#Choices and regrets

[satashiiwrites]

wip wednesday

i know I’m slightly late as it’s thursday…. But this is what i was working on last night. This chapter is about half-written and is a monster.

Tagging with no pressure @monsterrae1 @quietborderline @rosieposiepuddingnpie @tiny-reader @outtoshatter @missanniewhimsy @whimsyswastry @tkwritesdumbassassins and anyone else who wants to play along.

Title: Choices and Regrets, Chapter 13: Ground Zero

Fandom: 911, Dark Matter

Pairing: multiple versions of Buddie abound.

Summary:

If you could go back and change the choices in your life, would you?  Would you love the same people, go on the same vacations, have the same career? Or would you have regrets? After the lightning strike, an unexpected visitor makes Buck question all the choices he’s ever made. From dropping out of the Seals to never making a move on Eddie because the time hasn’t been right. He’s going to get an up close and personal look at what could have been because another version of Buck is focused on taking his choices away from him—including Eddie and Christopher Diaz. 

Tags/warnings: dark themes, dubious consent, explicit sex, kidnapping, murder, major/minor character death (not our version of Buck, Eddie or Christopher), drug use, identity fraud, topping from the bottom

“Clumsy?” Buck queries. 

Eddie shrugs, attempting to appear nonchalant. “I am fine. Hen was being silly.”

“How many head injuries have you had?” Buck fires back, not dropping it. “You make me go to the ER.”

Eddie tilts his head toward Christopher, trying to tell Buck silently to lay off. He doesn’t want Christopher freaking out over a made-up injury. “I didn’t get knocked unconscious. Just dazed myself for a few moments.”

“You made me go to the ER. I should make you,” Buck threatens, the playfulness in his tone false, and it grates on Eddie’s nerves. Buck isn’t buying his explanation.  

“Buck,” Eddie says, making his warning clear in his tone. “I’m okay. Let’s not scare my kid.”

It’s telling that Buck doesn’t protest Eddie excluding him from having any say. Eddie hasn’t blocked Buck from having an opinion on Christopher in years, ever since he changed his will, but this isn’t the Buck he listed as Christopher’s guardian in case of emergency. 

Christopher picks up on it, his lip jutting out in a frown as he looks between the adults who are being weird. “You really are okay?”

“I’m fine, Mijo. Normally, I wouldn’t even have had to stay with Athena, but we’re all being more careful after Buck’s last hospital stay.” Eddie drapes his arm over Christopher’s shoulders, allowing his kid to burrow closer. Christopher has been balking at public displays of affection for the last two years, but it’s noticeable that Eddie’s son is feeling off that he doesn’t complain about being held close. 

Christopher at least knows subconsciously that something is wrong. 

Buck takes a drink of his coffee, which is plain black. Another sign Eddie should have picked up is that the man across from him isn’t his Buck—his Buck always doctors his coffee with at least cream, but he has a sweet tooth for the French caramel stuff Hen keeps the work fridge stocked with and always tries Starbuck’s newest sugary concoction, unlike Eddie who started drinking coffee in the military and takes it black.  

Eddie is never going to stop berating himself for missing the signs. 

“Did you order yet?” Eddie asks, trying to change the subject. 

“No, Dad. We were waiting for you,” Christopher offers, picking up a laminated menu. 

“What were you thinking?” Eddie pretends to look at the menu over Christopher’s shoulder. 

“Chocolate chip pancakes,” Christopher says, looking at Buck as he speaks.  

Buck doesn’t complain like he always does about chocolate not belonging on pancakes. He makes no comment about blueberries being better or suggesting the banana macadamia nut ones. 

“Sounds good, Superman.”

Christopher scrunches his nose and turns to Eddie, eyes wide. Running his hand down Christopher’s narrow back, Eddie shakes his head to tell Christopher they’ll discuss it later silently. 

“Dad?” Christopher calls, layers of worry thick on his tongue. 

“It’s okay, Mijo. You can have the chocolate chip ones,” Eddie emphasizes with a nod toward the false Buck. “You’ve always wanted to try them.”

Christopher is silent for several heartbeats, then drops his head to stare at the menu. “Okay.”

It’s not okay—nothing about this situation is okay—but Eddie needs to get Christopher out of the line of fire, and overly sweet pancakes are a small price to pay. 

“You can get them with real whipped cream, strawberries, or both,” Eddie offers encouragingly.  

Act normal, he reminds himself. 

Christopher hums. “I think both.”

“Sounds great, Mijo.”

“What are you getting, Dad?”

Eddie could go for his usual, but the petty urge to mess with this evil version of his lover is too great to pass up. “I don’t know. Might go for the special.”

The special is way too much food—a stack of pancakes, two pieces of bacon, two sausage links, three eggs, and a mound of hashbrowns you can get topped with cheese and onion. He’ll probably have to let Christopher steal his bacon, as it’s too much for Eddie to eat on his own unless he’s been fighting a fire for most of the shift. Ordering the special is code for it was a physically demanding shift, and they’re prioritizing shoveling in replacement calories, not that this version of Buck will get that. 

It’s one more thing that this Buck can’t understand, and Eddie pettily wants to drive the point home in the most passive-aggressive way he can as often as possible. 

Eddie never said he was the nice one in this relationship. Buck’s the people pleaser, not Eddie. Eddie is the one who will hold a grudge until hell freezes over and pigs fly. 

“What are you getting, Buck?” Eddie asks. 

Buck hasn’t stopped watching Eddie this entire time. “I don’t know. Why don’t you decide for me?”

Oh, he’s going to regret that unless he can handle spice better than Eddie’s Buck. Paula’s south-of-the-border breakfast special has enough heat to make Eddie feel like he’s breathing fire after eating it, even if he loves the chorizo and salsa that comes with it. 

“I’ll get you the usual then,” Eddie says as normally as he can. “You want extra sauce, right?”

“Sure.” This other Buck doesn’t bat an eye, pretending still to be Eddie’s Buck like they have years of shared experiences when it’s only been a little over three weeks. 

Unless this Buck has a cast iron stomach, this isn’t going to be pretty. 

He can kiss Eddie’s ass.  

[absentlyabbie]

taking my life into my hands to resurrect this godawful hellpoll and let it run for a week this time

[morganbritton132]

Hal, interrupting Barry mid-sentence: Hold up. You were in Gotham? Batman’s Gotham? ‘No-Meta-in-Gotham’ Gotham?

Barry: Yeah? Bats needed my forensic expertise. It was so cool. We traced-

Hal: Not fair. I want to go to Gotham

Barry: Ask Batman

—

Green Lantern, thinking about how he’s going to kill The Flash: You want me to go in there *gestures to open manhole* In the sewer. To fight an alligator.

Batman: Killer Croc is a man

Green Lantern: That looks like a crocodile and eats people.

Batman: Yes.

Green Lantern: What about him? Make him do it *gestures to Red Robin*

Red Robin: Can’t

Batman: He can’t.

Green Lantern: Why not?

Red Robin: Don’t have a spleen

Batman: He doesn’t have a spleen.

Green Lantern:

Red Robin, over coms: Did you guys hear that? Green Lantern just told me he wants me to fucking die

Coms: *explodes as everybody speaks at once*

[qiqilasblog]

Scribled some designs for Jon

Nice put together season 1 Jon and stinky season 4/5 Jon. Which one do you like better?

[roseee-z]

Tired of his kids

[verdesart]

Draw your favourite characters in your favourite album cover [challenge from twitter]

I forgot to draw the wheel

[driedlillies]

The magnus archives when everything’s the same but the action happens 10 years into the future (starts 2026) and the institute is under scrutiny because some gossip magazines accused them of having misogynistic management because the Head of the Institute was always a man so Jonah Magnus originally born in the 1700s decides to deal with that by his next body being a woman so now he has to deal with periods and gender dysphoria

[kizzer55555]

The power of hotdogs

Danny is running to Gotham to escape the GIW. As he’s running into an alleyway, he crashes into non other than condiment king who proceeds to attack and hits the GIW goons behind him. This absolutely terrifies them due to the fact that their prestigious white clothes will be stained. The fact that he has people running in terror gives Condiment king a giddy feeling so he proceeds to chase them around Gotham.

Thus starts Danny’s constant exploits of running to condiment king when he’s being chased and the rogue scarring the living daylights out of the GIW. They develop nightmares and Condiment king starts developing new concoctions that will specifically stain clothes and never come out. Mwa ha ha!

Eventually, Danny gets adopted by the rogue and becomes his sidekick. Now, when people learned that condiment king got a new sidekick, they laughed. Who in their right mind would want to mentor under him. They believed that this was some poor sob who was down on their luck and truly desperate. That or some weirdo like the ‘king’ himself.

But they didn’t understand.

They didn’t understand that they should never have let Danny Fenton (known as Phantom) become Condiment King’s sidekick.

Danny knows how to animate hotdogs and other foods to create an army. Danny knows intimately about the secret nasty burger sauce that is capable of powerful explosions of you heat it up. Danny has knowledge in the usage and how to build various weaponry designed to shoot or even be powered by green sludge (which can easily be replaced by ketchup, mustard, or relish).

And he hasn’t even shown Gotham his power-set yet. No one knows why he calls himself phantom. For all they know, he’s just a normal (terrifying) human.

Everyone blames the GIW for this mess.

[circusmilkk]

new system just dropped

[snuffysbox]

My Scarlet Hollow character, Judith "Jude" Scarlet. Her traits are Talk to Animals and Street Smart. Can't wait to see what fresh horrors the rest of the week will bring :))

[despoticmouse]

Has the spug tried to teach Spearmaster anything other than wawa?

The slup has taught SM how to harmlessly play! Something SM has never really done before.

[satashiiwrites]

morning writing first draft—wip whenever

making some headway on this chapter finally. Tagging whoever wants to write some on a saturday morning.

Title: Choices and Regrets, Chapter 13

Fandom: 911, Dark Matter

Pairing: Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley/Eddie Diaz

Summary: If you could go back and change the choices in your life, would you?  Would you love the same people, go on the same vacations, have the same career? Or would you have regrets?

After the lightning strike, an unexpected visitor makes Buck question all the choices he’s ever made. From dropping out of the Seals to never making a move on Eddie because the time hasn’t been right. He’s going to get an up close and personal look at what could have been because another version of Buck is focused on taking his choices away from him—including Eddie and Christopher Diaz. 

Tags/warnings: dark themes, dubious consent, explicit sex, kidnapping, murder, major character death, drug use, identity fraud, topping from the bottom

Buck crowds Eddie, needing to offer comfort as well as understanding. “What?”

“He picked Christopher up from Abuela’s. Said they were going to have a sleepover.” Eddie turns his phone so Buck can see the screen, and he has a moment of vertigo. 

It’s not his face smiling next to Christopher’s. 

That’s not him.  

The picture was taken in the Jeep. Christopher is leaning forward from the back seat where his booster is, arms wrapped around the other him’s neck as he takes the photo. Christopher has a smile on his face, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.  

It’s not the only photo. There’s a series of them. In each of them, this other him has purposefully taken a selfie of himself with Christopher, taking him to dinner at a familiar Mexican hole-in-the-wall that they frequent and is Christopher’s favorite, to playing video games on the infernally uncomfortable couch that Buck’s mother had bought him when she’d noticed he hadn’t replaced it after Taylor had moved out when visiting after the lightning strike. 

Christopher is asleep on that same couch, the other version of him twisting his body to make sure that Christopher’s face is visible below his smirking visage. 

Buck feels ill. 

“Did he say why?” He asks Eddie shakily. 

“Need to reconnect with my Superman,” Eddie says, reading the text message below the pictures aloud. “Fuck.”

“He hasn’t hurt him,” Buck says, not sure it’s true. 

“Yet. He hasn’t hurt him yet,” Eddie hisses, pulling away and pacing in the narrow space between bed and dresser.  

“Eddie, he doesn’t have a reason to hurt Christopher,” Buck says. “Christopher is leverage.”

“Christopher is not leverage!” Eddie snarls, fists clenched and ready to fight, eyes wide as they meet Buck’s. “He can’t… I…”

“Eds,” Buck coaxes, taking a step toward Eddie to try and calm him. Usually, their roles are reversed, but Buck can’t let Eddie go off like an unguided missile whose only intention is to get Christopher away from the other version of himself. 

Eddie’s phone dings with a new message. 

“Fuck!”

Buck grabs Eddie instinctively, slipping his hands around his lover’s waist and pulling Eddie into his body. Eddie is shaking, but he doesn’t rip himself away. “What’s the message?”

“He’s inviting me to join them for breakfast. At our ‘usual place.’ He’s telling me he knows.”

“Knows what?” Buck asks for clarification. 

“That you’re here,” Eddie stresses, sagging against Buck. “Shit. What am I going to do, Buck?”

Buck takes Eddie’s phone from his limp fingers. “Are you sure? What’s the context?”

Eddie licks his lips, fingers anchoring themselves in Buck’s shirt. “We had a misunderstanding when he made a mistake—something you would have known what I meant without needing to ask. What’s our usual breakfast spot?”

“After work, it’s Paula’s. If it’s just us and Christopher? We go to that hole in the wall that Pepa’s friend owns, which only does Sunday brunch.”

Eddie smiles sadly, fingers twisting tighter to give a little tug of emphasis. “He thought it was Eggs and Bake.”

“Eggs and Bake?  We only go there if Chimney is picking the place and you hate their eggs.”

“I do not,” Eddie grumbles but he’s made his point. 

“So is he at Paula’s?  Christopher’s only been there like twice.”

“It’s out of our way unless we’re coming from work.”

“Right.  So what do we do?”

Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t know.  I have to go, right?  He has Christopher.”

“We need to talk to Athena.  You’re not going in without backup and if he sees me, it’s game over.”

Eddie slowly nods. “Okay.”

“Let’s go talk with Athena.  She’ll know what to do.”  Buck prays desperately that she will. 

[stickynotelovers-art]

I was going to be productive and actually work on art that I've already started (like the next part for my Family Connection AU), but my brain remembered that Peepaw Leo exists and I just had to draw him! I especially couldn't resist when I thought of him interacting with Present Leo and all the shenanigans they could get into.

Then of course, I had to draw baby Casey Jr., because yes. Which led to me thinking of Uncle Tello and Uncle Mikey as well and it just all fell into a silly pit.

[atlas-and-the-time]

The greater grief

[toktopus-art]

i just know kas!eddie would be so dramatic

[nellasbookplanet]

I do think that referring to Essek as irredeemable for regretting his actions only because he was caught and risked losing his friends is both kind of reductive to him as a character and a misunderstanding of the concept of redemption arcs in media.

A person generally isn't changed because you sit them down and hand them a bunch of political theory to read. They change because their circumstances and relationships do. It's like that guy who was deradicalized because he got a bunch of shrimp and started to care for them. It’s our relationships that change us, because they give us not a logical but an emotional reason to do so.

Caleb explicitly says "these people will change you" (or something along that line; I don’t remember the exact quote). Essek, before the m9, didn’t genuinely care about anyone. The people who would die if a war started because of his actions were irrelevant and abstract to him. Caleb, similarly, also started c2 not really caring about others. He had no interest in taking on Ikithon or the Assembly to save others from going through what he did, too preoccupied with his own trauma and his own goals to care. In that sense, he started the campaign in a similar place as Essek post ep. 97: regretful, but too busy wallowing in his own self-loathing to productively do anything to prevent future harm due to his previous actions.

Being with the m9, being reminded of the importance of other people and realizing that they’re capable of caring for them, is what changes Caleb and Essek both. Of course Essek starts out more concerned with losing the nein than with strangers killed in a war. They’re his starting step, the opening through which he realizes that the people hurt by his actions are real, that he cares, that he has the ability to, if not undo his harm, help stop furthering of it.