “DNA test confirmed it.”

“I was wondering about that,” Eddie sighs, still trying to process that input for what it seems. “I mean, I really put my foot in it, just blurting out with this.”

Buck holds up his hands. “Eddie, no. You had any reason to believe I had told them. I suppose I’ve been blowing this up out of proportions anyway, so this is really just on me.”

“It’s your choice what you want to share with people about yourself, Buck.”

Buck blinks. Sometimes, he forgets how wise Eddie used to be already at a young age. He was also a dumbass a lot of times, but when it came to talking about Buck’s feelings instead of his own, the guy always knew how to make sense of the chaos and make Buck feel like his feelings weren’t just a tedious affair best ripped off like band-aids.

Eddie always understood Buck, even when he couldn’t understand himself. And Buck wants to think that the same was true the other way around, for as long as it lasted.

“Thanks.”

Eddie smiles at him, sipping from his beer.

“Speaking of, thanks to Maddie I now know my official name,” Buck continues, doing his best to sound jovial. “Evan Buckley.”

“Buck-ley. Well, that explains how you got the name,” Eddie ponders, before tilting his head to the side with a cocked eyebrow. “So do I call you Evan from now on?”

“If you want me to call you Edmundo?”

Eddie narrows his eyes at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Buck sniggers. “You should know better than to tempt me.”

“Evan.”

“Edmundo.”

“This sounds all kinds of wrong,” Eddie laughs, shaking his head. “For me, you can only ever be Buck.”

“Which is convenient, because I can only be Buck.”

There was a brief moment in time when Buck considered changing his name, taking on that identity, the one intended. In the end, he dropped the idea for what he hopes to be for good. He doesn’t know who this Evan Buckley was or what he’d be now. He knows what Buck was like growing up. He knows what the guy is up to these days. And while they have their qualms, he’s mostly at peace with Buck.

Even a name tag doesn't change a thing about it.

Because he’s Buck. And thankfully, Eddie sees it the same way. So maybe he’s not entirely crazy for holding on to that, however schizophrenic it may be in the end.

“Anyway, part of the reason why I managed not to let anyone in on this is that Maddie agreed to run with not mentioning it. We just stuck to the part where we lost sight of each other and found one another again when anyone asked. And until now, no one really questioned the timeline.”

“And no one ever made the connection between Buckley and Buck?” Eddie asks.

Buck shakes his head. “Maddie’s married name is Kendall. She considered changing it back to Buckley after she broke up with her scumbag husband. But when she found out what kind of scumbags our parents are, it was out the window. So no one had reason to question the difference in names and just assumed that Maddie’s birth name was Moore, too.”

“I take that there is no good explanation as to how you ended up in Texas, then,” Eddie sighs. Buck can tell that he’s trying to sound casual, soft, but the white-knuckled grip on the beer bottle is an entirely different story.

“No, not really. As far as we understand it, our parents moved across state borders under the pretense to get treatment for me. Then they just dropped me at a fire station and drove back. They told Maddie I died.”

“Why would they do that? Why would anyone’s parents…?” Eddie shakes his head, disbelief settling in. Buck knows the feeling oh too well. When he found out, it didn’t make sense to him at all. But as more details were added, the clearer the bigger picture became, though it turned none the brighter.

Buck looks around, just to be sure none of the 118 was sent here to spy on them. Once he is sure there is really just them, Buck hunches forward in his seat.

“Well, I was a big, fat disappointment, I guess. They had me to save their oldest son, Daniel. He had juvenile leukemia. I was… I was a savior baby. Just that… ugh, I didn’t save him. My guessing is that they never wanted me, so they gave me away after Daniel died. I was just there for spare parts anyway.”

Buck suddenly feels something cold in his neck, only to realize it’s Eddie’s hand gently squeezing it. Buck tenses for a moment, then eases to the familiarity of the touch, suppressing the urge to lean into it like he used to.

“I’m so sorry. I would’ve hoped for something else to come out of this.”

Buck manages a feeble smile. “It’s fine. I got a sister now I never expected to find. That’s great. Over the moon kinda great. And now I also ran back into you, too. So I’m one lucky bastard after all.”

Eddie’s hand lingers for a while, no words spoken and yet all is said between them. And how much Buck missed that. Not having to say things for them to be understood.

Eventually, Eddie’s hand falls on his shoulder, giving it a light pat before returning to his beer. “So we’re still friends after I spilled to your colleagues?”

“I didn’t stop being your friend after you got so mad for me saying that you couldn’t bake for shit, so you covered a balloon stuck to a cardboard box in frosting and told me you’d baked a cake and I cut the thing only for it to explode in my face.”

“To this day one of my proudest achievements when it comes to pranks,” Eddie snorts, breaking out laughing at the memory.

Buck can’t help but laugh along. Many of those memories got stuffed away alongside the ones he’d buried in the ground. He had no reason to unearth them because he chose not to tell anyone. But with Eddie, those things come back to light and they shimmer like gold, even after all those years of packing on dust.

“Laugh it up all you want, I got back at you eventually.”

“Don’t remind me,” Eddie groans. “I got grounded for a month because you led my parents to believe I’d be stupid enough to have a folder for porn on the family’s computer and made a message pop up every time that the folder was overloaded and created a system error.”

“Yeah. That was a masterpiece,” Buck sniggers. “But anyway. If that didn’t cancel our friendship, I think we’re fairly good with all this here.”

“Then I’m glad. When you fled the scene, I got kind of worried.”

Buck shrugs. “You know me. I’m a whirlwind of emotions, so I thought it’d be best if I took the time to cool down.”

“That was definitely not how you went about it before,” Eddie argues.

And Buck can’t argue with that. Back in the day, Buck just let the storms rage, never minding the consequences. On the job, that’s still how he rolls, but it was also how he talked, how he presented himself. After he got to meet the Diaz family, he stopped hiding a lot of things. He screamed when he felt like screaming and he cried when he was sad. He laughed when he was happy. And sometimes he even cried because he was that happy, but he learned that this was okay. Abuela always told him this and he took it to heart.

At least for as long as I could.

“Which is why I’m working on it. But anyway! Enough of me. Tell me about you. How long have you been in L.A.? What got you here?” Buck asks. Judging by the look on Eddie’s face, his transition of topics is not nearly as smooth as he’d want it to be, but Eddie rolls with it anyway.

“I moved here only shortly, for the job,” he says. “Before that, I was working some odd jobs. Before that, Afghanistan.”

Buck winces. “Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s one way of describing it. After I came back home injured, I couldn’t do this anymore. I had to set priorities differently, and somehow… I ended up in L.A.”

“Fresh start.” Buck nods his head. There is still so much to unravel in just those few sentences. Afghanistan. Injury. Priorities. Eddie tends to hide a lot more in his words, even more so when they are scarce. But for what it seems, he will now get the time to dig deeper. Because that is what Buck knows someone has to do in order to understand someone like Eddie Diaz.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“I get that feeling,” Buck says. “Los Angeles is great for that, worked out for Maddie and me, too.”

“We’ll have to drink a lot of beers to catch up on all those years we didn’t hear from each other to wind up having a fresh start in the same city.”

“Then it’s a date.”

Eddie wants to say something, but then his phone vibrates. “Sorry about that.”

Buck holds up his hands. “It’s fine.”

Eddie takes out his phone and checks his messages. Buck can see the instant shift in the other man’s demeanor. He knows that change like the back of his hand, even with years between where they parted ways and now crossed them again. Eddie’s shutting down.

“Hey, uhm, sorry, I gotta head out. It’s urgent,” he says, grabbing his wallet, clearly embarrassed and beat-up for having to leave so suddenly.

Some things don’t change, do they?

“Hey, it’s fine, man. We, ugh, we are stuck together now anyway, right? We’ll find enough time to catch up. It’s a date, after all,” Buck assures him. “Also, you’re not paying for the beer, unless you wanna pick a fight with me. Just go.”

Eddie smiles at him wryly. “Thanks. I’ll pay next round?”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Now off you go.”

“Sorry another time. I really gotta…”

“See you at work!”

“See ya!”

Buck manages to keep up the smile until the door shuts behind Eddie. His shoulders drop and he sucks in a deep breath. He pays for the beers and nearly flies out the door.

He makes for his car and climbs in. Buck realizes only now how badly his hands are shaking. Struggling for breath, he takes out his wallet again and fishes out that one crumpled piece of the past he carries with him whenever he’s not on the job, so to be sure it doesn’t get further damage.

Buck unfolds the faded photograph with shaky hands and presses it against his mouth, breathing hard against it. The tears keep coming, no matter how hard he tries to stop them. They are happy and sad. Desperate and relieved. Everything and nothing. And all that at the same time.

Eddie is back.

Eddie is back in his life, just like that, after the years it took him to accept he’d never see him again. That he’d moved on as he should have.

How do you rip off the band-aid or duct tape for that?

Or maybe that’s just the universe telling him that some things really can’t be fixed.

Because apparently, the universe is still mocking him.

#buddie #buck x eddie #eddie x buck #buddie fanfic #fanfic #snippet #y'all let me in and now I'm making y'all miserable #:)#long ass snippets that pester me and now you too #by a non-native no less #bon appétit

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buddiebeginz · 3 years

Text

tw: child abuse/other references to abuse

Finally caught up to the current episodes of 911. I have a lot of thoughts on Buck and Maddie and their family situation from Buck Begins (and the episodes before it). From stuff I’ve seen around online I get the impression that most people loved Buck’s begin episode but it’s probably my least favorite of the show thus far along with Eddie’s ep. I love those characters but I don’t feel the show did their origin stories justice especially not when compared to the kinds of episodes the other characters had.

As for Buck’s story I was glad we were able to learn a lot of new information about his past, considering that was one of my big issues with Eddie’s ep that it felt like a lot of repetitive info we already knew. I’m glad we got to see what Buck’s life was like before he became a firefighter and learn more about his relationship with Maddie and that he had traveled a lot. Still as someone who grew up in an abusive home I feel like Buck’s origin story with his parents was handled pretty carelessly at points.

It’s kind of a common thing I’ve seen with shows though unfortunately. It just seems that most mainstream media doesn’t know how to handle abuse storylines (especially abusive parents) unless it’s storylines dealing with more commonly understood abuse like physical or sexual. If it’s abuse like Buck and Maddie endured where their life looked perfect on the surface but underneath there’s neglect and emotional abuse tv shows often give the parents an excuse (like they were grieving) and finds a way for the family to come back together at the end. Because they weren’t really “that bad”. But emotional abuse like Buck endured can sometimes be worse than physical.

It’s clear that Buck’s parents are toxic and that Maddie and Buck should both stay as far away from them as possible. I was really bothered by the scene with Buck and his parents at the firehouse. It felt like the show sort of absolved Buck’s parents of all their wrong doing and made it seem like they cared about him, like they always had when it was clear they never really did. They had him to save Daniel and when he couldn’t it’s obvious they resented him. I mean look at that whole thing with the baby box. That’s how little they cared about him. They didn’t even make a box to remember his important moments. Yes people can grow and change but they don’t do it over night and abusers rarely change.

I know there was a line Buck said (to Maddie) at the end about how he could forgive them because he’s never felt like he had a relationship with them in the first place so it didn’t really matter, which makes sense in theory but in real life that’s never how it is when you’ve grown up with abusive parents. You can try and detach yourself emotionally from them all you want but they’re still your parents, there’s still a part of you that will always hurt from never being loved the way you deserved by the people who were supposed to love you the most. Things like that don’t get wrapped up all nice and neat like like it felt like they tried to do with Buck and his parents. I am glad Buck got to express some of how he felt when they all had that dinner together but he definitely didn’t owe his parents forgiveness.

------------

The part I had the biggest issue with though was at the end when Buck went to see Maddie. Buck had every right to be angry and remain angry for awhile, at the very least Buck had a right to tell Maddie how he felt and express why he was angry and hurt by what she did and I felt like the show robbed him of that.

Buck walked in the door talking about how he had basically lashed out on Maddie because he knew that no matter what she would forgive him. It’s not Maddie who needed to do the forgiving it was Buck. Buck had trusted her his whole life. She had been like a defacto parent for all intents and purposes as his parents refused to be there for him the way he needed and now he finds out the one person in this world who has been a constant in his life (at least before he joined the 118) has lied to him about something huge. It makes sense he wouldn’t just shake that off. So for the show to just have him come in and act like everything is fine with him and Maddie I felt like was a huge problem and major disservice to Buck’s character and growth.

I’m not saying I didn’t want Maddie and Buck to make up, I definitely did. But Buck has never been good at putting his true feelings first and expressing himself. Buck has been selfish at times (plenty in season 1) but he has never been good about speaking up for what he needs and speaking truthfully to the people in his life about things he was dealing with. I mean he barely told Abby how he felt when he saw her again, he mostly stayed quiet and let her make it all about herself when he really should have been like “wtf why did you ghost me for no reason?”. Or when he didn’t tell everyone how hard he was pushing himself to go back to work and then developed a blood clot, or when he was scared to tell everyone he was seeing a therapist. He holds a lot back.

My point is if we’re supposed to be seeing Buck mature into a “better” version of himself he even said something about Buck 3.0 in a recent episode. How can that change happen if the show doesn’t let him evolve and let his relationships evolve. Even with the 118. I know they love him but I feel like they still see him as the hot headed screw up from season 1 sometimes. It’d be nice if they saw how much he’s grown too. (Not talking about Eddie. Eddie sees Buck more than anyone else does. He was the only one who told Buck he had every right to express how he felt and that he didn’t have to forgive his parents.)

Back to Maddie I think it was vital for Buck and for their relationship that we should have seen Buck tell her something like “it hurt that you kept that from me when you were the only family I ever really had (before the 118)”. I love Buck and Maddie’s relationship so I’m not saying I wanted some huge fight or for it to get drawn out on the show but I wanted Buck to express his pain and for him to call Maddie out on how wrongly she handled things. I know that she was also a victim of their parents abuse (not to mention everything with Doug) but that doesn’t absolve her from her lies to Buck once they both weren’t living with their parents anymore.

To be honest I don’t even understand why Maddie called her parents to come to LA. She said something about how because she has a baby on the way she wanted to reconnect with them but there is no connecting with people who are that toxic. And her need to connect with them shouldn’t have had to involve Buck if he didn’t want to see them. I definitely don’t understand why Maddie thought it was her place to tell their parents about Buck going to therapy especially without asking him. She told Buck that he should open up and tell them how he’s been feeling but like why? They clearly never cared about his feelings before and it was obvious when they all had dinner together they still don’t. At the dinner I didn’t like how Maddie seemed to be quiet most of the time or trying to just keep the peace with her parents vs standing up for Buck the way he did for her. At one point their mother got upset talking about the hospital and it sounded like she was going to talk about Daniel and Maddie stopped her. It’s like Maddie didn’t want the secret to get out to Buck either. Yet Maddie had no problem telling Chimney.

I’ve seen people saying stuff like no one better hate on Maddie. I don’t hate Maddie but I have a lot of issues with choices she made and the fact that it didn’t feel like she owned up to them to Buck at the end. It’s altered how I look at her and her relationship with Buck to a extent. Maddie lied to Buck even when she didn’t have to anymore. She told other people something that she should have only been telling Buck. She told her parents Buck’s business. She brought her parents to LA without asking Buck if he wanted to see them. She tried to excuse her parents by saying “they were grieving” . Grief is not an excuse to keep huge secrets from your children, to lie to them continually, and it’s definitely not an excuse to abuse your children.

I have empathy for what Buck’s whole family went through including his parents. I can’t imagine the kind of pain that parents would go through losing their child. But no child should have to bare the burden of their parents pain and that’s essentially what they made Maddie and Buck do.

I know this got pretty long but Buck is my favorite character I relate to him a lot, even more so after watching some of the current episodes. These eps about his family were just painful. I wanted to protect Buck because I felt like no one in his family was. I know what he was feeling in these episodes. Alone and unloved and like he couldn’t trust anyone and like no one in his family was on his side.

The whole montage at the end with Maddie and Buck which was supposed to tug on our hearts and remind us of this great bond they share as siblings ended up feeling kind of hollow to me. I think it could have been a beautiful scene if the show had used it after allowing them to talk about what had happened. It would have shown all they had been through and how they had grown and were moving forward. That they were all the (biological) family they needed and their parents didn’t matter. But since the show didn’t allow that kind of recognition the montage felt more like the show was saying we’re just going to sweep all that drama under the rug now it’s over and done with, here’s some pretty pictures. You don’t instantly move on from knowing someone you trusted lied to you your whole life. I just really wish the show would have done better for Buck in these episodes and better with telling a storyline about abuse. I know this is probably an unpopular opinion but I just felt like I needed to rant about it. If you made it down this far thanks for reading. 💗

#please do not send hate if you disagree #911 fox #evan buckley #buck #buck begins #911 s4*#911 4x05 #911 4x04 #long post #buck and maddie #buck s4 #tw: child abuse #tw: abuse #911!

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amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines · 4 years

Text

Betty//a promise is a promise...no matter what

Request: May I please request a farmie reader x betty cooper where reader helps her take down the farm and rescue Betty's friends and family and the two fall in love with each other and at the end there is a big fluffy reveal of there love for each other

hey! i’m starting to sprinkle a little conversation in before you guys read anything again, because well, i feel like i don’t talk to you guys enough. and if i haven’t got anything to talk about, i’ll figure something out. anyway, i hope you like it! (i also have nothing to talk about thats got anything to do with this sooooo, i hope you like it?)

“What’s he like?” Betty Cooper’s voice distracts you mid-thought. Your hiding in one of the bathroom stalls over lunch time because sitting with the farm is too much and sitting anywhere else is frowned upon, so you’ve had to resort to eating your lunch in the toilets.

“Younger than I thought.” Cheryl replies and you stop eating, quietly putting your lunch away so you can listen to what they’re talking about. “Also, count him among the hot dads of Riverdale, because Mr Evernever is a yummy snack.” She adds and your eyes widen. They’re talking about Edgar. Ever since the farm came to Riverdale, Betty’s been two steps behind it, and honestly you’d be quite impressed, if it wasn’t a huge pain in the ass and extremely dangerous for her. “He’s also a great listener.”

“Cheryl, this is huge! You’re in with Edgar.” hardly. “Which means I have a few questions I need you to ask him, okay?” big mistake. “Why did Edgar decide to come to Riverdale now?” because he was close to being caught in the last town. “And how many members does he plan on recruiting?” the whole town...for now. “And most importantly-” Betty is cut off by the door opening and the entire room goes silent, apart from the creaky door...and then.

“Excuse you!” Cheryl shouts. “We are having a private conversation. Can you leave?” You hear whoever she was shouting at sob before leaving and then she continues like nothing has happened. Very Cheryl Blossom, and you’re not entirely sure how her and Betty could be related. “Go on, cousin.”

“You said Edgar recorded your interview. I need you to find out where he stores those tapes. If I can get my hands on my mom and Polly’s, then the farm won’t have any leverage over my family.”

“I’ll try my best.” Cheryl replies. “Tbh, I kind of enjoyed talking to Eddie.” She admits and you feel your heart drop. Not another one. Not someone else. Nobody can make the same mistake you did. You hear Cheryl’s heels clicking across the tiled floor before the door swings open and closes, and you can just make out Betty walking towards the door.

Its now or never.

“Itsnotaseasyasthat.” Your words all rush into each other as you scramble to open the stall door. Betty freezes at your words before turning to face you and you can see the terror that travels through her entire body as she realizes its you. The first student of Riverdale High to join the farm...the first one to be brainwashed by Edgar and the farmies.

“What?” She asks and takes a few steps towards you. You take that as permission to come further out the stall, your bag slung over your shoulder as you play with the straps awkwardly.

“Its not as easy as that. Edgar isn’t going to trust her, not fully. He’s going to know that you guys are related and its only a matter of time before he puts the pieces together and figures out that she’s spying. Plus, I saw Cheryl at the farm, and I don’t think its going to be pretend for much longer. They promised Cheryl the only thing she can’t have, she’s going to take it. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Is that right?” She asks, raising an eyebrow as she stares daggers at you.

“Yeah.” You nod quietly and look at the floor.

“And why should I believe you? You’re part of them. For all I know you’ve been sent by Edgar to spy on me.”

“...i’d never do that.” You whisper.

“Why? Because we used to be friends a long time ago?”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t mean anything anymore. We grew up, one of us more than the other.” She looks you up and down. “So, I’m gonna do this my own way, and you’re not going to say anything about what you just heard...you know, to keep our friendship.” She spits before storming out.

------

“Cheryl!” Betty’s hushed tone makes you look up from your locker and across the hall. “I called you a dozen times. I was beyond worried.”

“Why? I texted you I was fine.” She replies annoyed and you sigh.

“Well, what was in that room Edgar took you to?”

“None of your business.” She huffs. “Also, I’m done being your mole. It’s disrespectful, not to mention illegal.”

“Okay, I was gonna say the same thing. You should stop going to the Farm before Edgar catches on to you.”

“Oh, I’m still going to go. I’m just done working for you.”

“Cheryl-” She starts but Cheryl cuts her off before she can even try and talk her out of it.

“Toodles.” She says before storming away and you take that as your cue to leave also, not wanting to get on the bad side of Betty today. You walk past her as quickly and quietly as possible but she grabs your arm before you have the chance to go anywhere making you look around the hallway for any signs of other farmies.

“Okay...you can help.” She nods. “But I need to know you’re actually on my side. Meet me in the supply closet on the second floor after school.” She whispers before letting you go.

----

“Whats your deal Y/n?” Betty dragged you into the supply closet as soon as she heard the knock on the door. She recognized it instantly, despite it being well over five years since she last heard it.

“What?” You ask startled as she pins you against a shelf.

“You know what. I don’t have time to be double crossed so if anybody from the farm sent you to spy on me, I will make sure they know I’m not to be messed with.”

“Betty.” You pry her hands from your t-shirt and they drop to her sides. “I really want to help you. I hate being part of the farm. Its awful. I want out, but its too late for me. For your mom and Polly its not though and I can help them. Same with Cheryl and the twins. They can’t stay there, it’ll destroy their lives, plus the people around them. There’s no hope for me, or even my parents. But I can help you. So please, let me.” You sigh, tears welling in your eyes as you look at the dusty floor.

“okay.” Betty nods. “Y/n?” She asks and you glance at her quickly. “Thank you.”

“Its fine.” You shrug.

“And Y/n?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll get you out of there. I promise.” She holds her pinky out to you making you smile, despite the tears in your eyes.

“Promise.” You nod and connect your pinkies, the two of you giggling quietly.

----

Things at the farm move in mysterious ways.

You put an object down, leave a room and when you come back its moved from your bed to the floor. People seem to appear and disappear all the time. They go for a procedure, come back limping. Edgar is a psycho that prays on the weak and vulnerable to brainwash them into doing what he wants them to do, like he’s some sort of sick God. And there’s definitely something more to him and Evelyn that just a father-daughter bond. Its weird.

And its at times like this that you wonder why you even joined in the first place. The more you think about all the weird shit that goes on, the more you wonder what lured you here in the first place. You can’t figure out what they promised you, but maybe you’ve been hypnotized too many times to remember anything. You’re family are here, so maybe thats why you joined. But you’re parents are smarter than this. They wouldn’t let you ride a bike until you were 13 because they were worried about you falling off and hitting your head, so no way would they join this...cult. Thats what it is. Its a cult disguised as a safe place, and even then its disguised very thinly. You can see the cracks if you look closely enough, not even Edgar Evernever can cover everything up. You wonder if the rest of your family know where you are. If they think you’ve been kidnapped or if you just ran away...in a weird way its kind of both. You did run away, but now you can’t escape.

And now Betty Cooper seems to be your only hope.

Speaking of Betty Cooper, you swear you’ve just seen the sway of her ponytail pass your room making you scramble off your bed and to the door, opening it as quietly as you can.

“Betty!” You whisper shout and she freezes before turning around. She visibly relaxes at the sight of you and it makes a nice difference from the first time she saw you in the girls bathroom. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” You hurry towards her and the two of you look around the dark corridor for any signs of life.

“I need to get those tapes.”

“You need to wait until a safer time.” You retort and she crosses her arms. “There are farmies roaming all over this place thanks to the open house.”

“I need to save my mom.”

“You need to be alive before you save Alice. And this, is suicide.”

“Just, tell me where the tapes are Y/n.”

“Fine.” You huff. “They’re in there.” You point the door on the right to the two of you and she smiles brightly at you, her hand hovering over the handle.

“Not that one. Thats the Traitor room.”

“The Traitor room?” She repeats.

“Just a nickname.” You laugh. “I hope.” You add and she giggles a little. “Its always locked and sometimes you hear funny noises but I think thats just the ghosts.” You shrug. “The room you need is the one next to it.”

“Thank you. Was that so hard?”

“Easy for you to say.” You mumble as you follow her. “You’re not the one that they’ll punish for being a traitor if they find out about this.” She rolls her eyes at your statement before unlocking the door and you have to admit, she is pretty good at picking locks. Although you do want to know how and why she learnt how to do that.

“Brothers and sisters, good evening.” Edgars voice sounds over the tannoy and the two of you freeze to look around again. “It warms my heart to see so many new faces with us here tonight. Including our newest initiate, Cheryl Blossom.” He continues and when the two of you are sure there’s nobody around you follow her into the dusty room. “Welcome to our community, Cheryl.”

“Damn it, Cheryl.” She mutters to herself. “Why?” She asks and you shrug. You’re not entirely sure what they offered her but you knew it was the only thing she couldn’t have anymore.

“May the one become many.” She sighs when she hears Cheryl speaking but continues to look through the tapes anyway, while you search on the other side.

“And the many, one.” The rest of the farmies say and Betty pauses to look at you.

“Shouldn’t you be with them?”

“Yep.” You shrug. “If they ask why I skipped, I’ll just say I didn’t feel well and didn’t want to risk anyone else.”

“Oh...” She looks away, not really sure what to say. “Its an alpha-numeric system.” Sh mumbles to herself and you look at her confused.

“Brothers and sisters, you’ve all come here tonight under great scrutiny and judgement from your friends, and neighbors. And possibly even your own family.” You glance at Betty while Edgar drones on but she refuses to make eye contact, instead moving further into the room. “But only through great sacrifice will your lives be full. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the bounty.”

“Cooper!” She smiles triumphantly and you send her a small smile back.

“Plant your seed, brothers and sisters.” He continues and both of you scrunch your face at his choice of words. “Plant it in the Earth.”

“Two down, one to go.” She tells you and you nod, the reality of the situation now finally sinking in. This could be your way out. You’re not sure how, but it could be. And it feels like with Betty on your side you could do almost anything.

“And watch it grow.”

“Is he still going on?” She asks sarcastically, the two of you feeling a little more confident now that you’re closer to finding what you need.

“Spread it to others.”

“Does he hear what he’s saying?” She asks making you giggle softly, and the noise ignites something in her. It makes her feel light and happy and she has to take a moment to remember where she is. She hasn’t felt that happen to her since her and Jughead started to date. Maybe its this place. Maybe there’s something in the air that makes you feel lightheaded and like your heart is going to beat out of your chest. “Yes! I’ve got it. Lets get out of here.” She shoves the tapes in her bag before grabbing your hand and pulling you through the stacks of tapes. The door locks behind you, leaving you both stood in the eerily quiet corridor. “Thank you.” She mumbles and you nod before going back to your room.

“Where are you going now?” You ask.

“To save Cheryl...someone has to.”

“Be safe Betty.” You tell her and she smiles softly.

“I will. I promise.”

----

“Y/n?” Betty’s voice startles you while you’re looking in you locker and you end up bumping your head off the door as you turn to look at her. You and Betty had agreed not talk in school so it didn’t look suspicious, plus a lot of things had happened over the past few days so you were both kind of two busy to actually talk to each other, much to both of yours dismay.

“Betty? I thought we agreed not to talk at school.”

“I know.” She replies casually, trying to hide the disappointment in her tone. “But I needed to ask you a question.”

“Okay.”

“Well, Junior Prom is coming up and I was wondering if you were going?” She leans against the locker beside yours and you take a minute to look around the busy hallways to see if anyone is looking.

“No, its er not really my thing.” You shake your head and swap some books over. “Are you?”

“Yeah, me and Jughead are going.”

“...cool.” You reply and now its your turn to try and hide your disappointment. Whenever she mentions his name you can’t help the sinking feeling that occurs in your chest.

“Undercover reasons only of course.” She adds and you force a smile.

“Is that the only reason you’d ever go to a prom?”

“There’s one more reason.” She replies and the way she’s looking at you makes it difficult for you to breathe for a few seconds.

“An-d whats that?” You stutter.

“Y/n? Betty? What are you two chatting about?” Evelyn ruins the moment you were having and you’ve never hated her more.

“Homework.” You both reply at the same time.

“Well, thanks for the help Y/n. I’ll see you around. Bye Evelyn.” Betty smiles politely at the two of you before wandering away.

----

The loud sounds of the hall gets quieter and quieter the further away you walk from it. You’d decided to be brave and go to prom (not at all because Betty would be there and you wanted to see her in her dress), however when you got there, they were announcing prom queen (it was betty !!!!!) and she was nowhere to be seen, so you decided to go see if she was okay.

The corridors seem oddly dark as you walk slowly down them and you’re sure you can hear someone running around a little away from you, but then you see a swoosh of blonde hair run behind you and you whip your head round to see the back of someone dress, followed by heavy footsteps. You duck behind a corner and watch a man with a balaclava over his face, stops and looks around before continuing after her.

It takes you less than a minute to get to where this psycho was banging on a closet door but it feels like an eternity, especially when he turns around and see’s you staring at him.

“Shit.” You mumble. Its kind of ironic that the deathly cult you joined a year ago isn’t thing that kills you, its the weirdo with the mask and a hook for a hand. “Hey, so, is there a chance that we could maybe talk about this?” You stumble over your sentence as he moves towards you slowly, scraping his hook against the wall and the sound alone makes you want a nice, sudden death. Betty’s screaming has turned into loud crying and that brings you at least a little bit of comfort, but then again, he could kill you and then her so whats really the point. “So, is that a yes?” You ask as you start to walk backwards, you trip over your dress a little and mentally curse at the stupidly pretty thing. “Is that a no?” Your now pinned to the wall, his arm over your chest while he raises his hand and you squeeze your eyes closed, your life flashing before your eyes.

This is how you’re going to die.

Your hand presses against the cold wall and you desperately try to move...to find anything...anything that can help you. And then...

Thank God for Cheryl’s insistence on potted plants around the school.

Your eyes snap open and you look him in the eye, before looking just behind him.

“Oh, hey Sheriff Jones. Didn’t see you there.” He spins around quickly and your distraction gives you enough time to pick up the plant and smash it over his head, causing him to fall to the floor with a loud thud. You give him a kick in the ribs, just for good measure before running to the room Betty’s hiding in. “Betty?” You bang on the door. “Its me. Its fine. Please open the door.”

“Y/n?” The door swings open and she falls into your arms, the two of you ending up on the floor in an admittedly awkward position.

“Are you okay?” You scan her face for any injuries.

“I’m fine yeah.” She nods. “But he’s back. The Black Hood is back.” Her voice trembles and the two of you look behind you, the corridor now empty apart from the smashed pot.

“Its okay.” You pull her back into a hug and stroke her hair. “You look very nice in your dress by the way.”

“Thanks.” She mumbles. “You look great too. But why are you here?”

“Do you really think I’d turn down an opportunity to take down a bad guy with Betty Cooper?” You ask and she stares at you, a playful smile finding its way to her face.

“But you didn’t know any of this would happen. So why are you really here?”

“I wanted to see you.” You admit shyly and her smile grows.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “I always want to see you.” She pulls away from you ever so slightly to look up at you. Her breath is warm on your cheek and your heartbeat hammers in your chest as you lean in towards her. She takes a deep breath before also moving, her lips grazing over yours and-

“Betty? Are you down here?” You hear Jughead’s voice all the way down the corridor and she practically jumps away from you. “Betty where have you been?” He’s beside her in seconds, effectively pushing you out the way while he hugs her tightly. She glances up at you before returning the hug, tears rolling down her cheek as she she buries her head in his shoulder and you take that as your hint to leave, wiping your own tears away as you go.

----

“Can I join you guys?” Chills travel through your entire body as soon as you hear that voice and your head instantly lifts to find where she is.

“Oh, of course, cousin.” Cheryl replies with a bright smile and everyone at the table moves a little so Betty can sit down. The two of you make brief eye contact while she sits but she just shrugs at you before making conversation with Fangs.

“Fangs, are you okay?” She asks when she notices him groaning.

“Yeah, I’m still a little sore. But the big pain is gone now.” He replies and everyone smiles at him, well everyone but you and Betty. You’re trying to eat as quickly as possible so you can go back to your room and try and figure out a way to get Betty out, and Betty is trying to figure out whats happening so she can get you out.

“What are you talking about?” She asks, glancing at you for a split second.

“Fangs had a minor procedure done.” Kevin explains casually.

“What kind of procedure did you have?” She asks and the table goes silent, everyone taking side glances at each other until finally Cheryl speaks up.

“Its a...purging of all of the pain thats been crushing us. I can’t wait for mine to be gone, too.”

“Hold on. Cheryl, you’re in pain? Like, physical pain?” Betty’s voice is full of worry and you can’t help your heart melting at least a little because of how she sweet she is. God, she doesn’t deserve to be here. Why was she even here in the first place? This wasn’t the plan. You were supposed to be her spy, you stay on the inside, she stays on the outside where she can’t get hurt.

“Well, its just part of Edgar’s methods. He transforms our emotional pain into physical pain, so its easier to treat, and banish.”

“But me first, babe.” Toni jumps in.

“Thats right. Tee-Tee’s next in line.” The two share a moment and you have to refrain from rolling your eyes. You always thought Cheryl was quite clever, and you definitely thought Toni would be smarter than this, but nope, they’ve managed to get themselves caught up in some cult thats operating on its members for reasons unbeknownst to you. But then again, you did also join so you must be just as idiotic that the rest of them.

“For me, the tenderness in my back only lasted a few days. But it was so worth it.” Kevin starts talking but you tune out, you’re watching Betty watch him curiously and then she suddenly lifts his shirt up revealing a scar all along his side.

“Oh, my God, Kevin!” Her eyes widen and Kevin stands quickly, everybody at the table staring at her. “That scar is not from a minor procedure. Thats from major surgery.”

“Don’t ever do that again, Betty.” He replies coldly before storming off, Fangs quickly following after. Cheryl turns away from her, effectively freezing her out and starts talking to Toni and so you take the opportunity to leave. You quickly stand up, starting the short walk back to your room, however your sure you can hear footsteps behind you and just when you’ve made it to your room the door closes behind you and Betty is stood in front of it.

“Betty! What the hell are you thinking? Why are you here?” You walk towards her quickly and she’s fully expecting you to shout at her, but you don’t. You wrap your arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug, and despite the fact that she’s in a dingy room, in possibly the most dangerous place in Riverdale, she feels a little safer with your arms around her, and to your surprise you do to. She squeezes you a little to hard causing you to wince and she instantly pulls back, her eyes full of worry as she scans your body for any injuries, despite the fact that you’re full clothed.

“They didn’t do anything to you right?” Her gaze lands on your left side and her fingers gently graze against the material of your t-shirt. Your breath hitches as she lifts it up a little and she looks at you, trying to find any objection in your eyes to what she’s done. When she’s sure your okay with it, she lifts it up a little to reveal your side, injury free, and she lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“You just squeezed me a little to hard. Thats all.” You reply and she nods before bringing you back into a hug. “But that doesn’t answer my question. Why are you here?” The panic is back in your voice and her heart flutters a little.

“After everything at prom with the black hood I think it actually might be safer for me to stay here.” She laughs bitterly and you pull away slowly.

“Yeah.” You laugh. “That is surprising. Come on.” You guide her towards your bed and the two of you sit down, your legs pressed together as you wrap an arm around her.

“Me and Jughead broke up.”

“Oh.” You frown, despite the small spark of joy thats ignited. “Why?”

She hesitates for a moment, as if she’s trying to find the right words, until she gives up.

“We grew apart.” Her answer is vague, but you decide not to push her anymore.

“I’m sorry.”

“Its not your fault.” She shrugs. Lies. Its all your fault. I love you, not him.

“I’m still sorry.” You reply.

“Do you think I’m a bad person?” She asks and you move to look at her.

“What? No. Not at all. Who the hell said that!?!”

“Just, something my mom said.”

“In the nicest possible way, your mom’s been brainwashed, she barely knows the difference between the real world and dreams.”

“Yeah...I suppose so.” She trails off, seeming to get lost in thought and you squeeze her hand making her look at you.

“Whatever they’ve said. Its not true okay? Bad people don’t try and help their family and friends. They don’t help strangers, and thats exactly what you’re doing. You’re incredible Betty Cooper.” The blush that creeps up her neck seems to match yours as you look her in the eyes, you could get lost in them, so lost, and you’d never tire of them. Or of her smile, or just of her. And you need to get her out of here. “Now, come on Betty. We’ve got to figure out what they’re cutting out of us because I’m after Toni Topaz.” You grimace and her eyes widen.

“What!?” She stands up, pulling you with her. “I won’t let them do anything to you.”

“I know you won’t.” You reply, and you know she’s telling the truth.

“Y/n?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not a bad person either.”

“Thanks.” You shrug and you so desperately want to believe her.

“Wait!” She calls after you and you stop by the door. “I got you something.”

“What?” You ask confused and make your way back towards her.

“Its just something little, and well, it was mine, hence why it has my initials on it, but I thought you might like it.” She places the small locket in your hand making you smile brightly as you stare at it. “Its got a picture of us in when we were like 11 at Archie’s birthday party, you know, the one with the bouncy castle and Reggie-”

“Reggie broke his arm.” You laugh. “Yeah, I remember. That was really funny. He cried like a baby.” Its nice to be reminded of simpler times, however much it stings at the same time. You go back to a time where everybody was friends, nothing bad had happened in the small town you called home and you and your friends were still innocent before the world had taken that away from all of you.

“So did you when you saw the bone sticking out of his skin.” She retorts making you gag.

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault. That was gross. And at least I didn’t throw up, all over the buffet table.”

“Wow. Okay. There was no need to bring that up.” She feigns offense.

“I thought your mom was going to have a fit when she saw you’d thrown up over the sandwiches she’d made.”

“To be fair. Those sandwiches were disgusting. I don’t know why she made them...” She trails off and you reach a hand out to her which she gladly takes.

“We’ll get her back. I promise.”

“I know.” She nods. “Anyway, lets go find out what Edgar’s doing now.”

“Yeah.” You nod. “Hopefully he’s not harvesting organs.”

“That would be ridiculous.”

----

The past who knows how long has been a nightmare. The last thing you remember is Cheryl helping Toni escape. You’d lost track of Betty hours ago, but you’re pretty sure you heard screaming from a room no one is aloud in.

You’d tried to find her. Fought, screamed everything to get to her, but she had just vanished, and as soon as you thought you got close to her, footsteps approached you from behind and then everything went dark.

That was until you woke up in an empty room, tied to a chair with blood dripping down your head. The good thing is you’re pretty sure you’re still at the farm, the bad thing is, you can’t hear anything. Its silent, nobody is walking about outside, you can usually hear people chanting but nothing.

You’re completely alone.

Betty hadn’t had the best night either. She’s almost had a lobotomy, then she’d been kidnapped and then her and her friends had been hunted down through the forest all night until Cheryl and Toni turned up.

Now she was running through the halls of the sisters in a desperate attempt to find you. You’d been the first person she’d asked Cheryl about, and when Cheryl told her that Edgar was planning on ascending, she knew she didn’t have much time. She needed to find you and her family. And quickly.

“Help!” You cry out for probably the thousandth time. Your voice is quiet, your throat sore and scratchy from all the shouting you’ve been doing even though you know there’s no use. You’re going to die in here, tied to a bed and then you’ll be found by a bunch of kids and become another one of Riverdale’s urban legends. You can only imagine what people are going to say about you.

And what about your family? Where are your parents? Do they know you’ve been locked in here or has Edgar told them some made up story. You’re never going to see them again. Never going to see your mom’s smile when your dad does something stupid. Your dad’s never going to hug you again, or tell you stupid jokes when your sad. All the past arguments, boring conversations or amazing memories you’ve taken for granted.

You failed.

You didn’t save anyone.

Not even yourself.

Your tears fall fast, loud sobs echo through the room. Before you cried quietly in the dead at night, but now, who the hell cares. There’s nobody to hear you. You may as well cry loudly...as a sick treat before you die a slow painful death.

“Kevin.” Betty is honestly shocked to find her former best friend sat alone in the chapel. She’s shocked to see him alive to be honest, and she quickly looks around to see if there’s anybody else with him...if you’re with him.

“They left me.” He says, his voice void of emotion and the group share a look. “I wanted to go, but they said that someone had to stay behind and explain what happened.”

“What did happen?” Archie asks.

“The worthy ascended, of course.”

“Who did? Where’s my mom? Polly? And Y/n?”

“Gone.” He replies simply. “Everyone is. And we’ll never see them again.”

“No, no, no. That can’t be right.” She argues and Veronica places a gentle hand on her arm. It doesn’t feel right. Its not comforting, its suffocating, its not like yours. Your hands are always so soft and warm and she always feels safe whenever you hold her hands, or if your fingers accidentally graze her. They make her feel safe. You make her feel safe. Safer than she ever has before, and now you’re gone and she let you down.

The realization of this causes her to fall to the floor, her dress bunching around her and in any other scenario it would have looked stunning, she would have looked like a princess, despite the mud on her face and twigs in her hair. But right now she just looks broken. As broken as Kevin. She let you down. She let her family down and now you’re all probably dead.

There was so many things she needed to do.

A night of running for your life really puts things into perspective. And she finally realized whats been missing in her life.

You

Its always been you.

You make her feel safe and special and like she can do anything. You make her happy, and she feels like she can be herself around you. You literally sacrificed yourself to help her save her family, you all knew what would happen if they found out you were a traitor, but you did it anyway. And for what?

“Did Y/n ascend?” Cheryl is the one to break the silence but Betty barely hears it.

“Dunno.” Kevin shrugs.

“Well think about it.” She snaps. Everyone here knows what you’ve done for them. Betty told them all about you on the way here and now they understand how much you’ve helped them all. They can all see how much you meant to her, and its like they’re hearts are breaking too.

“She asked me if I’d seen Betty and I said no. And then there was a scream and she started running and I didn’t see her after that. But I did walk past her room and I think she’d dropped this.” Kevin holds up a necklace and Betty snatches it from his hands.

“Its hers...well mine.” He fingers trace the engraving delicately. “But she didn’t drop it, its broken.” She opens the locket, expecting to see the photo of the two of you, but when she see’s whats actually inside her eyes widen and she drops it to the floor.

“What?” Jughead asks. “What is it?” He repeats and picks up the locket. The rest of the group gather around him to look inside, all of them gasping when they see what it is. The small faces in the photo have been scratched out, and there’s a small piece of paper with the word ‘traitor’ scribbled on.

“Shit.” Toni mumbles.

“Traitor.” Betty mutters to herself and everyone looks at her. “Traitor!” She stands up suddenly and runs out of the room.

“Betty?!” Veronica calls after her. “Where are you going?”

“Traitor!” She shouts over her shoulder. “Traitor room.” She mumbles to herself before forcing herself to run faster. “I’m coming to get you.” She whispers. “I promise.”

You lean your head against the metal frame of the bed. Your wrists are killing you, your head is pounding and you really need to pee so you’ve given up. You’re pretty sure you have a few broken ribs because you rattle when you breath and you know thats not normal. And to be honest, its quite rude to beat someone up when you’re knocked out, thats cheating. And if The Farm had a complaints box, that would be the first one in. Well, after the organ harvesting, brainwashing, sacrifices, you know, the important stuff.

You’re just about to drift off when your hear the door rattling.

“Y/n!” There’s a loud knocking on the door and now your fully awake because you’d recognize that voice from anywhere.

“Betty?” You croak out.

“Y/n? Are you in there?” She pounds on the door and you can hear more people outside, all trying to open the door. “Wait.” You hear her shout and the banging stops. A few seconds pass and you’re heart is in your throat as you hear a few clicks and then the doors being pushed open and Betty is by your side instantly.

“You’re okay.” She wraps her arms around you. “You’re alright...you’re alive.”

“That I am Cooper.” You mumble against her neck. “I would hug you back but I’m kind of tied to a bed. And surprisingly, that is the first time I’ve ever said that...or is it?” You ask and she giggles, despite the tears flowing down her cheeks.

“Don’t worry.” She pulls away and unties you. As soon as the last knot is free your arms around her and she’s hugging you tighter than ever before.

“Ow!” You wince in pain and she lets go a little.

“Did they...” She trails off and lets go of your properly. Her hands graze your t-shirt, just like they did a few weeks ago and its weird to think about how much can change in just a short period of time.

“Its just a couple of broken bones. I don’t think I have anything missing.” You reply and she quickly pulls your t-shirt up a little, her breath hitching as the sight of your bruised body. “But I’m fine.” You smile.

“I love you.” She says quickly and your eyes widen.

“Wait? Is this happening? Or am I hallucinating because I’m pretty sure I have a concussion.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “This is really happening. I love you Y/n Y/l/n. And I’m never going to stop. I thought you were dead for two minutes and it was the worst two minutes of my life. I never want to feel that again, I think I’d honestly rather die, because thats what it felt like. It felt like a part of me died and I love you. I love you so damn much.”

“I love you too.” You reply and the two of you smile softly at each other. Her hands cup your cheeks gently and she leans in, pressing the lightest kiss to your lips before pulling back, and its enough to make you feel dizzy.

“This belongs to you.” She hands you the locket and you smile as you take it from her, however you grimace when you open it.

“Yikes.”

“Sorry.” She apologizes when she realizes what she did. “I’ll get you a new one.”

“Okay.” You laugh and she stands up, helping you to your feet afterwards. “Betty Cooper...you look like shit.”

“I know.” She laughs. “But if I knew we were going to have this big reunion, I would have made an effort. Put on a pretty pink dress, done my hair and makeup, dressed up a little.”

“Oh well.” You shrug. “There’s always the next near death experience.”

“I am done with near death experience.” Veronica chimes in and its only then that you realize there’s other people in the room with you.

“Me too.” Archie agrees and grabs her hand.

“There’s always going to be near death experiences.” Jughead sighs. “Its us.”

“Fair enough.” Betty agrees and wraps your arm around her waist so she can help you walk.

“So, did we save the world?” You ask as you start the long walk back to normality.

“Almost.” Betty replies.

“Better get to it the-woah.” You start to fall a little and she holds you tighter.

“Better get you to a hospital first.”

“Good idea.” You nod. “Then we’ll save the world.”

#betty cooper #betty cooper imagine #betty cooper x reader #betty cooper x you #riverdale #riverdale imagine

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dilfdoctordoom · 4 years

Note

What would Bette’s first impressions of the Robins be? (Steph included)

Yet another lengthy one, so under the cut we go.

Dick:

Okay, hottest of takes here, but we’re gonna follow the original Bat-Girl origin for Bette (ie. she didn’t become a hero because of Robin)

She does have a crush on Robin, mainly because like... I think she feels that she has to??? If that makes sense???

Bette will do whatever it takes to fit in and she assumes that to fit in, she has to be with Robin. It’s a mess born of extreme insecurities & I don’t think it’d happen is somebody had sat her down and explained... she doesn’t need to

But yeah!!! She does genuinely think she’s cool

Technically her first impression of him is made when she saves him, Batwoman & Batman... she keeps on calling him Damsel after that

He hates it but she thinks it’s funny

As for Dick Grayson...

She thinks Dick Grayson is a dork, but he can do cool flips so maybe he isn’t all bad

Probably one of his first friends in Gotham, if we’re being honest? I think Bruce would’ve wanted someone Dick’s age around him, so Bette got invited over a lot & they became friends eventually

Bette and Dick get along far better than Bat-Girl and Robin, okay, I don’t make the rules. They’re just dumbasses together... absolutely no brain cells... the chaos they unleashed, utterly unparalleled

Jason:

So Bette actually knows he’s Robin, so no weird two first meetings

Bette arrives the second she reads on the Gotham Gazette that Bruce got a kid. How could he not tell her? They’re supposed to be family, she should be informed if she has new family, did you know the kid’s birthday is soon? He’s left her in an awkward position on getting a gift but this is Bette Kane. She is inhumanly persistent

Jason is quizzed on his interests the second she arrives at Wayne Manor. And her arrival is... wow. He didn’t know people could drop glitter with every step but apparently, that’s a superpower beauty pageants give you. Weird.

Oh, you like books? What kind of books? Classical, huh... thank god Bette knows Bruce’s library inside and out, she might actually be able to get him something that isn’t already there

Bette’s general impression of Jason is holy shit, this kid is adorable? Literally so cute? She wants to pinch his lil cheeks. 10/10 excellent decision on Bruce’s part, she will support this

Jason thinks Bette is... a lot. Which she is, to be fair. Not, like, the worst person he’s ever met, but he seriously doubts he’d be able to handle her in large bouts

Tim:

This one is actually kinda fun because I’m headcanoning that they meet before he ever becomes a hero! They’re both a part of Gotham’s elite, they meet before he starts kicking people’s heads in

They’re very formal with each other. The Kanes & the Drakes aren’t exactly close so...yeah

Bette always does kinda try to help him out when she can

She actually ends up being hired as his tutor for a few subjects. It’s a case of unstoppable force, immovable object; Tim Drake’s hatred of school vs Bette Kane’s inability to give up on anything

He does actually end up learning stuff. He places it down to the fear

Bette thinks he’s just a sweet little kid

Tim doesn’t actually find out she was the original Bat-Girl, or that she’s Flamebird until he becomes Robin. He was too focused on Batman and he just... loses his mind when he realizes it. It makes so much sense but also what? What? Bruce explain it huts his head make it make sense but also make it make less sense

Steph:

They first meet when Steph is Spoiler. Bette is Flamebird at the time & they team up to take on the Joker & insult Batman

It is pure unadulterated chaos

Who let this happen? Unclear, but Batman’s already got a migraine & Eddie wishes that this never occurred. He wants to go back to a time before they knew each other

Steph throws bricks, Bette is surprisingly good at riddles, this was a disaster in the making. Have you met them? Can you imagine them working together? God. I fear for Gotham

Bette thinks Steph is super cool... and like, hey, maybe she does relate a little to the whole ‘Batman and Robin disapprove’ thing...

She kinda breaks a lot of rules & tells Steph her identity that night because look. Bette gets how important a proper support system is. If Bruce had been a little more honest with her a little earlier, things in her Bat-Girl era probably would’ve gone better

So Flamebird lets Spoiler know her secret identity. She hasn’t said anything that links her to Bruce or anybody else so it’s probably fine and even if it isn’t... Bette doesn’t see it as a bad thing if a kid that wants to do good knows where to find more help

The next morning, Stephanie Brown meets up with Bette Kane for waffles and is taught the importance of being underestimated, how to weaponize it

Damian:

Bruce is dead. They both go to his funeral but they don’t meet then

Bette goes completely silent for a week after his death and then she shows up at Wayne Manor, the entirety of the Gray Ghost in hand

As far as she knows, Bruce is never gonna get to show his son this and that’s... not fair, in her mind

So they watch it together. Sometimes Damian paints, sometimes one of his pets is there, but most of the time, it’s just the two of them

It takes him a while to start talking to her. His information on Bette Kane doesn’t paint an overly flattering picture and he’s extremely dismissive of her, but also, Dick’s been changing how he sees things and she’s actually trying to let him know Bruce, not Batman

Sometimes, completely unprompted, she’ll tell him stories about his father. It’s never about Batman (because that wasn’t all her cousin was and his son deserves to know that), always Bruce Wayne. The Bruce that she knew, not the playboy facade

He... he isn’t mad about it. It’s different from anything that Dick or Talia has ever told him

Robin V & Flamebird don’t ever work together but. The second he’s in danger, in genuine danger, and Dick has sent out the call... she’s there

I wouldn’t say Bette is in the best place when Damian arrives (her cousin is dead, like, that’s gonna hurt) but she sees a kid that needs help and that overrides everything else. Besides, Bruce would be disappointed in her if she didn’t give Dick a little assistance

She sees a lot of her cousin in him and it takes her a while not to be awkward about it

It takes a lot of time, but eventually, they do get along much better and aren’t always so silent around each other

Duke:

Duke is Bette’s favourite Robin, even if she first meets him when he’s the Signal

Like, sorry, there’s absolutely no doubt about this. He’s got cool light powers, she loves that he doesn’t take Bruce’s shit and she just... she thinks he’s awesome, you know?

Sometimes she’ll help him patrol during the day. It’s actually what gets her back into the Flamebird costume, it’s a lot of fun

They have a different dynamic than any of the ones she has with the other Robins for a lot of reasons. Like, it’s never gonna be how it is with the first three, because Bette is so much older now. It’s not gonna be how it was with Steph, because she & Steph bonded over how Batman and Robin shoved them aside. Damian is Bruce’s kid and that added a different element to their dynamic

But Duke. Duke’s got this light in him and Bette is fiercely protective of him. They have a different dynamic -- because Bette has seen what usually happens to Robins, to anyone that wore that mantle. She won’t see it happen again

#q & a #bette kane

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bamfbuddie · 5 years

Text

9-1-1 Live Blog: 3x06 Monsters

😭😭Eddie walking past Buck 😭😭

“That’s how its gonna be now.” akjfhakshfa “You’re just gonna keep on ghosting me.”

“I don’t know what you want from me Buck.” HE WANTS YOU TO TALK TO HIM, TO LISTEN TO HIM, TO LET HIM APOLOGIZE. HE WANTS TO SEE CHRISTOPHER. HE WANTS TO BE THERE FOR YOU. LET HIM 😭😭😭

“Forgive, forget, make you feel better about yourself.” FUCK WHY ARE YOU SO HARSH EDDIE. 😭

“I just want you to talk to me.” 😭SEE I TOLD YOU. “Even if its to say that you’re still mad.” 😭

“I’m not mad... I’m... when you decided to sue the department, to make Cap the bad guy... did you ever stop for a minute and thing about what that could do to us?” WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU IMPLYING EDDIE. HOLY FUCK 😭😭

“I just needed my job back.” THE STEPS HE TAKES TO GET CLOSER TO HIM 😭😭 “I missed being here. Being part of the team. I never meant for anyone to get hurt.” HE LITERALLY CHOKES UP. STOP IT. IM CRYING.

“Lotta ‘I’s in there.” Eddie, he’s so butt hurt. So much anger. 😭

“You’re actions, your choices, they impact the rest of us. That’s what it means to be a part of a team.” HELLO YES EDDIE WE KNOW BUT ALSO WHAT ABOUT YOUR ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES, THEY ARE GOING TO IMPACT THE REST OF US TOO YOU BUTT. 😭😭😭

Eddie is relating so hard to Buck right now.

“So whatever it takes for you to forgive me...”

“I forgive you.” 😭😭😭*SOBS*

LOOK AT THEIR FUCKING FACES. HOW DARE THEY MAKE ME FEEL THINGS.

BUCK’S SOFT LITTLE SMILE. FUCK YOU ASSHOLES. IM CRYING.

“Just don’t do it again...” HELLO EDDIE YOU FOOL HE WON’T BUT CAN YOU STOP YOUR ACTIVITIES PLEASE AND THANKS.

WE GOT ANOTHER FUCKING HUG OMG, THE GODS ARE LISTENING TO US. HOLY SHIT.

OH GOD, THE HURT ON HIS FACE. FUCKIN EDDIE MAN YOU DUMB HOE. BUCK IS SUSPICIOUS. OMG EDDIE JUST LITERALLY RUNNING AWAY SO NO ONE QUESTIONS HIM. 😭😭

I’m so glad they took an episode to work things out with Buck and the crew, because honestly if they went back to everything is fine i would’ve been so mad.

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buck x eddie #9-1-1 #9-1-1 spoilers #9-1-1 3x06 #9-1-1 Monsters #9-1-1 3x06 live blog #gem babbles

127 notes · View notes

slaveofimagination · 5 years

Note

Yes! REC lists are about stories you've read and enjoyed, here I'm mostly asking for fanfictions but you can recommend books if you want too! Thanks for replying so quickly!

Nah, no need to thank me. I’m spending a week in bed, sick and dying, it’s fun to have people interacting with me, even if I don’t know who you are. Most of the fics are IT related because this is all I’ve been reading since 2017.

Stozier (Stanley Uris & Richie Tozier)

Roadtrips and Realizations by bellabee

With the summer winding to a close, it was time for the losers to go their separate ways. They were all going to different colleges (or in Bill’s case, backpacking around Europe), and they’d no longer be the 7 little kids riding their bikes around Derry. As a last ditch attempt to spend some final time with his best friends, Stan organized a road trip to drive Beverly and Richie across the country to drop them off at their respective schools. With multiple days of driving ahead of them, they somehow become closer than before.

distance makes the heart grow fonder by ell (amywaited)

He realises he’s in love with Richie now. After four days and two years and a whole lifetime of missing puzzle pieces, he realises he’s always been in love, in proper love. The kind of love that Bev dreams about and Eddie talks about and Stan couldn’t even picture it.

Now, lying in bed in a shitty motel after driving for ten hours straight because Richie hadn’t wanted to stop and he’d fallen asleep in the passenger seat, with Richie sprawled beside him and the TV playing crackly advertisements, he realises he’s in love. There’s nowhere else he’d rather be, not really. Nowhere except in a car, with his boyfriend who might be his boyfriend, who’s only sort of his boyfriend because they haven’t really talked about it yet, on the way to Los Angeles so he can get his name in lights.

untouched (need you so much) by breathplayed

Stan Uris could’ve gone his entire life without knowing what Richie Tozier’s dick looked like.(Or, Richie has a big dick and Stan the Man has a Big Crisis.)

(This one seems to be abandoned, so if you read it, leave comments so maybe the author gets motivated to write again. Believe me, it works).

Dog Days by littleboxofstars

Richie Tozier is twenty years old, over halfway through a Chemistry degree at the University of Maine, and in love with his best friend and roommate, Stanley Uris. And he figures that it’s fine, with no cause for change, until he finds an injured puppy near his apartment.

do you want fries with that? by gaypasta

Richie spends the best of times annoying the hell out of Stan in work, Stan just wants to do his Goddamn job. Richie starts annoying Stan a lot more frequently, and Stan remains oblivious to all of the not-so-subtle flirting Richie is sending his way.

Stan isn’t gay. Definitely not gay. The feeling he gets in his stomach when he sees Richie is 100% platonic, I swear.

The Body by touch

Going back to Derry stirred something in Richie’s memory he hadn’t known was there.

Or, Stanley Uris reunites with Richie Tozier instead of taking a bath.

Storis (Stanley Uris & Boris Pavlikovsky)

(My new babies, three people that are GENIUSES. If you feel like, leave them some reviews).

Sputnik by porcia_catonis

High school in Vegas and high school in Maine vary only in the coats that replace the tank tops he sees everywhere. The same kinds of burnouts, geniuses, children of important types, and the like run around, all with their groups, none of them of much interest to Boris. What differs, mostly, is what a spectacle a new kid is in a town so small.

Hold your hair in deep devotion (how deep?) by Evanaissante

There’s also this small fire Stan feels at his fingertips, this feeling of power coursing through him as he brings this creature of the night to his knees in front of him. It’s insane, really, but Stan doesn’t care much when Boris’ red lips start kissing his skin.

Stanley Uris gets a blowjob from his vampire boyfriend because he deserves it.

Birds of Maine by Ryomou

When he presents his hand, Stan doesn’t know what he’s looking at. Whatever they are, they seem perfectly innocent nestled in Boris’s palm, two tiny little paper squares stamped with a red smiley face.“Will change your life,” Boris swears. “I’ve done it many times.”orBoris and Stan drop acid.

Reddie (Richie Tozier & Eddie Kaspbrak)

I’m quite alright hiding today by remusjohn

Richie doesn’t know how to say, You kissed me to wake me up from the deadlights and I don’t know if you did it to save my life or if there’s something else too, but it’s kind of killing me, man.

So Richie doesn’t say anything at all.

My Husband is a Hitman?! by Writer_Markilyn

Eddie Kaspbrak was many things, but a fool was not one of them. He could admit that he was a fool when he had been younger, a fool to believe that he was constantly ill and needed “medication”, a fool to think that chocolate ice-cream was superior to Super-Man ice cream, a fool to think that his friend of many years, who was now his husband, was just a normal person.

Boy, was he wrong about the part regarding his husband, but it turns out, Eddie was ride or die for life.

Stupid Deep by anonymous author

“Rich, what the fuck.”

“What,” Richie says breathlessly, pushing up into Eddie’s grip with a weak sound.

Eddie stares, as he did five months ago, at the dick in his hand. Not that it was in his hand at the time. “I thought maybe I, like. Exaggerated it in my mind. But it’s really that fucking big.”

“Huh?” Richie blinks at him dumbly, jaw slack and abs tensing.

“Rich, I don’t even know what to do with all of this.”

—

or, Richie has a big dick, and Eddie is into it.

You can only go in pieces by anniebibananie

“I think I’m going fucking crazy.”“You’re not crazy,” Eddie said. “I’m a ghost.”

“He just told me he’s a ghost. I’m definitely fucking batshit, right?”When Richie finally arrives back to his apartment after killing the bastard clown once and for all, he finds an unexpected roommate in his recently… passed away (murdered? by a killer clown?) friend (slash love of his life or whatever… the labels don’t really matter. It’s all fucked).

Stucky (Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes)

(not IT related, but it’s REALLY GOOD)

Astronomy in Reverse by pansley

A year after the Winter Soldier failed his mission in DC, Bucky Barnes is doing his best to stay under the radar from both Hydra and Steve Rogers. His hope for a peaceful day-to-day life in limbo goes awry, however, when he meets Queens’ newest hero; a pure-hearted kid with a death wish and a ridiculous pair of red and blue pajamas.

The last thing Steve expects when he finally tracks Bucky down is that, not only has the man been living in Queens all this time, right under his nose, but also that, in the two years since they last saw each other, Bucky somehow acquired a kid.

Alternatively: How Peter Parker effectively fucks over Bucky Barnes, and also totally saves him.

#fic rec #fic recs #lots os men to stan the man #stozier #storis #reddie #stucky

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takealottodragmeawayfromreddie · 6 years

Text

Filling the blanks - Chapter 5

Playlist on Spotify (mostly songs about Heaven and duel related stuff and 1980s hits)

Pairing: Richie x Eddie x Bill (Reddie at the start).

Summary: During his last moments, Eddie realized he had something to say, but before he could finish the sentence, he was gone. Now he’s stuck between life and death and he knows he won’t be able to rest until he takes care of what he started. The only person he trusts enough to help him is Bill.

Or: The ghost AU where Eddie’s spirit can get inside of Bill’s mind to ask him for help to tell Richie he loved him.

Warnings: Canon Divergence (IT actually kills Audra) and, of course, death of major character. Some internalized homophobia in this chapter (still some use of the F-word). Stay safe.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

AO3 LINK

Playlist on Spotify (mostly songs about Heaven and duel related stuff and 1980s hits)

Special thanks to my lovely beta-reader @golden-marauders who is always extra nice and good at what they do.

The last time Eddie saw Richie crying, he was about to say a sentence that was meant to never get finished. Now that he did it, now that he said it, now that the unbearable weight of silence is lifting off of his chest, he doesn’t feel any better and Richie is crying again.

“You…” he starts, covering his mouth with both hands as tears finally fall from his eyes, “No, you’re lying. This is all… this is too fucked up, Bill. Please drop it.”

Eddie sighs and tries to walk towards him, reaching out, as if one touch could be enough to demonstrate he’s telling the truth. But Richie won’t let him. Instead, he jumps back as if his fingers could burn him. When he lowers his hands and closes his fists —not as in an attempt of physical aggression, but in a coping mechanism that looks almost child-like— Eddie notices his lips are trembling. He had never seen him this vulnerable before.

“Just leave,” Richie begs, voice broken, “It was a super funny joke, okay? I don’t care anymore. I promise I don’t care anymore. You don’t have to say sorry or anything at all, alright? Just get out of my house, please.”

“Richie…” Eddie pleads, in the same tone.

“Bill, please, I’m telling you it’s fine, okay?! It’s fucking fine. I’m not mad, I just want you to leave.”

Eddie wants to insist. Even after that word and how it made him think he didn’t love Richie anymore for a brief instant, Eddie wants to take his honesty to the end and make sure his friend believes him. They both need that. However, he can’t get any sound out of his throat. Damn, he can’t even get air through it.

Richie’s eyes go wide and all supplication disappears when he stops for a second and sees what’s going on. Eddie wraps a hand around his own neck as his expression mutates from merciful to completely terrified. His breathing speeds up and becomes frenetic, desperate.

“What?” Richie asks, worried for the first time in the whole night, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m… Fuck, I can’t…”

F-fuck, no…

Bill understands quickly and tries to take control again, but be it because of Eddie not wanting to let him or because of his reaction being too strong for allowing him to do that, he can’t. It’s like trying to wreck a brick wall only with his mind, and he keeps hitting against it as their vision goes blurry with every thrust.

Eddie is all alone in this. He arches his back and runs a nervous hand through his hair, gasping like a fish out of water while Richie watches, frozen, still incapable of facing what’s going on.

“Beep beep, Bill, you’re starting to freak me out,” he warns. It’s not a threat; just a warning.

H-he’s not me!

“Richie, please…” Eddie implores, “I can’t breathe! I’m having an…”

Please, do s-something! Richie, h-help him, he’s not… l-lying!

Bill throws his metaphorical fists against this imaginary wall, hoping Richie will listen. He knows Eddie is not okay. Even without a body to feel it, he can tell.

“What the fuck? What do you want me to do? I…”

Eddie’s face turns red and his legs go weak, causing him to fall on his knees. Using his good hand, he frantically checks his clothes.

“Where my… where’s my in-…” he mumbles, sounding more and more out of his mind. And then he remembers, “Shit, I left it in my other body!”

“Man, seriously, this is…” Richie starts, confused and uncomfortable, his eyes going everywhere but in Eddie’s direction.

“Please!” Eddie cries, “Please help me, I can’t breathe. I really… Shit, I’m… I can’t…”

R-Richie, please! You know who h-he is! You know it’s Eddie!

Eddie looks up at Richie with pleading eyes, hand still on his own chest, breathing still fast. Richie hesitates. He’s clearly scared and something inside him has to tell him this is serious, but disorientation won’t let him react. He stares down at him, eyebrows curved with concern and fear. His thumbnail is trapped between his shaky lips.

“Please…”

Richie sighs, still shocked, still panicking, but with a new-found determination that can only be awaken by deep trust in a friend.

“Okay, you really wanna go all the way with this. I know what to do, get up.”

He takes his hand and tries to pull him up. However, it’s like grabbing a string and he just manages to get him a few inches away from the ground before he falls again.

“What—?”

“Sorry,” Eddie breathes out, “I can’t… I don’t control this arm.”

“Oh my fucking God,” Richie grumbles before recovering a heaviest confidence in his voice, “Fine, let me…”

He lowers himself and puts his arms around Eddie’s waist. Eddie rests his hand on Richie’s shoulder as they finally succeed to get him up. Then they go back to the corner sofa and Richie makes sure he’s alright.

“You good?”

Eddie nods.

“Awesome, I know what to do, just… Wait here and don’t you move, okay?”

“Like I could go anywhere!”

“Keep up the amazing work!” Richie shouts, rushing out of the living room, upstairs.

Eddie lays back against the back of his sit, sighing while trying to get a grip of his breathing.

You’ve got to… c-calm down, Eds. Richie’s gonna h-help you, yeah? J-just breathe with me. In and out.

Bill guides Eddie for the next minutes until Richie comes back, only to pass in front of them at the speed of light and rush into the kitchen. They hear water running and doors being opened and slammed, before their friend returns, still running and holding up, like it’s some kind of war trophy, an object Eddie can’t identify.

He doesn’t get to ask what it is, because as soon as he opens his mouth, something made of plastic goes in and shots a sweet substance into his throat. He closes his eyes when he recognizes the feeling, his breath easing down, his muscles relaxing.

“That’s it,” Richie says, “So much better, huh?”

“Yeah,” Eddie quietly confirms as the inhaler leaves his mouth.

Richie sits beside him and rubs his back in comforting circles.

“How you doing, buddy?”

“I’m… I’m okay now… Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Eddie rejoices in the possibility of breathing normally again for a while, but once his eyes are open and he rationalizes what happened and what’s laying on the coffee table, the only thing he can do is wondering why.

“Why do you… Why do you have this?”

Richie seems taken aback by the question, but he soon laughs it off.

“Oh, you mean this old thing? Well, I…”

He closes his mouth, looking for the right word to say. Or maybe the most acceptable way to explain it. His hand is no longer rubbing Eddie’s back.

“Go on?” Eddie encourages.

Richie sighs, scratching the back of his neck.

“You probably don’t remember this but… One day, when we were kids, you… I mean him… I mean…”

“You’re talking about Eddie?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you can say ‘you’.”

He doubts for an instant, but almost immediately nods.

“Alright, so… your mom said really shitty things to you. Like, super heavy stuff. And you were so upset you came to hang out with us and you… you forgot your inhaler. And that same day, you had an attack.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Eddie concurs, “It was horrible.”

“We managed to calm you down, but… we thought we’d lose you. Until It, I never thought… I never thought there could be anything in the world that could scare me that much.”

He reaches out and grabs the inhaler again, staring down at it and turning it around between his fingers.

“So I began to carry this thing around. In case you forgot yours.”

Eddie is speechless. He takes the inhaler from Richie’s hands and looks at it, too. The weight of it, its texture, its shape… its realness is overwhelming.

“Rich…”

“And when you found out about the bullshit it turned out to be, I remember I went and asked my dad what ‘gazebo’ meant. He chuckled and said ‘I’ll assume you mean placebo’ and then explained it. I asked him how could I make one and he answered that anything could be a placebo if the person who was taking it believed it would help, but the easiest way to do it was with water and sugar. So I started to fill the inhaler with that.”

“But… we knew it was bullshit. We knew it didn’t work.”

“Maybe it didn’t work… but it did help you.”

Eddie can’t help but smile. A soft, barely noticeable smile.

“It did help,” he agrees, “Thank you, Richie.”

“I never knew why I couldn’t get rid of it. I didn’t remember you or anything that happened, but I felt like I had to keep it. When I saw you in the ground, gasping, I understood… I understood everything.”

After finishing the sentence, Richie runs his hands over his face while releasing a frustrated groan, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Fuck, this is so messed up,” he growls, “How can…? Ugh, I can’t believe you’re here. But, I mean… it has to be you. Bill was right, why would he lie to me about this? He wouldn’t joke like that. Not even I would joke like that!”

“Richie—”

“And… and… damn, we fought a demonic clown! What the hell? This shouldn’t freak me out as much as it does. This isn’t that weird!”

“To be fair, it is a bit weird,” Eddie chuckles.

Richie doesn’t laugh. Shocked as he is, all he can do is remain silent, his mind working intensely to review every detail of their meeting. Eddie can’t tell at what point he began to believe them, but now that he does, it’s clearly a lot to take in.

“Shit,” Richie suddenly gasps, moving his hands away from his own face.

“What?”

“Sorry, nothing, it’s just…” He smiles, shaking his head, “My cheek kinda hurts, you know?”

Eddie frowns, confused. And then he remembers.

“I’m sorry about that,” he mutters.

“It’s okay, I deserved it.”

Richie shrugs, downplaying the importance of the matter. Even though it makes Eddie feel better for a little while, they can’t pretend it didn’t hurt both of them. They can’t pretend he didn’t confess his feelings and they can’t pretend that word wasn’t said. Of all the creative ways Richie always had to insult people, none could be as harmful as that one. And still, he chose to use it.

“I’m sorry, too,” he finally declares, quiet and ashamed.

Eddie stares at him.

“You know, for calling you a fa—”

“It’s fine, just don’t repeat it,” he answers, hand in pocket and a sad look in his eyes.

He stands up from the couch, ready to leave the topic behind, the feeling of betrayal too strong to let him sit beside Richie without breaking down. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want any more fights over something he can’t change. Over something he no longer wants to change.

“Eds,” Richie insists, “you know I didn’t—”

“Seriously, Richie, it’s fine,” Eddie interrupts him, “You just said what you thought. It’s not like no one ever said that to me before. It just hurt to hear it from you.”

“But that’s not what I think!”

“Really?” he questions, turning back at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Really! I only said that ‘cause I thought Bill was joking. I thought he was disrespecting your memory, that’s all. If I knew it was you, I wouldn’t—”

“Good to know you wouldn’t call me a faggot in my face.”

“Spaghetti man, come on, you know I didn’t mean it like—”

“Don’t call me one of your stupid names right now!” he shouts, “Don’t call me one of your stupid names after calling me that.”

Richie’s eyes open wide at the sudden change in his tone.

“Eds, calm down, you know I didn’t—”

“No, no, please don’t say that again, it just made it worse,” he cuts him off, shaking his head.

“What?”

“Don’t go ‘oh, if I knew it was you, I wouldn’t have said I think you’re a faggot, I would have just keep it to myself’. It’s fucking horrible, okay?”

“But I really don’t have a problem with that, Eds! Really, it’s no big deal. I’ve got a lot of friends who are… who are like… like you!”

“Great, what do you want? A medal? You can’t even say it!”

“You don’t get it, it’s hard for me!”

“What? What is so fucking hard for you?”

“To… to accept you’re like them!”

Eddie feels his blood burning with anger.

I-I’m gonna fucking k-kill him…

“Why?” He reclaims, “Why, Richie? Why is not wrong for them but it’s wrong for me?”

“’Cause that’s what they wanted, Eddie!”

His voice comes out so loud it resonates in all the walls. It even feels like it resonates in the whole city, and now everyone in LA knows what they’re discussing. It’s scary and a part of Eddie wants to shush him, tell him to speak lower so no one will find out about his secret. But he’s not like that anymore. He doesn’t have to hide anymore. And all it’s left is confusion.

“Who?” he softly asks.

Richie looks down, not answering.

“Who wanted that, Richie?”

Eddie hears him gulp and waits. Seconds after, Richie slowly raises his head, looking at him in the eye. He seems troubled.

“Everyone,” he responds, voice barely above a whisper, “Bowers and his stupid friends, the idiots at school… Fuck, even your mother at some point. At some weird point.” He sighs, “Everyone in that hell town. And they were right.”

“Richie…”

“Look at this place!” Richie explodes, standing up and opening his arms to show what he means, “Pretty fucking amazing, don’t you think? Well, I bought it. I bought it on my own, no help from my parents or anything. I came to LA with nothing and here I am now.”

Eddie watches in silence.

“Look at my teeth.” Richie points at his own mouth, “See? Got them fixed! I got everything fixed. Life fucking smiles at me and asks me to take it home. No more huge glasses or people beep-beeping me. The whole country laughs at my jokes. I’m one of the better dressed men in this fucking city, goddammit! I fuck actresses, supermodels, pop stars. I can’t even get out of my house without a hot twenty-something beauty giving me her number.

”They said I wouldn’t make it, huh? They said I’d die a virgin, huh? They said I wouldn’t go anywhere. Well, joke’s on them! I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted. People think I’m hilarious, people think I’m smart, people want me to sleep with them. Go tell the thirteen year old nerd in Derry he would come this far. Go tell all those assholes that that loser would come this far.”

“Richie—”

“Oh, but wait, I’m not the only one. Haystack got hot, got the job of his dreams and married the woman he’s been in love with since he was a kid. Bev designs clothes for the gods, practically. She faced her abuser and won her own life over. Stan had a nice life. Sure, It fucked it up, but before that he got a wife he loved and he was happy with her.

”Bill became famous. He took all the shitty stuff that happened without even realizing it and turned it into something people would make him rich for. He married an actress and he was respected and no one cared about his stuttering anymore. People only wanted to hear what he had to say.

”Mike survived hell. Mike really survived hell. He sacrificed himself so all of us could live our lives. And yeah, maybe he didn’t make it as good as he deserved, but he still had a good job. He worked with books and history and all the nerdy stuff he loved so fucking much. It wasn’t perfect but it was something.

”We all made it. We all proved them wrong. Richie is actually funny, Ben is hot, Bev is more than just her body, Bill is more than his stuttering, Mike is more than the black guy and Stan was more than the Jew. But—”

“But Eddie was still the faggot,” Eddie quietly nods, looking down, “Is that what you’re saying, Richie? Is that what you think about me?”

Richie sighs.

“Ugh, why do I always have to be the bad guy?” He mutters, “No, Eds, that’s not what I mean at all! I just… I just really wanted them to be wrong about you, like they were about everybody else. I didn’t want them to win.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything. Bill has been completely silent for a while. Richie takes the beer bottle from the table and takes a sip.

“They didn’t win, Richie,” Eddie suddenly clarifies, “They almost won, they were winning, but… they didn’t win.”

Richie just stares back at him, puzzled.

“I know they thought I was just a faggot, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s what you think, too. ‘Cause… I’ve got a job, too, you know? Not only a job, but my own business. I loved cars and I made them my living. I drove for actors, musicians, politicians. All kind of famous, respectable people that maybe you fucked at some point of your life. They trusted me with their safety ‘cause I was good at what I did.

”I had my own place, too. A very nice place. And a woman who loved me more than anything waiting for me there. That’s something I think you don’t have. I mean, I don’t see it anywhere.

”I was successful, I did everything I thought I wanted to do, but I wasn’t happy. Forty fucking years, Richie, and the only moment of true happiness I ever had was when I was dying. ‘Cause I finally understood. I finally had something that money couldn’t buy. And it felt amazing. It was the first time all that success translated into something I could really feel as mine. I would take those five minutes of ‘being just a faggot’ over years of ‘proving them wrong’ anytime.”

Eddie hasn’t stopped to really look at Richie until now. Although he seemed to be doing that during the whole speech, it was just to make a point and he didn’t care about how Richie was reacting then. Everything that mattered was showing how sure of his words he was. He was just trying to feel powerful. He couldn’t tell his mother and the people from Derry all of this, but he could tell someone who needed to listen. That was enough.

Now it’s time to analyze the consequences of that decision. It won’t change anything, he already said what he had to say and he isn’t planning to take it back, but he wants to reap the fruits of what he sowed.

Richie has his arms crossed and is looking down at his own feet. It’s strange, because Eddie expected a burst of attacks and insults, the kind of stuff that used to happen when someone confronted Richie when they were kids. Or simply a smartass response, something for his compressed fury to hold on. But he’s standing there, biting his lower lip, looking like a child who got called out by his parents.

He’s not that far away from what Eddie is saying. He’s close enough for Eddie to reach out and grab him and take him out from the bubble he is trapped in. Just the smallest of pushes…

“Maybe you should start asking yourself if proving them wrong is that worthy,” Eddie concludes, “For me it wasn’t. Do you think that you being unsatisfied with your perfect life will teach them a lesson? ‘Cause I think that’s what they really wanted.”

Richie doesn’t reply. He stays still, so encapsulated by his own, indecipherable thoughts that he’s no longer in the scene anymore. Eddie waits, but nothing happens. The bubble doesn’t pop.

D-drop it, Eddie. You did what you… h-had to do. Let’s go.

Eddie nods and turns around, walking towards the exit.

“Goodbye, Richie. Have a nice life.”

You deserve b-better.

His fingers are almost around the doorknob when it happens. Richie says something.

“Did you really mean that?”

Eddie turns back at him, skeptical.

“Mean what?”

Richie inhales deeply.

“You know… that.”

“I meant everything I said, Richie.”

“Yeah, but… Bill said you were…” he gulps, “In love with… with me.”

The answer takes a while to come, but when it does, there’s no shadow of reluctance on it. Confident as a bullet between the eyes.

“Yes.”

“Is that true?”

Eddie nods seriously.

“You’re in love with me?”

“Yes.”

“Not as friends.”

“In a homosexual way.”

“Yes.”

“In an ‘I would suck your dick’ kind of way.”

“Well, maybe not at this particular moment. I’m pretty fucking pissed off right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Richie exhales the smallest amount of air and sits back on the couch.

“Shit, this is… this is a lot,” he mumbles, “I… I don’t know what to tell you… When… when did it start? How did you realize? I know most people just wake up with the revelation that Richie Tozier is the hottest man on Earth, but… you? I thought you were better than that.”

“Could you talk like an adult for one second, please?” he complains, walking back to him, “This is not a joke for me.”

“Damn, Eds, I seriously hope it isn’t, ‘cause you’re giving me a heart attack.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Eddie whispers, sitting next to him, “This was such a stupid idea. Falling in love with you is such a stupid idea in general.”

“I know, right?”

“I’m sorry I told you.”

“I’m kinda sorry you did, too… You’ve… you’ve given me a lot to think, you know?”

“It’s always dangerous to make you think too much,” he chuckles.

Richie giggles, too.

“I could live without knowing it,” he admits, abruptly saddened.

“Yeah, but I couldn’t leave without telling you.”

“I don’t…” He releases a breathless laugh, probably feeling as stupid as Eddie feels, “Fuck, I’ve got to be really honest here, alright?”

“That’s all I’m asking from you.”

“I never… thought about you… in that way, you know? Well, I never thought about any of the Losers in that way. I just… I didn’t think about it. I never saw you like… more than a friend.”

Eddie can’t hide his disappointment. He knew it would happen, but it still hurts.

“I get it… Thanks for—”

“No, wait, there’s more.”

“Oh, fuck, there’s more…”

Richie turns a bit on his seat, now facing him. His lips are parted and convulsing in an almost imperceptible way, perhaps revealing that there are words behind them fighting for coming out. Eddie notices the thick ball of spit sliding down the insides of his throat. This has to be the hardest thing to say for him and Eddie is willing to wait all night long if he must. He came this far to tell his truth and he won’t leave without hearing Richie’s.

“Look, Eds, you never gave it a thought, as far as I know. I didn’t do it, either. It never crossed my mind. But… fuck, this really changes everything, doesn’t it? It’s like when a girl you’ve never been interested in says she wants you and then you start thinking ‘do I want her, too?’ I mean, that kind of thing.”

Eddie’s heart flips.

“Who am I in this situation?” he manages to ask, voice walking on a tightrope, “The girl?”

“Yeah! I-I mean, no. I mean… Fuck, this so hard to explain. I just… I’m just sitting here, trying to remember everything. I feel like… like I missed something. Like It’s still got a part of my memory. A super important part when it was obvious you wanted me and I didn’t notice. Some kind of hint, I don’t know. This is a mess.”

“No, it isn’t,” Eddie corrects him, almost smiling and taking his hand, “I feel like I missed something, too. It all hit me in one instant, too. But you know what? I didn’t question it. I didn’t review my whole life trying to find the exact point when I started… loving you. ‘Cause I didn’t feel like I had to justify myself. This is not a trial, I didn’t do anything wrong. That’s why I can’t tell you when I realized. I don’t have that answer, and if you really understood how I feel, you wouldn’t need it, either.”

Richie looks down, conflicted.

“Jesus fuck…” he whispers.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just… you’re holding my hand.”

Eddie looks down, too, and finds out he never let go. The warm presence of the back of Richie’s hand under his palm is terrifying. Everything that he can feel through Bill’s five senses is overwhelming somehow, but Richie’s fingers between his is another level of shock he isn’t prepared to tolerate. Still, he keeps holding his hand, experimentally caressing it with his thumb.

“Oh, yeah,” he confirms, “Want me to… to let go?”

Richie goes stiff.

“Oh, no, it’s okay, really. It’s just…” he gulps, “It feels… different… weird.”

“Oh… you mean good weird or—”

“Good weird,” Richie states, without a shadow of a doubt, “Definitely good weird.”

“Good weird is good.”

“Yeah… it’s good.”

They stare at their hands, mesmerized. They seem to fit together so perfectly, like they were meant to be. Eddie feels embarrassed for thinking that, for becoming such a cliché. He recalls the moments in their childhood when Richie would return from playing in the mud or holding frogs, and try to touch him with his dirty hands. Or when, in cold winter days, he would put them on his cheeks, making him screech from the freezing feeling. Or those legendary birthday parties, always finishing with Richie eating cake without a fork and running after Eddie with his fingers painted with chocolate just to freak him out.

He used to want Richie’s hands so far away from him. He used to hate them so much… and now he feels like he couldn’t live without them. Even without being actually alive, even after dying, he knows he would die again if Richie stops this.

Eddie looks up to his eyes again and Richie imitates him. He didn’t remember his eyes were so big. Maybe the glasses magnified them, but he never thought about them regardless that attention-calling trait. It’s like he never looked at him until now. And by the way his friend is staring back, he could say this is the first time Richie looks at him, too.

Then Richie chuckles.

“Holy shit, this is so embarrassing,” he confesses, shaking his head, “I’m sweating. I feel like an awkward twelve year old.”

“That’s how I feel all the time,” Eddie says, smiling.

“Fuck, man, it’s horrible,” Richie keeps laughing, “How do I make it stop?”

“I don’t know! I just… I don’t know.”

They stay like that for a while, irresistibly amused by their own unease. It’s the best thing they can do, now that their friendship is ruined, for better or worse. There’s no way they can dance around it forever. Be it for a nice closure or a temporal pain in the heart, this will take their relationship to a different place. A place that is scary for both of them, a place that could break them, but different, after all. They both know they need different more than anything.

“I can’t believe this,” Richie whispers, leaving all the jokes behind, “Shit, Eds, you’re here. I can’t… You came back, I’m talking to you. I never thought I’d get to talk to you again. This is… this is fucking insane! I feel like I’m going insane. You’re sure you aren’t It, right?”

“I promise you I’m not It,” Eddie smiles.

“I… Damn, I need you to understand how weird this all is,” he insists, running his free hand over his cheek, making him jump a bit, “’Cause I know it’s you. Like, I really know it’s you. But it’s also Bill. I mean, this is Bill’s face. And I’m so fucking confused.”

“It’s okay. I’m confused, too.”

“There’s so… so many things I want to say. So many things I could never even begin to—”

“Try, Richie,” he murmurs, altering between looking into his eyes and paying quick stares to his lips, “Please try. I wanna hear everything.”

Richie’s fingertips travel down the line of his jaw, until his thumb reaches his lower lip and gently caresses it. Eddie closes his eyes at the touch. It’s measured, tentative, like they’re testing unknown waters and don’t want to drown. Without even realizing it, he gives Richie’s thumb a soft peck.

“I’m so sorry, Eds,” Richie finally breaks, “I can’t believe I left you there. I knew you hated it, I knew you’d be scared, and still I—”

Eddie slowly opens his eyes.

“Stop that,” he begs, “You didn’t leave me there. Can’t you see? I’m here. Bodies mean nothing. When you’re gone —and I hope it happens when you’re very, very old—, you’ll understand that bodies mean nothing. They’re just… they’re just the shape we take to move around the world and feel sensory stuff, nothing else. I’m not in the sewers, I’m here with you. That piece of flesh is rotting and will never be found, but we’re sitting on your couch having a conversation right now. So please don’t apologize. You did what you had to do and I’ll never hate you for that.”

“I… Look, I know you’re right, but you don’t get it. You don’t know how much it fucking hurts. I watched my best friend die. That shit… that shit isn’t rational, it’s like Jackie Chan kicking you on the chest. It just… it hurts so fucking much and you can’t see that.”

“I know it hurts, Richie. Really, I do. It hurt to see you cry, too. That’s why I smiled. I didn’t want our last moment together to be a horrible memory or a traumatic thing. But it really hurt me to see you crying and how I couldn’t do anything to fix it.”

“Why did you have to do that, Eds?” he whimpers, “Nobody asked you to do that. We got ourselves in that place, you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Would you let me die?”

Richie frowns.

“Sorry, what?”

“I’m asking you if you would let me die… if I wasn’t already dead. Would you have left me there, staring into the deadlights?”

“What kind of stupid question is that? Fuck, Eds, of course I wouldn’t.”

“Then why is it wrong when I do it? ‘Cause I didn’t do it out of pure friendship?”

Richie exhales a humorless laugh.

“No, really, tell me. Is it about me being gay for you? You think it makes it some corny big gesture from a romantic drama? Some Titanic bullshit?”

“Man, are you fucking serious? I’m glad you saved my life, I don’t care about the reason, but I’m kinda sad you had a horrible death, what’s so homophobic about it?”

“I told you I love you, you fucking asshole, and you can’t even give me a proper answer, but you’ll just say ‘nothing homophobic going on here’.”

“I just don’t have a proper answer! Sorry, Eds, I don’t! I’m fucking confused. I never looked at a man, and I know that’s something ‘straight’ guys say all the time, but it’s the truth. And now I’m not sure if I’m just thankful ‘cause you saved my life and sad ‘cause you died or if I’m…”

He goes quiet before saying it, but Eddie knows well enough. The only reason why he doesn’t interrupt him, is because he’s aware how bad Richie needs to say it. That’s a necessity he can definitely understand.

“I think you get the picture,” Richie finishes, ashamed.

“Yeah, I think I do.”

“I know you didn’t come here to hear me say ‘I have no idea of what the hell is going on…’ I know you needed a ‘me too’ or a ‘fuck off.’ I’m sorry, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Don’t call me that. But… I guess that’s better than a ‘fuck off’,” he chuckles, “It isn’t a ‘fuck off’, right?”

Richie smiles, too.

“Not a ‘fuck off’ at all.”

“But it isn’t a ‘me too’, either,” Eddie sighs.

“Look, Eds, the thing is…” Richie starts, squeezing his hand for the shortest moment, “I don’t know.”

Eddie looks up at him, perplexed.

“What?”

“Guess this is one of those things that would be a lot easier if you really were here now. Like, your body. Don’t get me wrong, Bill’s eyes are stunning,” he laughs, “but… I wish I was looking at yours. Your real eyes, that now feed the family of a hard-working worm who—”

“Beep-beep, Richie.”

“Sorry, got a bit carried away. I just think… it’d be so… I mean, it shouldn’t be that complicated… if… you know… Ugh, I really want to ask you something, but I don’t know the straight way to say it.”

Eddie can’t help but laugh.

“Then say it in the gay way.”

Richie lets go of his hand, closes his eyes and inhales deeply, like an actor who is preparing to come out to stage. Damn, maybe he does that before acting. And now he’s doing it because of Eddie.

“Alright, I’ll just… say it, okay? But don’t get me wrong.”

“Richie, no one ever gets anything you say, just do it.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I’m just taking my time, ‘cause… Well, here I come… Can I… Can I kiss you?”

The request takes Eddie by surprise, giving him no chance of camouflaging his shock. His expression doesn’t go unnoticed for Richie, who doesn’t waste a second before start explaining himself.

“I mean, it’d really help me to figure out if… if it’s a ‘fuck off’ or a… ‘me too’… But, I mean, you don’t have to do it. I won’t make you do something you don’t wanna do. I’m not even sure I wanna do it, I just think it would help. And, you know, people say I’m a good kisser. Like, a girl once told me I was the only guy she knew who took his time and didn’t go for tongue-on-tongue action too soon, and that’s when I was nineteen, so it says a lot…”

“Richie—”

“And my ex-girlfriend, not the latest one but the one before her, went crazy when I did that thing… You know, the thing of…” He does a weird movement with his lips that makes Eddie want to run away and never come back, “And that’s a very popular thing. And I was in a romantic comedy like, four years ago, and Vogue said it was one of the best kisses of the year, so—”

“Richie, I—”

“What I’m trying to say is that you won’t be disappointed, if that’s bothering you, but you don’t have to do it if you—”

“Will you fucking listen to me?”

Richie shuts his mouth and gulps.

“Rich, there’s nothing I’d like more than kiss you right now, really, but… this is not my body. I’m not the only one you should be asking for permission.”

They both stay in silence for a while. Richie looks disenchanted, but Eddie can tell he knows he’s right. After everything Bill did to make this last goodbye possible, the goodbye life decided to take away from them, they can’t disrespect him like this. He’s their friend above everything else. Even above their questions.

D-do it.

Eddie jumps at the sudden voice inside his head. Richie goes alert like a hunter’s hound.

“What?” Eddie asks, dazed.

“Is he talking to you?”

“Shhh, I want to hear him…”

Do it if you w-want to, Eddie. It’s okay.

“Bill, are you… are you sure? This is still your body and still your decision. You’ve got the last word on it…”

I-I know. And I’m sure. You both need this… c-closure. I’m not stopping you.

“Fuck, this is… but do you really—”

Eddie, you asked me to t-trust you. Now I’m asking you to… t-trust me. C’mon, kiss him like you mean it.

There’s a complicity in his tone that makes Eddie smile. Richie, who only can hear a half of the conversation, is impossibly confused.

“He said yes?”

Eddie nods, practically shining with happiness.

“Fucking God, he said yes!” Richie exclaims, so excited he almost sounds like he just proposed. Then he takes Eddie by the chin and makes him lean to the side, shouting into his ear, “Thank you, Billy!”

“You know he can still hear you when you talk normally, don’t you?” Eddie groans.

“Oh, don’t you try to change the topic on me, Eds. C’mere and give daddy a kiss.”

And this is the moment when I leave you guys alone.

“Only if you don’t ever call yourself daddy again.”

“No promises,” Richie winks, putting his hand on Eddie’s chin again, this time to bring him closer to his face.

Eddie closes his eyes and gives in. There’s nothing else to do. This is the actual climax of his life. Not his graduation, not his wedding, not his final sacrifice; this. All those years of surviving without living were built specifically to come to this conclusion. Once Richie’s lips meet his, it will all be over. He has to make it count.

It’s a soft touch with the slightest of pressures. They stay together for a few seconds and all Eddie can think about is how unfair it is that Bill is the writer, not him. Because this is the kind of kiss he wished he could describe in the most delightful and detailed way, using all the literary devices that would make the great authors of history claim ‘purple prose, purple prose!’ and go after him with tridents and sharp pencils like a lynch mob. But he can’t do that. He doesn’t have the words to do that.

There’s so much life in this kiss, that’s the only thing Eddie can really say about it. The whole life of any human being could be summarized with this kiss. The hesitation and gentleness of every first kiss, the hunger for new experiences of teenagers who start to discover the other’s body, the trust and dedication of two friends who know they would literally die for each other. Everything compressed in such a simple, yet so meaningful gesture.

Richie’s lower lip caresses Eddie’s upper. Still a touch, no sound or wetness required. Eddie melts against the feeling, their noses rubbing together in an almost awkward way. Richie’s hand is on his cheek and he leans the side of his face against it. They keep brushing their lips together, surrendering to the overwhelming magic of being so close after they thought they had lose each other.

That’s how it ends. They separate and slowly open their eyes, trying to control their panting. Richie was right, it is like being twelve years old again. It feels so unreal, so unbelievable… but not unnatural. Unnatural is the only thing that doesn’t cross their minds.

“I love you, Richie,” Eddie whispers.

Richie bites his lip and groans. It kind of seems like he’s about to puke, but it’s not enough to qualify as a gagging.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say it back.”

“I want to…” Richie tells him, “I mean, I wish I could, but…”

“You’re not ready,” Eddie finishes, a sad grin on his face.

“I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t—”

“Someday I’ll be,” he hurries to explain, “Just… not today, Eds. Not when you need me to be ready. And I’m really fucking sorry for that.”

Eddie shakes his head, unexpectedly amused.

“Richie, I don’t need you to be ready. Now or in forty more years, I don’t need you to,” he smiles, taking his hand, “But, when you’re ready, I’ll be waiting for you… if you still want me.”

“It might take a long time.”

“Yeah, but… it’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.”

Richie looks disconcerted for a while, and then laughs.

“Oh, fuck, I remember that song!” he says, “Shit, I… I remember everything.”

Eddie looks down.

“I’m gonna miss you, buddy,” Richie confesses.

“Yeah, me too, but we’ll see each other again… Very fucking soon if you keep up the cancer sticks.”

“And there he is. I’m officially convinced you’re Eds.”

“You still doubted it?”

They laugh again. Considering the situation, laughing is getting way too easy.

“We’re really… meeting again, aren’t we?” Richie dares to ask.

“Sure, why not? I mean, you’ve been my personal hell since we were kids. Like it would be so easy to get rid of you.”

“Now you’re just being mean,” he jokes, “And right when I was starting to think you were a friendly ghost.”

Not willing to listen to more nonsense, Eddie kisses him again. This time with more confidence, more possession, and all Richie can do is take it as it comes and throw his arms around Eddie’s neck, the thought of how no woman in all his life has kissed him like this or made him feel this way invading his mind.

But as soon as it started, it’s over. Eddie backs off and blinks a few times, as if he just came in and has no idea of what is going on. Richie gets it, no matter how much he wished he didn’t.

“He… he’s gone, isn’t he?” He asks, voice low and vacillating.

Bill bites his lower lip, eyes watering. He expected this to happen and he’s been preparing himself for it, but he still needs to convince himself he’s as upset as Richie is. Whatever takes his mind off the fact he can still taste Richie’s mouth on his own.

“I-I… I think he is,” he confirms. The next thing he knows is that they’re in each other’s arms, crying. “I’m so… s-sorry, Rich.”

Richie doesn’t answer. He limits to hold him tight, almost as if he was pretending that Eddie is hiding behind those clothes and hair and face. He refuses to accept a person, a whole person with a name and a job and lots of people around them, can disappear just like that. Being life the most important possession any human being can have, it can’t be fragile and volatile enough to fly out of a body in a mere instant and never come back. It can’t be that simple.

However, he has to face it. Eddie is no longer there. He’s gone. The only thing that exists right now is Bill. His good, old friend Bill, who is showing him support and empathy in a hug that says everything. Who went through all this work just to help both Eddie and him. Bill has to be enough. He must. He should.

Richie is doing all he can to turn this idea into his new religion and philosophy, when he notices something. Bill’s right arm is not holding him anymore.

“You really thought I would leave without saying goodbye?”

Richie grabs his shoulders and pushes him away, a shook expression on his face. Eddie laughs.

“You little shit!”

“I’m sorry…” he apologizes, still chuckling, “I really am, I just… you didn’t think I wouldn’t say goodbye, did you?”

“I don’t know, you’ve been such a spiritual pretentious asshole since you transcended and discovered the secrets of the fucking universe.”

He’s kinda right.

“Well, but I wouldn’t go like that. I mean, unless Bill wants me to…”

They silently wait for an answer that Bill is taking way too much time to give.

You can s-stay as long as you w-want.

Eddie smiles.

“He��s okay with it.”

“Shit, I knew it! Thank you, Billy!” Richie shouts into his ear again.

“Okay, but you really don’t need to do that.”

The three of them laugh.

“I hate to ruin the party,” Richie says, “but exactly how long are you allowed to stay before he recurs to the nearest exorcist?”

“I’ll have to ask him…”

I’ll be in LA for t-two weeks. I’ve got to fix some… st-stuff. You know, producers and e-everything. You can stick around ‘till I go back to England.

“We have two weeks.”

“Two weeks!” Richie exclaims, hopping out his seat, “But that’s such a short time and there’s so much to see! I won’t even be able to take you to all the shitty places where I go to get drunk or get high or get drunk and high or—”

“Richie, that sounds amazing, but I’m really tired and Bill has to be up super early tomorrow. We should get going.”

“Oh.”

“But we can see each other after Bill’s meeting. We could have lunch together and then you can take me to your… shitty places to get drunk and high, if Bill doesn’t mind.”

I don’t mind.

“He doesn’t mind.”

“Uh… well, that’s awesome. My worky things are in the morning, too, so… Guess I’ll see you then.”

“I guess so.”

After a few more uncomfortable chuckles, Richie walks them to the door.

“1PM tomorrow?” He smiles.

“Don’t be late, Trashmouth,” Eddie imitates him.

“Make sure to wear your lace underwear.”

“Please don’t wear the elephant boxers.”

“I threw them away! I’m too fat for them now, anyway… and long.”

“Too much information.”

“Yeah, definitely too much,” he winks.

Eddie rolls his eyes and laughs. They’re serious again before the previous jokes even get the time to settle in.

“You think this will work?” Richie asks, “I mean… us? This scary, weird new thing?”

“Rich, we bit the shit out of a child-eating demon clown… do you really think this is weird and scary?”

“Maybe not that scary but… clearly weird.”

“That’s what I like about you.” He gently holds his hand and squeezes it. “We’ll figure it out.”

Richie nods without hiding the soft smile that reaches his lips.

“Goodnight, Eds.”

“Goodnight.”

With everything said, Eddie turns around and starts walking away, into the dreamily darkness of the garden. Once he hears the front door shutting down, he lets Bill take control again.

“That went w-well,” Bill admits.

It wasn’t a ‘me, too.’

“It wasn’t a ‘fuck off.’”

Eddie doesn’t talk.

“Y-you’ll be fine, Eddie. Just trust me.”

Always.

Tag list: @trippy-alexissss

I know there was more people who wanted to be tagged, but I lost the list with their urls so, if you want to be tagged, please let me know and I’m so sorry for these problems.

#reddie #tozenbrak #bichie #kaspbrough #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #bill denbrough #filling the blanks #it (2017)#it #the losers club #tw// internalized homophobia #tw// death

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chiefmomboss · 7 years

Note

you haven't read or watched all of Harry Potter? are you a crazy person?!

YES.

So when the Harry Potter series first started coming out and getting popular, I was in elementary school and the books would’ve scared the shit out of me. I was afraid of everything. I couldn’t handle watching the zombie hamster episode of the Fairly Odd Parents or the Hash Slinging Slasher episode of Spongebob until I was in high school. I still avoid scary and overly gory movies and shows as much as I can. I don’t even like the Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion movie. I don’t do haunted houses or anything related to ghosts or ghouls or any sort of shadowy figure. And the Harry Potter series has a lot of those creepy, crawly, or ghostly things.

Now, Harry Potter wouldn’t bother me. I actually had to watch the fifth movie in my French class in high school and I was fine other than I had about 4% of an idea what was going on. I could most definitely watch all eight movies and be totally cool with it. I tried to get into reading the books in high school because I thought I was missing out on too much, but it was hard to get into the book. Because...I don’t like magical fantasy. I also didn’t care for the tone of the book? I don’t know I don’t remember a lot of the little bit that I read but? It was? Too storybook for my taste?

And this isn’t some bash on the Harry Potter franchise btw. I am very happy for what Harry Potter has been able to do for our generation and for literacy and getting kids into reading and JK Rowling is an extremely talented author. I kind of wanted to read Casual Vacancy just to see what her writing was like since so many people absolutely loved it and this was the one thing of hers I could pick up and put down without having to have a lot of other context.

But magical fantasy and wizards and mages and witches was never really my preferred genre, partly because it requires too much context for my taste. I don’t hate them, and I don’t hate people for loving them, but they never really struck the same chord with me. I obviously don’t absolutely hate the entire fantasy genre because I love Avatar and Pokemon (except isn’t Pokemon maybe just a tad more science fiction than fantasy?) and lots of anime with magical or fantastical elements. But witches and wizards specifically. I don’t know why. I don’t particularly care for them in anything. I didn’t even understand WHY in Fate//Zero that the characters HAD to be MAGES. But I still enjoyed it, and if I watched the Harry Potter movies now I would probably enjoy them. I liked the one that I saw. It was a good movie. I watched a winter guard routine to the audio of the story of the three brothers and it was super impressive.

I just haven’t watched the rest of the movies (or the fifth one even in English) for the same reason I never got into Supernatural or Doctor Who or One Piece. They’re so BIG. They’ve been around for so LONG and require knowing and picking up on SO MUCH that I would feel like I could never stop playing catch up. They’re all great series, otherwise people would not be following them so closely and loving them after so long, but it’s hard to jump into from the outside at this point. And I will never have experienced growing up with the Harry Potter characters like so many people around me. I had that experience with Avatar, and it was wonderful and important and influences my life in so many ways to this day, so I understand why people love Harry Potter so much and I’m glad they love it even if it does get on my nerves sometimes because people get talking about it and it doesn’t even sound like English to me anymore.

So yeah. I missed out on a gigantic thing that the rest of my generation losses their shit over on like a monthly basis. I’m a crazy person.

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takealottodragmeawayfromreddie · 6 years

Text

Filling the blanks - Chapter 4

Pairing: Richie x Eddie x Bill (Reddie at the start).

Or: The ghost AU where Eddie’s spirit can get inside of Bill’s mind to ask him for help to tell Richie he loved him.

Warnings: Canon Divergence (IT actually kills Audra) and, of course, death of major character. Some really heavy internalized homophobia in this chapter. Like, really heavy. Even some use of the F word that isn’t “fuck”. So, yeah, please be careful, the whole point of this fic is to make y’all have a good time, not triggering you <3

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

AO3 link

Playlist on Spotify (mostly songs about Heaven and duel related stuff and 1980s hits)

And, as always, shout out to my beta reader @golden-marauders. Without their help, Richie would have a big obsession with coffee tables on this chapter. They’re amazing and super patient with me.

“Yeah?” Richie’s tired voice comes from the speaker of the electric doorbell.

Bill isn’t aware of what he had just done until he hears him. Before that, he simply pushed the button and waited for something to happen. It doesn’t feel that meaningful. But now, now that he knows Richie is there and there’s no way of going back, it all acquires a new importance. It’s weird how so many little actions like getting an airplane ticket, sitting on a plane and taking a cab can sum up to become such a transcendental experience. That’s all it takes to end forty years of denial. And a paper boat can be enough to break a family.

“Who’s there?” Richie insists, openly annoyed.

Bill clears his throat and notices Eddie’s difficult breathing in the back of his mind.

“H-hi, Rich. It’s B-Bill and…”

Wait. Not yet.

“It’s Bill,” he corrects himself.

Richie doesn’t say anything.

“B-Bill Denbrough. From… D-Derry.”

Bill licks his lips as they both wait patiently. Is a week all it takes? They can’t be sure. Being together, it’s obvious they won’t forget. But Richie is alone, and maybe he’s perfectly capable of moving on that fast.

“R-Remember?”

This time, Richie sighs.

“Yeah, of course. Give me a second.”

Suddenly, the gate starts vibrating.

“Come in.”

Bill nods as if Richie could see him and pushes the door open. It’s heavy. When he comes in and hears it closing behind him, he finds out everything in that house seems heavy, grandiloquent, exaggerated. The garden is way too big. Not even that complex, with lots of flowers or fountains or shrubs with animal shapes. Just plain large; foot after foot of short grass, healthy and bluish under the moonlight, and a broad way of gravel zigzagging all the way to the front porch. There’s probably a pool in the backyard, but this side of the house looks huge and vaguely upsetting. Vaguely empty.

They make it to the door and Richie is standing there. Bill can tell Eddie is nervous because he feels it in his own stomach and often finds himself fighting against the instinct of running away as he keeps moving forward.

“Calm down,” he warns him in a low voice.

Sorry.

The yellow light that comes from the inside through the open door, makes Richie look like a shadow, so it’s impossible to imagine how he’s feeling until they’re face to face with him. It’s a mixture of a well-received surprise and the expected fear of this meeting being about bad news.

“Hey,” he says, obviously trying to play it cool.

“H-hey,” Bill replies, scratching the back of his head.

They get quiet for a brief moment, Richie awkwardly looking around in search of something to say that can interrupt such a dense silence.

“It’s… good to see you again, Big Bill.”

The familiar nickname catches him off guard. It almost takes him back to the town they grew up in, where they went through the most traumatic experiences they could have imagined, where they learned that no one cared about anything. Where they lost two friends.

“I’m glad to s-see you, too, R-Richie,” he smiles, but it doesn’t seem genuine.

Richie nods, chuckling a bit. His content laugh fades away when he remembers what happened.

“I heard about your wife… I mean, not that I had to hear about it, I was there, but, you know. Everyone is talking about it on T.V. and... it sucks. It really sucks. I’m sorry, man. I didn’t get the chance to tell you I’m sorry back then.”

He gives Bill a small pat on the shoulder and Bill can’t help but smiling with sadness because of such a friendly gesture.

“I’m s-sorry, too. Thank you.”

“No problem. Just keep moving forward and you’ll be fine. It’s all about surviving.”

“W-well,” he says, staring at his feet, “It’s always been about sur-surviving, r-right?”

He notices Richie has gotten tense. It’s clear that they’re taking this ‘grown-up conversation’ way too far for him. He takes his time to talk again and, when he does, Bill can tell he’s trying to take weight out from the whole thing.

“It’s getting kind of chilly, don’t you think? Wanna come inside and… I don’t know, maybe have a beer or something?”

“I’ll say no to the b-beer, but I can… c-come in, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t. You’re lucky that all the strippers already left,” he jokes as they go into the house, “And I hope you don’t mind if I say yes to that beer.”

“Not at all, R-Rich.”

Richie closes the door behind them and Bill finds out he’s in the fanciest place he has ever seen. The interior of the building is even bigger, with a large corner sofa right in the middle of the living room, modern furniture like Barcelona chairs everywhere and a transparent coffee table along with them, and a huge kitchen integrated to the landscape. The dominant colors are black and white and several pieces of contemporary art —that Richie probably despises secretly— hang from the tall walls.

Astonished by the luxuries that surround them, Bill walks towards the couch and sits down, while Richie goes to the fridge and gets his beer.

“You sure you don’t want one?” he asks, not looking at him.

“No, t-thank you.”

“Alright, you’re the guest. But I wouldn’t sit there if I were you. Actually, I wouldn’t sit anywhere in this house.”

“W-why?”

“If something is in my house, I probably fucked someone on it.”

Before Bill can process what he just heard, his body stands up.

That’s it. I’m leaving.

“No!” He exclaims, louder than he intended to sound.

Richie stares at him from the kitchen, beer in hand and eyes wide open.

“Shit, I was kidding. I love that couch. I wouldn’t fuck anyone on it.”

Both Bill and Eddie sigh with relief and sit down again.

“Chill out, man,” Richie continues, “You look like you just—”

“Heard a ghost?”

“I was gonna say ‘saw’ but okay, you’re the writer.”

After shrugging, Richie goes back to the living room, sets the bottle on the coffee table and takes a seat next to Bill.

“Uh… you’ve got a… a n-nice house,” Bill comments, not sure of how to start a conversation.

Richie’s eyes seem to light up.

“Oh, why, thank you, Billy, my darling!” He answers, in a ridiculous southern belle voice, “Momma will be so pleased to know you find the family farm quite this—”

“Beep beep, R-Richie,” he chuckles.

They share a quick laugh. Bill can hear Eddie laughing, too. It feels so much like the old times he’s certain that he would be crying, if they weren’t busy enjoying the moment. But it doesn’t last long. As soon as the importance of the real reason they are there comes to light again, he stops. And Richie must feel the new atmosphere of seriousness, because he stops, too.

“Hey, I don’t wanna look like a bad host or anything, but… what brings you to my humble abode?”

It’s time. This isn’t a casual visit, and Richie knows it. He has to tell him the truth or give Eddie the space to say it himself. He waits a few seconds, but nothing happens. Eddie, who just instants ago was controlling him to leave because of a disgusting joke, is nowhere to be seen or heard. He won’t even talk.

“It’s…” Richie says, his grin falling and turning into a worried expression, “Everything’s fine, right? It’s not… It isn’t… Everything’s just… fine, isn’t it? I mean, we tore Its heart out. We…”

Bill soon gets what Richie is thinking.

“Oh, no, of… of course. It’s not about… It’s d-dead. It won’t c-come back.”

“Oh, great,” Richie exhales, relieved, “Well, you could have said that first, don’t you think?”

“S-sorry, I guess I’m a bit… n-nervous,” he smiles.

“Nervous? Why?”

Bill stares down at his own hands, fingers intertwined on his lap, foot tapping the carpet.

“I… Y-you know, with everything… what happened to A-Audra. We were… we were making a m-movie and now… Now I’ve got to talk to p-producers and get a new… a new actress or… cancel the p-project.”

“Oh, so… business trip, huh?”

“Yeah, buh-business trip. And I… I thought I could visit ‘cause… Well, we for-forgot once. We could make thing d-different this… this time. Like… keep in touch.”

This is not going like they planned. This wasn’t supposed to happen. But Richie seems so genuinely glad because he thought about continue with their friendship, that he doesn’t have the heart to rain on his parade. Maybe it’s better that way. He needs Richie to trust him as much as he can, if he wants the whole ‘unfinished business’ thing to work out.

“Uh…” Richie replies, “Yeah, why not? I mean, Bev kinda wanted to do something similar. She gave me her number and all. You know we were really—”

“C-close. Yeah, I know,” he nods, “So, have you… called her?”

“Nah, I don’t know if I will.”

“W-why?”

“She probably changed all her ways of contact, after… Well, after all the shit that sick fuck did to her. And she’s gonna marry Haystack, remember? They’re even looking for a baby. Even though I’d be the most amazing uncle ever, families aren’t my thing. They deserve their cute, suburban life, without someone to remind them of… of what happened. I guess the past is in the past for a reason… Shit, that’s deep.”

“It really is, R-Rich,” Bill chuckles, “But I don’t… I don’t think you’re right about t-that.”

“About what?”

“F-families not being your… your thing.”

“Oh, Bill, come on. ‘Hey, Haystack Jr., look, it’s Uncle Trashmouth!’ and I show up wasted and with two models in short dresses under each arm. Can you imagine?”

He shakes his head while frantically laughing, and Bill can’t help but laugh, too.

“It doesn’t sound that b-bad,” he jokes.

“No, you don’t get it. It’s Haystack Jr.’s birthday party. He’s turning five and all his friends from kindergarten are there! And then I try to hit on his super-hot teacher and pass out on the cake.”

“Okay, you’d be the w-worst uncle ever,” he agrees, still laughing, “But that doesn’t mean f-families aren’t your thing.”

“What makes you think that?”

“R-Richie, we are family. We always… we always were. Since f-forever. And you were always t-there for me. For… for everyone.”

Something changes in Richie’s face when he says that. His features get softer, sadder. He looks down and Bill knows, in that moment, that he broke his shell.

“Not for everyone,” Richie mumbles, and reaches out to get his beer and give it a sip.

“W-what… what do you mean?”

His friend laughs bitterly.

“We were the lucky seven. How many of us are still around?”

“Rich…”

“How many of us are still around, Bill?” He insist, a little more firmly.

“F-five, but—”

“That’s right, five!” He settles his beer back on the table with a loud noise and stands up, “Five of seven. Fucking five of seven.”

“R-Richie, that doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Oh, it doesn’t?”

“Of c-course it doesn’t!” he snaps, “We had a d-decision to make. You and I decided to c-come back, Stan decided to… to run away. That doesn’t m-make him better or worse, but it was his… his choice.”

“Oh, right, it was his choice. And what about what Eddie chose? Did he chose what happened to him, too?”

“W-well… yeah. No one f-forced him to—”

“Don’t give me that shit. It was us who were staring at the deadlights. It was us who left him alone, even knowing he was like a lost fucking puppy.”

“That’s b-bullshit! He wasn’t like… like that. What he did was b-brave.”

“Yeah, and you really taught him how to be brave, didn’t you? You really taught how to not give a shit.”

“Eddie didn’t n-need me to teach him how to be b-brave, ‘cause he was!”

“And how did he end? Huh, Bill, how did he end? What did ‘being brave’ bring to him?”

“He s-saved us.”

“Don’t say that.”

“W-why not? He did!”

“No, fuck you. Don’t turn his death into a poetic sacrifice or something like that. This is not one of your novels. He was coughing blood, Bill! It was dirty, it was disgusting, it was everything he hated… And we left him there. You made me leave him there.”

“W-what was I supposed to do? Carry his… his body out of the f-fucking sewers? It was still alive! It had my w-wife. My wife was still… a-alive.”

“And where she is now? Cool, we killed It, when are your wife and your brother coming back to life? When are Stan and Eddie coming back to life?”

Bill doesn’t answer. He just stares up at Richie, who was walking around the coffee table until a few seconds ago, and is now standing in front of him. By the look in his eyes, Bill can tell he regrets what he said. And of course he’s mad. Damn, he’s infuriated. He wants to punch Richie on his stupid face for all the poisonous things that come from his mouth.

But this is not about Richie. He needs to remember this is not about Richie. It’s about Eddie and, even if Richie doesn’t want to see him like that, for Bill, Eddie is a hero and his sacrifice was the most poetic and worthy thing ever.

Richie sighs.

“Shit, man,” he says, rubbing his temples, “That was a shitty thing to say. I’m sorry.”

“It’s a-alright, Rich.”

“I’m just…” He sits down beside him once more, “Look, I really don’t wanna talk about Eds, okay? I just don’t wanna think about him.”

“Maybe that means we should… we should start t-talking about it.”

“No, I really don’t—”

“Maybe you s-should.”

“Why?”

“It’ll make you feel b-better.”

“I’ll feel better when I can’t remember anything of this shit.”

“But you can… f-feel better now.”

Richie groans, exasperated, and stands up.

“Ugh, you really want me to talk about my feelings? Fine, I’ll tell you how I feel. Take notes to use it in one of your stupid books, if you want.”

Bill nods in signal of being prepared to listen.

“Here’s how I feel,” Richie continues, “I feel like a fucking asshole, okay? That’s exactly how I feel: like a fucking asshole.”

“R-Richie—”

“No, listen to me. Remember when we met again? When we all, except Stan, were there? Everyone was excited. I mean, yeah, it was the worst situation possible, but we were glad to see each other again. ‘Cause we were best friends and we missed each other. Well, wanna know how I felt when I saw him?”

He makes a pause and Bill doubts if he’s waiting for an answer before telling him. However, Richie keeps talking without any confirmation.

“I was disappointed. I was so fucking disappointed I wanted to… I don’t know, to go back home!”

Bill feels a flip on his stomach and that’s the only way he can tell Eddie hasn’t left. He rubs his own shoulder in an attempt of comforting him.

“I was disappointed ‘cause I remembered everything. How ‘brave’ he was. How he didn’t take shit from anyone, not even me. He always spoke his mind and called me out when he thought I was being an idiot. Damn, when we were kids, I’m sure he could have bit my fingers off if I tried to pinch his cheek on a bad day.

”He even told his mom to fuck off when he found out about all the lies she told him. And you know how scared of that woman he was. Eds basically… feared nothing. But he changed. You can’t tell me he was the same when we met again.”

“Of c-course he wasn’t. So many… so many y-years…”

“No. It’s not about growing up. He didn’t grow up; he gave up.”

“W-what are you—?”

“He gave up, Bill! He grew softer. After all the shit that woman did to him, he ran right under her boot again when he had the chance. He yelled at her and then apologized, and looked after her ‘till she died. I heard him talking to his wife on the phone when we were in Derry. She’s the fucking same person his mother was! She controlled him in the same way his mother did. And he took it. And he told her he loved her and couldn’t wait to go back to her. Thirteen years old Eddie wouldn’t take that. He would fight back. And then I realized that that Eddie didn’t exist anymore… and I felt so disappointed. I couldn’t believe he allowed the world to tame him.”

I didn’t mean to leave. I didn’t mean to do anything of that.

It’s the first time Eddie speaks in a while, and Bill knows he expects him to say that out loud. But Richie is not over yet.

“And then he… Then he kicked Bowers’ ass. He killed him. And he went and died for us. I know he died for us, okay? I just don’t wanna think about it. And I felt… and now I feel like an asshole. ‘Cause I felt disappointed on a friend that gave his life for mine. There, that’s how I feel. Are you happy now?”

Bill, tell him I didn’t mean to leave. Please.

“H-he didn’t mean to leave, R-Richie.”

Richie looks confused.

“What?”

I made a promise.

“He made a p-promise.”

“A promise?”

She didn’t want me to hang out with you guys anymore. She wanted to lock me away from everyone.

“His mom. His mom didn’t want him to… to s-see us.”

“What the—”

I promised her I’d took every pill and be with her forever if she…

“He p-promised her he… he’d do whatever she w-wanted…”

Didn’t make me get away from you.

“If she didn’t… make him get a-away from… from us.”

Richie thinks it over. His expression is skeptical, but Bill knows he’s trying to process it. He isn’t opposed to trust him and what he’s saying, it’s just that it’s not only hard to believe, but it also feels so far away. Bill has been with Eddie this whole week, his questions were answered and he had time to digest all the new information.

For Richie, who spent all these days alone and is consciously waiting to forget and resume his life, the events around It must feel, at best, like an odd dream he doesn’t want to remember. Being face to face with what happened has to be a big shock. They all thought it was over, and now it proves it will stay with them for years, even if they can’t put their finger on what is going on.

“How…” Richie begins, and Bill holds his breath, “How do you know that?”

“Uh… S-sorry?”

“How do you know about that? How can you know about that promise Eddie supposedly made?”

That’s it. If he keeps waiting for the right moment, it will never come. The right moment is now.

“’Cause Eddie… Eddie is not g-gone.”

Richie takes his time to answer.

“Fuck, really? You’re giving me the ‘he will live forever in our hearts’ speech? That’s why you came here?”

“No, R-Richie, you don’t… you don’t get it.”

“I totally get it. Alright, the man is dead, he was our friend, it sucks. Poor guy, seriously, what a shitty way to go. But he’s gone and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“H-he’s not gone. Lis-listen to me—”

“You’re the one who wanted to care for the people who are still around. I don’t say it in an ‘it’s all your fault’ way. I mean, you’re right, let’s worry about the living, that’s the best thing to do. And… I’m a Christian, too, you know? Okay, the worst Christian ever, but I still am. If believing that those who left are somewhere and look after us is your thing, that’s amazing. But I—”

“I-I’m not giving you the… the f-fucking ‘he lives in our h-hearts’ speech, id-idiot,” Bill interrupts him, frustrated, “I can literally hear him in my… h-head.”

Richie frowns. Until now, the tone of his voice has been empathetic, almost amused, like he thinks Bill is going through a denial phase and he doesn’t want to break his bubble. Like he’s so over this all that listening to Bill talking about Eddie still being around awakes his compassion. Now, that compassion is gone. He stays in silence for an instant, he takes a few steps back, and everything that’s left is perplexity.

“What?” He questions.

“I know it’s hard to b-believe, but… Eddie’s here. Here,” he taps his own temple with his index finger, “He’s inside my… my head.”

“Uh… are you into scientology or another crazy celebrity cult? ‘Cause this sounds like cult stuff.”

“N-no, please, listen. Eddie d-died, but he couldn’t… he couldn’t leave. He still had something to d-do on… on Earth.”

“Oh, so you are into a cult. Okay, won’t judge you, I just… It’s scientology, right?”

“Will you just h-hear me out, please?”

“I just wanna know if it’s scientology!”

“No, I’m not into fucking s-scien-—”

“Scientology,” he finishes, pointing at him.

“What-whatever, I’m not. J-just listen. E-Eddie got into my b-body because he had to… to do something. And that’s why I’m h-here.”

“Buddhism!” He exclaims.

“No! F-fuck, no, you don’t even know what B-Buddhism is ab-about, do you?”

“I first thought about Judaism, but Stan was Jewish and he never got possessed or anything like that.”

“Fucking God…”

“Are you sure it isn’t scientology?”

Bill groans and stands up.

“I’m not a fucking s-scien-scientologist! This isn’t… This isn’t r-religious stuff or cult stuff or w-whatever you said. I’m telling you the truth! A f-few days ago, Eddie got into my body and asked for my help. He said he wanted to leave, but… h-he couldn’t. He has un-unfinished business and he won’t rest ‘till he takes c-care of it. It has something to… something to do with you and that’s why I came. I’m just trying to h-help him.”

“Man, are you okay? You want me to call someone or anything? Are you doing drugs?”

“He’s here r-right now.”

“’Cause let me tell you, drugs aren’t cool at all, okay? If your friends pressure you to take them, they’re not your friends.”

“He’s hearing this whole c-conversation.”

“Bill, I won’t ask you again, put all your drugs on the table.”

“Please, R-Richie! You’ve got to listen. He… he needs you to l-listen.”

Richie growls.

“Okay! If it means that much for you, tell me. C’mon, tell me what ‘Eddie needs me to know’. I’m sure it’s gonna be bullshit.”

“Y-you’re such an idiot! He was in love with you!” Bill snaps.

This time, he seems to reach the part of Richie that has been hiding during the whole meeting. Sure, he had his emotional moments, but now he looks so hurt, so enraged, Bill starts thinking he’d be capable of committing murder at this point.

“Excuse me?”

Bill crosses his arms over his chest. Even though he is scared, he has to stay firm.

“W-what I said.”

Richie takes a deep breath, as he’s trying to calm down. He probably doesn’t want to harm him and has to put a lot of effort into controlling himself.

“If that was supposed to be a joke, you should leave the comedy to me, Big Bill.” He quietly warns.

Bill gulps, building up enough courage to not withdraw what he’s saying.

“It’s not… it’s not a joke.”

“Bill, really, take that back. This isn’t fucking funny.”

“It’s not a j-joke!”

“Look, I’m really trying here, alright? I’m trying not to break your nose for this, ‘cause you’re my friend and I care for you and I know you’re going through some heavy shit right now. But if you don’t—”

“J-just think about it! Why… why would I l-lie to you? W-we fought an… an evil demon clown! Is this… That’s not harder to be-believe?”

“No, it’s not fucking harder to believe! I saw that thing, It was there, It killed people. But you’re telling me our dead friend is inside your body or whatever and that he was…”

“I-in love with you,” he completes, soft and careful.

The words still affect Richie like the first time he pronounced them. It’s like Richie is sticking to his common sense, looking for a logic explanation, and every time Bill tells him Eddie loved him, it goes past his rational side and goes straight to his unconsciousness. He is not ready to accept it, but he knows it.

Despise this, it doesn’t pulls him out from his anger for too long.

“Okay, you’re asking for it,” he tells him, a look of determination and fury in his eyes as he walks towards Bill, rolling up his sleeves.

Bill wants to stand there and use his words, try to bring Richie back to his senses without physical violence. But during his attempt to be polite, a fist gets shot against the air, and it passes so close to his face he realizes talking is not an option.

Luckily, Richie had a beer and is upset, while Bill remains sober and functional, so his reflexes are enough for him to bend and avoid another punch.

“P-please, you’ve got to—” he begs, taking the first chance he gets to run away from his reach.

“Shut up!” Richie shouts, going after him and throwing more arbitrary hits that never touch him.

They trot around the couches and chairs of the living room, even walking over them when it’s necessary. Bill knows Richie is not at his best form. When they were kids, it would have been a very tough fight and any of them could have won, but now Bill is sure he’s capable of sending his friend to the hospital.

He doesn’t have a reason to escape. Also, escaping wouldn’t be a hard thing to do. If he hurries, he can get to the door and Richie won’t ever be able to find him.

There’s a lot of things he could do, but only one will help Eddie.

“R-Richie, I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna fight with y-you…” He says when he’s at a safe distance.

“Oh, you don’t wanna fight?” Richie mocks him, shortening the gap between them, “Sure, you’re so over this, aren’t you? You’re so fucking mature. Well, if you really wanna be a man, then come here and fucking fight like one!”

Bill is cornered now. His back is touching the front door —subtly palming the doorknob, in case he can’t no longer control the situation— and he can smell the alcohol in Richie’s breath and feel his hands grabbing his collar. They’re in pause, no more pulling or throwing fists, but it won’t last. They both know it won’t last.

“I-I’m not gonna fight you. I… I won’t. You’re my f-friend.”

“Then why are you doing this, Bill? What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you… I don’t know, are you gay for me? You want my dick or something? I mean, c’mon, your wife died like… a week ago! What do you want from me?”

“I’m not gay! I’m just… I’m trying to… to help E-Eddie.”

Richie reliefs a cynical laugh.

“You’re trying to help Eddie? How? What the hell are you talking about?!” he reclaims, shaking him.

“I already… t-told you. I promised I’d… I’d h-h-help him.”

His eyes are starting to burn, filling with tears that Richie doesn’t seem to mind. His fury is consuming him, turning him into someone else. If the term ‘monster’ applied for them like it applies for common people, that would be the word to describe him right now.

“You’re fucking crazy, Bill! I don’t know what this all about, why you’re trying to make me believe in your ghost bullshit or what do you want from me, but you’ll shut the fuck up. I don’t wanna hear anything and the least you can do now is saying you’re sorry.”

“S-sorry? For what?!”

“For spreading lies about him! You can’t say shit like that, he’s not here to defend himself!”

“But—”

“No, you listen! He was not a faggot, got it? Get it inside your fucking head: Eds was not a fag—!”

He doesn’t end the sentence. As soon as he tries to repeat the insult, Bill’s left hand raises and slaps him in the face so hard it makes him lose balance. So hard his fingers leave a red mark all over his cheek.

Bill wants to apologize. He’s mad, of course, but he didn’t mean to take it that far. He didn’t mean to do that. However, the expression of regret won’t come out. He can’t talk. He can’t move one single muscle. All he can do is stand there, staring at the prettified mess that is Richie at this moment, looking at him with wide eyes and his chest raising and falling agitatedly, as his feet make him go backwards, short and slow steps.

“Don’t call me that,” Bill’s voice murmurs, except that he didn’t order it to do that.

Richie watches, even more disconcerted than before, be it for the words themselves or for the fact he didn’t stutter once.

“W-what?” he asks, no trail of wrath in his tone.

Bill can see the bottom of his own frowned eyebrows as his chin raises in a gesture of challenge. His left fist is closed, but his right arm hangs against his body, not moving at all.

“I said don’t fucking call me that, Richie.”

Richie gulps, still touching the mark on the side of his face. His eyes look slightly wet.

“You know I…”

Silence.

C-come on, Eddie. You can d-do it. I know you can. I know how b-brave you are.

Bill’s lungs slowly fill up with air. Then his mouth exhales.

Richie is waiting.

“You know I love you.”

Tag list: @trippy-alexissss

I know there was more people who wanted to be tagged, but I lost the list with their urls so, if you want to be tagged, please let me know and I’m so sorry for these problems.

#tozenbrak #reddie #kaspbrough #bichie #bill denbrough #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #it (2017)#it (2019)#it (1990)#it (book)#it (movie)#the losers club #fanfic #my writing #filling the blanks

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