#For real it's an interesting way to start the year!

[genericpuff]

I've been griping about the normalization of identity outing via social media for a while now. To put it simply, it's become almost some weird societal requirement that if you don't have every detail listed about yourself in your Twitter/FB/etc. bio, then it means you have "something to hide" or that you're not as "verifiable" because your account looks indistinct from that of a bot.

But that societal norm has really only benefited the people who profit off of that information in some way, whether it's through selling user data or through weaponizing details about a person against them.

I know that a lot of us love to use the fun little labels and acronyms in our bio that help others like us identify us as a 'safe person' or as someone who's in the same social/racial/identity groups as them. We're humans, we love to categorize things, it's in our nature (and it's fun!)

But if there's any time to start regulating that habit and challenging the norm that you're obligated to include all your personal info online - it's now.

There was a time when sock puppet accounts were expected and typical, not "suspicious".

There was a time when even age-sex-location was considered "too much information", but once it became the norm, we only EVER gave our personal information beyond generic ASL to people who we knew both online and in real life, or at the very least, people who we had known online for a significant enough amount of time that they had proved to be trustworthy (and even then, we didn't owe that information to anyone, ever; there are forum friends who I made online 10+ years ago and still talk to who do not know my personal information beyond broad strokes).

There was a time when simply being an avatar with a funny username was enough. And it still is enough, but massive platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been brainwashing us for years to believe that's not the case, under the guise of, "You wouldn't want to be dishonest, would you?" Through these same norms, we were led to believe that anime profile pictures are cringe, that having a fake online name is stupid, that the photos of you having fun at social events have to be taken JUST right otherwise you might imply to others that you're not actually having fun.

And considering how long these platforms have been around now, we have entire generations of children now who have been born and raised on that version of the ZuckMusk web, who have been taught that it "protects them" to express to everyone publicly their age, their school, their workplace, their family members, everything about themselves, because to not do so would be disingenuous.

None of this is to imply that the Internet was "safer" back in the day. I definitely should not have been on the Internet as much as I was when I was 13 in the late 2000's, it definitely did not benefit my brain development or my social skills. But the version of the Internet we currently exist in now is one that's been predicated on the false sense of security - the belief that if you're honest, everyone else has to be, too.

We've always had ways of identifying our safe people - by participating in the communities that we know are designed around our hobbies, our interests, our people. They might be small, they might not be as "cool" as the idea of netting yourself a big following of thousands of people, but they're also a lot safer and more genuine than that idealized following ever could be.

Don't feel pressured to include every bit of information about yourself in your bio. Even on Facebook, there's no rule that says you have to list your workplace, your school, your family members. There's no rule that says you have to list your personality type, queer labels, and neurodivergent disorders in your Twitter bio. There's no rule that you have to "prove" your life is real and fulfilled through the verification of photos, location tagging, and open-book sharing. If you share those photos, it should be because you genuinely want to share them, not because you feel some societal pressure to live up to others' expectations.

And I guarantee you, even your local mutuals on Facebook - your former classmates, family friends, distant relatives, coworkers, etc. - do not actually give that much of a damn about your personal life that they should be owed that much of a look into it on a daily basis. They've got their own shit going on, they literally do not need to know every detail about you.

I know it sounds scary. It also sounds kind of boring, when we've been used to a certain "way" of browsing and participating for years, that if we don't do so, it feels like being in the "out group" and that we're "breaking the rules". But I promise you, after spending over half my life online, those rules do not exist or benefit anyone who wouldn't profit off that information.

If you're wanting to learn how to branch off from major platforms like Facebook and Twitter and/or become more self-sufficient online, here are some guides to navigating the Internet like an old schooler that may help you!

FREE SITE BUILDER:

DIGITAL PIRACY 101:

(also in addition to everything mentioned here ^^^ they neglect to also mention Tor Browser which is a light and free-to-use browser software that allows you to browse anonymously; note that it's similar to a VPN in that it helps hide your identity online, HOWEVER it won't mask you from your ISP quite as effectively as a VPN, and if you sign into personal accounts with Tor, that's still going to obviously out you online lmao but I love using Tor for the odd time when I need to make a sock puppet for something and don't want it linked to my IP! and unlike a VPN, it's free to use!)

LEARN HOW TO USE RSS FEEDS:

People still use these! They're especially helpful for getting updates from your favorite pages and sites directly to your browser WITHOUT having to worry about stupid algorithm bullshit picking and choosing what you see. And many sites DO have RSS support once you know how to find it! (like adding in /rss at the end of a URL! Like this!)

FAKE EMAIL SERVICES:

LEARN HOW TO CODE IN HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT (AND MORE!):

DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:

I hope this helps arm you with some new knowledge in how to navigate the Internet like a Certified Old Person™️(like meeee!) Make your secret alt blogs for besties! Make your formal Facebook accounts that are clean of personal information and present the most neutral, safe-for-work version of yourself and keep the fun stuff to the secret profiles and chat groups that are just for you and friends/family/etc!! It might be "inconvenient" to have multiple accounts for the same purpose, but it's also INCREDIBLY freeing and can make your online experience both safer and more enjoyable.

Being "less" of yourself online does not make you any less you. It is your identity - you do not owe any amount of it to anyone beyond yourself. And in times like these, your identity is your greatest asset. Protect it.

[arcadiabaytornado]

The symbolism in this scene is so.....

When Rachel starts talking about wanting to run away together, Chloe hesitates. Not necessarily because she doesn't want to go, but because she knows how possible it is that the conversation they're having is just pretend.

So she asks Rachel for validation. She asks her to stop talking about this wonderful life unless it's the one they're going to have together. And Rachel says that she's serious....before grabbing Chloe's hands and playfully twirling them around in the street.

Rachel's words directly contradict her actions, and we've all heard the phrase "actions speak louder than words," a hundred times. I don't think Rachel was being nearly as serious as Chloe in this scene....but like....I mean that in a specific way.

I don't think Rachel was lying about wanting to leave with Chloe that night. We learn in LIS 1 that leaving had been the girl's plan for awhile, and we also learn that Rachel was seeking her own avenue's of escape like asking the truck driver if he'd take her to LA. So when I say "Rachel wasn't being serious" I don't mean that Rachel was lying. What I mean is that I think Rachel was being as serious as a 5 year old who threatens to run away from home.

Like...yeah she MEANT it. She was being serious, but there was no way that they could have pulled it off that night. As Chloe points out, they didn't have a working car, money, or a well thought out plan. Even if the Sera stuff didn't happen, I doubt they would have actually been able to leave.

I really think that the running away conversation between Rachel and Chloe was something that was real for Chloe and something that was a moment of passion for Rachel. Not out of malice on Rachel's end. Just out of excitement and being caught up in the rush of the future.

However, It does make you wonder about how serious their follow up "we should leave conversations" were. Did Chloe and Rachel ever have any real conversations about leaving Arcadia Bay? Or were they all stories built passion and hope? We'll probably never really know the answer to that question, but it is something really interesting to think about.

[holylulusworld]

Together alone

Summary: You try to believe in your blooming relationship with Clark.

Pairing: Clark Kent x fem!Reader

Warnings: angst, loner reader, introvert reader, love-struck Clark, low self-esteem, fluff, Lois bashing, Lois is the worst,

Catch up here: Not alone any longer &  Alone again - Naturally

The world looks much brighter today. Clark invited you for another date—a real date this time. He officially asked you out. Not as a friend, but as a man who’s interested in you.

Even the boring story you’re writing about seems to be more interesting as your fingers fly over the keyboard.

“All done before the deadline,” you say to yourself. “That’s great. This way, I’ll have enough time to choose an outfit for my date with Clark.”

You gasp. A date! It’s a date. Clark Kent. Investigative Reporter. Superman. A hero asked you out.

Doubts creep into your mind. What if he only tries to be nice? What if he only wants to ensure you’re not spilling his secret? What if... what if...

You start panting heavily. Hands clasped together, you rock back and forth in your chair.

“Stop,” you tell yourself. “Stop!” You say it a little louder. “Clark is not like the others. He’s nice and sweet. Clark likes you. He wouldn’t have asked you out if he didn’t like you.”

You nod to yourself and push the nagging voice in the back of your head away. She holds no power over you. Not since Clark held you in his arms for the first time.

He’s so nice and sweet. You still can’t believe he’s interested in you, but you believe Clark when he tells you that he likes you just the way you are.

“I need to find something cute but sexy to wear. Let’s take a look at the wardrobe.”

You feel nice. No, you feel pretty in the floral blue off-shoulder mini dress you found hidden in the back of your wardrobe. It was hidden there for two years, bought for a date that never happened.

The man asking you out never showed. Weeks later, you saw him with some other girl he met on his way to his date with you. One look at her, and he was done for.

He didn’t even have the decency to call to cancel the date.

Shaking your head, you take a deep breath. Clark will show, and you’ll have a nice day. He is not like the other people leaving you hanging. Even though he’s not human, Clark is the best person you ever met.

You smile when a knock saves you from listening to the nagging voice again. Clark. He’s here to stay, not to play with your fragile heart.

Hastily opening the door, you stare into the wrong eyes. Lois sneers as she looks you up and down.

“I told you to stay away from my boyfriend,” she snarls and pushes against your shoulders, making you stumble and slip on the floor. You end up on the ground, whimpering in pain. “Clark is off-limit! Stay away from him, you frigid bitch!”

“Why are you here?” You sniffle as you try to scramble to your feet. “Clark is not your boyfriend. He doesn’t want to be with you! You broke up with him. We did nothing wrong.”

“I don’t care if I broke up with Clark,” she snaps at you. “You can’t come around and claim him to be yours. If I ever see you together again, you’ll regret your birth.”

She stands over you, panting heavily as you stare up at her. This is not the woman you called your friend not so long ago. Maybe she was never the woman you believed she was.

Lois is showing her true colors since Clark asked you out for the first time. And she doesn’t even know about his secret.

“Because I had to come here, my car got destroyed,” she accuses. “Superman had to use his powers and accidentally destroyed it. This is all your fault. As always, you’re nothing but a burden.”

You whimper. This is your worst fear coming true. Being a burden to anyone is the last thing you want. “ I—” Your voice cracks. She’s not wrong. You’ve been a burden to Clark from the beginning. He had to save you, and now he feels responsible for you.

“It wasn’t Y/N’s fault your car got destroyed,” Clark says after he landed on your balcony, as so often lately.

Usually, he’d come to you after dark, so no one would watch Superman come to you. You whimper when Superman steps inside your living room. He frowns, seeing you on the ground. Clark can hear your heart race and hear the tiny whimpers leave your lips.

His hands ball into fists, and he’s close to ripping Lois apart. Clark won’t, of course not. He’s not like that. If he uses his powers against a human, Clark will hate himself for the rest of his life.

“Last time was a warning, Lois Lane,” Clark steps closer. He easily picks you up to place you on your couch. Before he turns toward Lois, he checks on you, carefully running his hand over your hair. “This time, it won’t be a warning.”

Faster than you can blink, he grabs Lois by her upper arms, jumps out of the window with her, and flies up in the sky with her. She screams in terror, clawing at him.

“You’re a hero! Why are you doing this?”

“Because—” he snarls at her, “Y/N Y/N/ and Clark Kent are under my protection. You’re a threat, and I won’t allow you to hurt one of them ever again. So, consider this a final warning.” Clark’s eyes flash red for a second. “If you ever get close to Y/N or Clark again, I’ll forget for only a second that I’m a hero.”

He lands on the closest roof, putting Lois back on shaky legs.

“I—I,” she stammers. For the first time in her life, Lois Lane is speechless and scared to the bones. “I won’t.”

“Good,” Clark pushes off the roof, ignoring Lois, who falls to her knees and hugs herself.

“Y/N,” Clark softly speaks to you. “I’m sorry for scaring you. The moment I heard Lois say all those hurtful things, I lost control. Please forgive me.”

He kneels in front of the couch, carefully touching your knee.

“Clark, I,” you sniffle and hold out your hands for him. “I’m not mad at you. She was so vile, and I didn’t find my voice. I’m mad at myself for being pathetic. You had to save and defend me once again because I couldn’t do it myself.”

“Blossom,” he scrambles to his feet to wrap you in a hug. “I’d do anything for you, Blossom. If I must, I’ll burn the world for you.”

“Please don’t burn the world for me,” you hide in his chest and sigh. “Even though, it was funny hearing her scream bloody murder.”

Clark holds you a little tighter. He sighs and closes his eyes. Today, he lost control because of his feelings for you. He was scared to do something he’d regret.

“I promise this will never happen again. Please don’t think bad of me for scaring Lois.” He nuzzled you.

You crawl onto his lap and wrap your arms around him. “I’d never think bad of you, Clark. We all lose control sometimes. You didn’t go too far; that’s what counts.”

“I ruined our date.”

“Lois ruined it.” You softly say. “I like the end of it, though. We could order food and watch a movie and cuddle on the sofa.”

Clark nodded against you. For a moment, he just held you in his arms. You both were lonely. Now you are still two lost people in a world you don’t belong to, but at least you are together.

Tags in reblog.

[ckret2]

Are THEY in universe considered as dreamy and handsome as apparently tumblr users find THEM? If yes, does that have anything to do with how THEY won THEIR elections

VENDOR doesn't strike me as the type of person who feels beautiful or attractive; so I doubt THEY've received much of that kind of attention.

To organics, it probably depends on how much the viewer likes the aesthetics of 1950s kitchen appliances with woodgrain. But they still see THEM like an appliance. So THEIR visual appeal generally caps out at "would buy THEM for the break room; wouldn't invite THEM to the bedroom."

To other machines... I'm going by what's frequently portrayed as attractive in transformers fandom: and unfortunately, THEY've got no real points of articulation; no interesting function-related kibble (no tires, no wings, no treads); very few lights at all; lots of unpainted components in a utilitarian way... Plus I feel like most robots wouldn't be into woodgrain, y'know? It's quirky, but "sticking a banana sticker to your forehead" quirky, not "stylishly avant-garde" quirky.

THEY're probably some people's type (THEY're apparently some tumblr users' type), but not many people's type.

I see THEM as like, equivalent to a middle-aged woman who wears just enough makeup to be considered "acceptable" but has never taken pleasure in the process, and has always worn serious business suits with skirts or button-up shirts with slacks in order to be taken seriously, and keeps trying diets that never stick and whenever she vents about this to her friends they awkwardly reassure her that dieting is hard and it's fine when really she's longing to hear someone say "but you already look great" and feel like they aren't just saying it to be nice; and now she's past her prettiest youthful years but has realized she's never been made to feel beautiful, never made herself feel beautiful, and she's a serious businesswoman so she tells herself that that's frivolous and she shouldn't care but she does care, and it's not shallow vanity to care, because all these years of not caring is a side-effect of viewing her body with an air of disdain and resentment for not being good enough and not being worth the effort to make it good enough; and so she buys a paisley shirt with bright green flowers that she thinks looks outrageous but actually really likes and hopes it will be the start of finally figuring out her style, and aside from the print it's still a respectful button up so surely it's professional enough to wear to work, and all her coworkers are like "wowww, that's... different" and she doesn't know if it's because the shirt's really that ugly on her or if they just aren't used to seeing her as the kind of person who can wear these shirts, when the truth is, they can just tell how deeply uncomfortable she is in this shirt, she doesn't know how to wear clothing she likes without being hyper self-conscious. She doesn't know how to make herself feel beautiful. But she wants to.

And that's why VENDOR got woodgrain paneling.

[transingthoseformers]

Ooooooo for TFP Skystar you done know Megatron on some fucked up timing.

Example what if they after being denied funding to find Skyfire, falsely framed for his murder, jailed and stripped of all academic achievements Starscream was pulled in to the decepticon cause cause after freeing him from torturous years in jail Megatron promises Starscream they will find his partner.

Obviously it’s a lie but a desperate and pained seeker doesn’t need to know that. And then for millennia he uses that to control Starscream. Star never wanted to be in a war never wanted to do the things he did to get were he was now but here he is.

Imaging not long after the war comes to earth say Starscream is off ship for a mission and the crew of soundwave and Megatron found a distress signal in the artic. You know the rest but they don’t tell Starscream about it. Megatron contemplates how to use this discovery of the live bot. Obviously he has knockout place the Skyfire into a permanent stasis and threatens him not to tell Starscream that the stasis is medically induced instead of natural.

When Starscream returns and sees his lost unreciprocated love (he planned to tell him after the ice trip but you know) he is brought to literally chokes and screams as he runs to the body of the mech he loves. Before he could even get into an arms distance of him though Megatron grabs him roughly and starts the false narrative of his stasis and how he’ll need constant medical treatment to stay functional let alone wake up one day. And as much as he’d love to allow this they are at war and supplies like that aren’t cheap.

Que Megatron using Sky’s comatose body as some treat/reward for Starscream whenever he follows Megatron’s orders and if he were to disobey, a quick threat of having the “corpse” as Megatron refers to sky as scrapped for part, or sent to Shockwave for experimentation.

Unbeknownst to all though Skyfire is conscious, in a way. He can hear everything and sees the world around him via the sensors of his fields he wants to help Starscream and have them both leave but he isn’t strong enough for that. Maybe Megatron uses the neural link to gather info on Starscream from Skyfire’s mind to better manipulate Star and one day the link is left haphazardly and through some kinda luck Sky transfers himself either into A)The ship. B)A vehicon/eradicon.

A) Maybe one day the Autobots find Sky after using his new ship body he sends them coordinates and a potential happy ending.

B) In a new body he tell Starscream everything and they try to runaway together in a bit of a bittersweet ending or they stay years more to retry and get Sky’s original body back before they run off together.

Secret C ending) Starscream finds the neural link and enters Sky’s mind and together they live a life they always dreamed inside Sky’s mind. The mindscape making it seem like years but it is not. Outside Starscream set some kind of suicide device to take both him and Skyfire out one they’ve lived their fantasies or knockout and breakdown catch the encounter and either decides for the mercy kill after watching the fantasies play through on the monitor or they send Starscream & Sky into an ACTUAL perma-sleep so they can be together once more forever. Tell Megatron they fortune them like this Starscream probably did it and there is nothing they can do to fix it.

Maybe KOBD leave them like this or maybe they make it temporary and escape to defect to the autobots later taking the comatose bits with them to later wake up once the war is over.

Maybe they’ll use the neural link to talk to Starscream during their stasis and to take info on some con plans as they wait for the true peace time to truly wake them both up.

Oh wow, okay, damn

The inner scene of Megatron meeting Skyfire through the cortical patch for the first time has to be VERY interesting tbh

but also aughhhhh the idea of Starscream pursuing a psuedo-real new life with Skyfire within the cortical patch over the bleak reality on board the ship has me feeling things

Now, I want to give them a good ending, I want them to wake up when the war ends and they finally get to be together again in the real world too and everything works out in the end... but I feel like them dying in the cort patch is the most likely to happen.

Choices, choices

[pzychojinx]

so, jinx in act one of season two. see, for three years i expected a full on descent into chaos and madness beyond any repair. i'd made peace with that, too. so i'm surprised - pleasantly, joyfully surprised.

very long analysis ahead on where they're taking her and how it speaks to me.

we first meet her again during silco's eulogy sequence - a beautiful sequence, halfway between dreamlike and real. "just like when vander shoved off", she says about his death. except it's not. after vander's death, after vi's perceived abandonment, everything jinx could feel was self-centered. she would say "she's not my sister anymore". she would devalue these people entirely. in fact, every single reaction to any action done by her loved ones would be self-centered and extreme. that is very much how her mental process works, how her trauma caused her to work. and more so: when silco would ask of her any work, any mission, she'd do the job purely for his sake, his affection, his approval, never caring about the cause.

in short, she was never able to get out of her own head for as much as a single minute. now, she starts the funeral off with "chembarons warring for control of the lanes. wannabe street thugs squabbling over scraps. just like when vander shoved off." and it's not about her abandonment anymore. it's not about being left alone. it's not about her. she's talking to silco about his city, his legacy, his world, his chembarons, his lanes. she's out of her own head, and it's the first time we ever see it.

"because someone put all those holes in you", she says then. and this is so interesting because there's obviously a dissociation here, as well as a very intense grief and sadness. we are obviously still dealing with someone who's deeply traumatized and unstable, but let's compare this with powder after the deaths of vander, mylo and claggor. powder had a full breakdown, both turned into a complete de-evaluation of vi as i was mentioning earlier and full desperation. "i only wanted to help, i only wanted to help, i only wanted to help".

this chaotic desperation is something jinx kept within herself throughout the entirety of s1 up until - the tea party. which i'm getting at, in a minute. point being, for now, that the jinx we see during silco's eulogy is grieving and lost and rootless and asking herself "what am i supposed to do with that?", but she lacks the chaotic full-on desperation that would lead her to acts of explosive destruction and/or self-destruction in s1. in fact, she's incredibly quieter. she's more grounded, more present in her movements, in the way she fights, in the way she talks.

in retrospect even her final action in s1, the infamous missile, already had the energy we're seeing now. it wasn't instinctive, driven by hallucinations or trauma or rage or an unrestrained trigger; it was silco's legacy and it was calculated. silco's death, i think now, left jinx as rootless as she's ever been, but it also left her with an acceptance of who she is. "don't cry, you're perfect". the tea party ends with her 'choosing' jinx and if you'd asked me before season two, i would have said with full certainty it meant she'd be going to be a loose cannon. entirely and with no possibility of ever being anything else. that's not what i think now.

i think she came to terms with who she is. i think now that the seat at the tea party wasn't a symbol of complete derailing, it was in a way a symbol of acceptance. "here's to the new us". she's fought her fight between powder and jinx and the tea party has permitted her to gain, in some way, a sense of closure. very importantly, having lost what she perceived as vi's acceptance, and having lost a father, she has also been able to shed the constant and desperate need to be in their favor.

during the 'sucker' sequence, we see her going through the lanes with a hood on her hair, very low-key. loose cannon jinx would have never, ever done that. loose cannon jinx would, quite simply, not have cared. she would have been extra, and explosive, and in everyone's faces. she's preserving herself not to be found, and that's new. again, i think she's still lost and rootless and grieving and really asking herself what she's supposed to do now that she's entirely autonomous and i also think there's definitely still a lot of bitterness and rage when it comes to vi which we obviously get to see during their fight and in no way is she magically ~healthy or anything like that - however.

she is still walking those streets in a way that indicates self-preservation. it would have been very, very easy for jinx to be captured by any of those goons and/or got herself killed. and for some reason, whether that be an apathetic, mourning state or mind, or whether that be some gained peace in who she is, or both - she didn't.

given all this, the new element that season two act one has introduced for her that truly moved me and made me feel... healed in a sort of way, is the introduction of human bonds for jinx that defy her historical, co-dependent mechanism of idolization and de-evaluation. ergo, sevika and isha. this is incredible for her and most of all, it's realistic. it's a chance at something, but it doesn't feel forced, nor fairytale-esque, nor does it resemble your usual ~redemption arc.

sevika and isha function as people who she's building some bond with, and since she's a little bit less in her own fucking head, and since she's not clinging to them as idealized protectors / saviours and neither is she refusing them as betrayers, and since she's not constantly fighting between what she perceives as her double identity anymore, she finally has the possibility to experience healthier bonds. sevika functions as somebody who still ties her to silco, possibly the closest thing she has right now to any root she might have left, and it works: reminiscing silco with her, gifting her the arm, doesn't leave her utterly alone but neither does it let her fall into the trap of clinging onto yet another figure from whom to fully depend.

and isha, very obviously, functions as the possibility of healing her inner child which is a goldmine for her storyline. her bond with isha could clearly have a narrative tie to jinx & silco, to jinx & vi, and most importantly to jinx and powder herself - this is all quite obvious but again, it's not executed in a way that feels like a forced 'redemption arc' or whatnot. the idea of this little street kid who just imprints on her like a lost little duckling, which is in no way jinx's decision, simply feels natural and heartwarming. does this mean i presume such healing of her inner child is going to come easy to her? no. but it's something. it's something very different from anything she's ever experienced before.

even through the loss, the rootlessness, the grief and confusion, the panic attack we see her experiencing through the lanes as a consequence of the moment she sees vi and caitlyn's enforcer squad, even through the brutality of the fight with vi, - and this is all to say, she's still a very traumatized individual, which is important because it would have just been senseless to have jinx somehow get fully stable like a switch had been flipped - we're seeing something new for jinx here. i've seen many posts related to "i'm glad it's you", and i might be unpopular here but while i do think jinx still has an element of suicidality, i also think she was at least half bluffing there. comparing her micro-expressions with the ones back on the bridge fight with ekko, i'm under the impression she was testing vi, at the very least partially. "poisoning us with gas?" is also an interesting line because even in her attack at her sister, she's less focused on her own trauma and more on something that we've hardly seen from her before - belonging to the lanes.

all of this to say, i'm loving the path they're taking for her. it's still very much jinx. it feels like jinx. but she's not just about to wreak senseless and desperate havoc in order to be seen by either her sister or her father, because there's no one to be seen by anymore. she's not fighting a desperate battle between her identities either, because she's accepted her place. she's not loud and erratic, she's quieter and coming to terms with herself. closure is truly the word that comes to mind, for me, in how i see her arc right now. closure, and unexpectedly, possibility.

[gothamite-rambler]

Books are the best type of apology gift

Context: Harley Quinn continues her mission to get Jason Todd to not hate her, but she can't keep following him, she needs to talk to those close to him.

Orphan (Cass) and Spoiler (Stephanie) take a break from patrolling and chat about cartoon characters on top of a building.

Orphan: My favorite character would be Patrick.

Spoiler: No way! He's so annoying. I'm a SpongeBob girl.

Orphan: Patrick is lovably dumb, SpongeBob is too loud.

Spoiler: So is Patrick.

Orphan: Not all the time.

Harley: I've always preferred Sandy!

Spoiler screamed in fear, jumping into Oracle's arm as she screamed as well.

Harley (loud): Stop screaming! It's just me!

Orphan: Oh, hi Harley.

Harley (annoyed): Jacy I understand but why are you screamin'? I jumped into the conversation so well and you're screamin'? You're masters of stealth!

Spoiler: Thanks, but-

Orphan dropped Spoiler to the ground once the terrifying moment passed.

Spoiler: Ow!

Spoiler stood to her feet, rubbing her back.

Spoiler: You sneaking up on me always unnerves me.

Orphan: I could hear your footsteps when you made it to the roof, Spoiler's screaming scared me. SpongeBob fan indeed.

Spoiler: Stand by what I said. Back to Harley, hey it's good to see you again, minus the screaming. Sorry.

Harley: You're fine, I should be used to it by now. Spoiler for you and the dark suited one, Orphan?

Orphan: Correct, it's nice to see you as well. You came here for a purpose. Your body language suggests you’re stressed, what is it that bothers you?

Harley: Geez Batman wasn't kidding about your body reading skills. You got me, I need some help with Jason. He hates me.

Spoiler: He kind of has a disdain for everyone. Except for Nightwing, Signal... and Orphan.

Orphan nodded.

Spoiler: Wait, you know his real name?

Orphan: She was there when he died, she remembers his real name from that. She calls him Jacey as an endearing nickname.

Harley (resting her bat behind on her shoulders): Yup, which he hates. I save the kid when he's tied up in a building, we fought Snowflame and I gave him a puffy cat sticka, but he hates my guts. I get it, but we're trauma siblings! We have a special bond that can only be fixed with fighting other baddies.

Spoiler gasped.

Spoiler: Trauma siblings! That's me and Orphan! That doesn't work on him?

Harley: No!

Harley planted her bat on the ground, groaning.

Harley: I offered my therapy services, too.

Spoiler (doubtful): Yeah, but you're not an actual therapist, you-

Harley (aiming her bat at Spoiler's nose): If you say I slept with a professor to pass college, I'll bop you in the arm. I am intelligent! Wouldn't have gotten with Ivy if I was a ditz.

Spoiler (lowering the bat): Sorry, dude. To be honest, I got nothing to help you with. It took me two years to have Jason talk to me for longer than a minute.

Harley shoulders slumped defeated, unsure what to do next. Orphan taps her chin wondering what advice to give.

Orphan: It took a year and a half to befriend him, you're off to a good start with being nice to him. I suggest giving him a better peace offering. He likes books, get him a book.

Harley: A book? What's he into?

Spoiler (guessing): Mystery, fantasy, and historical fiction.

Orphan (correctly answering): No, it's sci-fi not fantasy. I'd recommend something akin to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, historical fiction he's been wanting to read Lady Macbeth and the Bridgeton series, any book will work there. His detective book interests are random.

Spoiler (mystified): Sometimes I wonder how you know these things.

Orphan: Batman keeps a file on his interests so he can send him the best birthday gifts. He has one for all of us.

Spoiler: Wait, is that why he bought those boxing gloves for my birthday last year?

Orphan nodded in response. Spoiler's eyes lit up as she fist-pumped in excitement at this revelation. Meanwhile, Harley mulled over the new information. With some cash stashed away from selling items she had snagged from the Joker a few weeks earlier, she realized she wanted Jason to see that she was trying to be a better person.

Harley: If books are a way to show that I'm trustworthy—or at least likable—then I've got some shopping to do! Thanks, girls… but mostly you, Orphan!

Spoiler (waving her hand, annoyed): Hey, I suggested books first!

Harley: You got most of 'em wrong and no suggestions. She told me about Bridgeton.

Orphan (gentle nod): No problem.

Harley waved goodbye, pivoting on her heel and sprinting across the rooftops with effortless agility.

Spoiler: I like her. She's insane, but likable.

Orphan: Agreed. Now Squidward or Mr. Krabs?

Spoiler: Mr. Krabs, obviously.

Orphan: We've arrived at another impasse.

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

The next day, after splurging two hundred dollars on books at a local shop, Harley stacked them neatly in Jason's car. Lacking the skills to pick a lock, she resorted to tossing a rock to gain entry. It might not have been the smartest choice, but then again, her critical thinking hadn’t exactly been sharp since she’d jumped into that vat of Joker toxin.

Jason arrived at his car that morning for a leisurely drive around town, only to be met with the sight of a broken window and shards of glass strewn across the front seat. He let out a resigned sigh.

Jason: Great, just what I needed.

He carefully wiped the glass off his seat while wearing gloves and then settled into the car. His gaze fell on a tote bag of books resting in the front passenger seat.

Jason: Why are there—who breaks into a car and leaves a gift?

His eyes then caught a note tucked within the bag.

Jason (reading the note): Jacey—Oh my God, how did she find out where I live?!—I bought a bunch of books I think you'll like, plus a few that helped me when I needed help, but mostly a lot of Bridgerton. I snagged the five new ones. I also found Lady Macbeth in a collector's edition. I paid for them with my own money, don’t worry, not stealing. I hope this shows I’m truly sorry for what happened to you.

Jason let out a long, exasperated sigh.

Jason: I hate that this is actually a nice gift.

He picked up the top book and realized it’s the latest Bridgerton novel.

Jason: God damn it, I didn’t even know this one was out yet.

With a mix of regret and lingering mistrust for Harley, he contemplated giving her another chance—after all, he had been given one himself.

Jason: She actually did something this nice? It’s a start.

Harley Saves Jason

[0aurelion-sol0]

So much to say, so little time... & motivation. X)

My thoughts on Will Byers has powers has widened over the years in a way that includes so much possibilities now that I don't know which one could come into fruition.

There's one particular outcome that I think would be interesting and that nobody has been talking about, at least to my knowledge, it's a Matrix type of situation which I think could explain some events back in Season 1 that doesn't fit with what we know of ST's rules (though they are fluid and subject to change in the show, let's not lie). I'll elaborate in a post right after that soon.

One outcome that I know will not happen is El or Henry type of powers, as in the same powers as them, at least most of them, I know he doesn't have those ones & should not.

But guys, the question is not "does Will have powers ?" Because he already has abilities anyway (Neck-sense, Now Memories & True Sight though that particular ability might be dormant since he isn't as directly connected to the UD as he was back in S2) and he had some of them or others before even being connected to the vines in S1 and even having a part of the Mind Flayer inside of him in S2, the REAL question is what exactly are those abilities and what can or could he do if he were to start training and/or learning more about them ? Additionally, where do they come from too ?

As for "Sorcerer", the title could mean many things and anyone; I do not know why but when I look at that title, it fees vindictive. Like someone is saying it to someone else but it's not used in a nice way. It could also be a Satanic Panic thing, as well as a codename for an object or a protocol. Or even the name of an experiment.

I wouldn't be surprised if it could relate to Will in some way given he is going to be the focus point or one of the focus points of S5 if you prefer, but it could be not something about a specific character like Will, El or Henry but something else entirely that's not a person.

It is episode 4 and usually, the end of episode 3 and episode 4 as a whole, finishes laying out the whole plot and shows us what the emotional story beats of the season are going to be. "The Body", "The Pollywog and Will The Wise", "The Case of the Missing Lifeguard", "The Monster and the Superhero + Dear Billy" and now, "Sorcerer".

No offence to y'all Bylers but Sorcerer is a whole different class from Wizard or Cleric in D&D

[lets-try-some-writing]

for the salty ask:

1, 3, 5, 7, 11

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Bee and Charlie, or honestly, any human x bot pairing. I just can't see it. Well, I see why people see it. Who doesn't want to be with their special little creature? But I work on a logical and story telling basis more often than not, and I simply cannot comprehend why a million year old metal alien from a war torn world would want to spend the equivalent of like, a month, hanging around with a squishy human. Now if the story is adjusted to make it make sense, then I can get behind it. Like if the squishy is made not squishy, or there is some sort of plot device to make the bot's emotional investment worthwhile and logical. But without all that, it feels a lot like a human falling head over heels for an actual ant. I can't get into it because that mental image takes me right out.

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

I don't think so? I only unfollow people if they A. Begin doing nothing but throwing around real life politics (I am here to have fun not lament life) or B. start reblogging a ton of spam and stuff I have no interest in seeing on my dash. I am pretty picky with who I follow, and half the time the people I follow are either mutuals or folks I am trying to learn from through observation (thank you TF artists). It's nothing personal when it comes to fandom. In fact, I follow quite a few people who I do NOT agree with fandom opinions wise, but I enjoy seeing their different views.

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

Nope. I came in here not wanting to ship and left with a basket of ships I find appealing even if they aren't my OTP. It helps that the transformers fandom, at least those who I have interacted with, are really nice and accepting.

Is there anything you used to like but can't stand now?

Pure evil Megatron. I was on board with it for my first year or so in fandom because that's all I knew about him. I grew up on G1, hopped straight to TFP, and then jumped over to the Bay films before sliding my way into a few of the comics (I have no idea what I read, they were too dense). I liked Megatron being the worst with no redeeming qualities because that was the Megatron I knew. I didn't think he had many facets. But after being here longer, I've learned to adore Megatron and his very complex character. Now I can't read a fic where Megatron is just the worst without internally cringing. Although I will note there are times and places where him being nothing but evil is delightful and tastefully done.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn't? Why?

This is the transformers fandom. There is not a single character who doesn't have a small fanbase of diehard fans. I doubt I could like a character that doesn't already have at least ten folks bowing at their feet. So no, there is not an unpopular character I adore because there is no such thing as unpopular in this fandom. Everyone is adored by someone, and honestly, I'm glad.

[hobnob2020]

The Veilguard review

Big spoilers ahead for the people that haven't finished the game yet.

So after plugging 70+ hours I've finally completed Veilguard.

This will just be a general overview of how I felt about the game, I'll likely do a separate one for Solas/Mythal and Lavellan and one for a Lucanis romance.

First off I want to say that any negative criticism I had for the game I am reminded of how difficult this game was to get off the ground running in the first place; it experienced multiple layoffs, it pulled the team to focus on Anthem when it failed, the team was reduced, OG writers left and multiple people lost their jobs once their work was complete and lets not forget those that worked on this during a pandemic so I think it's important to keep coming back to this so that we can just appreciate what we had as an end product.

Now the end product itself, did I enjoy it? absolutely.

I've laughed, I've been giddy, I've been angry at times and in those final moments was reduced to tears that reconciliations were reached and it was the end of a very long 10 year wait.

I want to start from the beginning where we welcomed our Rooks because holy moly is the character creator detailed. I mean seriously every single Rook I've seen is a catwalk model 😂

Every faction felt different and the brief history to your character was really well done; I went with a female mage elf I the Crows and I loved being a Crow from the get go; the decision that she made that essentially forced her to leave the Crows because she'd basically f*cked up a mission was really interesting because there's still that tension once she returned with Viago (who I adored BTW, his disappointing fatherly persona against Teia's comfort and protectiveness was just perfect) and it set the course for every Rook wanting to prove themselves.

Briefly touching on the Inquisitors creation I was so happy that this was an early decision and hearing her say "it's good to see you again" was like a stab to the heart and felt like I was being welcomed back home after such a long journey.

Once into the gameplay it's hard to ignore how beautiful the graphics look, Minrathous' design was so unexpected and how the locals were treated makes me wonder how Dorian ever survived 😂

There were certain scenes that just blew me away and made me realise just how far games have come to allow us them; the moment you open the doors at Weisshaupt and see Ghilan'nains massive looming face in the clouds was just breath taking, in fact the two gods in general were very well done and there wasn't enough of them in my opinion.

The animation as a whole was very good and again compared to Origins this game is on a different level of good (hate to compare it to other games but Balders gate is probably the closest contender).

There's a particular scene with Lucanis as a romance where he walks over to you after you basically say you like what you see and that Spite doesn't define him, the way his face moves, the little smile, the way his eyes drop to your lips when you touch him floored me and I think having motion capture for this game definitely paid off.

The mechanics of the game were fantastic and as I've yet to play anything other than my mage I am excited to play other classes and possibly Warrior for the first time across 4 games, although Spellblade ruined a mage for me as I love being able to be upfront in a battle and found it perfect for my Crow mage.

I went with purple Rook for this playthrough as I wanted a charming Crow who had far too much energy and was awkward in the best way possible and loved every minute of it; Bioware has always been very clever at establishing the different personalities and how they affect the world around them. Going into a scene and having your Rook react by themselves depending on their personality makes the character feel real and that we aren't just following the same thread of dialogue.

When you first meet Solas they didn't lie that it would feel like an end game mission, the dialogue was fantastic, his voice actor is just incredible and he has a talent to be confident, insecure, determined and doubtful of his own words all in one and it was very easy to fall In love with Solas during inquisition.

I really enjoyed how the first decision you make as Rook ends with the gods escaping, either Harding or Neve being injured which puts doubts in your friendship and leadership from the beginning, that Solas who we'd believed to be the big bad was essentially trapped and looked like a kitten compared to these evil beings who want world domination, it really makes the player question how are we going to fix this massive mistake that we've created, because it takes the gods no time to get to work whilst we scramble to find a team and cleanse multiple parts of Thedas at the same time aswell as setting up base in the fade where we dig deep into the history of Solas and the ancient gods past.

The companions of this game I felt were individuals in their own ways with their own back stories and present problems but I felt as a whole weren't as good as say the previous game; there was no double crossing mages or people with their own greed and agendas, no hidden pasts like Blackwall which personally fell abit flat for me.

In fact I'd say the only one who had an interesting story was Lucanis after his imprisonment and demonic possession and the struggles that came with it.

I don't think I'll romance anyone else other than Emmrich as the others just don't interest me.

It just felt like you were constantly flitting to the Lighthouse and back to grind out companion tasks in order to gain approval and faction points, there was no option to just have a conversation like previous games instead it was very much on their terms and where you were in the game which was something i really missed.

Still, their personalities were very different and characters like Lucanis, Taash and especially Emmrich stole my heart very quickly.

The banter was top notch quality as per 👌 some of my favourites were from Taash and Lucanis, just being a Crow in the middle of their conversations about capes was hilarious at times.

The voice acting as a whole was very good, I felt with some characters particularly Neve it felt abit flat in moments but Bioware have a knack for finding talented voices; having someone as bubbly and excited as Bellara to the deadpan and slightly blunt at times Taash made for a very diverse team.

Returning characters was always a welcome and there were some surprising cameos such as Isabella in the Lords of Fortune faction.

I know alot of people were disappointed that this game felt limited in bringing over past choices but it needed to make sense; Sera isn't going to return and be found in the deep roads etc, it needed to serve a purpose to The Veilguards story and I'm happy with the ones we did get.

When it came to the three decisions from inquisition yes I was disappointed at first; why are we ignoring who drank from the well, why aren't we talking about Hawke, who's ruling Fereldon, who's Divine?.

I think we need to remember that after 4 games the decisions from little to big are so vast that there's simply no way to fit it all in and satisfy everyone and baring in mind this game is for new players too.

Having this game set outside of Ferelden means those decisions won't carry weight in Veilguard, who is divine won't affect us, where Hawke is doesn't affect us because we know they'll either be in the fade or fighting against the evil.

And yes a codex could of helped address any of this but again, it's a smaller team now at bioware and the focus is on Rook this time around, it's their turn and tbh reading codex' is time consuming when you've got gods to fight 😂

The only decision I really wanted brought over was who drank from the Well because as a Solasmancer he was so pissed at me but I think I know why it was glossed over.

I think having Solas being able to control your Inquisitor would have the issue of consent and violation and as a romance that doesn't feel right, especially given how Mythal basically manipulated Solas and used him as a slave it just goes into uncomfortable territory.

We could also argue that Solas absorbed Mythals essence so all that's left is her memories and the tiny fragment you find in the crossroads so essentially Mythal ceases to exist thus there's no pledge anymore for the inquisitor and that she only needed her help to fight Corypheus, who knows but I'm glad Solas wasn't able to do that to the Inquisitor.

The endgame was amazing, finally killing Ghilan'nain was so satisfying and Lucanis was an absolute bad ass doing it, seeing Solas become the dreadwolf and hearing his pained cries was heartbreaking even if he couldn't stop betraying my Rook 😂.

Forcing you as a player to lose a character despite high factions and hero status was brutal, and I unfortunately lost both Davrin and Assan. As much as I loved them both, it made sense to his character to die in that way, and Harding has so much more to do for the dwarves and titans.

I'll talk about Solas/Mythal and Lavellan on another post but I was very happy with how it ended, seeing the art concept of him making himself tranquil just shows how differently it could of gone, and I honestly expected them to die in each other's arms.

If I think of anything else I'll add it onto this post but yeah, 10 years man and it's over, well not over completely as I'm creating an Emmrich romance as we speak but I can't believe years of speculation and doubt is now in our hands forever.

Yes this game could of been better in parts and blew my expectations away in others but I loved it and I think the negative criticism over characters like Taash, the three previous decisions, crazy solasmancers which bring the team down is so unjust and people need to reflect on themselves as humans.

All I would say to those that critic this game as heavy as they have is to take their time and play it again, you'll find things you missed the first time around, really read the codex', just sit back and understand what the characters are saying, read between the lines and just take it back to beginning of this post, this game very nearly didn't happen and alot of talented people that have given you this game have lost their jobs so please just be grateful for what we do have and pray that this isn't the end of dragon age.

Edit:

The whole Varric thing was probably my least favourite thing about the game, not because he died but it just didn't make sense that Rook didn't know until the very end.

I had my suspicions because he was always tired and going back to bed and something about it didn't feel right.

For other companions to say "oh we thought you knew" was just silly, I could understand Solas using his powers to create an illusion but why not on all the companions because surely Rook at some point was like "Oh i'll take some food to Varric" or "have you been to visit him", without that Rook just sounds crazy 😂

[schrijverr]

What Do You Mean You’re Not Really Together?

Divergence from chapter 7 to chapter 17, where Buck tells Hen – and only Hen – about Eddie and Chris. Hen takes it to mean he is married for real and not ready to be out at work, so covers for him, as well as lend a listening ear. It’s only when Eddie joins the 118 that she figures out that they’re not married-married. Against her will, she gets caught up in the dumbassery that is Buck and Eddie’s marriage, causing them to confess early.

On AO3.

Ships: Buddie, Henren

Warnings: implied/referenced homophobia, internalized homophobia, referenced ableism, referenced emotionally abusive parents, near death experience, minor character death mentioned.

~~~

Buck has been with the 118 for a few weeks already when he approaches Hen in the locker room. She was taking a short break after a noisy call, but was about to rejoin everyone when Buck comes to sit next to her.

She gives him a surprised look, not expecting the presence. Buck looks a little nervous too and she wonders what this is about. Hen has grown to like Buck, he’s not what she expected when he first came in, in a good way, so she’s a little worried what he could be nervous about.

“Uh, so, how long have you and Karen been together? Were you guys already dating when you started working here?” Buck opens with a curve ball.

“…No, I met Karen through Chim, but I was dating my ex, Eva, when I started here,” Hen answers cautiously, unsure where this will go. In her experience, it’s rarely a good thing when her random guy coworkers want to talk about her relationships and she’d hate for Buck to disappoint like that.

“Oh, that’s cool, that’s cool,” Buck nods, more to himself. He’s quiet for a second, seemingly hyping himself up to say the next thing as Hen waits with dread, please, don’t offer a threesome. She’s about to graciously extract herself, when Buck says with faux-nonchalance: “So you were already out when you started? Or did you keep it to yourself?”

Tentatively Hen unclenches her butt muscles, halting her move to leave. This is taking another yet interesting turn. “I didn’t go back into the closet for my job here. Everyone has always known I’m a lesbian. Why the sudden interest?”

It’s a gentle prompt, which Buck is grateful for. He feels horridly awkward and he knows this conversation is going terribly. He just doesn’t know how to talk about it all. He’s never been good at keeping things to himself and ever since he let himself feel how much he loves Eddie, he’s been dying to share it with someone. However, the only person he shares things with is Eddie himself, which means that won’t work.

His solution has been to share it at work, but he knows his whole situation is a little weird with them not being together like that and him flirting and sleeping around. He doesn’t know if he wants to answer all the questions about it. It feels weirdly vulnerable to actually talk about his feelings for Eddie.

So, he picked Hen to open up to. Out of everyone there, she’s the person who is probably the most open minded about all this and, unlike Chimney, she can actually keep a secret.

Still, he flounders a little at how to answer her question, glancing around and hunching in on himself, before he blurts out: “Uhm, I’m kind of very much in love with my husband and I don’t want to get all the questions, but I also need to be able to talk to someone about it, but we just moved here and I don’t have any friends outside work to talk to about this sort of stuff, unless you want to count Chris, but he’s six.”

Hen blinks a few times as she processes Buck’s word vomit. Firstly, husband, that’s a surprise on both the man and married front. Hen is embarrassed to admit that she let her own preconceptions get the better of her and didn’t peg Buck as a fellow queer. Nor as a married man. Her bad.

Secondly, Chris, who is six. Unless Buck is friends with a random six year old, Chris likely is their kid, making Buck a father. The way he is with kids on call and the ability to be mature suddenly make a lot more sense to her.

As for the rest, they have all long since learned Buck is a horrible liar and not great at keeping things to himself. He likes to share. For him to not be comfortable with being out while bursting with love for his husband must be torture. Hen feels for him, she wouldn’t survive if she couldn’t brag about her amazing wife to anyone.

Having parsed through all the information dropped on her, she gives Buck a kind smile, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been holding that in, huh?”

“A little yeah,” Buck flushes with embarrassment.

“Well, I’m here for you, if you feel the need to talk to someone,” she says. “The others will be too, but you don’t have to share if you’re not comfortable.”

“Thank you,” Buck smiles, not knowing how much hearing that would be a relief, until he did. He’s never been too open about himself and his sexuality, remnants of growing up in a household where being gay was okay, as long as it was other people being gay.

“Of course, we stick together.” Hen nudges him playfully. “Now, tell me about this husband of yours. Like, what’s his name?”

Eddie getting referred to as his husband sends a thrill to him and a giddy smile comes on his face involuntary. “His name’s Eddie. Eddie Diaz. We got married so I could adopt Christopher. He’s our son.”

Now that the dam has been breached, he continues on easily: “Eddie is an army medic, only came back to us four months ago. He got injured, so he’s still recovering. He doesn’t want to go back, but he hasn’t said what he wants to do after, but he’s probably going to be great at whatever he picks. He’s really smart and very nice. Not the most social and a little grumpy, but he’s so cute when he’s grumpy. He’s also cute when he smiles. God, the way he smiles when he’s playing with Chris.”

Buck actually has to stop himself from squealing, burying his blushing face in his hands, before he says with a muffled voice: “One of these days I’m going to die of an Eddie Diaz induced heart attack.”

Hen giggles a little at that. Buck sounds like a middle schooler with a crush and it’s kind of adorable, if she’s honest. “He sounds like a catch.”

“He is, I don’t know what I did to end up married to him honestly,” Buck groans. “He’s so handsome and so oblivious to the fact that he’s handsome. And he’s such a bitch, but in the best way. Like the way he stands with his hands on his hips? Kill me.”

Of course Buck’s husband would be a little mean, Hen thinks to herself, though she doesn’t share that with Buck. Instead she phrases it a little differently. “Sounds like the two of you balance each other out.”

“We do,” Buck smiles automatically. “We have each other’s backs, you know.”

Hen coos at that, but before she can say more, Chimney calls out: “What are you two whispering about over there?” startling them both.

Buck gives her wide eyes, knowing that he can’t come up with a believable lie. So, Hen does it for them, calling back: “We’re trying to conspire to steal your dinner pick spot to convince Bobby to make the nice lasagna.”

“First of all, that is so rude, I can’t believe my own friends are turning against me like that. Second of all, neither of you have even had the decency to try to convince me to pick the nice lasagna,” Chimney starts an offended rant, effectively ending the conversation the two of them were just having and shelving the topic.

Hen keeps quiet about it for the whole rest of their shift, since they don’t get a moment alone again, but she doesn’t forget. That night, she sits on her own couch with a mug of tea and says: “You never guess what Buck told me today.”

“Buck? That’s the new probie guy, right?” Karen asks. “The frat boy, who was better than expected?”

“Yeah, him,” Hen says. “He asked about how long we’d been dating and if we’d already been dating when I started working there.”

“Oh no,” Karen grimaces.

“That’s what I thought,” Hen exclaims. “But, as it turns out, married. Super married. And so in love with his husband he nearly burst apart with it.”

“Husband?” Karen gasps. “Really?”

“Uh-huh,” Hen nods. “Apparently he’s not comfortable being out, so you can’t tell Chimney, but he needed to tell someone. He’s a bit of an over-sharer, so I don’t know how he kept it to himself. They just moved here, so he doesn’t have anyone other than Eddie – that’s the husband’s name – to talk to it about it. He probably figured I’d be safe.”

“Ahw that’s adorable,” Karen coos. “A baby gay on the force.”

“I doubt he’s a baby gay, seeing as they have a six year old together,” Hen snorts.

“Wow, he’s a dad?” Karen says, a little shocked. “Isn’t he still a kid himself, you said he was twenty-five, right? That’s a teen parent. That must be rough.”

“Yeah, I suppose he is,” Hen says thoughtfully, she hadn’t even done that math yet. “But he said he adopted Chris and I don’t know how long they’ve been married or how old Eddie is, might be a bit of an age gap.”

“You didn’t ask!?” Karen exclaims. She loves office gossip and speculating right alongside Hen about their colleagues, it’s a way they bond.

“Chimney interrupted before I could,” Hen defends herself. “Besides, I’m not sure if I should push or let him come to me with information. I mean, he clearly didn’t want to be out at work, he just didn’t have another place to go. And you know how annoying it is when people feel entitled to information about how you got your child, since he’s not biologically yours.”

Karen groans, collapsing against the couch cushions petulantly. “Ugh, I hate it when you’re right. But you’ll tell me if he says something, right?”

“Of course, this is the best thing that happened to the 118 since Bobby became Captain,” Hen says.

In the end, it doesn’t come up again until a few shifts later when Buck is pocketing the number of a cute looking blonde with a smile, giving her a little wave as she leaves.

“What do you do with all those numbers? Do you just throw them away?” Hen is suddenly next to him asking that. She can get flirting with girls to cover the gay, but the amount Buck does seems a little excessive, not to mention that she’s seen him give out his own number too.

“No?” Buck frowns. “Sometimes I use them. That’s usually why you ask and give out your number.”

Hen looks around to see if anyone is listening in, but no one is close. So the answer can’t have been about that. Confused, she frowns back: “What happened to being too in love with Eddie Diaz to function?”

“Oh,” a realization appears on Buck’s face and he flushes with embarrassment and shame. “Uhm, Eddie’s not into that,” not into me, he swallows painfully. “We have an open marriage. It’s not like I’m sneaking around behind his back,” just maybe flirting more when he can’t see so I seem like an option, he adds again mentally.

Ah, that makes sense, Hen thinks. Eddie is probably asexual and being polyamerous would add another layer to not wanting to share. The 118 is open minded and Hen has found a lot of acceptance in her current coworkers, but there are limits to what some straight, and even other queer, people can comprehend. She understands not wanting to push those limits as the new probie.

So, she nods and says: “Makes sense. Maybe keep it off the clock, though. I think Bobby is side eyeing you about it. It’s a little unprofessional.”

Buck turns to where Bobby is. Indeed he is watching the two of them with a calculating look, eyes also flicking to where the blonde disappeared. Buck blushes a little under the scrutiny. “Noted.”

Hen doubts he noted it, when he gets fired for fucking on the job a few weeks later.

Still, just because she thinks he’s a dumbass, doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel for him. It’s rough, to get fired like that and she wishes she could do something, but he did that to himself. And she knows that expression on Bobby’s face, he’s serious and set on taking this course of action, no matter how much they all hate to see it happen.

When she sees Buck sit all alone in the locker room, she can’t help but come over. In a mirror of that conversation a few weeks ago, Buck opens, this time more defeated than awkward. “I guess you heard?”

“Yeah,” Hen says with a sympathetic look. “For what it’s worth, everyone thinks it sucks.”

“It’s my own fault.”

Hen grimaces, though she does it with kindness. “Yeah, everyone thinks that too.” She pauses for a moment, then goes on: “I’ll be honest. When Bobby first brought you on board, I told him he should just get a Dalmatian instead. But you surprised me and I’m legit sorry to see you go. I can’t imagine this will be easy to explain at home.”

“No, Eddie’s going to kill me,” Buck sighs, before groaning and burying his face in his hands. “I’m such an idiot. I can’t lose this job. Eddie doesn’t have an income and Chris can’t go without insurance, he needs medical help.”

“Is he ill?” Hen asks, suddenly concerned.

“No, CP – cerebral palsy – he needs PT, crutches, glasses, support,” Buck explains. “We can’t afford all that without insurance. How am I going to explain to Eddie that I lost our kid his insurance?”

“And Bobby wasn’t sympathetic to that at all?” Hen can’t rhyme that with the Captain she knows.

“Bobby didn’t let me explain, didn’t even let me talk,” Buck says. “And even if he did, I doubt he’d believe me. I mean, you know what everyone here thinks of me. In a moment of desperation pulling out a whole family that no one knew about with a husband, who just happens to be okay with me sleeping with someone else? Yeah, right.”

He sounds so bitter yet also so anguished and sad. Hen has never heard him like that and it makes her gut churn.

Buck sighs again and rubs his face, before he turns to her, suddenly hopeful. “Hey, maybe- maybe you can talk to him for me. Tell him I need this job. He might listen to you. You can-”

Hen doesn’t have to come up with an answer, because the alarm starts blaring, interrupting Buck before he can even finish asking.

She’s grateful for that, because she isn’t sure what to say to that. She doesn’t know how to make his case for him. They all agree he fucked up, including Buck. Unless he can show that he is an asset, Bobby can’t justify giving him another chance and, like Buck said, Hen doesn’t know if he’ll go for the surprise family story.

Bobby comes to call her away. Though she sees him give Buck an almost apologetic helpless look. He also didn’t want Buck’s career to end like this.

She knows Bobby has taken Buck under his wing. He instated him as his sous chef, worked to get him into the fold, mentors him. Bobby likes Buck. They all do, but Bobby acts pretty paternal when it comes to their probie.

However, as stated before, Bobby can’t justify giving Buck another chance. Hen can make his case, but it won’t matter. Not unless Buck can prove himself, but he can’t prove himself without a second chance. A second chance he won’t get.

It makes her stomach turn sour and it tugs at her chest.

Yeah, Buck fucked up by sleeping with yet another woman on the clock, however, he doesn’t get to defend himself and plead his case, because his relationship makes him susceptible for discrimination and misunderstanding. He doesn’t get to ask for that extra chance he doesn’t necessarily deserve, but definitely needs.

Hen knows – she just knows – that if Bobby heard about Eddie and Chris, who rely on Buck’s income, that would be enough to justify that second chance to himself.

But she also knows why Buck didn’t try harder to fight for that chance to explain himself, why he took the shut down and rolled over. Why even now, Hen isn’t sure if he would like her to out him for that small chance at keeping his job.

She herself experienced that risk every goddamn day, when she chose to be out and paid the price under Gerrard. And even though Bobby is miles better, they can never know where his limits are and Buck’s relationship is harder to rhyme with Catholicism than Hen’s, no matter how stupid infighting and respectability politics are.

So, she twists and she turns, trying to figure out if she should say something when Bobby asks her what she and Buck were talking about. Keeping it vague, while also pressing home that he needs this job and sounded serious.

In the end, she gets her solution when her phone rings and Athena asks: “I need a favor. Think you can loan me a fire truck?”

As expected, Bobby doesn’t want to fire Buck and the second Athena can vouch for him, that is enough to justify it to himself again. Hen saw that relief in his eyes when she told him what she did.

The two of them watch Bobby walk away, Buck looking as if the tension has been sucked out of him in a good way. Still, he gets a bit of his nerves back when he asks Hen: “Do you think he put in the paperwork yet and I need to be rehired, because that could mess with admin stuff, right?”

“Don’t ask me, only Cap knows that, but I don’t think he filed it yet if he managed to fill it all out,” Hen answers, unsure if Bobby can still hear them and not seeing the need to risk it. “By the way, what were you going to say, before we got called away?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter anymore now, just wanted to make my case, so you could make it to Bobby, but guess I did that for myself,” Buck replies, also sending a glance to Bobby’s back

Hen lets him have it, though she playfully threatens: “Shove off, probie. You’re still on thin ice. And you owe me for this. If I ever need a favor, I-”

“Yeah, of course, I got you,” Buck says immediately without hesitation. “Thank you so much, Hen, you’re the best.”

“I know,” Hen smirks, though a flush rises in her neck. She hip checks him and shoos him off: “Go on, get back in uniform.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Buck grins widely, skipping off.

The next day, she finds a box of homemade cookies in her locker. The icing on top of them is messily done and Hen can recognize the helping hands of a child quite clearly. She doesn’t have to think twice before she knows who put them there.

Indeed, when she looks up, she catches Buck’s eyes and he mouths: “Thank you.”

Hen gives him a smile in return, before hiding the cookies so she doesn’t have to share, or explain why she has them. As she does, she gives Buck a wink that makes him snicker softly.

When she comes home after her shift, she shares the cookies with Karen after they put Denny to bed. It is the right of a parent to hide the good snacks and Buck, as it turns out, is an incredible baker. While they munch on the cookies, she gives her the update on the whole situation.

Karen is still the only person next to Hen, who knows anything about Buck’s mysterious life outside of work.

She wants Hen to organize a play date between Denny and Chris, so she can meet Buck – or better yet – Eddie for herself. Hen can admit she’s curious too, but she’s been slowly easing her way in towards that. She doesn’t want to scare Buck off with how on the fence he’d been. Still, she thinks she’s getting closer and closer into his circle of trust.

Then Chimney gets a rebar stuck through his head and the world tilts. Chimney has been her friend for so long that she has almost forgotten what it was like to not know him. Without him, she doubts she would have made it through Gerrard’s reign of terror. He’s her rock. Her best friend and main person outside of Karen.

Her, Bobby and Buck hold vigil next to his bedside, while Hen slowly loses her patience and drives Karen up the wall with her worrying.

She’s sitting in the hospital next to Chimney’s unconscious form once more when Buck comes to sit next to her, nudging her as he says: “What a coincidence, running into you here.”

Hen gives him a tired smile, before confessing: “I’ve been driving Karen crazy with my worrying, she said I should just go here to calm me down a bit.”

“Ah,” Buck nods understandingly. “Same, kinda. Eddie kicked me out and told me to go, I’ve been driving him up the wall too. He offered to come with, but I don’t know, I’d feel awkward introducing him to an unconscious Chimney.”

“That’s fair enough,” Hen says. “Karen’s staying with Denny right now. But she’s been keeping him company while we’re all on shift, so he won’t be alone.”

Buck gets a little choked up at that, but he manages: “That’s really sweet. Thank her from me?”

“I will,” Hen assures him. “But it’s not a hardship for her. Chim is her friend too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned you knew her through him?” Buck prompts.

A sappy smile come onto Hen’s face as she says: “I did. He set us up on a blind date, though he didn’t tell me about it. I thought he’d stood me up for our drinks, but, hey, I wasn’t going to tell the beautiful woman who’d just sat down at my table that I wasn’t her blind date. I only told her at the end of the night and then she thought she got stood up by her blind date, which is when we put together that I was the blind date all along. Chim was her neighbor.”

“Really? Matchmaker Chimney? Who would have thought?” Buck laughs.

“I know right,” Hen smiles. “He caught me on my walk of shame out the door once and all he did was laugh knowingly, before asking if I wanted to carpool.” Her smile turns more melancholic and fond. “I never had anyone just accept me like that.”

Buck nods quietly, he probably understands very well. He puts a comforting arm around her and tells her: “He’s going to wake up. He’s gonna be okay. Chim’s too stubborn to let this be the thing that takes him down. He probably thinks he’s going down in a blaze of glory with explosions in the background and a movie score playing, but I have my money on old age.”

That makes Hen chuckle and she wipes her eyes. “Thanks, Buck.”

“Course,” he says, holding her a little tighter.

Talking to Buck made her feel better, but there is still so much anger at the world, so much tension as she anxiously waits for Chimney to recover.

It comes out when they’re on the call where some asshole locked a bunch of human beings, who probably paid him too much money to smuggle them across the border to have a chance to chase the American dream, in a truck. Calls like these piss her off and right now, she’s already on edge.

She and Buck work together to bring back a young boy and she is glad Buck is doing the talking to the parents. She doesn’t have the brain capacity to try and remember her high school Spanish. It doesn’t even surprise her that he talks easily to them, marrying into a family called Diaz probably means he’s surrounded by Spanish more than she is.

Before she can comment on it, however, she is distracted by the driver, who she recognizes from his driver’s license. Taking him down is satisfying, but not as satisfying as she’d hoped.

What is satisfying and exactly what she needs, is Chimney waking up that evening. They’re all relieved when he seems to understand them and is capable of reacting to their input. It can still go horribly, horribly wrong, but there are positive signs. They need positive signs.

However, they find out the hard way that positive signs doesn’t mean the positivity will last. A plane crashes and Bobby almost gets himself killed to rescue a mom. Buck too.

After nearly losing Chimney, she wants to smack Bobby and Buck for risking their lives like that. But she has a job to do and it gives her the perfect opportunity to give them the cold shoulder while she focuses on her patients until she has gotten over her fear enough to appreciate the two of them made it out alive in the first place.

She finds Buck shivering and completely soaked, still doing his job. No one told this idiot he should at least try not to develop hypothermia and she shoves a blanket into his hands with only minor frustration, before going to wrap up at the scene.

With mass casualty events like this, she always wants to hear Karen, Denny too if possible, so she calls them in the rig back to the firehouse. Some of the others are doing the same thing.

As she listens, her eye falls on Buck, who is tucked into himself in the corner, staring out of the window with a sad, wistful look in his eyes. In his lap, there is his phone, curled loosely into his hand unused. He probably wants to call Eddie and Chris, but unlike Hen, no one knows he has a family at home waiting, so he can’t.

Her heart aches a little for him and when she sees his phone start to buzz, his eyes lighting up at the contact, she ushers everyone along a little quicker. He deserves to have some peace of mind too after today.

She runs into him coming out of the shower, while he is obviously moving toward it. His shoulder seem more relaxed and his face has lost the little frown. Still, he’s shivering and his lips are a little pale. Should he drive? “Are you okay, Buck?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he smiles, looking to mean it. “Just got offered a ride, which is great. My arms feel like they’re gonna fall off.”

Hen can relate to the feeling, though she still feels up for driving. She guesses Buck doesn’t after nearly dying on a crashed plane, so Eddie is coming to get him. “I hear you, I’m gonna sleep so hard when I get home. Want me to wait on your ride with you?”

Buck’s smile brightens at her offer, however he shakes his head. “Nah, I’m gonna shower real quick, Eddie should be here by then. Besides, we had a long day. Go home to your wife, Hen.”

At that, Hen hesitates. Buck is a grown man who can make his own choices, but she still worries for him. That worry is made worse by Chimney recently nearly dying and then Buck and Bobby nearly dying. For fucks sake, he’s still in his wet, sea-logged clothes.

However, she doesn’t feel like dragging all that up and dealing with that now, like Buck said, they had a long day. So she just says: “Alright. Goodnight, Buck.”

“Goodnight.”

After that goodbye, she watches Buck retreat into the shower for a moment. He looks steady on his feet and he held a good conversation, plus he is shivering , which means he’s not too cold yet. And he’s going to shower, warm up a bit, then put on dry clothes. Buck is going to be fine.

She tells himself, he’ll be fine as she makes her way to her car, repeats it when she gets in. She truly believes it too. And she probably would have driven away, if not for the small bit of nosiness that makes her curious about how the pick up will go.

So, she sits in her car in the parking lot and waits. Karen will probably forgive her for being a little late about this. She is worried about her friend. And collecting intell.

After a while, an unfamiliar, slightly beat up truck pulls into the parking lot of the 118 firehouse. In it is a young man, around Buck’s age. The famed Eddie Diaz. He is very handsome and she doesn’t think that often of men. It seems Buck hadn’t been exaggerating too much in his dramatic little spiel about his husband.

Eddie parks, then pulls out his phone, checking it, before putting it away again. He turns to the passenger seat, swiping his hand over it, before shaking his head to himself, as if he finds what he’s doing silly. Then he appears to turn the heating up, giving himself a satisfied nod.

He looks over at the firehouse, studying it with mild interest as he waits for Buck. His eyes periodically flick over to the entrance and Hen knows Buck must have appeared when Eddie’s face lights up with a smile.

Indeed, Buck is tiredly trudging over, throwing open the door without much grace and tossing his bag on the backseat, before he collapsing in the passenger seat. The exhaustion must be catching up to him, because he appears to let out a long groan. Hen feels her own lips quirk up right alongside Eddie’s at the dramatics.

Hen doesn’t know what is being said, but Eddie says something smugly, getting a half hearted glare from Buck as he replies. Eddie then retorts, making a face as if he’s mocking someone – probably Buck – as he moves to drive off.

Despite the bickering that has obviously started up, Hen knows it’s the fond kind. She can still remember Eddie’s care in getting the car ready for Buck and the way Buck smiled when he mentioned his ride. He seems to be in safe hands with Eddie.

With her worries soothed and her curiosity satisfied, Hen also turns on the ignition and pulls out of the parking lot.

What Hen hadn’t counted on in worrying about Buck, is that she should have been worrying about Bobby instead. The man has been in this line of work for so long and has cemented himself in Hen’s mind as a reliable Captain, who knows his limits.

However, he isn’t in for shift next time. Bobby is always there for his shift. In all her years under him, Hen can’t remember a day he missed for any other reason than being sick. And he always, always called in.

Finding Bobby the way they do is absolutely heartbreaking. He is in clear need of help, of someone to be there for him.

So they’re there for him. They check up on him after rough calls, reign him in when he snaps and sit with him in the quiet hours – though none of them will ever dare to use the word quiet.

Still, they don’t know anything about him, about why he started drinking and why he stopped. Bobby has a tight grip on his personal life, but Hen now learns that might be because he doesn’t have a personal life. Just a job.

She can’t imagine what that is like, what not having people to come home to is like. She probably wouldn’t have survived some of the things she saw these past few years if she couldn’t come home and kiss Karen or watch Denny smile.

However, it is incredibly frustrating to have him remain so closed off after asking for help. They’re trying to help, they want to help. But Bobby has to let them and he’s not letting them.

Buck is seemingly unaware of the tension between her and Bobby after she had to physically pull him away from the owner of that wedding venue, who used bad material. But she is very aware and Bobby is too.

The two of them are equally stubborn, locked into this tension, seeing who is going to break first. In the end it’s Buck, that breaks them both.

He’s laughing at that damn security footage of the carwash guy. He looks so happy, so joyous, it’s infectious. Both her and Bobby have to laugh too, it’s probably the first time they’ve laughed like that since Chimney got some rebar stuck through his head and it all went to shit.

It’s the power Buck has. He probably doesn’t even know it, but he brings them all together. It’s that youthful innocence he has, the thing that made it so surprising to Hen to find out he has a kid and a husband. It’s the kind of thing most people lose after life throws shit at them time and time again, but Buck never did. It makes you want to stick by him, makes you want to make it work.

So, they all laugh at this poor guy spinning in circles and when they’re outside again, Hen tries again to break through to Bobby and this time, Bobby lets her. It’s a first step.

The second step is planning Chimney’s welcome back party, which she takes very seriously, enlisting Buck’s help. It’s a very serious operation and most give her a wide berth, but Buck matches her energy easily. Though she makes a mental note not to hand him a clipboard again.

On their shift, they find themselves brainstorming ideas. They have been banished from the upstairs table and have instead set up shop on the back of the open ambulance, sitting side by side as they bounce ideas off one another.

When a quiet moment falls, Buck looks around, before asking: “Uh, do you and Karen do children’s birthday parties for Denny? Like just his friends?”

“We do,” Hen answers, easily clicking together why Buck is asking. “Is Chris’s birthday coming up?”

“Yeah,” Buck says sheepishly at being perceived so quickly. “We, uh- we haven’t done that kind of party before and we really want this party to be a good one.”

“I get that,” Hen nods. “New city jitters about organizing or were the others a disaster?”

“Mix of both,” Buck says honestly. “I wasn’t there for his third birthday, but Eddie was still on tour on his fourth and Shannon – his mom – had walked out on him around his fifth and then during his sixth Eddie was on tour again. So, he has a bad luck streak about people missing it. And it’s the first time we’re doing this without Helena – Eddie’s mom – trying to take over the planning.”

Hen’s heart aches a little at that. It can’t have been easy for Chris, his parents missing so much. Plus, it’s news to her that Chris’s mom left. She knew Eddie was the biological father, but she had half assumed there was some sort of custody with the mom or that there was an agreement to let Eddie have full custody, but this makes it sound like she abandoned her son.

She also mentally files away that Buck had been in the picture for two years before that happened. She wonders if he got married to Eddie after Shannon left to fill the void she left, since he did mention getting married so he could adopt Chris. Or if that had been a natural par of the course. Being together for fours years isn’t nothing. He could have recently married Eddie.

However, she can’t focus on any of that right now. Buck started this conversation to ask for help getting Chris a good party and after hearing that, she can’t not help.

“Was Helena a welcome help?” she asks, because if she was, then Hen can ask what she did and offer to do it in her place.

Buck’s vehement shake of the head tells her enough, but he confirms by saying: “Oh definitely not. I don’t want to come across as that classic guy that hates his mother-in-law, but no. Her help was very much not welcome.”

Hen can feel her eyebrows rise up at the strong words. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Buck’s judgment, because he isn’t the kind of guy to talk behind people’s backs and not try to see the good in people, but she knows how in-laws can get on your nerves.

It’s just because you see all the little things that make the person you love shrink in on themselves, all the little habits that have grown between them that they don’t see, but you do. So she thinks Buck’s perspective might be warped, causing her to sound a little skeptical when she asks: “That bad?”

“She calls Chris ‘special,’ which is her upgrade from ‘fragile.’ It’s a battle to get her to treat him like a kid and not a baby and that’s not even mentioning her hatred for my existence and the way she talks about Eddie’s parenting. Or Eddie’s choices in general,” Buck grimaces.

Immediately she cringes when Buck mimics the tone his mother-in-law uses when she says special. It is something she hears here and there from parents when they go on medical calls and it always sets her teeth on edge.

Then it somehow gets worse when Buck explains how she views him and Eddie. With that start, she didn’t think it would get worse. “Oh, homophobic?”

“Very,” Buck replies. “But at least she was willing to get past the whole married to a man thing to help when Eddie was on tour, though I think that was because she thought she’d have a better chance at taking custody of Chris that way.”

He sounds so casual about it and it breaks Hen’s heart. The possibility of losing custody is a terrifying thing and the fact that it’s the grandmother trying, when Hen cannot imagine a world wherein Buck doesn’t love that kid to death – and probably wouldn’t marry anyone who didn’t feel the same – makes it so much worse.

And the fact that he tries to give her credit for the fact that she’s ‘willing to look past the whole married to a man thing’ makes her blood boil. It also makes her realize that she’s never heard Buck about his own family, he vaguely mentioned Eddie’s tía and abuela once, but never his own. The realization makes a her gut churn.

She goes for a more nonchalant tone than she feels when she asks: “Would your parents not be able to look past it?”

Buck blinks for a second, as if he hadn’t even thought about that before. Then his face shutters closed and he fails at acting like it doesn’t bother him as he says: “Oh, I don’t know, it was always okay for others to be gay, we just didn’t do that. But they’d probably think I’m making the biggest mistake of my life regardless, letting myself get dragged down by a teen parent, even though I was already twenty-three when I met Eddie and started helping out with Chris full time. I wouldn’t know though, haven’t spoken to them in years.”

It’s the kind of story she’s heard a million times before and she wishes they’d stop, but alas, the world isn’t like that yet. Her own mom thought she was making a mistake when she married Karen, they’re in a better place now, but she can still remember that hurt.

The fact that Buck hasn’t spoken to them since before meeting Eddie and that he seemingly never even considered of informing them or having them know, says a lot about their relationship.

Wanting to do something, but knowing she can’t just undo things like this, she slings her arm around his shoulder and pulls him into her side, saying: “If they did think that, they wouldn’t know what they’re talking about. You’re not making a mistake, Buck. It’s never a mistake to be gay.”

“I’m bi,” Buck tells her.

Hen isn’t even bothered by his clear lack of knowing how to reply to that, so she just snorts: “That’s okay too.”

He lights up at that and Hen squeezes him again before letting go. It became a heavier topic than expected and she clears her throat, before she says: “But kid’s birthday party.”

“Yes, uh-huh, birthday party,” Buck nods, looking glad for the way out. “Chris likes science and animals. I’m thinking something themed, but I don’t know how to go about it. We didn’t do kid’s birthday parties growing up.”

Hen imparts as much knowledge as she can to Buck from her own experience throwing kid’s birthday parties – even if Karen wields the spreadsheets when they’re planning like no other – and they even come up with a good idea for Chim’s welcome back party when talking about theme-ing and food; a custom cake of his head.

Chimney’s welcome back party goes well, the cake is done one time and everyone from the A and B shift is there. Athena shows up too. Everyone has a good time.

And Buck later reports, sneaking in a thankful hug, as does: “Chris’s party was a success. Thank you. Now just surviving the full moon tonight and then the family party with the in-laws this weekend, and then we’ll have made it through.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” Hen hugs him back. Before asking: “Is that why you have that weekend off while we’re on shift?”

“Yeah, I contemplated skipping out, but I’m not going to do that to Eddie,” Buck says.

“Well, if you need a place to hide out from the in-laws, you can always hide out at mine. Karen won’t mind the company,” Hen smiles.

“That’s very sweet, thanks. But they’re only here for the weekend, I can survive until Sunday afternoon,” Buck says.

“Okay, but good luck anyway,” Hen jokes, making Buck laugh.

When Eva calls, Hen decides she needs a bit of that luck for herself. Because she feels that urge to come when Eva calls and she doesn’t know why she wants to help her, even though she’s done nothing to deserve that help. Wonders why she allows herself to come close to getting caught up in Eva’s plan all over again.

It’s as if a part of her is still that stupid naive young woman she was with her, who didn’t see that her own girlfriend was dealing, until she was face down on her own floor, cops yelling at her. That desperate young woman, who just needed Eva to look at her. As if she still needs her to just look at her.

She feels that urge to go, gets into her car and puts the address into her navigation. She’s about to drive off when she spots Buck in the parking lot, making his way to his car. He catches her eye and gives her a big smile, waving at her, before giving her a thumbs up.

Without any conscious input, she smiles back and gives him a thumbs up back. He survived the full moon, now just the weekend with his in-laws.

Suddenly it hits her, that she is about to not survive the full moon, that she is about to allow someone like Eva back into her life, in her family’s life. Buck still has to make it through the weekend with awful people, but Hen doesn’t have to do that. She can go home and kiss her wife, maybe even be on time to tuck in Denny.

That small broken part that just needs to be acknowledge by Eva, feels so small when she realizes what she has.

Hen turns on the ignition and drives home.

At home, Karen is in the kitchen making herself a mug of tea. No, she’s making two mugs of tea. One is for Hen, because she knew she’d be home soon. She turns around and smiles at her. “Full moon as crazy as you’d feared?”

“Crazier,” Hen says, letting out a relieved breath, she hadn’t realized she was holding. Then she surges forward and kisses Karen as passionately as she can.

When they break apart, Karen lets out a confused giggle, asking: “What was that for?”

“Just happy that I have you,” Hen answers. She doesn’t know how to put into words the last few hours of feeling, just that she is happy that Karen is there.

“You’re sure nothing happened at work?” Karen asks.

“Yeah. I’m sure,” Hen says. “Eva called.”

Karen tenses in her arms and her voice gets an odd tone as she replies: “Oh. And- And what did she want?”

“She wanted me to meet her,” Hen looks at the clock on the oven, “right about now.” She looks back at Karen and smiles. “I personally thought, I had better places to be.”

“Well, I do agree with that.” Karen perks up with a blush and a happy uptick in her voice, before leaning in and kissing Hen again.

After they tucked Denny in, the two of them spend the rest of the evening on the couch, yelling at trashy reality TV shows as they wrap themselves around each other. The next day, Hen catches up on house work, before heading in for her shorter shift on Friday.

Buck is a little tense all day. Hen clearly picks up on it, but she supposes that is because she knows he has a reason to be worried. All the others appear not to notice, until they’re done with their shift and Buck’s civilian clothes are nicer than the ones he usually leaves the station in. Not to mention the way he’s messing with his hair in the mirror.

Hen wants to give him some encouraging words, but it’s not the time. A fact that is exemplified by Chim, who stops as he walks by and asks: “Who are you cleaning up nice for?”

“No one,” Buck lies. Like, very clearly lies. It must be hard, trying to keep a secret like that when you’re that bad at lying.

To throw him a lifeline, Hen asks: “You have a hot date or something? Called back one of those numbers?”

“Ahhh,” Chimney waggles his eyebrows. “Spill. Come on. You can tell us. It’s not like we haven’t heard about your sex life in great detail, don’t tell me you’re shy when it comes to the dates.”

Buck’s pale skin clearly shows his bright blush and Hen can’t help but tease a little. She coos: “Ahw, he is shy,” causing that blush to deepen.

His watch seems to give him the out he needs, because after checking it, he says: “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Now, I have a hottie to pick up and I don’t want to be late,” before hightailing out of there, so they can’t ask more questions.

Hen decides to send him a text of support before going home. There is nothing more for her to do and unlike Buck, she only gets enough hours off to get some sleep in before she has to be right back.

Next to her, Chimney comments: “Didn’t he take the weekend off too? Lucky bastard is probably going to get laid.”

“Probably,” Hen snorts, amused at Chimney’s perception of Buck. She doesn’t blame him too much, without him coming out to her, she likely would have thought the same.

They don’t hear from Buck all weekend. Hen hopes that’s a good sign, but she feels apprehensive as they wait for Buck to come in when he’s joining them for their shift again. A feeling that gets proven right when she sees his slumped shoulders as he throws himself onto a chair.

Everyone picks up on it. Chimney speaks before she does, taking one look at Buck, before he whistles: “Oef, bad date?”

“You can say that,” Buck groans as he takes the mug of coffee Bobby offers him and slumps down over the breakfast bar.

Oh, that doesn’t sound good at all. Hen grimaces in sympathy, unsure what to do. If she didn’t know, she’d be nosing about, but she knows that he doesn’t want to talk about it and that he’s a horrible liar, so won’t be able to come up with anything.

“What happened?” When Hen doesn’t ask, Bobby does, sounding more concerned and less invested than she would have been, though a little bit of investment is still there anyway.

Hen sees Buck freeze for a split second, uncertainty in his eyes, before he quickly settles on: “The parents came by. They hate me.”

“That sucks,” Hen says gently, hoping he catches on to the comfort it’s meant to be. Going off the small smile he sends her, that message is received.

Chimney however, just raises his brow in surprise and a little offense. “That sounds serious.”

“I didn’t know you were seeing someone like that, why didn’t you mention it?” Bobby asks.

“But that’s it, I’m not. We’re not even dating,��� Buck mopes and Hen’s eyebrows rise, half impressed, half amused by the spin Buck is giving this. She supposes that technically it’s not a lie, she wouldn’t say she’s dating Karen, she married her.

Luckily, before Buck can be interrogated further and pushed to a place where he can’t deflect anymore, the alarm goes and they all have to rush into their turn out gear, all of them complaining about not getting to eat breakfast instead of focusing on Buck’s problems.

She doesn’t get a chance to talk to him on the call itself, but all can see his mind is elsewhere. Chim at one point slides up next to her and nods at Buck, joking: “His marathon sex probably got interrupted, so the post-nut clarity never came.”

“Shut up,” Hen giggles, feeling a little bad for laughing when she knows it isn’t true.

Before she can try and stop him, while the others go up in the crowd upstairs when they get back, Buck is already gone too.

When she gets upstairs, he’s standing next to Bobby, taking over half the chopping work. Hen can’t blame him, she gets needing to do something with your hands to get your mind off things. So, Hen lets him have that and instead focuses on beating Chimney at cards.

A little while later, she looks up and Buck and Bobby are talking. Unable to help her nosy nature and wanting to be a good friend, she goes and grabs some coffee, listening in.

She clearly missed the start, because when she gets close, Bobby is just saying: “Hey, come on, kid. Look at me.”

His tone indicates that there is about to be some sort of fatherly advice or heart to heart. He’s clearly taken a shine to Buck and she suddenly wonders if she should be listening in on this. She chances a glance over and Buck is tentatively looking at Bobby. He looks scared and she knows she can’t let him face this alone. What if the part she missed was him coming out?

Bobby looks back kindly and says: “You’ve come a long way from the punk that walked in here. If you want things, like closeness, intimacy, trust, those things don’t come for free. Any woman you’ll meet has lived a life and she’s gonna come with some baggage. You’re ready for that, if you want that. But it sounds like you’re hoping to pull her out of this trap she’s in with her family. That’s not going to happen. What she needs is for you to step inside with her, keep her company in there. You can do it.”

Okay, so Buck didn’t come out. She cringes slightly at the words because of it, however, it’s clear Buck needed some sort of affirmation. She’s slightly glad Bobby did it for her. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be there for her friends, she does, but she doesn’t want to parent Buck. He’s her adult friend, not her son.

And it’s clear the words are something Buck needed to hear, because he says: “Thanks, Bobby.”

Bobby seems to sense that this is the end of the conversation and just gives him a paternal nod, before holding out a hand for the vegetables Buck cut. Buck smiles as he hands them over, Hen decides that they’re fine and retreats with her coffee.

She doesn’t manage to catch him all shift and he’s out of there like the wind once it ends. Probably desperate to go home and spend time with his family without his in-laws there, Hen thinks. She’ll ask about it all later.

Later, as it turns out, is next shift, where she has to watch Buck desperately fail to defend himself on giving dating advice and failing because he’s not ready to tell them all he’s married. Hen tries to back him up a little, but can’t too explicitly. Fortunately, they’re all saved from the train wreck of a conversation by the alarm going off.

When they get back, Chimney is eager to continue to offer his help to Bobby, following him out of the rig as Bobby tries to flee from him.

It gives Hen an opportunity. She starts out by saying: “That was an odd call. I mean, dead guy at a psychic’s place, who isn’t dead. Karen will love that.”

“Yeah, Eddie and Chris will get a kick out of it too,” Buck nods as he smiles, before it drops. “Though, it’s gonna be a while until I can tell them about it.”

“What do you mean?” Hen asks confused. They’re going to be home just after dinner and they’ll have time for breakfast before their 24 hour on Thursday, he’d find the time, right? Maybe Eddie is healed up enough to pick up a job again, but she’s sure she would have heard about that. She knows a lot about Eddie for a man she’s never met before. Buck likes talking about him.

“We thought they were staying for a weekend, but they were staying for the week,” Buck tells her with a grimace. “Since we’re so adamant to take their grandbaby so far away from them and all that.”

Hen’s eyes widen at that and she chokes: “For real?”

“Uh-huh, it’s been horrible,” Buck nods. “Eddie slept on the couch until Monday because his father made a stupid comment about Eddie becoming a kept man, I half expected to come home to divorce papers. Which honestly, wasn’t too far fetched, because apparently they were pushing Eddie to divorce me and he left them in a restaurant to Uber back, which is what finally made him want to out stubborn them and come to bed.”

“What?” Hen chokes.

“Yeah, it’s a whole thing. Hopefully they’ll behave at dinner tonight,” Buck sighs, before trying to find the silver lining. “But Chris is excited about his grandparents being in town and he hasn’t been too thrown off about how they’re treating them, though he said he’ll be happy to be eating popcorn again when they’re gone. They probably made a comment about that when they were watching a movie with him on Sunday. I kinda let that one be.”

“That’s sure something,” Hen says, voice a little high with wtf-ness. She can’t imagine her mom pushing her to divorce Karen or getting so much under her skin that she’d sleep on the couch about it. Unable to help herself, she asks: “Is Eddie that insecure about himself? That he’d sleep on the couch?”

“He usually isn’t and he’s actively trying to do better for Chris, but Ramon just gets to him. Helena too,” Buck assures her. “They’ve been practicing getting under his skin since he was a kid and by god, they’re good at it. One of these days they’re gonna go too far and I’m gonna have to do something, but we kind of agree that when it comes to family, you have the last call when it’s yours.”

“Still, that sucks,” Hen sympathizes.

“It does,” Buck agrees. “Can’t wait for it to be Friday, so I can stuff them on a plane.”

Before the conversation can continue, Chimney calls down from the loft: “What are you two gossiping about? Doesn’t matter. Help me convince Bobby to set him up.”

“We should probably go rescue Bobby, shouldn’t we?” Hen says.

“Yeahhh.” Buck starts doing a little jog towards the stairs and Hen follows after.

The rest of their shift goes mercifully well. As Hen leaves the locker room to go home, she squeezes Buck’s shoulder and pats him on the back. The two exchange a silent nod.

She gets home, late enough that Denny’s already asleep, but she knows there will be an extra plate left for her. As she makes her way to the kitchen, she already starts talking: “Babe, I love you so much and I need to tell you how much I appreciate your parents, because you will never guess what Buck- Karen?”

Karen is sitting at the kitchen table, looking shaken as she holds a letter. Hen cautiously steps into the room, frowning: “Did something happen?”

“Eva- uhm, she’s- she’s suing for custody. Of Denny,” Karen says after clearing her throat.

“What? How?” Hen exclaims, quickly walking forward to snatch up the letter to see for herself. She isn’t truly reading the words, though, just staring at the page. “She gave up that right.”

“She claims she was forced to do it. That she was in a bad place and wanted what was best for Denny, but now that she’s in a better place, she wants him back,” Karen explains.

“That’s bullshit!” Hen rages. “She can’t just do that.”

“We have the papers, she’s at least trying,” Karen sighs. “As happy as I am, you didn’t go meet with her, I’m now wondering if we could avoided this. If she wanted something else we could have provided and this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Hey, don’t. Trust me, don’t do that to yourself,” Hen says gently, sitting down next to her and hugging her into her side. “This is what she wants. How she works. She pushes, makes you question herself, makes you want to do things for her. Don’t fall for it. I did too many times, never turned out well for me.”

“I know, it’s just scary.”

“It is,” Hen agrees, squeezing Karen again. “But we’ll get through it. We always have. If all else fails, we fake our deaths, take Denny and run.”

That makes Karen chuckle. “I don’t know if being wanted criminals would help our case, but I’d become a fugitive with you.” She nudges Hen and when Hen looks into her eyes, she’s smiling again, a hopeful sparkle in there.

Hen smiles back, overtaken with how much she loves the woman she has in her arms.

After a moment, Karen breaks the moment, clearing her throat and asking: “But this is a thing to worry about in the morning. What did you want to tell me about Buck that made you appreciate my mother of all people. I know you’ve had your differences.”

“Yeah, but listen to this. Buck’s in-laws – I told you about how horrible they are, right? – they’re staying for the whole week. Not just the weekend,” Hen gossips. “And it’s so bad. I didn’t realize how bad it could get.”

Invested, Karen asks: “What happened?”

“Apparently they are pushing Eddie to divorce Buck, because they’re homophobic and they made a bunch of comments that got under Eddie’s skin, so he slept on the couch. The couch,” Hen says. “I can’t imagine what kind of relationship you have to have with your parents that they can get to you that badly. I can’t really come up with anything that would get me to that point.”

“Oh, that is bad. What did Buck say about all of that?”

“He seems to be staying positive about it. Probably helps that Eddie slept in the bed again after the divorce conversation with his parents. And he says Chris likes that his grandparents are in town. I would grit my teeth through a lot too if it made Denny happy…” Hen says, trailing off at then end when she mentions Denny.

Karen sighs, eyes falling back on the letter. “Me too.”

Hen recognizes the look she gets on her face the longer she looks at that letter. “Alright.” Hen pats her leg. “I’m gonna warm up my left overs and then we’re devising a game plan while I eat. You’re not going to be able to sleep otherwise.”

“I’m sorry,” Karen says, sending her a guilty look.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Hen pecks her on the lips. “Want me to get your laptop while I’m up so you can make a dedicated folder?”

“Yes, please.”

They stay up later than they should have and Hen sleeps badly with all the thoughts running through her head. She ends up coming into work early, just to get away from the way her mind is spinning. But she forgot that there was the possibility that no one would really be there, so she finds herself sitting morosely at the table alone.

She gets pulled from her thoughts by an equally exhausted looking Buck, who pours her a coffee, before he sits down too. She smiles gratefully at him. “Thanks.”

“So what kept you up tonight?” he asks after she has taken a few sips.

“Eva,” Hen sighs after a moment. “She’s suing me and Karen for custody of Denny. Is claiming we forced her to hand him over, as if she wasn’t itching to sign over custody from the moment she’d given birth.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.” Buck takes a seat next to her. “Does she have any basis for her case? How did you get custody of Denny?”

“I mean, she was able to file,” Hen says, slightly doubtful. “She just got out of prison, but she seems to be picking her life up. At the time she said she didn’t know who the father was, signed over full custody to me, so I could take care of him with Karen. She adopted him too. He’s ours, has been since birth. But who knows. It’s not as if court systems are in the favor of people like me and Karen.”

“Hey, don’t go there. Signing over custody – and straight away too – that means something. It’s hard for parents to get that back when they give it up. You and Karen are his parents, Denny knows that as well as you do. Any person who meets you will know that too,” Buck tells her with conviction.

“I hope so,” Hen sighs. “Is that something you think about? Chris’s mom coming back?” She can guess why he knows why signing over custody means something.

“It’s different,” Buck answers. “She raised Chris for four years mostly by herself, since Eddie was off in the service. He remembers her. He cried his whole fifth birthday because she didn’t come home to celebrate with us. Asked about her when he had to get surgery. If she’d want to have a place in his life again, I’d be cautious before letting her, but if Eddie was okay with it, I’d let her come back.”

“I can’t image leaving Denny behind when he was four. Not now either,” Hen says.

“And you’re not going to have to,” Buck assures her. “And Shannon had her reasons. I’ll never forgive her for leaving Chris the ways she did, I mean, he was four and she didn’t even say goodbye. He woke up and mommy was gone. Forever. But she’d been raising him all by herself for the most part, no family nearby, surrounded by a town who outwardly hated her. When Eddie was back and ready to take care of him, she left. Went to take care of her mom. Cancer. I get why she would.”

Even though he can never understand. He withstood those years of Helena’s hatred and Ramon’s disdain, a town full of rumors that didn’t want him there either. And those were still a few of his best years, but not everyone is the same, he guesses.

“Wow, that’s something,” Hen whistles. “I suppose that is a lot for one person. Still, I couldn’t do it, I love Denny too much.”

“And the court knows that. Eva doesn’t stand a chance. She no longer has a claim on him. And if she does genuinely want a role in his life again, it’ll be years before she’s proven herself, and even then, he will not just be taken from you two,” Buck says.

Hen she smiles and says: “Thank you, Buck. I needed to hear that.”

“It’s okay, having people in your corner makes it all easier to deal with. The people at this firehouse are in your corner,” Buck says honestly.

“You’re a sweet kid. I’m glad to have you at this house,” Hen tells him a rush of affection coming over her.

“Thanks,” he beams at her.

“So, how is the week with the in-laws going? You didn’t exactly look very happy yourself either,” Hen changes topics.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Buck groans. “I actually kicked them out of the house yesterday. Drove them to Abuela’s, so Ramon could explain to his mom how he overstayed his welcome.”

“Holy shit,” Hen exclaims. “What did they do?”

At the reminder, Buck puffs up with offense again. “Tried to convince us to give them custody, because our work hours are too inconsistent and we can’t provide a stable home for him. And then! Then she had the nerve to tell Eddie to, and I quote, ‘not drag Chris down with you,’ the fucking nerve of that. Eddie has devoted his life to Chris’s well being. He’s lifting him up. Who says that to their own kid?”

“What the hell,” Hen swears. Her opinion of these in-laws was already spectacularly low, but every time she hears of them, she gets disappointed more.

“I know,” Buck exclaims. “I couldn’t let them get away with that. Luckily Eddie wasn’t upset with me kicking them out while he was off putting Chris back in bed again – the yelling woke him up – and we’re going to be rid of them tomorrow. They’re doing breakfast with us so they can say goodbye to Chris, before we’re dropping them off at the airport.”

“You’re letting them back into your house after they said that?” Hen asks disbelievingly.

“If it were up to me, no, but Eddie wants them there. And I respect that. It’s for Chris’s sake. Goodbyes are important to him,” Buck says and Hen remembers what he just told her about Shannon. “And Eddie will always forgive them. They never deserve it, but he always does. I try to carry the grudge for both of us, because he can’t.”

“That’s very mature and kind of you, Buck. Eddie’s lucky to have you in his corner,” Hen says.

“I’m just happy that he lets me have his back,” Buck smiles back.

It melts Hen’s heart. It’s a sweet sentiment and she feels very privileged that Buck lets her peak into this part of his life. However, she doesn’t know how to verbalize that and the day is starting too. So, she just shoulder bumps him fondly, before draining her coffee and going to greet Chimney, who is just coming up the stairs.

The rest of their shift rolls by smoothly with some medical calls and a small fender bender. It’s a medium shift, not too quiet – though Hen would never use that word – nor too busy. A perfectly good shift all in all. Both her and Buck can use it after the night they’ve had.

At breakfast the Friday morning, Hen is the only one, who isn’t confused Buck is half standing as he shoves the final bites of breakfast in his mouth when he usually enjoys family meals the most, often hanging around for a bit after too.

Chimney even asks: “What? You got a breakfast date or something?”

“If you want to call it that,” Buck snorts, making Hen bite her lip in amusement as the other make their own assumptions about what he means, before she calls out a goodbye at his back, while he makes his way downstairs, then out of the firehouse.

Next shift, Buck comes in and seems lighter. It’s not as if his in-laws have disappeared, but it’s clear the direct stress is gone. However, they all notice he has gotten busier. He often flies out of the firehouse and has claimed a few personal emergencies in the middle of the day; often school pick up time, Hen notices.

After one of such personal emergencies, Hen happens to catch him as he’s coming in while she’s restocking the ambulance. She asks: “Hey, everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, all good,” he assures her, a little out of breath.

“You sure? That’s the third emergency. Is it something serious? You know you can talk to us right? We have each other’s backs here, remember?”

At that, he smiles brightly, perking up. “I know. Just pick up. I feel a little bad, but Eddie started the fire academy and tía Pepa works and Abuela doesn’t drive, so it’s a bit chaotic right now trying to get care for Chris organized.”

“Eddie’s becoming a fire fighter?” Hen asks, pleasantly surprised.

“Yeah, my stories won him over,” Buck grins. “And he has a lot of transferable skills, army medic and all that.”

“Wish him luck from me,” Hen says. “And if you ever need someone to watch Chris, he’s more than welcome in our home.”

“Thank you so much,” Buck says gratefully. “Need some help stocking that?”

“And hand you a clipboard? No thanks,” Hen jokes. “I’m pretty sure Bobby started on dinner, go bother him.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Buck salutes, before walking off and Hen watches him go with a fond smile.

A few weeks later and their probie Buck, is a probie no more. It’s oddly melancholic to be at his shield ceremony, as if he’s their kid, who is suddenly all grown up. Maybe it’s because they’ve seen him grow so much in his time here, maybe it’s because he’s good at getting into your heart and making himself at home there.

The only people that come to his ceremony are the tía and Abuela he mentioned. Both of them are Eddie’s family, though they don’t say they are. There is no one other family for Buck, no Eddie, no Chris, no parents. No one.

It reminds Hen partly of her own wedding, partly of her first office party all the way back when she first started out, which is a weird mix.

She knows his parents are homophobic and he doesn’t even talk to them, but it must still hurt anyway that they aren’t here to celebrate this big thing with him. That there are those empty chairs – however metaphoric in this case – where they’re supposed to be there, but aren’t

And she knows how painful it must be, to not be able to celebrate this with your child and your husband. The people you share your life with, but aren’t ready to share with the world.

Hen wants to say something, give him some sort of encouragement or understanding. Solidarity perhaps, or comfort. However, he’s continuously surrounded by others and she doesn’t get the words in.

That evening, she burrows her face into Karen’s stomach and hugs her tightly, just breathing in her scent and being grateful for what she has. For the fact that she has always been there. That she was able to work through all the things that made it feel impossible to share.

She would never push someone to out themselves if they weren’t comfortable and she doesn’t know the entirety of Buck’s situation. Still, in that moment, she sends a hope out into the universe, that one day, Buck can have that too.

A few shifts later, Hen’s perception of Buck, is turned inside out.

Buck seems a little nervous when he comes in, glancing around and seeming surprised when he spots them when they start talking to him. The conversation turns to body fat when they bring up that stupid calendar, something Buck has been getting really into and he seems like himself when he rambles, until that conversation devolves into something else.

Then Chimney cuts it all off, getting distracted by something as he comments: “Okay that, is a beautiful man.”

Hen follows his gaze, curious to see what sort of man could have evoked that comment, only to do a double take when she actually sees him. The man is, objectively, certainly beautiful, fitting the beauty standard to a T. However, that is not what makes her double take; what makes her double take, is that she is pretty sure she’s seen this man before, namely in the truck that came to pick Buck up after the plane crash.

Immediately, her eyes shoot to Buck, who is also looking back to see who Chimney pointed out. But his gaze doing a complicated something that makes him look longing, scared and pissed off? It settles on pissed off, as he says: “Who the hell is that?”

Now Hen is only more confused, but she tells herself that maybe she saw wrong. It was dark after all and she only saw Eddie briefly in the dim light of the car. No matter how sure she was. Maybe Buck is pissed off, because he saw the similarity too, but it’s not his husband?

All that gets thrown out the window, when Bobby says: “That’s Eddie Diaz, new recruit. Graduated top of his class just this week. Guys over at station 6 were dying to have him, but I convinced him to join us.”

He continues talking about Eddie’s accomplishments, but Hen tunes him out in favor of trying to catch Buck’s eyes. When she does, she sends him a ‘wtf’- look, trying to ask with her eyes, if she is seeing what she thinks she is seeing and why the hell Buck is acting this way towards his husband, and why he’s not saying anything.

Buck catches her eye and suddenly remembers that he forgot one, very crucial detail when he and Eddie came up with their scheme.

Fuck, this complicates things. He needs Hen to not blow this for them and he sends her a pleading look that hopefully conveys to her that she should play along. If she blows this scheme and reveals to Eddie that Buck is madly in love with him, he’ll have to change his name and move to a different continent again.

His urge to create as much distance between him and Eddie only grows and before he knows what he’s doing, he hears himself saying: “What do we need him for?”

Internally he cringes at both himself and the raised brow Hen is giving him. However, she doesn’t say anything about what she knows as the others laughs and keeps quiet when they all go to greet Eddie, Buck following after them all with apprehension tight in his chest.

Hen is pretty sure she weirds Eddie out slightly with how closely she’s studying him, even if her hello is totally normal.

She certainly catches the confused look he gives Buck when he appears behind him, having set himself on being strangely defensive. Is everything going okay at home? He did mention thinking he’d get divorced, so maybe something happened on that front? Or he just doesn’t want to work with Eddie? Which Hen doesn’t get. He seems like the guy that would love to work with his spouse. She would.

“Eddie, this is Buck,” Bobby says. “Buck this is Eddie. He’ll be your partner in the field from now on, I expect you to keep him in the loop.”

Hen doesn’t know what she’s expecting, maybe a crack in the facade, an ‘ahh, I’m just joking’ and an explanation. Or at least some sort of acknowledgment. However, instead Buck just nods curtly and says: “Yes, Cap.”

Her eyes swing to Eddie, curious to see what he will do. But it seems that he is either just going along with whatever Buck is doing or there actually is some tension between them, because he is way more polite with Buck as he greets him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Buck says, a word he has never said before.

This whole thing is weird and everyone is picking up on it, not just Hen. Sure, they all remember the cocky Buck from the early days, who could balk at authority from time to time and be a bit of a dick sometimes. This, though, is very unlike him. He loves talking to people and meeting them. He’s a godsend on most cases where they need to keep people calm or do crowd control.

Before, they can figure out what’s happening, the alarm goes and they have to abandon this mystery in favor of getting into their gear.

On the rig there, it’s clear Chimney has interpreted the tension as Buck being territorial and starting a pissing contest with the new guy. Hen doesn’t think that’s it. She is pretty sure now she hadn’t been making it up when she recognized Eddie and they’re in the rig with Buck’s husband. However, she’s not going to say anything until she knows more and instead chooses to help Chimney tease Buck while observing the reactions to try and gather more information.

When they get to the call, her focus is primarily on the patient, though she observes Eddie to be competent and easy to work with. Buck wasn’t just bragging, which is good. Hen likes working with competent people.

Though she’s not sure if she can hang out with Eddie on the clock in the long term without saying anything about the weird vibe between him and Buck and the knowledge she has.

At some point, Buck goes to puncture Hector’s chest cavity and then Eddie takes over. Watching it, Hen isn’t sure if they’re very well in tune with each other to the point they don’t mind the way they’re communicating – well, barely communicating – or if there is tension and they’re being curt. Buck might be a horrible liar, but he might just be a great actor.

They give Eddie their complements on a job well done and Hen looks back to see Buck doing the same, though he sounds a little condescending. However, when she glances at his face, there is a glint of humor in his eyes and the way Eddie gives him a deadpan look in return can only be described as fond. Definitely married and playing at something, she decides.

It takes everything in her to not explode and blurt something out on the way back. And she is so grateful to Chimney, who leads Eddie away under his arms to show him the magic of Bobby’s cooking, so she can yank Buck into a supply closet.

“I know that is your husband right there, don’t even try to lie to me. Eddie Diaz, Eddie Diaz. The names match. And I waited to see if you got picked up that one time, and he looks exactly like that guy that came for you,” Hen says, before Buck can even recover from the disorientation.

“Wait, you waited for Eddie to come pick me up?” is all Buck says in his confusion.

“Not the point, Buckley,” Hen hisses. “Why are you pretending you don’t know your own husband? In fact, why are you acting like you don’t even like the man? Love him, actually.”

“Okay, I can explain that.”

“Please do!”

“So-” Buck starts, then immediately stops. “You see-” he pauses again. “It seemed like a good idea when we came up with it.”

“You’re doing this on purpose?” Hen says, still confused. Though she supposes that’s good. It would be kind of weird if Buck had decided on the fly not to know Eddie and Eddie just went along with it without any questions.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s on purpose,” Buck chuckles awkwardly. “Eddie got the offer and we know we work well together and this house is a good one – I mean, you hear the horror stories about the hazing – but then we kind of realized, they would retract the offer if we tried to do the paperwork, since Eddie is a probie, not a full firefighter. Besides, I never told anyone about Eddie either – except for you, which I kind of forgot, until today – so it would invite a lot of questions. And it would get confusing and weird, since we are married, but we’re not really together-”

“What?”

“What what?” Buck repeats, seeming taken aback by her reaction, meanwhile Hen is still internally blue-screening and reeling.

“What do you mean you’re not really together? Are you two getting divorced?” Hen exclaims

“I mean, at some point, yeah, we’re getting divorced,” Buck says, frowning. “Me and Eddie aren’t dating, never have. He’s straight.”

“Straight?”

“Yeah, straight. We got married for convenience,” Buck confirms, in a tone that clearly conveys he doesn’t know why she keeps freaking out. “Did you not know that?”

“How was I supposed to know that!” Hen yells, before lowering her volume so no one comes to check up on them in the supply closet. “You just told me you were in love with your husband and rambled about him and your son, being all mushy. What about that screams, we’re friends and he’s straight?”

“Ah, uhm- well…” Buck turns a bright red and looks anywhere but her face as he admits: “I am kind of very much in love with him, he just doesn’t know that. He- he probably- maybe- kind of also thinks I’m straight?”

“Oh my god.” Hen is actually speechless for a moment trying to piece all she knows back together into this new picture, Buck just painted.

Instead of a married bi guy with a family, he loves, but wasn’t ready to be out at work. He is a married bi guy with a family that he loves, but his husband is straight and they got married as friends with the plans to divorce – now him saying they got married so he could adopt Chris is put in a different light too – but he is in love with him, but the guy doesn’t know.

“Please don’t tell him,” Buck says anxiously.

“Of course I’m not going to tell him,” Hen hisses. “I’m processing.”

“Okay,” Buck replies faintly.

Hen takes a moment, before saying: “Okay, so tell me if I got this right. You married Eddie, as friends, to adopt Chris and with the plan to get divorced?”

“Yes.”

“But you aren’t divorced yet.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And now you’re working together here and you did not tell anyone at HR or Bobby or anyone, that you two are married.”

Buck nods.

“Because you aren’t together like that anyway?”

Buck nods again.

“But you are in love with Eddie, he just doesn’t know and he’s straight.”

“Yup,” Buck squeaks.

“And you’re not going to tell him?”

“No!” Buck exclaims loudly, before quieter repeating: “No, no. He can’t know. It’ll make it all weird and he’ll realize I’ve been kind of making myself necessary, so he doesn’t divorce me, because I like being married to him, even if it’s not like that. And that is a little weird. And then he’ll know and he’ll leave me forever and I’ll never get to see Chris again.”

“Okay, okay, breathe, Buck, breathe,” Hen guides him when he starts spiraling. He follows her steady breaths until he calmed down a little and she soothes: “He’s not just going to leave you. I won’t tell him you’re in love with him.”

“Thank you,” Buck manages to get out.

They stand in the quiet supply closet for a moment, the feint cleaning supply smell permeating the air along with the slightly dampened noise from outside. Buck calming down, Hen sorting her thoughts.

After a few beats, Hen says: “So what is your plan with hating Eddie?”

“I panicked,” Buck grimaces. “I just saw him and Chimney was saying he is beautiful – and he is – but saying that felt like me proclaiming I’m in love with him, so I couldn’t, so I just kind of did the opposite of that and now I’m stuck.”

“God, you’re hopeless,” Hen mutters.

“You have to help me.”

“I’m not going to help you!”

“Why not? You’d be so good at it.”

“Buck, I’m not going to help you lie to Bobby, HR and basically everyone! You two can get in serious trouble for that.”

“So you’re gonna tell Bobby?” Buck asks, looking like a kicked puppy.

Hen inhales a sharp, annoyed breath, because fuck, this kid gets to her. Then she sighs: “No. I’m not going to tell Bobby.”

Immediately Buck perks up and hugs her. “Thank you so much.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t cheer yet. I’m not getting involved in this little act you and Eddie have going on either,” she says, jabbing her finger at him.

“Understood, ma’am,” Buck agrees without hesitation.

“Good. Just so we’re clear,” Hen nods.

“Good.” Buck nods back. He’s quiet for a moment, then he asks: “So then what are you going to do?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Hen tells him. “I need a moment to think. Just go.”

“Go?”

“Yes, go. Go out there and put on your little performance and give me a moment to think,” Hen says, waving him towards the door she yanked him through moments earlier.

“No, don’t make me go,” Buck pleads. “Then I have to figure out how to act around Eddie again.”

“You live with him, now shoo,” Hen retorts without remorse, before unceremoniously shoving him back out the supply closet and slamming the door close behind him.

Buck outside goes to do whatever he decides to do – which is working out and accidentally picking a fight with Eddie, but Hen doesn’t know that – so Hen can pull out her phone. She can’t deal with this bullshit by herself.

Before Karen can even say anything as a greeting, she blurts out: “They’re not together.”

To her credit doesn’t skip a beat. “What?”

“Eddie and Buck, they’re not together,” Hen says.

“But they’re married?”

“Yeah, platonically, as friends, because Eddie is straight,” Hen says her voice saying ‘can you believe this shit?’ “Which I found out today, because Eddie showed up to our work. He’s our new probie. And he and Buck are pretending they don’t know each other.”

“What?”

“That’s what I said!” Hen exclaims.

“What are you going to do now?” Karen also asks.

“I don’t know,” Hen answers again.

“Okay, just tell me everything, we’ll figure this out,” Karen says, which is exactly why Hen loves her so much. She’s a problem solver, a gossip, and always on Hen’s side.

Hen relays all the new information she’s gained in the last hour and combines it with what they already know. She ends with: “And I know I should tell Bobby, but you didn’t see Buck’s face. He isn’t even out to Eddie and who knows what an investigation will bring. I don’t want to do that to someone. What if he looses his kid? I don’t want to responsible for that.”

“Yeah, I totally get that,” Karen says and she can just picture her nodding intently. She pauses for a moment, then says: “We don’t have enough data.”

“We don’t?”

“No.” Karen says, in her ‘I’m talking science’-voice that Hen adores. “We know Buck’s feelings and perception of the situation, as well as his personality, but we know nothing of Eddie’s side. What if he’s under the same misunderstanding as you were?”

“You think he might think that he’s married to Buck for real and in love with him too?” Hen asks, kind of skeptical, but willing to buy it because Karen is selling it.

“I mean, I’m not saying that, but it could be true,” Karen says. “But it’s probably closer to maybe having the same misunderstanding Buck has. I mean, if you were married to your straight bestie and you were in love with them, you wouldn’t risk them finding out by coming out, right? Buck hasn’t. Who’s to say, Eddie isn’t doing the same? Did he seem gay to you?”

Hen shrugs. “I don’t know. You have the better gaydar, between the two of us.”

Karen gasps excitedly. “You should invite him over. So, I can investigate!”

“How do you expect me to subtly do that?” Hen exclaims.

Before Karen can explain what she thinks, the alarm starts ringing and Hen has to hang up so she can answer. Promising that she’ll update Karen when she gets home and telling her she loves her, before she does.

To ensure she is able to properly report back to her wife that evening, she observes Eddie closely for the rest of her shift.

This sadly does not result in much, except a few weird looks from Eddie, since he and Buck are mostly avoiding each other and Bobby puts them on different jobs on the few calls they do take, clearly trying to figure out how he’s going to deal with this odd tension between the two. He likely can’t place a finger on it like he usually does, since it’s staged.

She has to go home, before anything changes, which is a bummer, so she is anxiously waiting to see how they’ll interact the next shift they’re on. Chim feels much the same, though for that is because he apparently walked in on the two of them fighting. Hen hates that she missed that.

They’ve been standing in the loft, looking down over the rest of the firehouse since Buck came in that morning. Now, Eddie is coming in too and they’re finally going to see for themselves.

Buck spots him easily, turning around at the sound of his footsteps as if he knows them by heart, already smiling, before he can even see Eddie. He calls out: “Hey, Eddie, did you know that grenade launcher that guy shot himself with yesterday started in production in 1969 and has been in use since the 70s?”

“Oh really?” Eddie replies, almost sounding as if he is hearing new information, but Hen is paying such close attention, she thinks it sounds amused. Though she might be making that up.

No, she didn’t make it up. However, she should have definitely added fond to that, because Eddie’s face is definitely very fond along with amused. They start making their way up the stairs together, shoulders bumping into one another on every step as Buck rambles about all the information he found as they walk to the loft.

Chimney gives Hen a confused look, as if to ask ‘can you believe that got from how they were acting last shift to this?’ Hen decides to just give a confused look back, but hers is more ‘I have no clue what’s going on between those two anymore.’

Later on a call, they dive into a pool together to pull an idiotic kid with a microwave cemented on his head out. They’re perfectly in sync and there is no leftover anything from last shift. They’ve settled into a well oiled machine and it’s clear Bobby is very pleased with himself.

It takes Hen a week of observation before she cracks.

A week of watching Buck and Eddie share little glances, a week of watching Buck stare at Eddie when he thinks no one notices, a week of watching professional Eddie cracking up and lighting up whenever Buck makes a joke, a week of Eddie referencing fun facts Buck told him as if he has them all memorized, a week of Buck bashfully ducking his head whenever he talks with Eddie. It’s too much, she can’t take it anymore.

Coming up to the locker room, she hears Eddie say: “Hey, can you pick up Chris today? I know it’s my turn, but I can’t find my keys anywhere.”

“Ohoho, what is this, Mr. Neat, lost his stuff?” Buck replies, sounding a little too gleeful.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, like you wouldn’t lose everything if you didn’t have me to remind you that you probably left your phone on the toilet and your wallet in your pocket. I found one of our coffee mugs in your closet when I put away the laundry last time. The closet, Buck,” Eddie rolls his eyes.

“I plead the fifth.” Buck grins

“Sure. Fine,” Eddie doesn’t mind or care much for the bickering, accepting Buck’s reply and returning back to his previous question. “So, you good too pick up Chris?”

Buck doesn’t even seem fazed, grin only broadening at the bitchy response. “Yeah, ‘course I can pick up Chris. No problem.”

“Cool, see you at home when I find my goddamn keys,” Eddie curses.

“Alright. Text me if you can’t and need me to come pick you up,” Buck says.

“I’ll find them,” Eddie pouts stubbornly, making Buck laugh.

He leaves the locker room nearly running into Hen, but avoiding her with a little noise, before wishing her a good afternoon. Eddie whips his head around, eyeing her suspiciously, but since Buck doesn’t react to her presence, he likely assumes she just walked in and didn’t overhear.

Wrong.

Hen waits until Buck is in his car, before pulling Eddie’s keys out of her pocket and jingling them. When Eddie looks back, she holds them up and asks: “Looking for these?”

“Yeah, where did you find them?”

She took them out of his locker, a kid’s birthday is an easy choice and because of Buck, she knows exactly when Chris’s birthday is. “Unimportant,” is what she says. “I know.”

“What?”

“I know,” she repeats, this time more intently, eyes flicking over to Buck’s sweater that ended up in Eddie’s locker at some point and is now lying on the bench, because Eddie put it there when emptying out his locker in the hope of finding his keys.

Eddie’s eyes grow wide and he gets a little pale. Hen feels a little bad when he swallows thickly and nervously asks: “What are you going to do now?”

“Get to the bottom of it,” Hen answers. “Get in my car. We’re going to have a drink together and you’ll get these,” she jingles the keys, “back when you have satisfied my curiosity.”

He hesitates – which is pretty valid, since Hen is basically kidnapping him – then cautiously asks: “Can I text Buck you’re doing that?”

“Sure,” Hen says easily. He doesn’t know where she lives, much like she doesn’t know where he lives. It’s not like telling him will change anything.

Eddie side eyes her as he texts, probably expecting her to retract the allowance, but Hen waits patiently until he’s done then ushers him into her car. To his credit, Eddie doesn’t ask too many questions and just lets her. She makes a mental note to tell him not to do that when this is over.

They spend the first few minutes of the drive in awkward silence, until Eddie finally breaks, asking: “So how did you find out anyway?”

“Buck told me,” Hen answers honestly.

“What?” Eddie exclaims with bulging eyes.

“To be fair to Buck, he forgot he did until I asked him what the fuck he was doing,” Hen says.

“Fucking scatterbrain,” Eddie mutters, though it’s sounds too fond to truly be an insult. He shakes his head to himself, then turns back to Hen and asks: “But if you already know, then why are you abducting me for an interrogation?”

“Because I only know Buck’s side of the story, duh. Didn’t you ever watch a detective show?” Hen tells him. “And Karen wants to meet you.”

“Your wife wants to meet me?” a confused Eddie asks.

“Yeah, she’s curious,” Hen replies, electing not to tell him, it is also because Karen has the better gaydar and they’re trying to figure out if he’s as straight as he claims he is. That’s not a thing to truly push on a person. They need to get there themselves. Though… they might, well… nudge.

“So you’re kidnapping me because your wife is curious about me and you find nothing weird about that?” Eddie asks slightly judgmental.

“Oh, I find it plenty odd, but I mostly find it weird you went along with it,” Hen says bluntly.

“Did I not have to?” Eddie frowns.

“No, it’s not like I would have forced you if you didn’t want to come,” Hen says, getting a little concerned. “Did you not realize that?”

Eddie shrugs, looking a little sheepish as he does. He shrugs: “You sounded pretty authoritative. I’ve always kind of followed orders.”

“Maybe stop doing that?” Hen tells him worriedly.

“Uh, I will,” Eddie promises.

“Good.”

They spend the rest of the drive in silence until they get to the Wilson house. She told Karen she was planning on doing this, so she knows she’ll be waiting inside. Denny is off at a sleep over, they have a biweekly rotation with some of the other parents, which made today a great day for this.

Indeed, Karen is waiting on their front porch, excitedly waving when Hen pulls up into the driveway. Next to her, Eddie takes one look at Karen, then looks back at Hen, apprehension written all over his face. Hen snorts: “She doesn’t bite.”

“I know that,” Eddie says bitchily, defiantly throwing his door open, though his gait slows slightly after two steps.

Karen either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, coming to meet Eddie with a big smile. She shakes his hand and says: “I’m Karen, it’s so nice to meet you.”

“Uh, Eddie, nice to meet you too,” Eddie replies, shaking her hand on autopilot.

He follows her inside on autopilot too, letting her hit him with a barrage of words. “I can make coffee, but it’s already afternoon, so I don’t know if you still drink coffee. Or tea. We also have soda. But maybe this is more of an alcohol conversation for you?”

“Definitely that last one.” Eddie clears his throat. “You have beer?”

“Yeah, but I’m more partial to wine. Are you not a wine drinker?” Karen asks.

“Uhm, I don’t know?”

“Would you be open to trying?” Karen inquires curiously. To Hen, this is her scientist face, but she doesn’t know what data she could be gathering. However, she lets her happily with a smitten look on her own face.

“I suppose,” Eddie says, which is how he finds himself awkwardly sitting next to Karen on the couch with a glass of wine in his hands moments later.

“Take a sip, tell me what you think,” Karen encourages him with a smile. “It is supposed to have a bit of a woody taste, but Hen never tastes it. I’m starting to think I’m crazy.”

Still very much confused about how he ended up here, Eddie does as told and takes a sip, sending Hen a ‘wtf’-look that she responds to with a shrug.

It’s kind of funny how Eddie then turns his focus on the wine, clearly trying to taste what Karen told him about the wine. After a moment, he cautiously says: “I think I can taste it? But it’s a little more saw dust in a shed than, like, a barrel or something.”

“Hm,” Karen hums taking another sip of her own and tasting it closely. Her eyes widen and she exclaims: “You’re good, Diaz. Totally saw dust-y. Wait.” She gets up and starts rummaging around somewhere else in the house.

On the couch, Eddie sips more of his wine, quietly asking Hen: “Is she always like that?”

“If she likes you,” Hen smiles.

“Oh, okay,” Eddie nods. Taking another sip and finishing the saw dust wine.

Karen comes back with another bottle and glass, pouring Eddie a second glass. “Try this one, tell me what you think.”

Eddie puts down the now empty glass one, before grabbing the second one and tasting it with as much intent as he did the first time around. Two sips later, he says: “It’s smokey? I think.”

“Yes, I know right!” Karen says happily. “It’s aged in old tobacco barrels.”

Suddenly self conscious, Eddie asks: “Aren’t these expensive?”

“They’re not very high up there, but not cheap frat boy liquor,” Karen shrugs. “But it’s a hobby and Hen is bad at it.”

“Hey!” Hen interjects for the first time.

“Come on, babe, you know it’s true,” Karen tells her gently.

“I try,” Hen pouts.

“I know.” Karen leans over and pats her arm. Then she turns back to Eddie and asks: “What else do you taste?”

A few glasses and a conversation about wine later, Eddie is looking a lot more relaxed and the two of them have decided that the second wine is the better one. Which means, they now all have a glass of the second one.

When there’s a lull in conversation, Karen pounces. She asks: “So, how did the whole being married as friends thing even happen?”

“Because Buck is too nice for his own good,” Eddie groans, falling back against the couch cushions.

Karen raises a brow and gives Hen a significant look, before focusing back on Eddie: “Too nice? What does that even mean?”

Eddie gestures vaguely and says: “You know, too nice. He should have never been doing this with me, but he’s too nice and now he’s still here, years later. Like,” Eddie blinks a few times and takes a sip from his wine as he tries to do the math, “like, three years later.”

“You’ve been married for three years?” Karen prompts, trying to keep Eddie talking.

“No, two,” Eddie corrects. “But Shannon left three years ago. She was sleeping with Buck, but she didn’t say she was going, she just left. And Buck should have left too. But he didn’t. He stayed. And he helped, because he’s too nice.”

That is new information. Hen never knew Buck was seeing Shannon. That makes this a whole new layer of complicated. She gets why they wanted to avoid the questions.

“Okay, so he’s too nice,” Karen nods, deciding to focus on the more important bit. “Why did you two get married when you were doing the co-parenting together before that already.”

“Cause Chris had to get surgery,” Eddie says. Explaining: “He’s our son, he has CP,” just in case they didn’t know that already. “Surgery is expensive.”

“That’s why you re-enlisted,” Hen puts together, remembering Buck telling him about the injury that brought him home.

Eddie nods enthusiastically. He clearly isn’t used to wine and he’s already a little tipsy, nearly spilling his drink.

“Why does that require a marriage?” Karen wonders out loud.

“Buck needed to adopt Chris, so my mom wouldn’t take him,” Eddie says, before whispering: “She doesn’t like my parenting.” Sadly, he explains: “She probably wouldn’t have given him back. I couldn’t lose Chris like that. So I asked Buck, because he’s selfless and I’m selfish. And the fastest way to adopt someone is through stepparent adoption. So we got married.”

Both their hearts break at the confession and Karen pulls Eddie into her side, saving his glass when he flops over sideways.

She rubs her hand over his arm and says: “It’s not selfish to want to keep your son, Eddie. Your mom sounds like a bitch for thinking that. From what I hear from Hen, you’re a great father. You and Buck both.”

“That’s what Buck says too,” Eddie smiles sappily. Hen gets another significant look from Karen. “He is a great dad too. Chris loves him.”

“And that’s all that matter,” Karen says, squeezing Eddie again, before letting him untangle himself from her, while she refills his glass.

“I guess,” Eddie agrees thoughtfully.

Getting the conversation back on track, Hen asks: “So, you two got married so he could adopt Chris, then you went on tour and got injured.”

“Yeah, we were supposed to get divorced when I got back, you know, but Buck was too nice again and he became a firefighter so Chris would have insurance when I got discharged and so he could support us while I healed up,” Eddie says.

“So how did you two end up here in LA? Texas didn’t have enough fires?” Karen asks curiously.

“Buck’s great at his job,” Eddie says, seemingly not answering the question for a moment. “He got job offers all over. He wanted to take the one in Austin, so we would be closer to home, not uproot Chris and stuff. But… I wanted to go to LA. Get out of there. Buck just agreed and we got a house here.”

Hen is sure he was going to tell them again how that is because Buck is too nice, but Karen starts talking before he can. “Did you two buy a house? That’s quite the commitment.”

“Maybe, but you get tax benefits together and a higher mortgage with two possible incomes,” Eddie shrugs. “This way we’d have money in the house, so we’d have the money again when we sell. Maybe be able to put some to the side for a college fund for Chris.”

“Won’t that be difficult when you two divorce?” Karen asks and both see the way Eddie’s face sours at the thought.

“We’re not divorced yet,” he pouts. “And we have a prenup. I learned that lesson the first time around. It will be fine.”

“Why didn’t you divorce yet?” Hen asks, suddenly curious. She knows why Buck hasn’t, namely because he has a a huge fat crush on Eddie, but she wonders what Eddie’s rationale is for staying married to Buck and getting more involved with him by buying a house together for them and their kid.

Eddie’s face does something complicated and unreadable, before he shrugs: “We haven’t found anyone yet. We’re gonna get divorced if we get serious with someone. It’s not in the cards right now. Buck isn’t looking for anything serious, says he gets enough serious at work. He…” Eddie’s eyes get a hard glint in them, “He hooks up sometime.”

“And you?” Hen asks with a raised brow, clocking that shit as jealousy and curious that Eddie has only focused on why Buck might leave.

“Oh, I haven’t gotten around to it,” Eddie shrugs. “I want to get into a work rhythm first. And I am not really a going out to the club or a bar kind of person. I don’t really meet a lot of people.”

“Some girls have flirted on the calls we went on,” Hen points out.

“That’s unprofessional.” Eddie looks scandalized at the suggestion and says: “And it will just get complicated with Chris and everything. I’m fine where I am right now.”

Yeah, no, this man is not straight. Hen doesn’t know what label he might prefer, but she does know it includes being in love with Evan Buckley. God, this is a mess. Why did she get involved with it? Curiosity killed the cat and all that (a voice that sounds annoyingly like Buck sharing a fun fact adds ‘but satisfaction brought it back.’ He is right).

“Complicated with Chris and everything?” Karen repeats curiously, filling everyone’s glass again. She is starting to get a bit of a flush herself and Hen decides not to drink more, because someone needs to be somewhat sober at the end of this.

“Uh, yeah, he- he’s scared of people leaving, you know. I mean, I left twice to go fight and Shannon left forever,” Eddie says awkwardly. “If I start dating someone, I’ll have to introduce them to Chris at some point – and Buck of course – and then if it doesn’t work out… I don’t know, I don’t want to risk that right now.”

“And are you scared something like that will happen if Buck starts dating someone?” Hen feels comfortable pushing, because it’s not likely to happen with how down bad Buck is for Eddie.

Eddie’s face contorts at the mention of Buck dating someone, but a determined look comes over his face as he states: “Buck would never leave Chris. He loves him, he’s his father. It would break Chris’s heart and Buck is too good to do anything that would hurt Chris. Too nice.”

Hen smiles at the assertion, heart melting slightly at how confident Eddie is in Buck, how much faith he has in him.

Karen, however, is more keen than her, finally pressing on the one point he keeps bringing up again and again. Conversationally, she says: “You know, you keep saying Buck is too nice, but have you ever considered that he wants to be there and it’s not him being too nice for his own good, it’s just him doing what he wants to be doing?”

For a moment, Eddie looks as if a world of possibilities has opened up for him and he reached enlightenment. Then he shuts all those emotions on his face down and groans: “Don’t do that. I’d just won.”

“You just won?” Karen repeats, utterly confused and sharing a look with Hen to see if she knows what he’s talking about.

She doesn’t.

“Yeah, I won,��� Eddie tells them, gesturing vaguely as he does. “You know, when you feel or want something you’re not supposed or are allowed to, and then you have to fight until you don’t anymore? I’d just won and now I’m feeling the things again.”

Oh.

Oh no.

No, no, no, no, no.

That’s just sad. That’s way too sad. Hen didn’t sign up for this. She signed up for an oblivious guy who was in love with his best friend, maybe a straight guy she’d reached early enough before he did something stupid and ruined the best friendship he had.

She did not sign up for a deeply repressed homosexual. Panicked, she looks over to Karen, hoping she knows how to take over.

Karen also looks kind of panicked for a moment, before pulling on her game face. She puts her glass down and gently takes Eddie’s hands in her own. Confused he looks at her, which was probably her plan, because she makes sure to keep eye contact as she says: “Nothing – and I mean nothing – you feel or want can be something that’s not allowed or you’re not supposed to. You’re allowed to want things, to feel the things you feel. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Eddie’s jaw clenches and it is clear he’s stubbornly holding back tears as he says: “Yes, there is. I’m the man of the house. There are expectations.”

Fucking hell, Hen already got where Buck was coming from with his ‘fuck Eddie’s parents’-attitude, but she just gained a deeper understanding for it. That’s super fucked up.

Karen, thankfully, has more to say than ‘that’s fucked up’ and instead says: “And what kind of expectations are that?”

“The man of the house protects his family, provides for them. I’ve been doing that for forever,” Eddie answers as if that’s obvious. “I’m a Diaz man, it’s what we do.”

Hen did not expect to be digging into her coworkers childhood trauma when she kidnapped him that afternoon. It feels a bit too personal to go digging herself, so she gladly lets Karen lead this bit. She rightfully points out: “Chris is a Diaz man, do you have those expectations for him?”

“No, of course not,” Eddie frowns. “He’s just a kid. And he’s a great kid, who can be whatever he wants to be. It’s unfair to expect things from him.”

“Then why was it okay for them to expect things from you?” Karen prods gently. “Why do you not deserve what Chris has?”

Eddie falls silent, looking almost stricken. He tears his gaze away from Karen’s eyes to stare emptily at the floor. After a few beats of silence, he softly says: “I- I don’t know.”

“It was unfair of them, to ask that of you,” Karen says. “It was unfair and deep down, you know that too, because you’re not doing the same to Chris. You’re allowed to want things, to feel things. You don’t have to be the man of the house. And you don’t have to win from your feelings.”

“She’s right,” Hen decides to pipe up to drive the point home. “Trust me. You can have the things you want. It’s okay.” She vaguely nods to her surroundings, the house she has, the life, with her wife and her son surrounding her.

The gesture might be vague, but the message is received clearly. Eddie looks around and an understanding look comes over his features. They’ve gotten through to him.

Just when Hen is about to take a relieved breath that they made it through this, a tear leaks out of the corner of one of Eddie’s eyes. It’s followed by another and another, until there are tears streaming down Eddie’s face.

It takes a moment for the rest of him to catch up with the fact that he’s crying, but soon he’s taking shuddering breaths as he weeps, gasping for air as he fails to get enough between each sob.

Karen can’t take it anymore and puts her arm around his shoulders again, opening up her side as an invitation. Eddie doesn’t decline, burying his face into her shoulder as he continues to cry for what feels like forever.

When he can’t seem to get the crying under control no matter how hard he tries, he makes a frustrated noise. Untangling himself from Karen’s hug and furiously wiping at his eyes, before blindly grabbing one of the bottles and emptying it into his glass.

As he starts drinking, Hen cautiously asks: “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. I’m in love with my friend and I’m drinking saw dust wine,” Eddie says in a voice that’s nasally from the tears.

Apologetically, Karen offers: “I can open another bottle, give you something better to drink?”

“Please, don’t. I still have to face Buck today,” Eddie says, then thinks for a moment and amends: “On second thought, maybe do, because I don’t know how I’m going to face Buck today.”

Karen gets up and comes back with another bottle, saying: “This one is a little fruity.”

Eddie looks up with her, still crying, but also shocked out for it for a moment. Both Karen and Hen are confused until he says: “That’s not funny.”

Hen and Karen process that for a second, before they realize, then burst out into laughter. They feel slightly sorry towards Eddie, but he joins in too after a few moments until they’re all giggling on the couch.

Once they’ve finally caught their breath and calmed down again. Karen clears her throat and holds up the bottle, asking: “You want me to open it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let me ask you this,” Hen says. “Do you want to talk about it more, or do you want me to text Buck to come pick you up?”

“Talk about it more,” Eddie replies a bit too fast. He explains: “I don’t think I can face him yet. What if I can’t keep my mouth shut when I see him?” He adds in a hushed voice: “I think I’m a little tipsy.”

“You’re definitely past tipsy,” Hen informs him with an amused look. “I’ll get everyone some water instead.”

“Nooo,” Eddie whines. “Then I’ll be sober enough to think about it.”

“You need to hydrate. Drink some water and we might open the bottle of wine,” Hen says, ignoring how Karen pouts at the conditions too.

“Fine,” Eddie sulks.

“Smart choice,” Hen laughs, before getting up.

When she comes back with the water, Karen has thankfully left the bottle unopened on the coffee table, though they have been drinking the already open wines.

Karen has sagged down on the couch. Eddie is beside her, leaning towards her as she leans back towards him. She asks: “So what do you even like about Buck?”

Eddie is red and Hen isn’t sure if it’s the wine or the crush. He ducks into himself and mutters: “He’s nice and funny and pretty, uh, handsome, pretty handsome. And he’s great with Chris. And it’s not hard to talk to him.”

Okay, the stuttering makes Hen decide it’s probably embarrassment, so she swoops in with the water, making sure they both start drinking, before plopping down on her chair again.

Karen has started Eddie up again and he’s now telling her all about how Buck always has his back and how he’s his partner in everything and how they’re best friends and it’s nice. So nice.

It’s a little adorable and Hen maybe films a little bit, so she’ll have something to play on the wedding… or well, the redo of the wedding, when it’s for real. Because that must happen at some point with the way they love each other.

They end up not opening bottle number three, which is a smart plan. Hen only drank one glass, maybe one and a half, so Eddie and Karen both basically drank a bottle a person. And Karen likes wine, it’s a hobby, so she has some sort of tolerance. Eddie? Not so much.

About an hour later and he’s still giggly, albeit a little soberer. He’s been waxing poetics about Buck, then slapping his hand over his mouth and saying he shouldn’t be saying those things, before Karen encourages him again and the cycle repeats.

When he starts up about Buck’s pretty blue eyes for the third time, Hen decides to change the topic. She has to work with Buck too and she doesn’t want to think about this every time she makes eye contact with her coworker. So she asks: “So, are you going to tell Buck about this revelation?”

Eddie’s smile drops immediately and he becomes pale as he violently shakes his head no. “No, no, never, he can never know,” he says without hesitation. “He’s already done so much and it’ll only make it weird and what if he hates me and wants to leave? Chris will be devastated.”

“What if he feels the same?” Hen suggests, though a little carefully.

“Pff, as if. He’s straight,” Eddie snorts in a manner that says ‘don’t be ridiculous.’

And look, a part of Hen wants to shake him and tell him that Buck is very much in love with him too and that’s not going to happen. She does, truly, because this stupidity makes her want to run her head into a wall multiple times.

However, she doesn’t know Eddie, only met him a week ago. And Eddie clearly only acknowledged two hours ago that he’s not straight and in love with his best friend. On top of that, the way he keeps saying he shouldn’t be saying that, means he has a way to go before he’s accepting it.

Hen can’t know how Eddie will react to Buck loving him too. Maybe he’ll be okay, maybe this revelation will get stuffed down again – ‘fought down’ as Eddie said – and that will be bad, very bad for Buck. She simply doesn’t feel comfortable outing anyone, but especially in a situation as precarious as this.

Because it is precarious.

While she doesn’t think it will happen, the possibility of this exploding is still very much open. And if that happens, they’ll have a child together, a house together, a job together and a marriage. That’s not something that can be easily split, take it from someone who needed a lawyer to break up with her girlfriend before they got back together again.

So, she just makes a calming gesture and says: “Okay, okay, that’s fine. You don’t have to tell him if you aren’t ready.”

“I’ll never be ready, I’m taking this to the grave,” Eddie vows.

“That’s fine too,” Hen says.

“A little dramatic, but yeah,” Karen adds.

Eddie pouts at Karen. “I’m not dramatic.”

Karen squeezes his cheek then pats it two times as she says: “Sure you aren’t. You’re just being pouty for no reason.”

“I’m not being pouty,” Eddie pouts harder.

Thankfully, he has forgotten about the scare Hen gave him about potentially telling Buck about his feeling and is distracted by Karen. The protest about pouting turned into kids behavior, which turned into them bitching about pick up line, especially the other parents at the pick up line and their nosiness. Hen just lets them.

Though soon after the fun is over. The shift they came off wasn’t too tiring or busy, but it was a long one and the exhaustion starts to catch up. Hen can feel it herself and she can see Eddie nodding off here and there too.

So, she steps into the hallway and calls Buck, who immediately picks up: “Hen, why did Eddie text me that you know and are taking him to meet your wife?”

“Because I do know and I did take him to meet my wife,” Hen tells him as if that’s not strange. “I need you to come pick him up.”

“What did you do to him?” Buck asks.

“Why are you so distrustful?” Hen shoots back.

“Because you have sensitive information,” Buck guffaws.

“That I promised not to tell,” Hen says. “And I didn’t. We just drank some wine – Eddie is apparently a great wine taster – and heard his side of the story. You never did tell us how you two met. Not as romantic as I envisaged.”

“Oh fuck off,” Buck says, though he sounds relieved. “And he’s okay?”

“On the wrong side of tipsy, but doing great. He has a lot of opinions about one Janet.”

“From pick up line?” Buck asks surprised, before – less surprised – he adds: “Of course he does, Janet is a bitch.”

“Okay, so you share opinions about Janet,” Hen replies with amusement. “Can you come pick him up? I want to get my post shift nap in, before me and Karen go out for dinner. It’s date night.”

“Yeah, sure, text me the address,” Buck says. “Is it going to be a quick in and out or like a long thing, because I’m just gonna buckle Chris in and take him with me, but I’ll leave him in the car if it’s quick.”

Hen glances over to Eddie, who is now fully sleeping on the couch, while Karen plays a game on her phone next to him. “It’ll probably be a quick in and out.”

“Alright, see you in a bit.”

“See you in a bit.”

Indeed Buck shows up a little while later. Hen opens the door for him, shooting a curious look at the jeep to see a young boy with brown curls and thick, red glasses reading a book in the backseat.

“He’s been really into this book series recently, so he’s practically shut off from the world,” Buck says when he follows her eyes for a second. Then he claps his hands and says: “Now, show me the patient.”

At this point, the patient in question is fully sleeping on the couch, a rosy flush still on his cheeks. The sight actually stops Buck in his tracks for a second and Hen mentally files that away to make fun of him for later.

He quickly shakes Karen’s hand introducing himself as she giggles. She’s probably connecting the things Eddie just said about Buck to Buck and can’t keep a straight face, or just plain laughing because of the same thing Hen just filed away, since the wine stripped her off the ability to keep it in. Buck is a little confused, but takes it in stride, before going to study Eddie, seemingly trying to make a decision.

Buck watches Eddie doze for a second, trying to decide whether he’s going to disturb his sleep or bruise his ego and just pick him up to tuck into bed at home. In the end, he decides on waking him up. He doesn’t know what kind of conversation he’s had with Hen and Karen and he doesn’t want to push more.

After a beat or two, he gently nudges Eddie’s shoulder, softly saying: “Hey, Eddie, it’s time to wake up, okay? We’re gonna go home.”

Eddie’s face screws up and he burrows his face further into the couch cushions as he wines: “I don’t want to go home. I wanna stay with my new friend, Karen. She’s really nice.”

“I’m glad you had fun,” Buck says, looking highly amused. “It’s good that you made a friend, but we’re gonna go home now.”

“You’re mean,” Eddie says, popping up to pout at Buck. Though whatever he wanted to say, seems to die on his lips when he spots Buck. Instead an awed, very in love expression coming onto his features.

Buck is oblivious to this, snorting and shaking his head, before he huffs: “Yeah, the meanest. Now, up you go, Chris is waiting in the car.”

“Chris!” Eddie lights up at the mention of his son. “He’s here?” he asks, looking around.

“He’s in the car outside, you gotta get up and say bye to Hen and Karen and then we’ll go see Chris, yeah?”

“Alright,” Eddie groans, before holding up both his hands.

Buck hesitates for a moment, then grabs them and pulls Eddie onto his feet. Immediately Eddie stumbles forward, half draping himself over Buck as he complains: “My legs are jello. Too much wine.”

“Sure, wine,” Karen snorts, then giggles.

Eddie half glares at her from his position on Buck’s shoulder and mutters: “Shut up.”

“Okay, that is enough hospitality from Hen and Karen for today,” Buck decides, bending forward slightly and picking Eddie up, who goes easily, though with a small yelp and a flush on his face.

This time Buck sees Hen take a picture of them and gives her the middle finger, before asking: “Will you help with the doors, I need to get this lightweight to the car.”

“I’m not a lightweight,” Eddie protests, even while making no move to get put down again, instead making himself comfortable.

“Sure you aren’t,” Buck says affectionately.

“I’m not,” Eddie frowns. “I just haven’t drank much in a while, I don’t know if you remembered, but I got shot. I wasn’t allowed to drink.” A beat. “And clubs are stupid.”

Hen sees Buck’s face become pinched when Eddie references his injury so casually, but you can’t hear it in his voice when he agrees: “Okay, you’re not a lightweight. Hen, the doors?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Hen quickly says, moving forward to open the front door and slipping out so she can get the car.

As Buck follows behind her, he calls out a greeting to Karen, who stays on the porch. From where he is half slung over Buck’s shoulder, Eddie waves cheerfully, any earlier grudge forgotten as he calls out a goodbye.

Karen waves back, yelling: “Come by again, we’ll try more wine.”

Hen can hear Buck mutter, “That sounds like a bad idea,” but it is mostly drowned out by Eddie yelling back: “Sounds fun. Text me?”

“I will,” Karen calls out, even though she doesn’t have his number. Hen will probably have to give it to her later.

Meanwhile, they’ve arrived at the car and Hen has opened the door. As Buck wrestles Eddie into the passenger seat, Hen focuses on Chris, who has rolled his window down and is curiously looking at his two dads.

“Hi, I’m Hen, I work with your dads,” she introduces herself.

Now Chris looks at her, smiling: “I’m Christopher, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Hen smiles. “You okay back there?”

“Yes, I’m reading,” Chris tells her in an unbothered cheerful manner. “Papi says daddy had a little party with his friends, are you and that lady his friends?”

“We are. That’s my wife, Karen,” Hen says. “Your daddy is acting a little silly right now because of our little party, hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s okay, we’re just glad he’s making friends,” Chris says in that candid way only a child can. Then he whispers: “Daddy doesn’t like people very much.”

Hen laughs at that and says: “Well, he seemed to have fun. So, he at least likes some people. Have a good day, alright?”

“I will, you too,” Chris smiles, then turns back to his book.

Buck is now done with getting Eddie into the car, closing the door with a slam. Eddie is leaning back in his seat to say hi to Chris and is distracted. After one last glance to make sure he’s okay, Buck turns to Hen and says: “I would say thank you for looking out for him, but I feel like you were also involved.”

“I was,” Hen doesn’t deny it. “But it was mostly them. Seems like Eddie made a friend.”

“I’m glad they got along,” Buck gives in after a moment. Then he’s quiet for a moment, before he says: “Did anything weird come up or something? What did you even talk about?”

“Not much,” Hen shrugs. “I just wanted to know his side of the story, fill in the blanks you know. He told us a little more about how the two of you ended up married and all that. But we also just talked about the wine and school pick up, that sort of stuff.”

“Okay,” Buck nods, more to himself. “And you’re not going to tell Bobby?”

“Nah,” Hen says. “Not unless you two make it a problem at work. Are you planning on behaving unprofessionally, Buckley?” she ends pointedly, giving a look over her glasses.

Unconsciously, Buck straightens up under her gaze and shakes his head: “No, ma’am.”

Hen smiles pleasantly: “Then I see no reason to tell. See you next shift.”

“Yeah, till next shift.”

She joins Karen on the porch, watching Buck back out of their driveway. Eddie has moved on from talking to Chris, who clearly has more interest in reading his book, to messing with the radio. Buck bats his hand away when he finds something Buck must like and he pouts at him.

However, Buck is too busy backing out at that point and doesn’t notice. Because of that, he also doesn’t notice the flushed, mushy look that comes onto Eddie’s face for a moment when he looks at the muscular arm resting on his seat, before he quickly looks away.

In doing so, he catches Karen looking and she wiggles her eyebrows at him, which only make him blush more as he pointedly looks away from her.

When the jeep has disappeared from view, Hen throws an arm around Karen and asks: “So, was meeting Eddie like you’d hoped?”

“Better,” Karen grins brightly. “I think he’s going to wake up with a headache and a passion for wine. It is going to be so fun to have more wine nights.”

“You’re a little manipulator, aren’t you,” Hen says fondly, kissing her forehead.

Karen leans into the kiss as she shrugs: “I don’t think he’s getting Pandora’s box closed again, he’s going to need a friend. Two birds in one stone if you ask me.”

Next shift is slightly weird, because now it’s not just Buck and Hen, and Buck and Eddie in on a secret, but Buck, Eddie and Hen that are in on the secret. And on top of that, Hen is now the holder of the ‘in love with my best friend’-secret for both Buck and Eddie.

Chimney picks up on the weird vibes and brings it up a few hours into their shift. “I feel like you’re all in on something and I wasn’t invited.”

They all freeze for a moment, before Buck clumsily says: “You’re right. We created the ‘our name is not an object’-club and we’ve been keeping it a secret.”

It’s very clearly a lie, but it’s so ridiculous that it kind of sounds like Buck making fun of Chimney for seeing something that’s not there. So it works in their favor.

“Oi, you’re name is also an object, dumbass,” Chimney decides to take offense with Buck’s lie anyway. “I mean, can I borrow a buck; ring any bells? Or Hen, hen is a thing, it’s a chicken.”

“Oh my god, my name is an object,” Buck mutters, having a crisis over that.

Eddie, however, protests part of Chimney’s statement: “Hey, a chicken is an animal, not an object. You think animals are just things? Chickens are great.”

That gets a smile out of Buck that Hen doesn’t get, before he joins in on it, while Chimney desperately tries to defend himself. The whole thing is so absurd that it breaks the tension between all of them and they settle back into their pre-wine drunk Eddie routine.

Some things do change, since Buck and Eddie emergency babysit Denny that one time when their usual babysitter fell through on date night, and Eddie and Karen have become actual friends, texting and even drinking more wine a few more times.

Hen can’t say for sure what happens all the time when they do, because she actually got kicked out of her own house for wine club last time – something the two of them probably came up with on the spot – so she and Buck ended up taking Chris and Denny to the movies that evening, since the two get along and it was better than sitting around doing nothing.

However, overall, it’s normal. They have a dynamic.

Two months into Eddie working there, that balance gets thrown off again when a new variable gets introduced; Maddie Buckley.

When she suddenly appears in the firehouse, Hen has to do a double take and reassess her view of Buck once more. She already knew he could keep secrets, but with how bad a liar he was and how many secrets she has already gotten out of him, she honestly thought there wouldn’t be any more. However, he is like a vault when it comes to secrets and it surprises her anyway.

Maddie seems like a nice person and Hen hates that what she thinks is implied happened to her. And she hopes Maddie settles in here okay with Buck and Eddie, especially since Buck looks so heartbreakingly hopeful when he asks her to hang around.

Hen can’t imagine what that must be like, to have a sibling you love so much be so far away and hurting and to have them here now and feel like they’ll slip away.

When Buck comes in next shift, they all ask about it of course. He smiles and says she’s doing good and taking the sharing with Buck well, from which Hen infers she must have gotten the whole marriage of convenience and son run down and is taking that well.

However, she doesn’t get any further information until their first weekend off when there is sudden knocking at the door. She opens it to find a frazzled looking Eddie asking: “Is Karen home?”

“Also hello to you,” Hen says, opening the door wider. “Karen is in the kitchen.”

“Ah, yeah, hello,” Eddie says, brushing past her. “It’s an emergency.”

“Emergency?” Hen repeats to herself. “We’re first responders, why does he need Karen for an emergency?” She stands by the open door in confusion for two seconds, before shaking herself out of it and going to see what this emergency is.

Apparently it’s serious, because when she gets there, Karen has made tea and is setting it down in front of Eddie, asking: “Alright, so tell me. What’s the problem?”

“Maddie,” Eddie groans.

“As in Buck’s sister? She seemed nice,” Hen comments as she sits down too.

“She is, she is,” Eddie assures them. “It’s just also horrible.”

“How so?” Karen asks.

“I-” Eddie stops for a second. “I’ve never had to impress in-laws before. I met Shannon’s mom once, but that was just after she’d given birth and that had been so stressful that I didn’t even think to be stressed about that. But with Maddie, I actually want her to like me, but I don’t want her to know that I want her to like me.”

“Okay, explain that one to me,” Karen requests.

“Well, if I want her to like me, that’s suspicious and she’s already suspicious of me, because I’ve basically trapped her baby brother in a marriage, so she keeps side eyeing me and Buck doesn’t notice, because he’s too happy to have his sister back and Chris is a kid, who is still excited about the novel tía he discovered so it’s just her and me, locked in this stand off,” Eddie explains. “And that’s not even touching on the bed situation.”

“We’re coming back to the bed situation,” Karen tells him, before moving on. “Why is she suspicious of you? You didn’t trap Buck into that marriage. Doesn’t she know that?”

“She does. We – well, Buck – did explain that after she yelled at me. A lot,” Eddie says, looking kind of scared at the memory. “But it’s not a good look, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at it from her perspective. Buck married me for my benefit and she knows he has that big heart of his and she’s definitely protective of it – which I understand with their childhood – so she doesn’t trust that at all. And we were meant to be divorced, but we aren’t, so it only looks like I’m trapping him more, because it’s easy. Taking advantage of him. And me being the one that came up with lying about it at work, that looks even worse!”

“Okay, yeah, I can understand how that might seem a little bad at first glance,” Karen winces sympathetically.

“But Buck talked to her about it, right? She knows that’s not what’s happening, right?” Hen asks, unable to believe Buck wouldn’t set the record straight when Maddie yelled at Eddie ‘a lot.’

“He did. I wasn’t there when he did, so I don’t know what he said and she now only seems to tolerate my presence, but there is something she hates about me and I can’t figure out what and it’s stressing me out,” Eddie exclaims.

Hen and Karen exchange a look at that. If Buck talked to Maddie without Eddie there, he might have told him he’s in love with him, which means Maddie probably thinks Eddie is playing with her little brother’s heart. That’s not an easy one to come back from.

Eddie misses the glance due to the despair and Karen pats his back as she says: “I’m sure she’ll come around. You’re a great guy. She’s only just got here, she’s probably waiting to see what kind of person you are, before committing to liking you.”

“I hope so,” Eddie says miserably.

“Don’t be like that, I liked you immediately. Maybe you should ask her to wine night, seeing you tipsy will warm her up to you,” Karen suggests.

Eddie sends her a deadpan look. “I don’t think me waxing poetry about her baby brother’s muscles is going to warm her up to me, Karen.”

“Maybe not the muscles, but your one about his eyes is pretty good,” Karen grins.

“I hate you,” Eddie blushes.

“I know,” Karen tells him unbothered. “So, tell me about this bed situation.”

Somehow, Eddie becomes pinker as he confesses: “Buck gave Maddie his room, so we’ve been sharing my bed again.”

“Again?” both Karen and Hen repeat quite loudly.

“Yeah, we shared back in Texas, since we only had one bedroom, but then we didn’t share-share often, because I worked nights and he worked days, so it was more that we both used the bed. Now, we’re sharing and-” Eddie swallows and doesn’t look either of them in the eye as he continues, “Buck is a hugger.”

Hen forces her face into something neutral, not wanting to do anything suggestive that would make Eddie uncomfortable. Karen, on the other hand, has no such issues, whistling and wiggling her eyebrows in that adorably dorky way of hers.

“Shut up,” Eddie hisses, more embarrassed than genuinely put off as he buries his face in his arms, slumping over the table.

Karen gives a quick side bar to Hen, explaining: “Eddie recently discovered what sexual attraction feels like.”

“Is that why I got kicked out last wine night?” Hen asks.

She nods and apologetically says: “Yeaaah, he had to talk it through with someone who doesn’t work with Buck. But for now, he’s… coping.”

“I’m not coping,” Eddie calls out, voice muffled by his arms. “This is the worst. I wake up every day with his warm body plastered to my back and his strong arm pinning me to the bed.”

“Oh, sounds terrible,” Karen says sarcastically.

“Just because you can lick your spouse’s muscles, doesn’t mean I can,” Eddie mutters spitefully.

Hen realizes that this is a two way street and she has also been a topic of conversation. Scandalized, she slaps Karen’s arm lightly as she gasps: “Karen.”

“What? It’s nothing bad, everyone knows I like your muscles. It’s nothing I wouldn’t mention to my mom,” Karen defends herself.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, Hen,” Eddie backs Karen up, having come out of the hiding spot in his arms to do so.

Suspiciously Hen looks between the two for a moment, before she believes them. “Okay, but don’t tell him anything too weird.”

“I’d never do that,” Karen promises solemnly.

Then the conversation is broken from a yell from deeper in the house. “Mama, can you help me with my biology homework?”

Happy to extract herself from the situation, Hen calls back: “Of course, sweetheart, I’m on my way,” already halfway out her chair, before she’s done.

By the time Denny understands his biology homework and has filled in all the sheets they were assigned, Eddie and Karen must have come up with some plan to tackle the Maddie and bed sharing situation, because when Hen joins them again, Karen is recounting the drama from the farmer’s market to Eddie, when Fred accused Hendrick of using a pesticide.

Eddie is properly engaged with the conversation, gasping and exclaiming at the right points and interjecting his own opinion, despite not being present or knowing any of the people involved. He looks comfortable, at home in his skin. Hen thinks he’s come a long way from the kind of uptight, nervous, professional man she met that first day.

They all continue chatting for a little more, until Eddie decides that he really must be heading home. So, they see him out.

At the door, Karen pep talks him a little more. “Just be yourself and show her how much you care. Give it some time and you’re gonna be just fine.”

“I’m gonna be fine,” Eddie repeats determinedly. Before adding, “I hope.”

“That’s the spirit,” Karen says cheerfully. “And if all else fails, you can always still tell her that you’re just madly in love with Buck and have no ill intentions towards him and would never hurt him, so she shouldn’t worry.”

Going off Eddie’s look, it is clear that this is not the first time Karen has suggested it. Mentally, Hen can’t help, but agree with the suggestion. Eddie not so much. He just glares: “I’m not going to do that.”

With that, they say their goodbyes.

Next shift, Hen is dying to ask how it’s going, maybe even prod a little. She watches Buck complain about the traffic after bringing Maddie to work and she is just about to tease by asking him, if he at least slept well, when the ground starts to shake. An earthquake.

Any thoughts of teasing Buck are thrown out the window as they all pull out and get to work. A natural disaster is bad for anyone, but it will prove especially busy for first responders.

Hen is right in that regard, she doesn’t get a moment of peace to catch her breath, until she herself has become trapped in the parking garage of a hotel that is about to collapse on top of her. It’s not the most ideal break, if she’s honest.

She’s sitting there. Dust in her lungs and her eyes. Her muscles ache and her throat is sore. And, most of all, she’s tired. Exhausted really.

Thoughts about anything from before this moment are wiped away and nothing exists in that moment, except her shaking breaths, stuttering heartbeat and ringing in her ears. Around her the dark space is pressing down on her.

In that moment, the only two things she can think are 1) I am going to die down here, and 2) I am never going to see my family again, never going to see Denny and Karen again.

It’s a terrifying thing.

Nothing like a natural disaster to make you realize how close you are to losing all you have. All you hold dear.

Tears push at her eyes and she’s very aware of the dead body not that far away from her. She tries to remember if she said a proper goodbye like she always tries to do before she left, or if she’d been in a hurry this morning. Tries to remember if she told Karen she loves her.

She wants to make sure Karen knows how much she loves her. How much she loves this family they have together. That Hen never wants to lose her. That she would do anything to come home to her, but the situation is just so hopeless.

Unable to just sit still and do nothing, Hen takes out her phone and records a message for Karen. She would call, but cell service is still down. She doesn’t get to hear Karen’s voice again and that thought breaks her heart.

Hen holds the phone up and records what will likely be her final words with a voice that is squeezed by a tightness in her throat and halted by her brain.

When she’s done. She nearly tosses it in frustration as very real tears start to fall down her face. She doesn’t want to die like this. Helpless. She doesn’t want to die at all. She wants to come home, see her wife and her kid. She wants to live, dammit. She wants to live!

With a loud yells she starts moving again, starts trying to find a way out again. Wilsons have always been stubborn and by god, is she not going to stop today.

It feels almost like a miracle when Paisley saves the day, showing her the way out and leading her to the little girl she’d been trying to find. So many tragedies happen on days like these and just a few moments before, Hen had almost resigned herself to becoming one of them. Instead, she is a rare instance of good fortune.

She is absolutely exhausted and just ready to go home. She has called Karen when Chimney was done checking her over, didn’t mention how close she got, just told her that she loved her very much and would be home soon, bringing a friend with her. Paisley deserves a good home.

Hen is so out of it, she doesn’t even think to act surprised when Bobby seems to know about Chris. She just nods at Eddie’s smile, she knows the feeling. The first earthquake always is the roughest, especially with loved ones out there, with a kid out there.

Buck also seems way more relaxed and there is something about him that lights up. Same goes for Eddie, Hen supposes they’re just excited to have survived such a big disaster. That their whole family did. Both of them are quite new to the game.

So, she doesn’t pay their weirdness any mind and doesn’t blink when Buck calls Eddie over so he can drive them both home, before they can even get out of the firehouse. His eyes swimming with delight as he says: “You pulled a woman up with your bare arms today. You shouldn’t be driving.”

It’s pretty daring for them with the secret they have, but Eddie doesn’t seem to bat an eye, instead thrilled to take Buck up on the offer.

At home, Hen takes a few seconds to introduce Paisley and explain why she had to bring her home, then she face plants onto her wife, hugging her tight and knocking out for about twelve hours. It’s a pretty normal routine for a big disaster aftermath.

In fact, everything is so normal that she didn’t pick up on anything and gets completely blind-sighted when coming into work next shift. Because Eddie and Buck come in together and they’re slightly late as well.

Together they make their way up the stairs, but they don’t join everyone like normal, instead stopping a few paces away and standing there awkwardly, until Bobby notices and asks: “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine, we just, uh…” Buck starts, before trailing off, unsure how to say whatever he needs to say.

Helplessly, he looks over at Eddie, who squares his shoulders and tilts his head defiantly. He grabs Buck’s hand and announces: “Me and Buck started dating.”

A shocked silence falls over the room. It last for about two beats, then:

“YOU DID WHAT? You- You! You! I can’t believe you two. Months. Months! I had to deal with your bullshit for months. And this is how I find out? You didn’t even tell me first?? I got to find out with everyone else? This is so rude. When the fuck did that even happen?”

The two of them blink a few times at her outburst, then start to explain at the same time. Buck starts: “It happened during the earthquake and you’d just been through a lot.” And Eddie adds: “It was spur of the moment with the elevator. Buck nearly died.” “Uh-huh, and then it was kind of new and we still had to talk.” “And over text was weird and we were going to see you anyway.”

Then suddenly, Buck pauses, before he can make his next excuse and says: “Wait, Eddie told you he liked me?”

Hen gives him an ‘are you for real?’-look and says: “What do you think happened at wine night?”

“Wait, you told her you liked me?” Eddie also realizes what Buck had moments before.

“How do you think I knew?” Hen exclaims, utterly done with these two idiots. She can’t believe she got invested and that is the thanks she gets.

Before the two can start squabbling, Bobby steps in: “Okay, okay, why don’t we all calm down for a bit, yeah? It’s clear there is more to this, but for now. Buck, Eddie, congratulations, but there will be paperwork and this might get you separated.” The two nod. They understand.

Then Chimney pipes up: “Hen, did you just say months? Was that what that first day was? A misfiring of horny Buck’s brain?”

“Don’t call it that,” Buck protests.

In the background, Bobby excuses himself to get the paperwork, which Hen respects, however, she wants to see whatever train wreck this turns out to be.

“What do you mean, don’t call it that? It’s what it is right? Your brain telling you ‘fuck that guy’ and you not realizing that was an instruction?” Chimney argues.

Buck jumps him, slapping his hand over Chimney’s mouth as he chants: “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” while in the background Eddie turns a bright pink. Hen isn’t going to save them, this is pay back for not telling her first.

However, she is going to ask: “So, how did it happen?” in a loud voice, which ends the fight, because Chimney is curious too and Buck gets stopped by the love struck look on his face.

“Uh, we were rescuing these two people by going down the elevator shaft. Halfway through it started creaking and coming down. It-” Eddie has to swallow thickly when reliving the moment. “It nearly killed Buck. I- I thought I was going to lose him.”

“You didn’t lose me,” Buck says, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder and looking him in the eye intently.

You can see how Eddie melts when he meets Buck’s eyes and Hen’s heart does a little ‘ahw’ at the sight, momentarily forgetting she’s annoyed with them.

“And so what? You just kissed him or some shit?” Chimney asks, ruining the moment.

Eddie snaps out of his getting lost in Buck’s eyes shtick and blushes brightly, not meeting anyone’s eyes as he does. Delighted, Chimney crows: “Oh wow, you totally just kissed him.”

“It was romantic!” Eddie protests.

“I liked it,” Buck pipes up.

Wildly, he gestures at Buck. “See, he liked it.”

“God, you two are made for each other,” Hen mutters to herself.

Before it can all spiral again, Bobby comes back carrying a stack of paper. He puts two piles down on the table and says: “You two need to fill these in, before you can continue answering questions. I’ll hand them over to the brass with my observations and we’ll see what they decide. Until then, we work this shift as usual. No funny business.”

Eddie is still pink, but Buck mostly looks sheepish. Both of them say: “Yes, sir,” before sitting down and filling in the paperwork.

Hen can tell Bobby and Chimney are itching to ask more as much as she is. However, they all wait until Buck and Eddie filled in all the paperwork before they do. The second they hand it over, Chimney starts asking something, but before he can even finish the first sound, Bobby cuts him off by stating: “You both wrote down that you’re married.”

Chimney chokes on whatever he was going to say, coughing a few times, before he squeezes out: “I thought only lesbians moved that fast,” which makes Hen snort.

Bobby sends Buck and Eddie a concerned look. “Is that true? Are you two married?”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Eddie says.

“We thought it’d be best to just be honest now that it’s real,” Buck adds.

And Hen remembers they didn’t say, because it wasn’t real anyway. She supposes that has changed, though she can’t believe this is the way they’re sharing that. They are so dumb, she thinks to herself.

“And how long has that been going on?”

“A few years, Cap,” Buck grins, only mildly apologetic.

Again all hell breaks lose and this time Hen exclaims, “Oh my god,” out loud, before needing to walk away, just be anywhere but there. She already knows the story anyway and she cannot deal with any of this right now.

She goes to the locker rooms and just sits down for a moment, needing to regroup. This is both the funniest thing that has ever happened to her and one of the more off the walls things, which is saying a lot given her line of work.

Without thinking, she pulls out her phone and dials the most familiar number. After a few rings, Karen picks up. Hen doesn’t greet her, just says: “You’re never going to guess what just happened.”

~~

A/N:

My toxic writer trait (joking) is that I will find a reason to insert Karen Wilson (and Henren in general) into any 9-1-1 fic if I can, I am a lesbian and I shall not be shamed xp

(I hate the cheater arc so goddamn much and I hate that it became relevant in the main fic and I am very happily cutting it here <3)

Also I really liked exploring Hen’s POV when she thought Buck just wasn’t out, because it’s not morally wrong to be closeted, to not want to share that, especially at work. It doesn’t make you a bad person to keep things private, no matter how accepting an environment will probably be. And it was so interesting – and a little cathartic (hi, semi-closeted bitch here) – to write those little moments where it was obvious to Hen, because she knew, but not to anyone else and how that can hurt sometimes.

I am not immune to Karen and Eddie becoming besties, it is a good fanon trope and I gladly incorporate it into my perception of the show

And I know, a little fade to black ending, but this already got too far out of hand and I thought it was a neat little ending :D

[to-rise-above-monsters]

how i interpreted the bertholdt thing was that armin’s understanding of annie deepened bc of bertholdt’s memories, not that it necessarily controlled his feelings (like how eren implied)

i reallyyy like aruani as a concept. they mean so much to me. ‘girl who doesn’t care for life’ ‘boy who cares so much’ (i also just love them as characters so much)

i think the downside for them was how long ago s1 was.

warning rant underneath (im embarrassed im so sorry)

i’d been such a long time fan but dropped off when there was a hiatus of the anime and decided ill just binge the manga when it’s done. the only real reason annie was on my mind was bc of how dedicated i was to the rba dynamic and how much i loved annie (and fanon annie) as a character. but she truly wasn’t a character for nearly half of the series.

i even knew someone who saw her in the crystal and asked me “who’s that?”

i think she suffered from fandom slightly but now it being canon ig they were right. it was a little annoying for fandom (a small part of it) deciding that every character needed to be paired off with each other and that annie must be in love with one of the boys she tolerates. maybe that was a small reason i found the canonicity so out of nowhere?

bc i love fanon ships for sillies but making a female character HAVE to hinge on a relationship with a man rubbed me the wrong way. but that’s not what aruani is in canon and im so thankful for that. but i still wish there was more

it sucks because there was really no way of developing her or their relationship while she was in the crystal and idek how someone could properly execute it but it was very jarring for her to come out of an absence that was longer than the timeskip for the readers. we hadn’t even seen her for i think six years? and then immediately she is fully canon with a character that we had followed for all the time she’d been missing.

idk i wish they had more. i wish it wasn’t hints. i wish it wasn’t the assumption that they must be romantic because of this, this and this.

their stuff in season 1 was so nice. i remember being so intrigued. but that’s all it kinda was? we never had a reason. why did she spare him? why did she seem to care about him in particular? why did she want to ‘be a good person’ for him? so interesting.

but we… never get an answer? is it because he called her nice? she clearly had empathy for him before that. but that wasn’t something ever shown. even the compilation of moments always seems to start in the middle of a blossoming relationship. there was never a moment that solidified their mutual respect and interest for each other. it’s just something that just… happened? off screen?

rereading all these years later, i can catch these things and be like ohhhh yeah ig that was them liking each other. but when it was happening in real time, it was the most jarring and insane jump. i was like woah woah buddy what is going on.

sudden blushing and confession was so crazy to me. it felt so sudden. and so did other ships. it felt like “ofc they were in love the whole time they’re a woman and a man who have some interest in each other”

honestly, something that could have been implemented maybe was that armin was genuinely talking to her not because he was in love with her but he did genuinely ‘want to see her’. maybe a scene of him reflecting on maybe why he wanted to talk to her so badly (he kinda does but i want it to circle back to his regrets and maybe acknowledging all the times she spared him or cared about him to a certain capacity). maybe a flashback of why annie respected armin so much. or when their relationship started.

and maybe showing him visiting her throughout? but from a lore perspective, i feel like that still wouldn’t work. sigh im so sorry. i have so many feelings and I don’t think I’ve ever actually written it out before 💀

idk im so sorry im rambling SO BAD. i think snk deserved to have a lot more breathing room and filler. letting my children just breathe and talk for a second. (i think that’s why junior high was so good and so well received)

i love this manga so much and i know some people hate the ending but i personally really love this series and it’s overall message and think it’s so well written. and i love anyone who is passionate about anything and loves things. i just like to write improvements or brainstorm headcanon/how i would tweak things🙏

anyways

isayama put his whole pussy into making yumihisu so explicitly romantic and intimate and loving throughout their entire relationship and decided he was done for the day<3

why did isayama put his whole pussy into yumihisu after saying he can’t write romance. and then fumble when it came to the straights.

[theitgirlnetwork]

What Are You Willing To Do?

Ch. 1 : Self-Restraint (Rafe has none)

Milan's Party Outfit

Note: Okay this took forever to come out and I'm sorry. Please let me know what you think. Also something to note, I have an OC who is the main love interest in my JJ story. She is present in this story, but the two stories don't intertwine. Just something for those of you who will read both. I hope you enjoy and I love interacting. I will accept (constructive) criticism. And feedback. Another note, Milan is a little more of a bimbo character than my other ones, she won't be fully lost and I refuse to make her childlike. She just likes to be in the wind and chose a man who handles stuff for her. Also she doesn't have a permanent face claim yet, so if you have any ideas for that, please message them to me! :) Thank you for giving my story a chance, and if you're reading any of my other stories, I hope to be posting more to have some reprieve from the state of the world. Thanks so much!

Warnings: Mentions of sexual conduct, strong language, drug use

“Let’s go, I don’t know why I have to wait for you, we’ve got things to handle today, you’re makin’ me late-”

“Yeah, Dad-” Rafe huffs, jogging his way down the steps, grabbing his jacket off of the coat rack in the foyer. “Well, Sara has been in my shit again so, maybe you could talk to her about that-”

“I don’t touch your shit, no one wants your shit, Rafe.”

“I can tell, you probably brought your bum ass pogue boyfriend in here too, he shouldn’t be in the damn house-”

“Rafe!” Ward’s voice booms, making Rafe’s eyes snap to his father’s obediently, mouth snapping shut. “Do you really think that it's productive for you to waste time arguing with your little sister when I just told you we need to get a move on?”

“Uh,” the younger man breathes heavily through his nose, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides as he glares at his sister over his father’s shoulder. “No, sir.” 

“Alright then.” Ward rolls his eyes, nodding his head for his son to grab the bag on the ground and grab the car keys before turning to address his eldest daughter. “Need you to be home for dinner tonight. There’s a new family moving in a couple blocks over and we wanna make a good impression. That means no fighting,” the older man raises his eyebrows at his children, placing his bluetooth in his ear, “no boyfriends, Sarah,” Ward finishes with a rough pat on his son’s back, “no drugs. Get it? This could be big, Gregory Cabot is big in the oil industry and they might want to…settle here. If they do, we should be their first friends, understand?”

Rafe nods quietly, attentively hanging onto his father’s every word. Taking them in with an intensity that would satisfy any other dad. But not Ward Cameron. “Sarah, they’ve got twins about your age. Make sure you and Wheezie are cleaned up nicely. Rafe,” the 21 year old is met with his father’s rough hand smacking his cheek once, twice, under the guise of an affectionate pat. “Don’t fuck it up.”

“It’s like he uh, doesn’t get it, right? Like I do fuckin’ everything he asks, and I’m uh…I’m the fuck up.” Rafe stammers irritably before sending a powerful swing into the golf ball in front of him, watching it sail off into the distance. 

Topper and Kelce exchange looks as their friend grinds his teeth, grabbing a beer from their cart and taking a deep swig. He’d been ranting about this morning since they’d started on the course an hour ago. Apparently, his father’s comment had carried in Rafe’s mind all of the way through the brief errand down at the docks he’d accompanied him on, followed him to the country club and was going to last the entirety of their hang out. 

“Yeah man, I mean,” Topper begins, “I get it right? My mom’s always on some shit too. Like I screw up everything I do.”

“You do, Top.” Kelce chuckles, lining up for his swing.

Rafe nods along, taking another swig. “For real, like realistically, I do everything I’m supposed to, like I really step up and it’s fuckin’ bullshit that I’m still supposed to act like I’m his little bitch boy. I’m fully a man. I’m focused and shit. Because for real, Top, I feel like if Sarah asked you to come over right now you’d go runnin’ right?”

“Fuck you man.”

“Motherfucker knows I’m right.”

“Kelce?”

“I mean, Top, let’s be real.”

Topper rolls his tongue in his cheek irritably, turning red at his friend’s taunting, “Well, y’all are the ones who lost a girl to Maybank. Angel is glued to his broke ass.”

Rafe scoffs, picking his club back up and practicing his swing. “Yeah, fuck that, that was Kelce’s thing. Angel’s bad, but she’s more like the sister I wish Sarah’s annoying ass was.” 

“Sarah’s just like, young minded, she doesn’t know what she wants.”

Kelce laughs again as Rafe rolls his eyes, the two men switching spots as Rafe goes up for his turn again. “She knows, it’s just not you, man. Maybe that pogue just has better dick than you, Top…or did she ever let you fuck her?” Kelce laughs, turning his head to look up the hill at the juice bar at the edge of the course, squinting at something in the distance.

“Fuckin’ disgustin’.” Rafe huffs, swinging again, smirking as the ball goes directly into the hole, resting the club on his broad shoulder. “If you bitches weren’t so worried about chasing ass, maybe your game would be better.” The dirty blond brags, turning to see both of his friends now staring off into the distance. His jaw ticks in annoyance as he realizes that his friends had missed his impressive swing and ignored his bragging to stare at… “what the hell are you idiots looking at?”

When they don’t answer, Rafe decides to look for himself. The sight he sees is simultaneously exactly what he’s expecting and something he couldn’t have seen coming. 

Standing at the juice bar was possibly the sexiest little thing he’s seen in his 21 years of living. Sure, he’d expected to see a pretty girl. That’s just about the only thing that can get both Topper and Kelce to shut the fuck up for more than two seconds. Their eyes wide and mouths slightly agape, the two men didn’t hide their attraction at all. 

But Rafe, he was experiencing something else entirely. He’d thought she was fucking hot like they did, obviously. But this was a different kind of fine. She had to be new. There was no way that she would have evaded him by now. His cheek dimples slightly as he absently bites his lip a bit, watching the girl lean over the counter, her feet lifting slightly off of the ground, her tiny white skirt giving him a shot of the smooth skin that he couldn’t wait to get his hands on. Rafe’s eyes follow her every movement, like a predator stalking its prey. Intense blue drinking in the dark, shiny, barely shoulder length hair falls out from her hat as she lifts it from her head, smoothing her hand over it before placing her hat back on.

Come on, baby, turn around for me. Lemme see the rest of that body. Lemme see that face.

It’s as if she could hear him. Like she decided to move, position herself, just for his enjoyment, because she turns. She turns and pulls herself up onto one of the barstools with a hop, pulling her shades from her face and tucking them onto the front of her shirt. She’s far, but even with the distance, Rafe finds himself puffing out a breath of disbelief, drinking in her gorgeous features. Full, glossy lips, tinged red, big eyes and a sweet, absent expression.

Next thing Rafe knows he’s making his way up the grassy hill, ignoring the calls of his friends for him to wait up. 

“But, my parents are signing up for membership today.” 

“I’m sorry ma’am, but until you’re in the system you’ll have to pay with cash or card.”

Milan pouts and furrows her brows. She just wanted to have a quick refresher before she met up with her mother at the new house so she’d ridden over to the club with her father. She didn’t really think she’d need money. She never carries cash because she’s likely to lose it and she’d left her card in her red purse, but it didn’t match her outfit so she’d sent it ahead to the house. She could go ask her father for money, but he was in the club owner’s office talking shop and had instructed her to explore while he finished up. “But it’s hot out here.” she whines. 

Milan turns to her right and starts scanning the outdoor bar area, looking for someone who looked friendly enough to spot her until her dad came down and paid them back. She drums her manicured nails on the wood of the countertop, ignorant to the bartender rolling her eyes at the girl. 

Finally, her eye lands on a table with three guys that look fresh off of the golf course. They’re all dressed similarly and just like every other guy at the club. Polo shirt and khaki pants. Two of them wore hats. They looked like her friends from back home. But the third one, he’s the one who gives her pause. As soon as her eyes land on him his shoot over, locking on hers. She straightens her posture a bit under his gaze, offering a polite smile before doing what most normal people do when accidentally making eye contact with someone, looking away. Her bob length hair brushes her shoulder as she turns her head away, but she can’t help but feel someone was still watching her. She decides to turn her head back slowly, trying to be inconspicuous, only to find she’s right. The guy is still watching.

He wets his lip as he tilts his head. His eyes still trained on her as he uncrossed his muscular arms. A small, what seems to be a smile, rests on his lips as he drums his hands on the arms of the chair he’s sitting in, pushing out of the seat and making his way over. One of his friends making a comment about something being ‘fuckin’ unfair’.

Milan fully straightens, tucking her hands under her butt and whirling around to face the bar again as if she hadn’t just been staring back at him. She kicks her feet until she feels a presence behind her? Beside her?

She turns her head and looks up to find the same guy, caging her in, standing slightly behind her with one hand resting on the bar at her side, the other grabbing the bottom of her stool and turning her to face him fully. 

Seeing him up close she can see how cute he is. Pretty blue eyes, clear skin and pink lips. His jawline is sharp, his seemingly blond hair is buzzed short to his head, and a dimple is revealed in his cheek with his smug grin. He’s big too. Tall and muscular, his presence is all imposing, crowding her against the bar and giving her no choice but to accommodate him in her bubble. “Hey.” he says softly, his voice still a deep rumble. 

Milan finds herself mimicking his position, tilting her head to match his, placing her elbows behind her to rest on the bar leaning the same way he was. Missing his eyes dropping briefly to wear the fabric of her shirt strained against her breasts. “Hi.”

“So, you uh, you want a drink or somethin’?” he asks lowly.

“Um..” she shrugs sheepishly, lifting her shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “I dunno.”

She does. That’s what she’s been trying to do for the last few minutes, but that was before the cute guy was towering over her, taking up her space. He furrows his brow for a second, a smile still on his face as he pushes up a little, whistling into the air, nodding his head for the bartender to come over.

The woman sees the man and immediately sweeps her hand over her hair, smoothing it out and prancing over. “Yeah, yes, hi Mr. Cameron.” She twirls the end of her ponytail, offering him a wide grin. “What can I get for you?”

“Yeah, Erica, get me and the boys some beers and, uh,” the man raises his eyebrows at Milan.

“Oh, Milan.” she smiles up at him prettily before looking back at a very annoyed Erica. “Can I have a peach refresher? Please?”

“She doesn’t have a membership account yet-” Erica starts only to pause when she realizes that the blond hadn’t glanced in her direction since calling her over.

“Then put her shit on mine. Want anything else, sweetheart?” he asks, a heavy hand resting on Milan’s lower back.

“No, I think I’m okay.” she hums, lifting her chin as the bartender rolls her eyes and strolls away. “Thank you, by the way, for covering me. My father will pay you back when he’s done with his meeting.”

The mention of her father has the man recoiling a little, retreating his hand from her with his smile dropping slightly. “Don’t uh, worry about it, aight? So, Milan, how, uh, how old are you anyway?”

Milan works an even wider eyed look on her face, perching herself on the edge of the stool and swinging her legs. “15, how old are you, Mr. Cameron?”

His eyes widen and he takes a large step back, smoothing his and over his jaw, looking away briefly before looking back at her. “No shit? I uh…I’m-”

“Cute.” Milan giggles, hitting his arm lightly, pulling back when she feels the muscles that are barely concealed by the stereotypical polo that he’s wearing. “‘M 20, Mr. Cameron.”

“Rafe.” he says firmly. Milan straightens again when she feels his imposing presence once again, the heavy hand back at her back, spreading warmth up her spine. 

“Rafe.” she repeats.

“Good.” Rafe praises. Milan shifts in her seat at his approval, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion at the feeling she gets from the praise. “You, uh, new around here, or…”

“Yeah, I’m new, just settling in.”

“Right, yeah, and uh…your family just left you all alone, that doesn’t seem fair.” He offers her a small pout that Milan fails to recognize as patronizing. “Wanna join me and the boys?”

“Sur-”

The sound of a glass slamming down on the bartop startles the girl, the splashing of her drink leading her to scoot back, bumping into Rafe’s hard chest. “Three beers and a refresher.” Erica sneers. Milan checks her outfit for juice stains while Rafe tosses a tip onto the bar, an unimpressed look on his face.

“That shit’s not cute.”

Both girls whip their heads to look up at him, a hard look of disapproval has Erica huffing and storming away after snatching the tip from the counter. As quickly as it appeared, the look is gone when Rafe refocuses his attention on the girl directly in front of him.

Milan finds herself smiling again as the man mumbles a short, ‘you’re good’ under his breath as he scans her clothes for any evidence of a spill. Just as she’s going to agree to join them she receives a text from her father. Time to go. “I’d love to, but my father is ready to leave, it’s been a long day for him, I don’t wanna keep him waiting.”

“Nah, we wouldn’t want that.” Rafe offers Milan a hand, helping her hop down from the stool and passing her the drink. “Go on, sweetheart. I’ll see you around.”

As Milan walks away perkily all she can think about is the cute guy she met at the country club. Turning back once to wave her fingers at him and being met with a crooked smile and a nod of the head she flounces off to find her dad. 

And sharp blue eyes follow her skirt the whole way.

The muscle working in Rafe’s jaw is doing overtime as he cocks his head to the side, staring blankly at the wall trying to temper the rage boiling in his stomach as Ward carries on screaming in his face. 

Apparently if he didn’t have anything better to be doing, he should have been shadowing his father today instead of golfing.

Apparently he was a dickhead for even thinking he’d be sitting at one of the seats at the end of the table because that’s where the head of the house sits and he doesn’t run shit but his mouth. 

Apparently he was a poor excuse of a man for not knowing why Sarah was late and Wheezie’s dress wasn’t perfectly ironed, because how the women in the house look and act is a reflection of him and more importantly, Ward. 

So Rafe stood there. And he ate that shit. Nodded quietly, eyes squinted, internalizing every slight, every insult, and making note.

He counted every book on the bookshelf in his father’s office until he felt his jaw being gripped and forced over to face Ward. Then, he started counting the wrinkles on his face. 

The verbal lashing didn’t end until Sarah came barreling in, her straps to her dress barely on and her hair combed for fucking once since getting with that fuckin’ bum. But Ward softens. He redirects his attention to tell his daughter she’s beautiful and thank her for coming. And then he points a warning finger in Rafe’s face before storming out of the room.

“Where the hell were you?” he asks his sister through gritted teeth. 

Sarah rolls her eyes, pushing past him. “Don’t have to answer to you, Rafe.”

It takes everything in him not to put his fist through a wall.

So, yeah, one could say he’s a little on edge. Sitting on his father’s right because the guest of honor, Mr. Cabot deserves the seat on the left, that’s where food gets served first. Rose sat on the opposite end, where the second host sits which will also place her closest to where Mrs. Cabot will likely be. Ward is at the head because where the fuck else would he be? And Rafe is in the seat on the right. The seat where the food will get served last. The seat where the youngest in the family is supposed to fuckin’ sit which anyone who has any kind of knowledge of etiquette would know. Which Rafe knows because he’s proactive and he fuckin’ learned it. Because he knows every aspect of running a household, not that Ward would acknowledge it. 

He needs a fuckin’ bump. 

Or a blunt. 

What the fuck ever the wine ain’t cuttin’ it. 

But Ward is watching him like a hawk and clearly won’t tolerate him disappearing to find some peace no matter how brief and slick he is about it. 

So instead, Rafe’s leg jumps under the table. And his fingers drum on top of it. And he works his jaw irritably.

“You need a nicotine patch or something?” Wheezie asks, pushing her glasses up her nose.

“C-could you actually shut the fuck up for one second?” 

“You’re such a jerk, Rafe, she’s a kid, Jesus.” Sarah huffs. “When’s this family supposed to be coming anyway?” 

“Asking that repetitively is not going to make them get here faster.” Rose groans, rubbing her temples. “Honey-”

“They’re here,” Ward calls, retreating from the door, snapping his fingers and pointing toward the sitting room for Rafe to get four scotches ready, and sitting in the seat in the corner of the room. “Ladies?”

“We’re going.” Wheezie whines, following behind Rose into the kitchen and carrying in the dinner that they were pretending Rose and Sarah made as Sarah goes to the foyer to wait for the bell to ring. “But this little routine we have is really sexist.”

“Don’t screw this up.” Ward sneers under his breath, as he takes his glass from Rafe.

“Dad-”

The ring of the doorbell has everyone falling into their roles. It all starts without a hitch. Sarah pulls the door open with a bright smile and sickeningly sweet greeting. Rafe tries to tune in to the fake conversation his father started with him when they heard the footsteps in their home multiply. 

“Oh! I’m a mess, nice to meet you, I’m Rose, please come in. Sweetheart, why don’t you go with Sarah and Louisa while I show your father to the sitting room. Then us girls can really get to know each other.” Rose plays her part easily, her heels clacking against the floor, the sound getting closer as she chatters away to what should only be the couple and their son now that she’s dumped the girl off with Sarah. “Your daughter is just beautiful, really, you’re going to have to watch her on this island.”

She says that to everyone. 9/10 it's a lie. 

“Your daughters are gorgeous too. You must have your hands full.”

Sounds like Mrs. Cabot knows the game too, usually people don’t get a word in while Rose is running her lines.

“We keep our eyes peeled, but our girls just aren’t doing the dating scene yet.” No, Sarah’s too busy laying on her back for dirty pogues to date someone worth mentioning. A little money doesn’t change status. “Ward, darling, our guests are here.”

And that’s our cue. 

Like they’ve done many times before the two men stand, Rafe watches his father’s movements carefully, making sure to always stand tall, and one step behind him. Ward takes 2 steps, Rafe takes 1. 

The man entering the room behind Rose was tall. Only a little shorter than Rafe. Broad and appearing stern. He guides his wife in by her waist and Rafe quickly looks away from the older woman. She’s attractive, and if it was him, the last thing Rafe would want is his potential business partner’s son eyeing down his wife. The man holds out his large hand to Ward first, the two of them shaking firmly. “Gregory Cabot.” 

“Ward Cameron, good to meet you.” Ward gestures behind him for Rafe to enter stage left. “And this is my son…”

“Rafe, uh Rafe Cameron, nice to meet you, sir. Ma’am.” he says, shaking Gregory’s hand and squeezing the appropriate amount. A craft he’d perfected during the early days of doing these. 

“Good shake son.”

The comment has Rafe standing at his full height, biting back an accomplished smirk as his dad glances back at him with a look of approval. 

“Handsome young man, too.” the older woman hums. 

“Thank you, ma’am.” Rafe offers her a polite smile to appease his father. 

It’s all a part of the game. This little back and forth. It breaks the ice, and Rafe is the sacrificial lamb for it everytime. Gregory would say:

“Don’t be tryin’ to seal my wife there, boy.”

Pause for laughter. 

Then Rafe would say something like, “if I was a couple years older I might give you some competition, sir.”

To which everyone would laugh and Ward would swat him with strength that varies depending on how the interaction goes. 

Rafe has this little dance down to a science. 

It was going well. Really, it was exactly how it should be, and going quickly too. Rafe was desperate to get this part over with so they could handle business, make some money, and he could celebrate by going to a party he’d heard about earlier. 

But then she came in. And suddenly this was something entirely new.

“Dad, I’m gonna go to a party with Sarah after dinner. Can I have some money?” 

There she is. Her shapely body draped in a silky green dress with pretty pink roses, her manicured fingers already outstretched toward her father. Glossed, rose petal lips pursed as she waits for the bills to be placed in her hand. 

Milan. Rafe forces his eyes away from her, feeling two warring feelings flood his body as he wills himself to keep his eyes on her father instead.

“Without Milo?” Gregory asks. 

Milan rolls her eyes to the ceiling, huffing and crossing her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts upward and causing Rafe to work his jaw lightly. “‘M grown, Dad.”

Ward would never tolerate that tone…neither would I.

“We’re in a new place, your brother’s away on business-” Rafe can immediately feel his father’s eyes burning holes into the side of his head. 

Milan’s eyes slide shut as she takes a deep breath, retracting fully and turning to leave the room. She was so caught up she didn’t even notice Rafe. It aggravated him. Spoiled. She’s spoiled. 

I can fix that. 

Eventually they get dinner started and it’s like the interaction hadn’t happened. Milan sat through the dinner and acted her role accordingly. She introduced herself to his father, which clearly had impressed Ward. She made her obligatory conversation points, but mostly chatted with the other women at the table. When Rafe pulled out her chair, she smiled at him prettily but aside from that, gave him no indication that she recognized him from earlier. 

Rafe tries to focus on talking shop with his dad and Gregory, but his eyes keep wandering back to Milan’s mouth on her spoon and the little hums that leave her mouth. 

The damn ice cream ain’t that fuckin’ good.

“Uh, yeah, I’ve been trackin’ the macro model for crude oil and uh, I, I’d wanna know more.”

“That’s great son, yeah, it takes time, but it seems like you're on track, maybe I could put you in contact with one of my buddies that does the numbers for me, then you can run them with your dad and I.” 

Rafe’s on fuckin’ fire. He’s killin’ this shit, and he’ll be deep in those Cabot pockets in no time. But all he could think about is the man’s pretty little princess perched on her chair a couple seats down, pouting as Sarah raves about how fun this party is going to be to Milan and Wheezie.

None of my fuckin’ business. 

“Sounds really cool, Sarah.” the girl smiles behind the metal spoon, sighing wistfully. 

Don’t do this shit man, Ward’s gonna kill you.

Her final sigh and last scoop of vanilla ice cream being spooned into her mouth through plump glossy lips is what does it.

Fuckin’ weak, Cameron. Over some pussy?

“Uh, Gregory, I’m goin’ to this party too. I’m takin’ Sarah, there’s no reason why I can’t keep an eye out for Milan too.” 

If looks could fuckin’ kill. 

Ward is staring Rafe down with a look that would have a weaker man retracting his offer immediately, but the bright smile that plastered across Milan’s face made Rafe stand his ground. 

Gregory is simply pensive. His eyes flick between his daughter and the Cameron siblings. “How old did you say you were again?”

“21, sir.” 

Gregory’s brows furrow as he looks Rafe over again, before turning to Ward. “Reminds me of my boy. Protective over his sister and her friends. Good stuff, Cameron.” He turns back to Rafe with a menacing look on his face. “Back like I sent her, Rafe.” 

“Of course, Gregory.” 

The older man couldn’t have known what he just allowed.

“Fuck, Sarah, how long does it take?”

“I didn’t even want to ride with you, Rafe, John B. could’ve picked up me and Milan-”

“Yeah, well, her dad put me in charge of her safety, Sarah, and actually, Dad put me in charge of yours, so-”

“Oh my God, don’t act like…like you’re doing some noble thing, okay? I know why you offered to take us, cause you leave me all the time-” 

“You don’t know shit, alright, Sarah?” Rafe groans, backing out of his spot and turning out of their street.

“I know plenty, and I know you’re tryin’ to fuck Milan.”

“So what?”

“So what?” Sarah tosses her hair angrily, shifting in the passenger seat. “So, you’re fucking nuts, and she’s actually a nice girl. So, Dad’s doing business with her dad, that’s so what, Rafe.”

“I like, genuinely don’t need you telling me shit about shit Sarah, like for real.” 

“I really hope her brother is fucking huge, so he can kick your ass.”

Rafe snorts, slowing the car down a little and turning down the music as he pulls into the Cabot’s neighborhood. “Yeah, maybe right? Cause God knows your little pogue bitches have tried and failed.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah, love you too, sis.” Rafe looks at the large house found at the address that Gregory had given him and unbuckles his seatbelt. “Get in the back seat.”

“Are you serious-”

“Back seat, Sarah, Jesus!” He huffs, slamming the car door and making his way up the walkway, stopping on the freshly laid cobblestone when the heavy, double wooden doors swing open. 

“Bye, Dad, I’ll see you later!” 

If Rafe had thought the dress Milan had on earlier was something, this skimpy number she trots out in would test any man. The girl absently twirls in her outfit. It’s a white two piece set consisting of a long, see-through skirt, barely hiding her white bikini bottoms and matching cropped top. His eyes trail along the dips in her waist, catching on the dimples on her back before finding the matching ones on her cheeks. All he could think is how perfectly his thumbs would fit in both sets of dimples. “Hi, Rafe.” 

He tilts his head back, openly staring down at her appreciatively. “Don’t you look cute.” 

With the shy smile that overtakes her face he all but expects the girl to melt under his gaze. Rafe is pleasantly surprised when she lifts her shoulder before brushing past him to make her way toward the car. “Thank you, I know.”

He chuckles to himself as the heels of her sandals clack on the cobblestone and stop just before the passenger door. Milan purses her lips without even considering touching the handle, rocking on her feet and swinging her purse absently as she waits patiently for him to come open it, just smiling when Sarah calls from inside the vehicle, ‘it’s unlocked.’

Rafe doesn’t know what moves him. Normally, he left girls to hoist themselves into his car as he hopped in himself on the driver’s side. But he could tell, this girl didn’t even conceive that she should be the one to open the door. No, she expected him to help. To care of it. And used her pretty little grin as his payment once he gets the picture and pulls the door open and offers her his hand to settle her into the seat. “You uh, you comfortable?”

She’d already pulled down the mirror and was reapplying the lipgloss Rafe was determined to taste, humming absently to herself. “Hm? Oh, yeah.” 

Not a thought behind those pretty eyes, huh?

I like that.

Milan watches out of the window as they pass by trees and grassy nooks. String lights twinkling as they ride by, people selling produce on the side of the road. The salty smell of water in the air through the open window. She could see Sarah in the backseat, smiling to herself as she texted on her phone. Milan’s own phone lights up as she receives the girl’s message. The two of them had really gotten along when they met at dinner earlier. She wasn’t expecting the blonde girl to be so kind and welcoming. The entire family had been really kind. Wheezie was a cute kid and Rose seemed like every other tired housewife in their world. A little fake, but ultimately harmless. Ward seemed strict like her dad. He seemed to grit his teeth angrily at almost everything his family said, only to offer a wide smile when her own dad seemed pleased, or at the least unbothered. 

And Rafe. Rafe was…cute. Hot, he’s hot. He’s handsome and tall, and can talk to her dad about all that business shit she didn’t give a shit to try and understand. And he’s attracted to her. Milan can tell. His eyes were shooting between their fathers and her the whole dinner. She felt the intensity of them even as she reapplied her lip gloss, as she chatted with his sister, when she’d taken a selfie as she leaned against the headrest, posing both for the camera and him. 

But for some reason he’s wound so tight. As hot as it is, it can’t be healthy how frequently that muscle in his jaw jumps, keeping in rhythm with the bounce of his leg and the drumming on his fingers. Milan’s eyes flick across his movements and her lips part as she considers asking him if he was okay. Her voice catches in her throat when sharp, blue lands on deep brown and his brows raise as if he were asking a sarcastic ‘yes?’ When she shrugs lightly, smiling in return, he sends her a smirk before turning his gaze back to the road, peeling off at the light and turning up the music playing on the speaker to drown out his sister’s chatting. 

Milan blinks at the heat she feels on her face and refocuses on her phone, opening her messages from Sarah. 

Sorry about my brother. He’s a dick. When we get to the party you can hang with me. :)

The party was apparently at some house on the beach. Young adults were filling the walls of the building, spilling out onto the sand and grass. The music booms in the night air, and the smells of salt and weed fills their lungs.

Sarah pulls Milan along, their arms looped together as she guides her away from Rafe as quickly as possible. The man is clearly disinterested in following, offering Milan a brush on the shoulder before stalking off toward the back of the house, calls of his name in greeting following his arrival. 

“Oh okay, yeah, my friends are in the kitchen, c’mon.” Sarah tugs her the rest of the way, leading Milan to the dark kitchen over to a crowd of people. She recognizes one of the guys as the guy on Sarah’s phone. John B. she said his name was. Apparently, normally, Sarah stays with him at his house but Ward had asked her to come around today to meet with Milan’s family, and she did it because they were trying to ‘rebuild their family’. “Hi.”

John B. turns to her immediately, a grin spreading on his face as he pulls Sarah to him, effectively separating her and Milan. “Hi, baby.”

His loud blond friend with his arms draped around a pretty girl with brown skin peaks his head out from behind them, pausing mid story, and drunkenly causing his girl to stumble with him. The girl follows his gaze and offers her a kind smile, pushing the blond by his face, laughing at whatever he’s mumbling in her ear. “Hi,” she calls over the music. “I’m Angel. This drunk dumbass is JJ.” She huffs, as he gives Milan a wide grin and nod before guiding Angel’s face back to his.

The tall guy next to him is flanked by a shorter light skinned girl and a girl pouring shots, laughing with Sarah, calling her a lightweight with a thick accent. “Cleo. You want one?”

“Yeah, I’ll take a shot.” Milan shrugs. Her eyes squeeze shut as the liquid slides down her throat, burning it and her mouth. She shakes her head, before letting the warm feeling spread in her belly. A hand on her elbow grabs her attention and has her looking over her shoulder. 

“Come dance with me.” 

It’s some random guy, already tugging her toward the crowd of moving bodies, not waiting for her reply. “Oh, no thanks.” Milan plants her feet, stumbling a little against his pulling. 

“C’mon, you don’t like to dance?”

“No, I just don’t want to dance with you.” Milan chirps, glancing down at her nails to make sure he hadn’t made her accidentally knock a gem off. She watches as the guy’s face shifts from shock to a deep frown. He roughly releases her arm and storms off. She takes a couple steps back to where Sarah and her group are standing, seeing all of the couples wrapped into each other. The light skinned girl reaches her hand across the island counter to get her attention.

“You good? I was about to make my way over. The guys on this island are entitled assholes.” 

“Yeah, that’s guys everywhere. It’s never the cute ones that come to you, huh?”

“Nah, it’s generally the creeps and losers who feel bold.” The girl laughs. “I’m Kie, Kiara.” 

“Milan. Do you feel like dancing?” 

Kiara shrugs, mumbling a ‘why not’ glancing back at her own friends before taking Milan’s hand and leading her toward the sea of people dancing. Milan twirls Kie as they step onto the makeshift dance floor smiling as they begin dancing together. The two girls take turns spinning each other, holding each other’s hips and guiding their dance. Milan can feel several pairs of eyes on them as they rock against each other, the base of the drum in her ears and chest. But her eyes only searched for one set in particular. She allows Kiara to turn her and flips her hair out of her face. And then they are. Steely blue. 

Rafe blows smoke from his nose before licking his thumb, flicking through the stack of cash Kelce had just shoved into his hand. “Aight.” He nods, reaching his jacket pocket and producing a small bag of coke. He’d been giving Sarah and Milan space. For one, because he genuinely does not give a fuck what his hoe ass sister does. If she doesn’t give a fuck about the Cameron name then she could take that dirty pogue’s. On Milan’s end, Rafe was exercising self-restraint. He knows that now that they’re away from their families it wouldn’t take long for him to crack. She’d looked fucking gorgeous earlier that day, and even more so at dinner. Now that they were at a party, and he could take a fuckin’ second to breathe outside of Ward’s scrutiny…he’d break eventually. He was relying Sarah to keep her busy and away from him so he didn’t end up fucking her and fucking up the deal their fathers were trying to work out. 

“What the fuck? That’s it?”

Rafe’s brows furrow as he looks at his friend. “Yeah, you fuckin’ druggy, told you I needed to go see my supplier. Your fiend ass didn’t wanna fuckin’ wait, so take it.” 

“Shit.” Kelce scratches his head, scooping out some of the white powder and leaning forward on the couch to line it up on the coffee table. “Hey, that’s the girl from before right? At the club?”

Rafe looks up to find Milan across from him in the other room. He watches as she twirls and rolls her hips against Kiara’s. Her shiny dark hair bouncing from shoulder to shoulder and her pretty lips mouth along to the song that’s blasting throughout the house. He runs his thumb over his bottom lip as he watches her movements, completely unaware of the group of girls trying to flirt with him and offer him a bump on the couch next to him.

When they lock eyes her smile grows even brighter and his own becomes wolfish. Her movements become even more daring, she dips low, arching her back before coming back up quickly, flipping her hair and rolling her full body. Her hands cover Kiara’s on her hips as she puts on a show for him.  

Rafe chuckles darkly under his breath as he drinks her in, sitting back against the couch comfortably as if he’d paid for this little performance.

It all ends too quickly.

The song changes and Kiara leans into Milan’s ear, murmuring something and making a smoke motion before heading toward the sliding door in the kitchen. The girl is gone for like a few fucking seconds before the fuckin’ loser bastards that had been lurking around them pounce on Milan. Crowding her, trying to usher her into a dance. 

She pushes up onto her tiptoes, looking over some guy’s shoulder to regain eye contact with Rafe, an offer in her eyes as she motions him over with her finger. 

Shaking his head and smirking, Rafe pats his knee, challenging her. He cocks his head slightly to the side when she gently shakes her own head, and gestures for him to come to her with a single finger.

“Rafeeee, you got anymore?” A whiny voice calls to him. 

Right. He was supposed to be moving weight. Damn girl is distracting him. “Uh, yeah, I’m low right now, so I’ve only got baggies, aight?” 

“That’s fine,” the girl says flirtily. He rolls his eyes as he feels her hand on his knee. “You have discounts for pretty girls?”

His eyes drag back over to Milan and his jaw immediately clenches. She’s still facing him, but this time she had someone decidedly less acceptable in Rafe’s eyes clutching her. He watches as some prick who he used to play league basketball with when they were fuckhead teenagers basically nutting on Milan’s back. Rafe’s lip curls as he watches the girl dance for this guy. He couldn’t even think of his fucking name. Milan catches his eyes again, looking at him through her pretty lashes, shrugging absently. Seemingly completely unbothered by the goddamn loser basically humping her like a dog. Rafe feels his head swim dangerously and his stomach turn as he watches weak hands trail along her perfect body. Her brow quirks at him once before she turns in the guys arms, turning her back on Rafe. 

“Rafe?” The girl to his side looks at him questioningly, briefly trying to follow his gaze with her drug-addled brain, giving up and leaning on him again. 

“Uh, right, I’ll give it up for $200.” 

The girl’s eyes widen as she looks back at her friends who gesture for her to try again. She smiles at Rafe and tilts her head toward him. “Um, how much if we can hang out a little upstairs after?” 

“Oh shit.” Kelce chuckles, sniffing and wiping his nose. 

Rafe rolls his eyes. He’s so used to girls offering to sleep with him or suck his dick for drugs. Usually they at least ask him to give it to them for free, this girl was gonna fuck him for a discount. He rarely takes advantage of it, on doing it if he was trying to hit anyway. Really, he doesn’t have to exchange free drugs for getting his dick wet. Fuckin’ look at him.  

Right now, he wasn’t really in the mood for random pussy. Not when he literally can’t fucking see Milan in his line of sight anymore. And that fucking idiot that was grinding his dick on her was fucking gone too. He needed to look for her ASAP. “You got the $200 or what?”

The girl huffs and digs in her purse, dropping the money in his extended hand and snatching the bag off the table, grumbling ‘asshole’ under her breath as she and her friends stumble outside. 

As soon as Rafe pockets money he goes to shoot off of the couch to hunt Milan down, only to be stopped before he can fully stand. 

“Is that cocaine?” 

Milan’s sweet voice puts him on red alert. Rafe settles back into his seat and looks at her. She’s staring down at the table worriedly, wrapping her arms around herself as she stands in the doorway. “Was that guy a friend of yours?”

“You didn’t wanna dance.” she pouts.

“Okay?”

“And I wanted to dance.”

Brat. “So you, uh, just dance with some random dick instead?” He asks, giving her a disappointed look and relishing in the way she shifts under his gaze. 

Interestingly enough, even with his glare, she doesn’t back down, pursing her own lips and sitting on the arm of the couch. “Jeez, you’re strict, I feel bad for Sarah. Is that cocaine?”

“Yeah, I just provide a little party favor for my friends here and there. What, you want a bump?” He starts to test her limits, resting a large, warm hand on her thigh, feeling her through the thin fabric of her skirt. Careful not to move and startle her. 

“I don’t do coke. D’you?” 

It’s her wide-eyed look. The dimpled frown as she glances back down to the white substance on the table. She gives herself away to him easily. Milan is a good girl. She’s just a good girl who knows she’s pretty. That’s what the whole dance was about. She was being cute. That’s what she does. But she’s not really about shit. Daddy’s girl with a protective older brother. Two dragons guarding their little princess. Never had anyone tell her no and mean it. If Rafe used the logic in his brain, he would know, he’s too much. What he expects of the girls he hooks up with. God forbid dates. He’d turn this pretty little thing out. He should be nice, and leave her alone. 

But Rafe isn’t a nice guy. Not really.

“‘Course not, can’t get high on my own supply.” He smoothes a thumb over her knee. “Don’t worry, Princess, it can’t jump off the table and get you.”

Kelce snorts and Milan’s brows furrow. Rafe whips his head around to his friend, nudging him sharply and sending him a silent message. “Oh, uh, I’m gonna get another drink. I’ll be back.” Rafe sends him another look. “Or I won’t.”

As soon as Kelce gets up, Rafe scoots over on the couch, holding one of Milan’s hands and guiding her onto it with him. “That was one of your friends from earlier right? At the country club?” 

“Yeah, Kelce, he’s a fuckin’ idiot.” He says absently, reaching over and grabbing the blunt he’d abandoned when he’d started dealing, re-lighting it. “You don’t smoke weed either, huh?”

Milan shrugs, scooting closer. “I just don’t know how to do it by myself.” 

God she’s just fuckin’ perfect isn’t she? Rafe hangs his head, letting out an exasperated laugh. It’s like she was sent as a test. She’s already bad as shit, she’s just sitting here, damn near in his lap with her big fuck-me eyes and wide-open personality. She knows she’s sexy and that’s just about it. But her dad let her go because he was supposed to be responsible. That’s big money on the table, and Ward would fuckin’ kill him if he was distracted by the opportunity to hit on the literal oil baron’s daughter. “Figures, pretty thing like you can’t do anything by herself. What, you need me to light it for you?”

“I’ve only ever had someone shotgun it for me.” She says.

Rafe’s hand is at the back of her head, fist in her hair before he can even realize what he’s doing. He pulls her close, tugging her against him and halting right before she hits his lips. He brings the blunt to his own lips, inhaling the smoke before leaning even closer, drunk on the way she’s looking at him. “Yeah?”

When she gasps out a breath, offering him a little nod, already puckering her plump, lips for him.

Fuck it. Rafe thinks. 

He could be a responsible man for his dad tomorrow.

[beauty-and-passion]

So... The Vengeance Saga

Mr. Rivera-Herrans is really trying to release the entire musical by the end of this year, isn't he?

But seriously, the dedication this man has for his project is admirable. He drops song after song and even if they're not all bangers, the quality is still extremely high. He deserves all the money and appreciation he's getting - and same goes, of course, for all the talented people who gave their voices! These songs wouldn't be as impactful without those great artists, so they deserve love and recognition too.

Said that... well, this saga is even more videogame-y than the last. We get the big boss battle and the closing of a resentment that has been going on for ten long years. And even if it was great and I understand it for the overall plot and how it's gonna close in the last saga, I am also a bit perplexed by it.

But let's start from the beginning.

__________________

Not Sorry For Loving You: just like Done For was a way for Mr. Rivera-Herrans to expand more on Circe's mentality and reasons, this song tells us more about Calypso and why she acts the way she does.

Calypso is young - not physically, but mentally. She has always been alone, so she never had someone who taught her best or explained to her what love is. She never saw other people being in love or having any kind of relationship. She doesn't understand what love is.

However, she is enamored with the concept of love. The idea of having someone else to keep her company. So when she found this man on her shore, she fell in love immediately - exactly like a young girl with her first crush.

And, in a way, that's how she acts with Odysseus: she gets immediately, completely obsessed with him and ignores his life and relationships. She doesn't see him as a separate human being with his own mind and reasons: Odysseus is just her lover, that's the role she designed for him and the one he must play. Like a kid playing with a doll, Calypso plays with him and forces him inside the dollhouse she designed for him (Ogygia).

But then teens grow up and learn that other people are more than their dolls: they are their own persons, they have their own wants and needs and said wants and needs may differ from the ones the teens forced upon them.

Calypso never grew up, because she never met other people, nor had any example of human relationships: she has always been stuck in the "teen mentality". So now that the toy has been taken away from her, now she has to deal with the truth that Odysseus has never been hers. That he has always been his own human being, with his own wants and needs. And that she's not part of them.

Of course now she's angry and desperate, of course now she doesn't know what to do and how to deal with rejection: she never had a real relationship with another human being. She never had anyone, besides him. She herself said it!

And now, unfortunately for her, she has to face the harsh truth: Odysseus never loved her. And now that he's leaving, she will be alone again, left to think and ponder about what happened. And, hopefully, learn from her mistakes and mature.

__________________

Dangerous: Hermes is back and brings another banger of a song. I love all the voices of this musical, but the way he laughs and sings is just <3 <3 <3

I also noticed how Odysseus reacts with a lot of confidence and firmness to Hermes' words. Is he going to face dangerous things? He's accustomed to danger, he can and will be dangerous as much as he needs. As he said: "I'm gonna use ruthlessness".

And oh boy if he will.

__________________

Charybdis: I am a bit disappointed by the lack of voice or, well, anything else from Charybdis. It's just a random monster and the battle isn't even so interesting. It's just a monster after all and Odysseus gets past it fairly easily - he just uses his cleverness and bam, problem solved. He didn't even need the "mindset change" Hermes talked about.

I get that this song is more of a "link" between Odysseus leaving Ogygia and his meeting with Poseidon but... I don't know, I think it could've been used better. And Charybdis deserved some more attention - or at least to speak/make any noise at all.

__________________

Get in the Water: Poiseidon is back, baby. And he's still as pissed as he was 10 years ago.

Ah, the Greek gods. Huge stubborn babies.

I would also like to point out the crescendo in Odysseus' actions towards Poseidon. First, he tries to let the whole "vengeance/being pissed at him" thing drop:

Aren't you tired, Poseidon? It's been ten years, how long will this go? We're both hurting from losses So why not leave this here and just go home?

Then he tries to convince Poseidon to forgive him:

Maybe you could learn to forgive?

So the next step is supposed to be another clever trick, right?

Weeeeell... not exactly.

__________________

Six Hundred Strike: we all love a boss battle. The music is truly epic, worth the confrontation we waited for so long. The voices are incredible, both Jorge and Mr. Rodriguez have been incredible in conveying a ton of emotions into their lines.

And the Rule of Cool plays a huge role here, in making Odysseus look as badass as ever. The way he orders Poseidon to call out the storm, the "exactly" he says while he picks up the trident, his last chilling line... he's the king of Ithaca, sure, but also the king of badass.

The ultra-violence was not what I expected, but I am not complaining about that either. I understand this choice: it shows how much Odysseus changed over time, how he became the monster and it works as a great preview of what we will see in the Ithaca saga. Also, it's a clever solution for the narrative: the gods are immortal, so why not use this immortality against them?

Having said all that, what's the problem?

I just think it feels a bit rushed. The moment before, Odysseus was still trying to talk to Poseidon and reason his way out of this confrontation - like he should do, since he's famous for his silver tongue and his ability with words.

But the moment later, he gets out of the water with a goddamn jetpack and resorts to brute violence. Like... what?

I am not saying it cannot work, just... I think it should've been played differently. Maybe by giving him a bit more time to go from 'talk' to 'violence'.

Also because: how am I supposed to believe Odysseus is a monster, if one moment before he was still trying to reason with Poseidon? He didn't try to reason with the sirens, he tricked and killed them all. He didn't try to reason with Scylla, he just got past her. And he didn't try to reason with Calypso either, he was just too wrapped up in his own trauma, to do anything besides begging to die and/or leave.

But here, he tried to reason with Poseidon. And then, bam, violence. Again, it can work, but it needs more time/lines. Enough to show us, idk, that trauma overwhelmed him and because of that, he stopped reasoning and resorted to brute force? If the scene underwater with his loved ones dragging him down was supposed to convey this... well, it wasn't enough for me. It should've taken at least a few more lines.

Also, @oreramar made a great point in their post: what is preventing Poseidon from retreating and going back in the future to pursue his vengeance? He waited 10 years and we know he holds grudges: what stops him from waiting 10 more years and coming back to destroy everything as he threatened Odysseus to do? Or what, being stabbed is enough for him to drop the revenge idea entirely?

However, if we consider the original poem, the other gods basically helped Odysseus behind Poseidon's back and the revenge idea disappears once the Phaeacians bring him home... so, well, Poseidon dropping the revenge idea is coherent to canon :P

And now... one saga left. The last one! We already reached the end! It felt like yesterday when I found out about this musical and started following its genesis... soon, we will see its conclusion.

But before that, as always, shower the current saga with love, stream it, listen to it and enjoy it. It's a great work and deserves it.

[lostplay]

Game 1: Resonance of the Ocean (Jan 2024) Resonance of the Ocean is a very pretty, yet cryptic music game that pressures you to use your ears to puzzle solve rather than your brain. There isn't too much story or content to be had here, but the animation and puzzles are stellar for what they are. Play it if you like the look of it.

[walks-the-ages]

If you're wondering, zyn is indeed real:

My first thought was that it was intended as a transitional product to slowly help you quit smoking , but nope, on their FAQ they say if you're interested in stopping smoking, they just link you to the smokefree.gov website.

They are marketing this, it sounds like, to be a way to start and continue nicotine use while hiding that fact from others more easily.

This includes having 9 flavors:

How many flavors of ZYN are there? ZYN Nicotine Pouches are available in seven flavors (Cool Mint, Peppermint, Wintergreen, Spearmint, Cinnamon, Coffee, and Citrus) and two unflavored varieties (Smooth and Chill).

They, (legally), have to tack on to most of their FAQ questions "zyn is for adults over 21+ only" but I don't know about you, but it is very clear they're trying to up the vaping market and want to appeal to kids and teens the same way as vaping succeeded in, especially when they market it as

"clean and refreshing compared to regular cigarettes and doesn't need batteries like vapes"

Oh, and they were apparently doing direct sales on their website direct to consumers, but were forced to shut down their store. Gee, I *wonder* what could have happened....

Zyn, a brand of nicotine pouches, has surged in popularity, particularly among young men. Here is what you need to know about the product.