#Ramon softened his heart :(

[shikai-the-storyteller]

I was doing some VOD watching as a bit of fact-checking / research for something I'm working on and got absolutely bodied by this thing Fit said to Ramon:

"You are my light my boy. Without you I would be covered in darkness."

[actuallysaiyan]

La La Love You(Nanami Kento x Fem!Reader x Haibara Yu)

warnings: smut, fluff, AU, Haibara and Nanami do not know each other in this fic, Non-Sorcerer AU, College age AU, threesome, unprotected sex, oral sex(fem receiving and male receiving), polycule of sorts, drinking, smoking, recreational drug use, creampie finish, praise kink, degradation kink word count: 3k!!(I cannot write short fics these days I guess) pairings: Nanami Kento x Fem!Reader x Haibara Yu summary: you and Kento meet Yu at the local punk show and hit it off! a little too well... a/n: This is the fic from the poll! I really wanted to write something for these two and I hope you all enjoy! Heavily based on the punk shows I used to go to when I was in my early twenties and the many hangovers I got from going to them. Dividers by the wonderful benkeibear!

TAGLIST: @beneathstarryskies @an-ever-angry-bi @seireiteihellbutterfly. @namikyento @benkeibear

@adharadotcom

@heyitsd1yaa @darkstarlight82

@melisuh123 @galactict3a @erebus-et-eigengrau

You’re just stepping out of the washroom and heading towards the drink table when someone bumps into you. You gasp as the cold liquid of their beer hits your shirt. The brunette standing in front of you has a look of surprise on his face. He’s immediately apologizing profusely.

“Shit I am so so sorry!” The guy says, a look of guilt written all over his face.

“No, don’t worry about it! It was an accident.”

The guy takes you gently by the hand and leads you back to the bathroom. He grabs a shit ton of paper towel from the broken dispenser and begins trying to clean up the mess on your ripped up Ramones shirt. Your eyes soften at the chivalrous action.

“Thanks, that’s really nice of you.”

The words you speak send him into some sort of shy frenzy. He’s blushing and trying to say it was the least he could do for messing up your shirt. You just shrug and smile, making his heart skip a beat.

“I’m Haibara Yu, by the way.” 

You shake his hand, “Yu. Nice name!” You introduce yourself.

He finally gets a good look at you. You’ve got piercings and colored hair, and you look like you belong at this venue. Yu, on the other hand, looks quite preppy and cute. But despite his outward appearance, he’s always been a big fan of indie and punk music. So when one of his friends mentioned this basement venue, he figured he’d come check it out.

“You’re not here alone, are you?” Yu asks, smiling brightly.

“I’m here with my boyfriend. I think you should meet him!”

You take his hand, and Yu notices the rings you’re wearing. One of them is in the shape of vampire fangs, the other is a cute black cat, then there’s a gorgeous ruby on a golden band. He figures your boyfriend must have given you that one.

The two of you make your way outside to the smokers. Leaning up against the wall is your boyfriend. His blond hair is partially obscured by his dark hoodie. He has a cigarette dangling from his lips. His black-rimmed eyes dart around until he spots you. A smirk spreads on his face when he notices you with some preppy looking guy.

“Hello there princess,” Kento says and wraps his arm around you. “Who’s this charming man?”

You smirk, “This is my new friend, Yu!” 

Yu blushes and looks away bashfully. He’s never really had an experience like this before. Most of the people who go to shows like this just take one good look at him and they sneer at him. Not everyone at the punk shows are nice, but he thinks you’re so sweet. He wonders how your boyfriend will react.

“Yu Haibara, nice to meet you.” Haibara extends his hand to Nanami.

“Kento Nanami. Pleasure to meet you,”

Nanami takes a drag off the cigarette before he places it between your lips. He doesn’t fail to notice the way Yu seems to be admiring you both. He smirks to himself before he pulls you in even closer.

“You come to see the bands tonight?” Kento asks your new friend.

“Yeah! I’m stoked. I saw the band Blue Thunder last time they were in town.”

Kento chuckles, “Oh man, they are good. I loved their set the last time they were here. You remember that, baby?”

You smile sweetly before handing him back the cigarette, “They played some of the coolest songs. I got their setlist too!”

The three of you continue discussing the bands playing tonight. Kento is very impressed by Yu’s knowledge of the music. When you’re done smoking, Kento holds your hand and guides you back into the basement venue. He looks at Yu and beckons him inside as well.

The three of you get some good spots near where the first band is setting up. Kento goes to get you and Haibara a drink, and when he returns, this is when Yu realizes that he’s being included. He smiles at Kento and they both begin discussing some things. You notice that they actually have a lot in common.

Soon the first band goes on, and all three of you are moshing in the front. A few more people join you all. It’s so much fun this way. Everyone is being rowdy and loud and the band is playing to their heart’s content. Then it’s time for the next band to get on the little stage. It’s the band Yu was talking about, Blue Thunder.

You head over to the drink table to get all three of you drinks. When you return, you notice that your boyfriend and your new friend seem to be speaking in hushed tones. When you inquire about it, they both seem to shrug.

“Nothing, pretty girl. It’s nothing for you to worry about.” Kento presses a kiss to your lips. “Just watch the show, honey.”

You think about it for the rest of the set, but it soon slips your mind as you drink more booze. You’re not exactly drunk, but you’re buzzed. By the time the show is done, you’re ready to head home and order in some take-out. Kento grabs your hand and you two make it to the merch table, picking out some shirts. Yu is sly, giving money to the person at the merch table to pay for the shirts you pick.

“Hey! You didn’t need to do that,” you say, a blush on your cheeks.

“Nope, but I wanted to! You both made me feel so welcome.”

The three of you exit the cramped and sweaty basement to the cold air outside. It sobers you up a little as you shiver. Kento unzips his hoodie and wraps it around you, pulling you closer. You light up a smoke, and you look surprised at Yu. He’s smoking as well, which you could never have guessed.

“That was a good show,” he comments, a plume of smoke surrounding him as he exhales.

Kento nods, “Yeah, it was amazing.”

“I agree. That was a lot of fun.”

Before you know it, both guys are on either side of you. Kento holds your hand, winking at your new friend. Yu grabs your other hand, gently stroking it with his thumb. You aren’t sure what’s going on now, but you aren’t complaining. You decide to roll with it, seeing as you’re feeling really good right now. 

The three of you walk towards the apartment you share with Kento. Kento unlocks the door when you get there and he invites Yu inside with a wink. You know that something has been said between them without your knowledge, though you can’t imagine what it was. 

Inside the apartment, Yu gets a better sense of who you two are. You’re clearly anime fans, but also you two love to listen to music. In the living room is a dilapidated couch where you settle, and in the corner next to the TV stand with the many gaming consoles, is a state of the art record player. Kento goes over and picks out one of your favorite albums to put on as background music. Then Yu comes to sit with you on the couch.

“Does anyone want leftovers? We ordered pizza last night. I was going to pop them in the toaster oven.” Kento suggests.

You nod, “Yes please.”

Yu smiles. “Yeah I’m game.”

After a few minutes, the three of you are munching on the refreshed leftovers. Yu begins to talk more about himself, and you realize how much of a sunny guy he is. He’s just so sweet. You linger on every word he says. His smile is so infectious. 

Soon there’s a joint being passed around. You begin to feel cuddly and affectionate. You crawl onto Kento’s lap, nuzzling your face in the crook of his neck. Yu feels something stirring deep inside of him as he watches you two become so touchy-feely. It’s making him feel things he’s never quite felt before.

“She’s so cute, huh?” Kento asks, watching the way Yu is reacting to all of this.

“She really is,” Yu spills out, his cheeks burning at his admission.

Kento presses a kiss to your neck, his hands gently rubbing your shoulders. Then he allows his hands to trail downward, getting close to your breasts. But before he takes them into his hands, he reaches behind you and unclasps your bra. You let out a sigh of relief.

You and Kento look at each other for a few minutes, then he cups your face. With a look towards Yu, Kento presses his lips against yours. You moan as Kento deepens the kiss, pulling you even closer to him. As much as Yu wants to look away, he just can’t seem to bring himself to do so. The sight of you and Kento kissing is quite arousing.

When you pull away to breathe, both men are noticing just how much sensuality is in the air. Your lips are red and swollen just from the small amount of kissing you’ve been doing, but already you look like you’re ready for more.

“How about you kiss her?” Kento suggests.

You’re being shoved onto Yu’s lap very shortly, and you smile shyly as he looks at you with those big expressive eyes. He’s different from your Kento, but he ignites something within you. His big hand cups your cheek, pulling you into him. The minute your lips touch, you know you’re never going to want to let him go.

You two continue to kiss, and you feel his tongue hesitating to glide against your bottom lip. You part your lips ever so slightly, and you hear him moan as your own tongue slips into his mouth. His hands grip onto you a little tighter, pulling you to straddle him. He’s getting a little greedy with all of this.

“Hmph, looks like I don’t need to teach you how to kiss her.”

You and Yu break apart, looking over at Kento. He’s smirking at you both, his belt unbuckled. He’s teasingly playing with the bulge in his pants, winking at you.

“How about it, princess? You want us to fuck you?” Kento asks you as pulls you back onto his lap.

“Mmmm…yes, please.”

Yu’s eyes widened. He knew that Kento had talked about this at the show, but he figured it was just a bit of a joke. He hadn’t been able to tell if your boyfriend was serious or not. But he understands that the blond man had, in fact, been quite serious about the situation.

“Wanna see how cute she gets when she gets horny?” Kento asks the brunette.

“Uh—yes! Yes I do.”

You love the way Yu is so eager for all of this. He’s so excited to be a part of this. Kento hikes up the skirt you’re wearing, showing off the cute little panties you’re wearing. It’s almost embarrassing for you, but being exposed really has your heart racing.

“Come here, Yu.” Kento beckons.

Yu is quick to crawl over to the both of you, and Kento guides him to get on his hands and knees. Haibara doesn’t even think twice about it. The minute he’s between your thighs, he’s going crazy with just the smell of you.

“Push her panties to the side,” Kento instructs. “She loves when I get a little impatient with her and just push them to the side.”

You let out the cutest whimper when Yu does exactly what Kento tells him to. You look down at the cute guy between your legs, and he looks up at you with his pupils blown wide with lust. Your pussy is on display, and he loves the way there’s a string of arousal that clings to your panties. He leans in closer, and with Kento’s approval, he begins to press kisses to your clit.

Your eyes roll back. He’s so gentle and sweet, which is a bit of a contrast to the rough and passionate that Kento can be sometimes. His tongue is so warm as he swipes it against your folds. You tremble at every movement he does. You reach down to run your fingers through his hair, praising him for being such a good boy.

Yu’s cock twitches in his pants from the praise. You smell and taste so good, he’s not even really able to think straight. All he can think about is how badly he wants to make you cum. He wants to keep drinking up your juices until you push him away from the overstimulation.

“F-fuck,” you breathe out. “I’m gonna cum.”

“Already? Wow, princess, you must have really been wanting this.” Kento teases before he reaches under your shirt.

He’s tugging on your nipples, toying with the piercings there. And Yu’s suckling on your clit, his lips latched on. He moans with every stroke of his tongue, rendering you into a moaning mess. It takes very little to pull you over the edge, and you have a very sticky and wet orgasm all over his tongue.

“That’s my good girl,” Kento praises, pressing a kiss to your sweaty temple.

Yu backs off when you begin to whine. He knows that he’s satisfied you well beyond what he intended. He looks up at both of you from his position on the ground, expecting a little praise as well. You reach down and push his hair back from his face.

“Fuck you are amazing.”

Yu smiles happily, resting his face on your thigh and gently caressing your pussy. You shudder with every brush of his thumb against your clit. He loves the way you’re so sensitive after cumming.

“Wanna do this on the couch, baby?” Kento asks you, kissing your lips.

“Mhmm…” you smile sweetly. “Yeah I do.”

Him and Haibara help you up, bringing you to the couch. Kento positions you so that you’re bent over the arm of the couch. Then he looks in your eyes and smiles.

“Who do you want where?” Kento asks, wanting your consent.

“Mmmm…can I have Yu fuck me?”

Kento smirks at the brunette. Yu is achingly hard in his pants. Then Kento comes over, cupping Yu’s face. You watch over your shoulder and you see them kissing gently. It’s tentative, but it’s so fucking hot. Kento unbuckles Yu’s belt and helps him out of his pants. Your eyes bulge when you see how hard Yu is.

“You want that, baby?” Kento asks as he begins to stroke Haibara.

“Fuck yes, please.”

Haibara comes over to you, spreading your legs. He looks at your tight little holes. He doesn’t know that he’s ever done anything quite like this. His fingers slide up and down your folds, spreading your wetness around a little more. Then he grasps his cock, positioning himself. Slowly, he slides into your warmth. 

“She feels good, yeah?” Kento asks as he makes his way over to you. “Y-yeah…so warm.”

Kento chuckles as he watches his new friend fuck his girlfriend. You and Kento have always talked about a situation like this, and it was finally happening. You look up at your lover and he smirks. Yu picks up his pace, fucking himself into you harder.

“She really loves it when you go deep,” Kento explains, cupping your face. “Deep and fast and hard.”

Yu nods his head, pushing his shirt up from his belly and placing it between his teeth so he can see himself fucking you. You let out the cutest moans, clearly loving this treatment. He wonders if you enjoy being teased by Kento, and he can see that this is something you two like to partake in together.

“Open up,” Kento says to you. “Show him how good of a cocksucker you are.”

Without hesitation, you let Kento enter your mouth. With both your mouth and pussy being filled, you don’t know how much longer you can last. Your walls are already fluttering around Yu’s girth, making him grunt and gasp. Kento loves the way he’s able to keep control over the whole situation.

Kento leans over, pressing his cock even deeper down your throat. He gently caresses Yu’s face, pushing some hair out of his face. Yu blushes at the attention, and he feels his balls draw up.

“S-shit…” Yu breathes out. He reaches down between your thighs, rubbing your clit. “I’m gonna cum soon.”

You let out a cute moan, begging him to release inside of you. Yu is shocked by this, but he can’t help but get even closer to his release. He wants to make you cum more than anything.

“Make her cum first,” Kento says. He pushes you back down onto his cock, and you swallow around him. “Then she’ll show you how much of a cumslut she is.”

Yu’s head is swirling with dirty thoughts. His hips are stuttering as his climax is building fast, but he can tell you’re not far off either. Your walls contract around him, squeezing him tight. Kento’s bucking his hips, getting himself closer to his own orgasm.

You fall off the edge first, your moans being muffled by Kento’s thick cock. He grunts as he feels the vibrations all throughout his shaft. You shudder and shake as the pleasure takes hold, and your little pussy is milking Yu.

“Go on, princess. Show Yu how good of a cumslut you can be.”

Yu’s pace falters as the pleasure gets to a peak. He grunts loudly as he falls off the edge next, his hands digging into your hips bruisingly. He fucks his cum deep inside of you, momentarily forgetting how irresponsible that is. Then he slowly begins to come down. 

Kento’s next. He growls loudly as ropes of his cum fill your mouth. You eagerly swallow it all up, and he caresses your cheek when he pulls out. Yu pulls out next, mesmerized by the way his seed leaks out of your tight little hole.

Kento comes over after he’s tucked himself back into his pants. He pats Yu on the shoulder, smirking to the brunette.

“Told you she’s a good little cumslut. Give her time to recover and then you can try out her mouth, yeah?”

[keirawantstocry]

Smiles at u sillyly

this is for u..... cuz i luv u

Fit felt incredibly warm. Much warmer than he remembered. Death was the only reason that was reaching his mind. He was gone from this earth. Back in 2b2t, he expected death nearly every day but the island had softened him. He truly believed he would make it long enough to see his beautiful son grow up. To see his children grow up, he remedied. Richas and Sunny were as much his children as Ramon was. Distantly he wondered if he would see the deceased children wherever he ended up. 

The dots seemed to connect when he slowly peeled his eyes open. There were scribbled kids posters on the wall just beyond wherever he was laying. 

Get. Well. Soon. 

No. That couldn't be. He was gone. Fit had failed his mission on the island. Not the one given to him by Madiago but the one he swore to himself; to always be there for Ramon. It was the only damn promise that mattered and he broke it and… his thoughts trailed off. 

Get. Well. Soon. Dad. 

They weren't dead eggs that made that sign. Nor the large portrait below the banner that depicted his three kids. Depicted his hatched kids. They looked lovely but surely this had to be a sick dream or a mocking afterlife. His children weren't hatched yet. But he recognized the tiny sketch of Tubbo and Sunny that lay taped messily to the wall. 

A distant memory floated through his mind as his eyelashes fluttered. Tubbo had been asleep for a while and Sunny had really wanted someone to hang out with. Fit was more then happy too. It was back in the days of Tubchunk. The days of the huge hole and the factory that Sunny loved to spend her days in.

They had laid right down on that dirty floor and scribbled drawing after drawing. Her favorite was the one of their dad. They just drew him at first, grinning and running their little fingers across his drawn circle face. 

Fit had suggested she add herself. But she had shook her little head. He never knew they had taken his advice. 

Fit opened his eyes again, trying his hardest to force them open. Something shifted next to him. 

“You think he's waking up?” 

“Nah, he's probably dead.” 

It sounded like Pac and Tubbo but it couldn't be right? It couldn't be. 

They both laughed and it was soft and quiet. They sounded content. Happy and warm and… Fit opened his eyes the whole way to look at them both. Their bodies were curled into him, sleep tousled hair brushing against his cheeks. Hand in hand they lay, those hands on Fit's chest. Over his heart. His heart which was beating so wildly. 

“I think he's awake.” 

They both looked at him with twin grins, eyes crinkling with joy. 

“Fitchie, you're awake!” 

“I'm alive?” Fit asked carefully. 

“Of course dumbass,” Tubbo scoffed. “We weren't gonna fucking leave you. We need you. The kids need you. Oh they’re gonna be so fucking happy when we tell them you're awake.”

[traffic-was-a-b1tch]

anthem of the heart

(jake kiszka x reader) 18+

summary: you and your best friend move into a new apartment after college, wanting a fresh start in nashville. however, you come to find that your neighbors are musicians. very loud musicians who like to keep you up at night. especially one, who likes to bother you on purpose. you would hate him… if he wasn’t so hot.

warnings for overall series: eventual SMUT!!!, angst, mentions of past abuse (not jake), abuse (not jake), mentions of past sexual assault (not jake), sexual assault (not jake), enemies to lovers, cursing, let me know if I missed any. (i’m still making this series up as I go along so it might change)

warnings for this chapter: sweet jake (but still cocky ofc ;)), cursing, talk of the incident in chapter three, a “touch her and you’ll die” comment from jake 😫, let me know if I missed any!

author’s note: hey guys! THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH for the comments and love for my series as it’s progressing! i’m starting a tag list per request so please comment if you would like to be added! as always, please feel free to give me feedback, requests, comments, etc. enjoy!!!!

• • •

Chapter Four:

you woke up in a strange place.

it wasn’t your room, that’s for sure.

your eyes adjusted and scanned your surroundings with tired eyes. you were wrapped in black bedsheets on a very comfortable bed with a nightstand next to it. there was only mood lighting on, which left an amber glow through the room.

across on the wall was a tv, various band posters, and a clock that read 2:43 am.

you slowly sat up, the change in position making your body flare with pain. your arm was sore, as well as your chest, and there was a sharp pain in your temples. you touched your aching skin, remembering what happened. you tried to shake it all from your memory.

“oh fuck, you’re awake.”

in the doorway, stood jake. he was in a black ramones shirt and sweatpants, carrying a mug and a plate.

he came to your side of the bed, placed the cup and plate down, and looked at you.

“how are you feeling?”

he was caring, soft in his question. definitely not a side of him you ever expected to see. his eyes were sad as he locked in on the bruise that dyed your arm.

“i’m”, you took a deep breath, “well I don’t really know right now.”

he nodded, “that’s understandable.”

he sat on the bed and took a breath, “who the hell was that?”

“my ex-fiancé. he’s been upset ever since I broke up with him a few days before graduation”, you looked away.

“what happened between you?”, he backtracked, “I mean you don’t have to tell me but i’m just a little curious.”

your mouth flashed a small smile; he was starting to soften.

“well let’s just say, he wanted things that I didn’t.”

you weren’t going to get into the fact that he abused you for a year and trapped you in an engagement.

he looked like he understood, like he had been in the same place before. you wondered if that was his ‘move’ with girls, or if he really was connecting with you on some level.

“that’s awful. i’m so sorry that this happened to you”, he placed a hand on yours.

you both took a breath. the energy sparking at your fingertips. you looked up to meet jake’s eyes.

god, you forgot how beautiful he was.

it was like magnets. like electricity flowing through both of us, pulling us together. could he feel this? did he feel you like you were starting to feel him?

he realized and moved his hand, standing up with a slight laugh and smile.

“I, uh, brought you some toast and juice just in case you woke up hungry.” he rubbed his hands together and turned, “so, i’ll leave you to get your rest then.”

you realized then that it was 2 am and quiet.

“where’s the band?”

he looked back and leaned up against the wall. “oh yeah. I cancelled practice for tonight”, he saw you smirk in his peripheral vision, “but tomorrow’s practice is still on.”

his tone was semi-annoyed.

“just admit it”, you prodded, “you can be flexible. why don’t you practice in the day like normal people?” you really did want to know that.

“well, missy”, he began.

his tone ignited a growing fire between your legs. fuck, you wanted him.

he continued, “it’s because we all have jobs and money to make. you think we get all these badass guitars and speakers with daddy’s money? we’ve put in a hell of a lot of work into making our dream a reality. besides, once we hit it big, you won’t have to worry about hearing our music from next door”, he leaned his hands down onto the bed, coming close, “because we’ll be on the radio.”

his hair fell perfectly in front of his face, rich brown and wavy.

you still couldn’t believe how hot he was.

you two were close. very close. you could almost feel his breath on your cheek. you swallowed thickly, trying to hold onto your composure.

he smirked and backed away, starting out of the room. but you couldn’t let him leave without asking him the one thing on your mind.

“why did you do that?”

you couldn’t help that you were curious.

“do what?”

“punch tanner”, you explained, “I mean, you didn’t have to help me. you could’ve just ignored the sounds in the hall and chalk it up to someone else’s problem.”

his eyes were serious as he lingered for a second to look at you. he took a breath, his mouth biting the inside of his lip nervously.

he hesitated, “i’ve seen things like that happen to people that I love. i’ve never stood for it and knew I needed to help.” he shrugged, “simple as that.”

you could feel there was more. he was holding back but you couldn’t tell what.

still, you let him go.

just as he reached the door, he turned his head and whispered, “let me know if that bastard ever fucking touches you again.”

oh.

you don’t think he meant for you to hear that.

he exited and closed the door without another sound.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you had faked sleep the rest of that night.

what the fuck had just happened?

so you weren’t being completely delusional?

no. no. no.

you had to stop convincing yourself that he liked you in any way. he was a man; men will flirt with a wall and hope they get lucky.

although, he was undeniably sweet by himself.

no. no. no.

get ahold of yourself.

you were still lost in thought when your alarm went off.

you pulled yourself out of bed and your own mind as you went to collect your shoes. you were still fully clothed in your interview clothes but thankfully jake had taken off your little heels before laying you down in his bed.

your hair was still in the claw clip from yesterday, too. but after a few hours of turning in his bed, it had turned into a wild mess. you took out the clip, laid it on the nightstand, and ran your fingers through your hair.

it desperately needed a wash.

you got it untangled enough for the moment and put on your heels. your shower was calling your name and you needed to get back home.

you left his bedroom, taking in the rest of his apartment. there was a small hallway leading out of his room with other doors leading off. but as you approached the end of it, you saw his living room. there was a couch and a recliner, both a deep shade of red.

jake was asleep on the couch, a big fuzzy blanket covering him from the abdomen down. he was shirtless again, his toned arms crossed under his head to make a pillow for his head to lay on. he looked peaceful, lost in the healing world of sleep.

you held in a laugh, thinking about all the sleep he’s probably missed too, with all his practices.

the room was decently clean, with little messes here and there that you expected from boys. but it wasn’t too bad, and you enjoyed looking at all the art and posters he had on his walls.

most of all though, there were guitars everywhere. one every direction you looked, in fact.

but the thing that caught your eye was peeking out at the farthest corner of the living space.

it was another small room, the inside walls lined with black padding. there was a drum kit, microphone, and even more guitars.

it was a soundproof recording room.

now you were even more pissed at him for all those sleepless nights. he had a solution this whole time? that ass.

suddenly it dawned on you that you were snooping around his house, and you instantly scolded yourself. you turned and saw the front door, starting to tiptoe to it.

you were not even going to look back at jake, knowing you’d probably get lost in a daze looking at him. it should be illegal to look like he did while sleeping.

you unlocked the door and started to open it.

“leaving so soon, huh?” jake was leaning up against the wall by the door. how you didn’t see him, you had no clue. his red plaid pajama pants hung loosely on him, and dangerously low. you felt your eyes get wider and wanted to pinch yourself. “this feels like the morning after a one night stand”, he smirked.

you scoffed, annoyance taking its place back in your voice, “uh huh. as if.”

his eyebrows raised, “as if, huh? i’m just that repulsive? you don’t find me the least bit attractive?”

his voice was laced with sarcasm and the anger against him was in full force again.

“in fact, I do NOT think your the least bit attractive.” you stuck your nose in the air, deep down hoping he didn’t see through you. you really were deeply frustrated with him, but you couldn’t deny how much your body longed for him.

you opened the door, walking the few feet to your apartment, and found the right key.

“your not even gonna thank me for the toast?” you could tell jake didn’t really care about the toast, he just wanted you to inflate his ego by praising him. something you refused to do.

you rolled your eyes, “thank you for the toast”, you groaned, walking into your home.

• • •

ughhhh I can’t get enough of him.

next chapter coming later today… ;)

tag list: @gvfpal @hollyco

[raymans-boyfriend]

Whats wrong..

Desc: youre hurt, Ramon is worried.

TW: Violence, blood and suggestive.

You stumbled on the streets, an alarming amount of blood came out of your head. Your mind and vision was foggy, and you couldn't think straight. The lights of the city overwhelmed you, and cold tears fell down your face.

What had happened for you to be like this?

Well you had gotten into a bloody fight with a rather muscular individual, you had pissed him off. BAD. You don't remember exactly what you did, but how were you supposed to focus on that while you were literally bleeding to death? The guy had beaten you with a glass bottle, the glass now stuck to your skull.

Just keep walking... just keep walking...

Eventually, you run into someone, causing you to fall backwards onto the cold stone pavement. Your vision was too blurry to see anything, your sobs got louder as you hit the ground.

But... the man in front of was your dear partner, Ramon.

The limbless man's lips turned thin as he rushed to help you, and he picks you up.

Last thing you felt before passing out was his heart beat, which was quick.

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

Your eyes open about an hour later, the cool air swiftly bringing you back to reality.

Your body was covered in bandages, but it was clear that it was done by someone who cared deeply. As the bandages wrap around your body in a way that doesn't cause discomfort.

Speaking of which, where the hell are you? Well, you could identify the soft blankets set on top of a mattress your body was laid gently on.

However the place itself seemed familiar.. but you could not for the life of you put your finger on WHY. The space was mostly empty but cozy.

In the corner, Ramon was sitting on a mental chair, his gaze on you.

"Oh.. You're awake.." He got up, and laid next to you..

The guy was wearing the spider-man pajamas you had given him for the holidays the year before. Making him look a little silly, a smile cracked on your face and you leaned in to kiss his nose.

"Heh.." He giggled, his voice gruff. "You're oddly happy for someone who just woke up for the first time in 3 days... but i'm not complaining.."

His finger slid over your face, his fingertips felt like sand paper... but that feeling had always comforted you.

"You lost some pieces of your skull... which asshole did this? L'll fucking hunt them down... so they'll never be able to touch your gorgeous head ever again-"

He snaps out of his speech when you hug him tightly, his eyebrows soften. His floating hands gently bringing you closer.

"Fuck.. I was so worried, love." Ramon buried his face into your chest, wanting to hear your heartbeat.. to feel that you're alive and okay.

He leaned in to kiss you, his desperation clear as he starts to caress your back gently.

This was gonna be a passionate night.

[honeybeezgobzzzzz]

⚡ Birds of a Feather: Flock Together

Flock Together: Vanessa Hunter, part human and part hawk, has felt love and hurt, friendship and hatred, and had sworn off all men since the one time she allowed her heart to get stolen resulted in said man running off with it and never returning. She is now cold, calculating, and every bit of a bird of prey as the one she fused with. With her wings now fully matured, Ness is a force to be reckoned with, and God help anyone that she sets her sights on.

Warnings: Language, Fighting Sequence, Gore.

To Note: Eobard Thawne x NAMED!Reader.

Word Count: ~5.0k

Previous | Masterlist

“I’m sorry, what part of ‘let me handle it’, did you not understand?” You questioned in your radio as you stood on top of Central City's tallest building, one foot up on the ledge of the roof. Cisco and Barry stammered over the radio while Caitlin started laughing at their expense.

“But Ness, I’ve dealt with them before, what’s so different about dealing with them this time!?” Barry whined at you while you rolled your eyes so hard you could have sworn you caught a glimpse of your brain.

“Remember what happened last time you tried to take them on?” You queried. “Pretty sure that involved a broken leg…”

While Barry floundered for an answer, your eyes caught sight of the movement you were waiting for, a getaway van in the middle of a bank heist headed your way. Several cop cars were in pursuit behind it as it swerved through the city.

“Getaway car is headed your way,” Harry’s gruff voice said over the squabbling and laughter of your friends. “You have eyes on it?”

“Yep,” you replied, focusing your sights on the swerving car. “Intercepting in ten.”

“This puts you ahead by eighteen, I guess that means Allen and Ramon are going to owe you even more Big Belly Burgers.” Now that put a smirk on your face, even after working with those two for a few years, they still bet against you. At this point, you would have thought that they would have learned by now you were always going to come out on top.

“Well, I’m not complaining,” you returned, your smirk growing as you shifted your weight onto the leg that was on the edge of the rooftop and propelled your body into the air. Falling through the air at high velocity as the van got closer and closer, you snapped your wings out at the last minute, softening your landing as your feet hit the hood of the van, and your body weight and momentum had the car screeching to a stop.

Crouching on the now very ruined hood of the van, you stared at the driver of the van who was clutching his bloody face from slamming into the steering column. Standing up as the back doors opened and armed robbers tumbled out in various disarray, you stepped off the van and landed on the balls of your feet.

Guns went up and they started firing at you, your wings snapped forwards blocking out the gunfire with the air of Cisco’s shield tech. Flattened bullets tinkered to the ground for a few seconds before you were moving. Grabbing the shirt of the first robber, you threw him hard into the side of the van, denting the car and making him grunt in pain before flopping to the ground.

He made the terrible mistake of getting back to his feet. Your nails elongated into talons as you shot forwards, sinking them into his shirt and tearing the material. This time you slammed him up against the van and went full on hawk in his face. He let out a scream as you brought your talons back and slammed them into the paint job of the van, tearing into metal and dragging them down.

“That will be you if you so much as move,” you hissed at him, his eyes were wide as he nodded quickly and your ears picked up on the sound of him pissing himself. Giving him one last shove and twirled around.

Dropping into a low spin, you swiped your leg out to catch the next robber's ankles and knock him off his feet. While he was on the ground, you grabbed his arm and flipped him onto his stomach, twisting his arm around until he cried out in pain. Snatching his other wrist, you jerked them together before slapping a set of cuffs on him.

“Stay put,” you ordered the moaning man before rising and looking for the last robber. He was currently booking it down the street. Flaring your wings out, you leaped into the air, gaining about twenty feet before diving for the runner. You were on him in seconds, sending him crashing to the asphalt face first. While he was groaning in pain, you slapped your last pair of handcuffs on his wrists.

“Don’t you know running from a bird of prey does little good?” you questioned him as you hauled him to his feet. Police cars finally came screeching around the corner and surrounded the ruined van. Dragging the struggling robber over to the police officer, you passed him off before assessing the damage done.

The van was totaled by you jumping on it and crushing the engine, but other than that, there was not property damage, and no civilians had been injured. While the police officers locked the robbers in the backs of the police cruisers, you went to the back of the van to take stock of what had been stolen.

It was the usual bank heist items, money, jewels, a few bars of gold, and a few watches from the civilians unlucky enough to get caught up in the heist.

“Well get those watches returned to their owners and see that the bank gets this back,” A cop said as he walked up next to you and took a peek into the van.

“Please do,” you responded shortly before turning away and walking so you had space to take off without hitting anyone with your wings. “Heading back, CCPD taking control.”

“Good, maybe you can get these two to shut up,” Harry huffed back at you while you tolled your eyes. “And we’ve got company, not the good kind.”

“What has Barry gotten us into this time,” you growled out before taking flight, startling a few police officers at your sudden exit. Fast tracking your way to the lab, you closed your wings a few feet from the ground, dropping the rest of the way down. Your boots hit concrete and bouncing up, you strode into the lab, noticing a strange humming sound echoing in the night air. It was probably related to whatever company you had.

Feeling the air condition your neck and blow the hair that had slipped from your tight bun, you stalked your way towards the cortex, your senses already picking up on a change in the air. Your bird senses were shrieking that someone was in your nest who shouldn’t be.

Slipping your hand under the high collar of your suit, you rub your hand across the prickled hairs on your neck. It had been years since you had felt this on edge, the day when you found out that your boyfriend, with whom you shared several intimate moments, wasn’t who he said he was. You had felt betrayed, angry, hurt, but nothing hurt more than when it felt like he had run off with your heart when he was erased from existence.

You were over it, you had to be. It wasn’t that hard to do; you let the bird in you go free, and she ripped through meta like they were cheese until you both had fully matured into a fully grown Cooper’s hawk. Gone were your speckled and striped brown wings, replaced with steel blue-grey wings and red-striped under feathers.

With maturity came coldness, calculation, and an innate ability to observe and strike long before your presence was even known. You knew that your friends found it off-putting at how hawkish you seemed at points, but sometimes it paid not to feel rather than shrivel from the sting of a broken heart. Then again, sometimes you felt like you didn’t have one… Eobard, for all intents and purposes, had run off with it. Coming to a silent stop just outside the cortex, you could already pick up on the presence of several people you didn’t know.

“…and I’m telling you, she is going to tear your throat out if you so much as piss her off,” Harry grunted smugly at someone. Your lips ached to twitch into a smirk, but keeping them pressed into a flat line, you stepped out of the shadows.

“Anyone I know?” you enquired, your eyes quickly scanning the group of people, noting those you didn’t know, before looking at Team Flash, and how defensive they seemed.

“Good, you’re here,” Cisco sighed out in relief before pointing at you. “This is Nike, she is the most badass woman on this planet, and as Harry explained, piss her off and she’ll rip your throat out before eating you.”

Who knows what was going on, but you found this interesting so you decided to play along.

“Hmm, I prefer to start with the kidneys rather than the throat,” you draw out with an air of haughtiness and give them a predatory smile, your tongue swiping across your teeth in a sensuous yet hungry act. “Fresh is best after all.”

Cisco blanched at your words while Barry actually went white. Caitlin looked uncomfortable with your words, and Harry had a small smirk on his lips, he too was enjoying this. Moving your eyes to scan the group that had your friends so uptight, your eyebrow shot up.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” you muse, putting a hand on your hip and scanning each man with your gold eyes.

You knew Leonard; you had met him before when you were still a fledgling, and he was gawking at you, his eyes telling you he liked what he saw. Moving on, the next man, wearing a full suit, Malcolm Merlyn of Star City, Oliver’s enemy. Intense light blue eyes met yours with cool curiosity; you sensed something about him, he was no ordinary man. Lastly, your eyes flickered over the leather jacket-wearing blond man your bird was shrieking in your head at.

He had the same energy around him as Eobard; you guessed he was a speedster, a smug arrogance to him that also told you he was intelligent. Yes, you think you knew exactly who he was just by staring at him, but years of meditation and practicing control helped you keep all your emotions bottled up.

“Anyway, try to cross us and I’ll sic her on you, she’s got the talons to do what she said she’d do…” Cisco finished as you started walking over to Harry. As you passed him, you caught his eye, giving him a look that said ‘we need to talk’. Harry got the hint, and relaxing from his rigid, arms crossed position, he followed you out of the room.

“So, this is the shitstorm Barry got us caught up in?” you questioned, pulling down your scarf that covered your face up to your eyes. Harry let out an agitated huff.

“It would seem, it's bad enough to be stuck in a room with the man who pretended to be me,” he growled out before running his hands through his messy hair. “There’s a threat to the timeline again; it involves some immortal. They’ve come to ask if we’ll help them and the Legends.”

“And why aren’t the Legends asking us instead?” you questioned, raising your eyebrow. “You know, the actual good guys who we trust?”

He huffed at you once more.

“I asked the same thing; they’re busy setting things up in other cities, the Legion of Doom I think they're called. Snart, Merlyn, Darhk, and Thawne, Legion of idiots if you ask me… they came with some device that will act as an energy dampener to mitigate his power. We need to get it to the highest point in the city.”

“Hmm, that would be the weather array on top of the Merickson building,” you mused, thinking about all the places you liked to brood on.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Harry responded in agreement. “According to the schematics of the array, there will be an assembly box near the tip where several sensors are. You can attach the device there and use the electrical from the weather array to connect the data back to the lab.”

“Sounds like a plan,” you echoed before tapping your fingernails on your leg. Harry narrowed his eyes at you before spending a few moments studying you.

“You okay, Vanessa?” you chewed your lip before shaking your head.

“My bird is going to give me a migraine with how much screeching she is currently doing, and I feel like tearing someone's throat out with my teeth,” you explained dryly. “I’d really rather not talk about how I’m feeling when my ex is in the building.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d pick up on who he is,” Harry grunted before nodding his chin at you. “If you need to skip out, Jesse is always up for a visit from you.”

“Tempting,” you respond, your lips curving slightly. “But I don’t run from my problems, I tear them apart.”

“And as pleasurable as I would find that, I don’t think ripping him apart would do you any good.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do about it?” you question, flinging a hand out. “Preen and pine like a love-sick bird? News flash, Wells, I’m a bird of prey, I don’t do sob stories.”

“I’m not saying that’s what you need to do, I’m just saying that you giving into your hawk DNA isn’t helping you. You’re losing yourself, and I may be a grumpy, cynical, conceited ass, but I don’t want to see you go down that road.”

“It may be already too late for that, Harry,” you answer honestly, your gold eyes flickering up to his. “Because it’s so much easier to give into my bird, than continue living knowing I poured everything I had into one man who wasn’t even real.”

“You know I do worry about you, Ness,” Harry says as you turn on your heel and start walking back towards the Cortex.

“I’m aware!” you toss over your shoulder. “And you shouldn’t, I’m not worth your time.”

Leaving Harry to grumble and stew about your noxious, self-destructing behavior, you enter the Cortex and march right up to the city map on one of the computer screens.

“You and Harry figure this out?” Cisco asks, bouncing over to you as you pull up the engineering schematics of the Merickson building.

“Yes,” you answer as you magnify the top of the weather array. “Our plan is to attach the device to the tip and connect it to the weather module; we can get access to the device through the building’s electricity.”

“Cool, cool,” Cisco responds as Caitlin walks over and peers at the screen.

“That’s the highest point in the city?”

“I should know,” you remind her before glancing up and looking at the four men. “I don’t suppose you had the brains to bring the device with you?”

Leonard snorts and gives you an eye roll as the one you deduced to be Damien Darhk pulls out a box in the shape of a hexagon, no bigger than a half gallon of milk.

“Hmm, maybe you aren’t all idiots after all,” you muse under your breath, making Cisco snort. Walking around the desk, you head for Darhk, taking the device from his gloved hand as you pass. “I’ll get to it then,”

Naturally, everyone starts following you out to the back entrance you had made your landing and take-off pad.

“If you don’t mind, Miss Nike, would you care to explain how you plan on getting that device to a building hundreds of feet into the air? Do you plan on growing a pair of wings?” While his words seem flippant, he does genuinely seem to wonder how you are planning on getting this device attached to a weather array over six hundred feet in the air.

Stepping out so you have room to stretch your wings, you glance over your shoulder while twisting your lips into a curved smirk.

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Darhk,” you reply, equally flippant with your answer as you pull up your scarf to cover your nose and mouth. Unfurling your wings, you watch in satisfaction as faces morph into surprise and awe. “I do.”

With one last teasing smirk, you turn around and give your blue wings one heavy beat, slingshotting yourself into the night sky. En route to the Merickson building, the radio in your ears crackles to life.

“That was awesome!” Cisco bursts out in glee. “Like a total mic drop moment, Ness!”

“Glad you approve, Cisco, I’ll be at the array in thirty, get Harry on the line and I’ll get my specs ready.”

“Copy that,” Flapping higher and higher, you finally get sight of the long array sticking off the Merickson building, and with careful percussion, you fly yourself straight for the tip, wrapping your legs around it so you are secure while you work.

“Ready?” Harry’s gruff voice crackles in your ear. Reaching for your belt, you pull out your special specs for when it rained, which also contained a camera Harry should use to see what you were doing, and slipped them over your eyes.

With Harry speaking in your ears, you manage to get the device attached in under half an hour, being careful not to cut or nick any existing wires, or mess with anything else for that matter. When Harry is finally satisfied with your wiring job and that the device is stable on the array, you push yourself from the tower and flap your wings, sending you up and out.

“You coming back to the lab?”

“No, I’m heading home for the night,” you respond. “Haven’t gotten my dark brooding in for the night.”

“Alright… just think about what I said, will you? You are one of the only people here that I actually like.” Harry sighs, and you can practically imagine him rubbing his forehead.

“Night, Harry,” you reply softly before ending the call and removing the specs from your face. Angling your wing, you swoop to the left, gliding lightly in the direction of your house. Two minutes later, you are dropping through the air, your feet touching down in your backyard.

Pulling your wings into your back, you head for the back sliding glass door while pulling out the key to unlock it. Stepping into your house, you pull your scarf down and run a hand over your hair with a heavy set sigh. Heading to your bedroom, you quickly strip yourself out of your Nike outfit and change into a tank top, sans bra since the things were uncomfortable, and a pair of comfortable shorts.

You fix yourself one of Caitlin's shakes that she had concocted for you to fulfill your bird nutritional requirements and sit at your dining table. Sipping on your shake, you turn your eyes to the book on bird genetics you had left open this morning. You spend a few minutes reading before your senses pick up on the fact that you are no longer alone.

“You have a lot of gall to show up here,” you murmur quietly, your hands slowly closing the book before you get to your feet.

“I’m aware,” His voice rings out as he steps out of the shadows. His blue eyes study your thin figure, and you can’t figure out exactly what he is thinking, but you know he is assessing you.

“Then why are you here? Because the urge to rip out your throat is one I’m feeling inclined to indulge in.” You coolly spit at him, your sharp eyes narrowing.

“Ness—“

“You lost the right to call me that,” you hiss, your eyes flashing brightly. “News flash, Eobard! I hate you! I hate you so much that I would gladly let my hawk rip your throat out and feast on your organs like some backwater Buzzard!”

“Vanessa,” Eobard corrects himself. “I know I hurt you, but I never wanted—“

“Hurt me?” You scoffed. “I loved you, I gave you everything I had and look what happened! It was nothing but lies and deceit! Well, I won’t ever make that mistake again.”

“This isn’t you, Vanessa, you are not vicious. Not like me, not like this,” you let out a cynical laugh and shook your head.

“You don’t know me, Eobard Thawne,” you told him darkly before shooting forward and sinking your talons into the front of his jacket. With a firm grip, you spun in a circle and threw him as hard as you could into the painting above your dining table. He crashed into the wall, shattering the glass and breaking some of the drywall.

He was on his feet in an instant, hands up in surrender.

“Vanessa, please, you are the most compassionate, caring person I have ever met, please—“ Your eyes blazed with fury and your blue wings extended from your back, crashing into furniture as they went.

“You don’t know me, Eobard Thawne,” you repeated in a voice not your own before shooting forwards once more, talons extended and ready to run through more than just fabric. He was moving too, trying to grapple your body. Twisting around, you punched him in the chest, sending him staggering back.

Going to kick him in the chest to really throw him back, Eobard caught your foot and pulled. You flared your wings out as far as they would stretch, not caring that you had sent a lamp crashing to the floor and broke it. With your right foot still in his grasp, you slammed your other foot into his face, catching him in the chin.

Eobard released your foot, allowing you to land back down on the floor, your wings beating behind you in anger. There was a red mark where you had kicked him, and that made you smirk in glee. Before you made your next move, he was rushing forwards, grabbing at your shoulders and trying to pin you against a wall.

Your back hit drywall and groaned in protest while you hissed at him. Reaching for his arm, you dug your talons into his flesh before jerking sideways, reversing your position and trying to get your hand around his neck. You were in full-on kill mode and a veil of red had fallen over your eyes, your bird would not be happy until you held his heart in your hand.

Your talons bit into his neck and left scratches that lightly bled, fueling your bloodthirst.

Eobard shoved you hard, making you fall backwards and slide on the floor, Broken wood dug into your shoulder and scraped it up while your skin took a beating. But you weren’t backing off. Using the momentum from his shove, you completed the backwards roll, tucking your wings close to your back before springing back to your feet.

“Vanessa, please, we need to talk about this, this bloodlust, it isn’t you,” Eobard said, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “You are not a killer.”

By now, he was bleeding in multiple places from your talons, and your skin was scraped and turning a variety of colors from your proclivity to bruise, yet you felt a burning desire to continue, even if it meant death. So with a low, hawk-like screech, you grabbed the overturned leg of a side table and broke it off, twirling the splintered wood in your hand.

“Sorry, Vanessa hasn’t been home in quite some time,” you drawled out manically, your very being consumed with rage and a lust for blood.

Confliction in his eyes had your dark smirk widening as you started stalking forwards. Hesitation on his part would be your victory. Bringing your arm around, you threw the broken piece of wood right where his heart was. He zipped away before it could hit him, making the wood lodge into the wall behind where he had previously been standing.

Ducking into a low spin, you narrowly avoided his hands as he tried to grab you once more from behind. Clamping your talons into his wrist, you jumped up and twisted your body, catching his neck between your legs. Continuing your twist, you sent the both of you tumbling back to the floor, releasing his arm and trying sink your talons into his chest.

“You are not just your hawk!” Eobard yelled at you while his hands strained to keep your talons from puncturing his chest. He still wasn’t using his full power, most likely for fear of seriously injuring you, well, that would be his downfall. “You are still Vanessa Hunter.”

Snarling, you pushed harder, your talons scraping against the soft material of his shirt. Eobard let out a noise of frustration before zipping up to your feet and throwing you as hard as he could. You crashed into your bookshelf, one of the iron prongs on your deer antler bookend piercing through your shoulder.

Gasping out from the sharp pain in your left shoulder, you looked down at the pointed metal still just barely out of your skin. Your eyes flickered up to Eobard, who now had a horrified expression on his face.

“Ness, I—“

“Well, well, well,” you cooed out, your list twisting into a canary smile. You jerked your shoulder forwards, pulling yourself from the heavy metal bookend. “Look who finally decided to put up a fight, that’s the Eobard I know.”

Reaching back, you grabbed the bookend and lobbed it at his head as hard as you could. He dived out of the way, the antlers lodging themselves in the wall behind him. You pranced forwards, ignoring the sting in your shoulder and the blood that dripped down onto your spaghetti strap top and skin. Eobard let out a growl of irritation before zipping again.

Feeling his arms wrap around your body from behind, you tried to slam your elbows back into his gut, or at least claw at his body with your talons. His grip was strong, so you resorted to method two, your wings sprung from your back, separating your bodies.

Spinning around, you slashed at his throat with your extended nails, wanting more blood to be shed to sate the ever-present thirst. Your hand was batted away and Eobard lunged for you once more, only this time he didn’t go for your shoulders, but your wings.

You jerked backwards, trying to keep them out of reach, but he was faster. His hands clamped down on them with enough pressure to make you draw them in, and in seconds you found yourself pinned to the floor by your wings, your eyes flashing.

“Will you listen to me damn it!” He yelled into your face as you struggled beneath him.

“Go to hell Thawne!” You snarled in his face, trying to kick at his legs. He managed to pin those down with his own.

“I still love you, you obstinate, frustratingly beautiful woman!” Eobard bellowed in your face, your struggles paused as his words circulated in your brain. He sighed out and released your wings and arms, giving you the chance to rip away if you so chose. “I have never loved anything as much as I love you, and that is a fact that will always remain constant.”

The red haze clouding your judgment dissipated, leaving you feeling hollow from the emotions of rage and anger. That allowed the old emotions of pain, torment, and heartache to hit you like a tidal wave as your bird all but slipped from your body.

Your wings retracted as tears started running down your cheeks, and reaching up with your talonless fingers, you pressed the heel of palms into your eyes as you cried your heart out. The gut-wrenching feeling of loneliness was crippling and had you feeling exactly like how you had felt when your wings first came in.

Scared. Hurt. Alone.

“Ness…” Eobard’s soft voice only had your tears coming faster as your nails dug into your scalp and you sucked on every shuddering breath.

“I just want things to go back to how they were before I ever found out who you really were.” You sobbed, your throat feeling thick and your hands shaking. In less than a second, you found yourself standing in your ruined living room, your face buried in Eobard’s partially shredded shirt with his arm around your body as you sobbed.

Your fingers pressed against his chest, your human nails digging in this time while he ran a hand through your hair like he used to. His face pressed down on the crown of your hair while he repeated apologies, over and over. Gradually, your sobs turned to sniffles and your eyes had no more tears to shed.

“I tried so hard to hate you, but I can’t even do that,” you whispered as you lightened up your grip on his shirt. Slowly, Eobard slid his hands from your body to gently hold your cheeks, his thumbs brushing the wet tracks from your tears. Your red-rimmed eyes stared up into his unfamiliar face, yet familiar eyes.

“I have a feeling I will be apologizing for the rest of my life, and even then it won’t be enough,” Eobard said gently before pulling your head up and connecting your lips. It was almost too much to be kissing him again, you had spent so many nights wishing that you could just forget the way his lips felt against yours. It was in this moment that you realized how stupid you were to think that. Harrison Wells, Eobard Thawne, whatever he called himself, he was always going to be the tether that kept you connected to the ground, to your human side. Best friend, closest confidant, lover.

You know what they say about birds: Birds of a feather, flock together, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Date Published: No Idea

Last Edit: 4/29/24

Previous | Masterlist

[irondad-defensesquad]

I saw your eyes (and it made me cry)

(Also on AO3!)

As of late, Peter notices that Tony has been changing the playlist in the workshop. Instead of the usual Black Sabbath or AC/DC, Ramones and 80s songs start coming from the speakers. It almost feels like it’s Tony’s way of saying that this workshop isn’t just his. It’s also Peter’s. Even though the latter rejected living here full-time, Tony insists that the Compound is still his home.

So, Peter is fixing his suit on his own while Tony focuses on his projects. DUM-E helps the teenager by grabbing the tools he needs. Peter really likes the bot, and he can tell Tony does, too, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

The workshop is peaceful and alive, and he doesn’t feel alone.

Then, a rather familiar song begins.

Peter doesn’t give it much attention, focusing on the Spider-Man suit.

Until…

I saw your eyes

And you made me smile

And for a little while

I was falling in love

Rather and red and blue, he sees… pink.

A beautiful girl dancing in an equally beautiful pink dress, ready to have the night of her life. Only for Peter to take away her smile.

I’ve gotta go.

I-I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this.

He made her cry.

I saw your eyes (I saw your eyes, I saw your eyes)

And you made me cry (Made me cry, made me cry)

And for a little while (Little while, little while)

I was falling in love

…

“OW!”

“Peter?” Tony calls from somewhere, immediately rushing to him. “Are you okay?”

As it turns out, Peter just got shocked. Literally. The boy sees that his finger is just slightly red. Nothing too serious. Even if Tony stares at it with panic.

“I-It’s fine, Mr. Stark. It doesn’t hurt that much,” Peter dismisses. “It’ll heal soon.”

Tony doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t really fight him on it, the more he analyzes Peter’s finger.

The man sighs, “Just be more careful, alright?”

“Yeah.” Peter bites his lip. “C-Could you- change the song, please?”

Obviously, he can’t hide his nervousness, like the pathetic kid he is. You’re terrible at keeping secrets, the same ghost in the pink dress reminds him.

His mentor, once again, doesn’t question it.

“FRI, skip song,” Tony says to the ceiling.

Soon enough, the romantic song is replaced by Ramones, which usually cheers him up, but Peter just can’t take the crying, heartbroken girl off his head.

“You wanna take a break?” Tony suggests, putting a hand on Peter’s back.

The teen wishes he could go back to the suit, to this little safe place. Yet he knows the man can read him like an open book, and Peter would probably not be able to focus again.

Gulping, yet relaxing at Tony’s gentle touch, Peter nods in silence. He leaves his tools on the counter, along with the suit, and lets Tony guide him outside of the workshop, until he’s sitting on a couch. Tony seems to briefly leave him alone to grab something at the kitchen, which is confirmed by the glass of water in front of Peter. He gladly takes it with his non-burning hand.

The billionaire stands on his feet with arms crossed, watching him attentively. It’s kind of unnerving, but Peter doesn’t blame him for feeling concerned.

“You look like you got your heart broken,” Tony observes.

Peter shakes his head.

“... it’s the other way around, actually.”

Tony waits, ready to listen. Peter is unsure if he should talk about this particular topic with his hero. He hasn’t even commented on it with Ned after everything was solved.

The fifteen-year-old takes a deep breath, staring at the water.

“There was… this girl, Liz,” Peter begins. “I really liked her. But I hurt her.”

From the corner of his eye, he can tell Tony’s frown softens.

“I kept… disappearing on her because of Spider-Man.” Peter doesn’t want to go too deep in detail here because this is from when he was lying to Tony and doing things behind his back, and the last thing he wants is to make Tony hate him, too. “But she never really got mad at me. She was really nice and patient… I think she liked me, too. When I invited her to Homecoming, she said yes.”

You’re the smartest guy I know.

She was so wrong.

“I didn’t want to leave Liz again. I wanted to spend more time with her,” Peter continues. “But…”

Liz is staring at him, dumbfounded. Betrayed.

“Her dad…” Peter could very well crack the glass in his hand. “He was the Vulture this whole time.”

The silence suddenly becomes heavy, and when he realizes, someone is joining him on the couch, wide dark eyes staring at him.

“I had to leave, or else he would steal the plane. I didn’t have a choice,” Peter says as if he’s being threatened with a gun again. Yet Tony would be the last person to do that to him. “And when I saw Liz again, she was moving away. I was never going to see her again.”

He feels like crying. He’s had nightmares about the Vulture, about the building falling on him. But right now, neither of these things are as haunting as breaking Liz’s heart.

“I… I ruined her life,” Peter admits. “I didn’t mean to, but I did. Now she’s far away from her friends, and her dad is in jail because of me.” He dries his nose with his sleeve. “I remember wanting to tell her I was Spider-Man, but now I just wonder… would she hate me if she knew who I was?”

Peter puts the glass on the center table before he breaks it.

Tony seems to process all the information he received, as he doesn’t say anything for a while. Peter has to hide his eyes before they release any real tears. He wouldn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of his mentor.

Noticing that, Tony is sitting closer to him, rubbing Peter’s back again.

“Kid,” the former says, “I can’t answer for Liz, obviously. I don’t know what her reaction would be. But hear me out, you did the right thing.”

Peter knows he did. But he also kind of hates himself for it, too. He hates that he made Liz cry.

“I wanted to do right by her, but I can’t,” he sniffs. “She’s gone and it’s my fault.”

“Pete, look at me.”

He doesn’t want to be seen like this.

“Look at me,” Tony repeats, quieter.

Peter does as he’s told, facing the least judgmental person in the world. A person whose face is burdened by long-term guilt and self-hatred, and loneliness.

“That Vulture guy is the one to blame. He ruined his daughter’s life. Not you,” Tony tells him. “You saved her, you saved so many people. I know you couldn’t save your relationship with her, and I know it sucks that you couldn’t have fun with her at Homecoming. But again, that is her father’s fault, not yours. You did the best you could.”

Peter listens all the way, in the meantime remembering his first conversation with his hero. Tony looked so tired, and he still does now. But Peter can see the acceptance slowly growing in his eyes. He can see Tony’s willingness to reach out to someone. Thus, he’s also telling Peter that it’s okay to be vulnerable around others. That it’s okay to be vulnerable around Tony.

Peter’s energies have been drained out, as he can’t help but lie against Tony. He expects the latter to deflect or tense at the approach… but if anything, he appears to relax.

“... I just miss her,” Peter whispers.

Not a single soul knows about this.

Everyone thinks Peter has moved on from Liz. He’s happy with Ned and MJ. He’s happy with Tony. He knows he’s not alone. But nothing is the same without Liz. Peter even imagines how things would be if she were still around. Maybe happy things would happen. But that’s not how life works, right?

Likely sensing those thoughts, Tony wraps his arms around Peter, hugging him close. Accepting all of his mistakes, regrets, secrets. He doesn’t say any of that, but he doesn’t have to.

Peter doesn’t return the hug, just buries himself in Tony’s chest, crying silently, not wanting to be seen. Other than that, everything is quiet. No music is playing. Peter’s sniffs are muffled and barely audible, and only he can hear Tony’s solid heartbeats. A heart that holds so much love for people, Peter included.

The teen is able to breathe again.

He’s able to close his eyes and face Liz crying. This time, he doesn’t avoid her.

He… hugs her, too.

He tells her he’s sorry, again. But this time with a lot more meaning behind it.

Then Liz lets go and walks away.

Peter doesn’t know what she feels.

The song fades away with her.

He cries harder.

It hurts so much.

…

And that’s okay.

It’s okay to miss her.

It’s okay.

Peter stays in Tony’s arms for a long, long time.

He pulls away once he’s ready to face the real world – Liz’s absence – again. Tony is smoothing his brown curls, not minding the fact Peter probably looks like a crying mess right now.

“You don’t have her number, do you?” Tony wonders.

Peter shakes his head. “Well, I used to, but I think she changed it after moving.”

Tony hums. “I could get it for you.”

Peter snorts. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Hmm, yeah, you’re probably right.”

The boy’s small expression of joy fades, succumbing to exhaustion.

“What do you want to do now?” Tony asks him. “Maybe we could… watch a movie or order something to eat? Something you really like?”

Peter considers it, but… he’s simply not up to it.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark… but I think I’m going to my room.”

“Oh, okay.”

He stands up and goes to his bedroom, Tony following him. Peter removes his shoes, then lies down, noticing that his mentor hasn’t left yet. He doesn’t seem to want to leave Peter alone. It’s kind of cute.

“You’re gonna be okay on your own?” Tony wonders.

“Yeah. I think I just need a nap.”

The man nods and enters the room, kneeling down to Peter’s level. He makes sure to properly tuck him in, then he caresses the boy’s cheek with his thumb. Tony’s hand is calloused but careful. So much warmth within it.

“Just call me if you need me, okay?” Tony insists. “Or just let F.R.I.D.A.Y know.”

“Yeah, okay.” Peter smiles, “Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

“Of course, kiddo.”

Tony leaves the same glass of water by the bedside table before he walks away. Once he closes the door, Peter sighs. The pain is still clearly inside him, and he can’t make things right. At the same time, he’s glad he got to show it to someone else and be reassured that it’s okay to feel it. He doesn’t feel as haunted by this guilt as before.

He lets his bed claim him, drifting away to a peaceful sleep.

[loveydoveylex]

Ramon would have that moment of glaring at someone, but the moment his eyes land on you, his gaze softens, and a soft, gentle smile will grow on his face, replacing that scowl on his face.

aaaaaAAAAAAAAAA OH MY GOODNESS I'M WEAK. THAT'S ADORABLE. I HAVE THE URGE TO DRAW THAT RN... MY HEART IS GONNA MELTTT 😭😭😭💖 BLESS YOU PEACH, I AM GAY!!!!!

[aimhleas]

When Takuya held up the bag to Ramon, the older man's smile softened to a more sincere one again as he nodded and took the string handles of the bag. "Thank you. Even when you're sick and in here, too, you still think of her. Lucia's really lucky to have you, Taku," he hummed lightly, and Himeno went a bit pink as Takuya's thanks to her.

"I-it's no problem! I figured everyone would love to see you again, so it wasn't any trouble!" she told him with her own bright smile, albeit nervous as she often still was.

"Dad! Gramps!" Nana came running up o them, slightly out of breath but relieved. "Mom's doing okay, right? She finally finished having the baby? S? Do I have a brother or sister~?!"

Ramon chuckled, ruffling the girl's hair a bit. "You have a baby brother, sweetheart. And our first grandson!" Once everything was settled down, he intended to plan a party for all of this. After all, his little girl just had another baby! Of course it called for a celebration!

The instant he heard his daughter's voice, Takuya tensed up. His eyes instantly falling to his lap where hands remained clenched together, a panic setting through him. Hopefully with his clothing she couldn't see too much how sick he was right now even if she had seen him not too long ago but the overwhelming shame of the state of himself had him retreating. The addition of hearing Nana being told that she had a little brother --

"Can you take me back to my room, please ..?" What was the arrangement going to be? From how he spoke, Ramon either didn't know the plan for the baby or there had been something else arranged. Was Lucia ... perhaps wanting to stay active with Tamotsu in raising the baby? His heart sank just at the thought.

[artemiseamoon]

Flirting with danger

Preview for chapter 6 (of 8)

Read in full on A03

Fic info /chapters / warnings

Ramon kicks his shoes off and drapes his body across yours on the bed, his legs and arms dangling off. You can tell he's tired, which he didn't get often. You guide his head higher up, to your chest. He let out a big exhale then holsters himself up to view your face.

"Hi princesa." He smiles warmly and your heart beats a little faster. You've been a sucker for his smiles since day one.

You reach out and pinch his cheek. The two of you developed a bunch of cute little things over the months. Whenever you pinch his cheek now, Ramon shakes his head and growls, shaking his hair as he does. It's a cute silly little thing you share and one of the many things you know you'll miss about him once this comes to an end.

He's been coming home late, sometimes when you're already sleeping so your sex life hasn't been too active. Not that you mind, you rather hide under a big shirt right now and snuggle. it's actually working in your favor.

"you're too cute Mon." You gushed, moving your hands to his hair.

The moment your fingertips meet his scalp, he moans as he always does. One of the easiest ways to soften Ramon or make him melt, is the play with his hair.

Ramon closes his eyes, savoring your touch, "How was she today? I checked on her a few minutes ago, she was asleep.”

“Good, she needs it. She's the same. Ate a little though, like two bites of a sandwich."

“It's a start,” when his eyes open again, they nearly take your breath away. Beautiful deep brown eyes that regard you with so much softness you could cry, “thank you baby, for being there for her.”

Emotion floods your entire body, and you pull him into a hug. Words escape you right now, you hope the way you hold him and press you lips to his say all the things you can't form into words. …

Preview! Read in full on here

Current tags: @thesolotomyhan @yourlocalspacewitxch @curaheed @kucchikopi @hastalunes s @mysticalfairytales @fleurfatale89 @doobiebochana @seashell-gurl @empireroyals

I don’t think I’ll be tagging the last 2 updates, so please bookmark the fic on Ao3 for updates or check my page 😁

[milenadaniels]

Actually, Truly, 14k - Buck/Eddie, Helena POV, post-s4 (AO3)

Isabel calls to tell them Eddie's been shot on a Thursday afternoon and by lunch on Friday Helena and Ramon are landing at LAX. When they land, they learn Eddie's already home recovering and has been for two weeks.

----

Or, Helena (and Ramon) tries to find a way back into Eddie's life and doesn't know what to make of finding Buck around every corner she turns.

Isabel calls on a Thursday afternoon and by lunch on Friday Helena and Ramon are landing at LAX. Their son’s been shot, again, in the line of duty. But this time, instead of being thousands of miles away and out of reach, he’s just a short plane ride away.

Isabel insists they come to her house before going to the hospital but she doesn’t blame COVID protocols for keeping them away from the hospital, so they spend the car ride over imagining the worst.

A complication with surgery.

Permanent damage.

A coma.

The news they receive is that Eddie’s fine, and he’s been home and recuperating for two weeks already.

Helena retreats to the living room while Ramon and his mother fight in the kitchen. They’re yelling in Spanish and for once she wishes she’d never learned.

“Escúchame, Ramon,” Isabel tries to interrupt. Listen to me.

The yelling continues because Ramon doesn’t listen. It’s not his strong suit. Nor is it Helena’s.

Helena paces the length of the living room and holds her phone in her hands, thumb over Eddie’s name in FaceTime, not pressing down.

Eddie’s been home for two weeks.

Isabel hadn’t told them for two weeks.

But Eddie hadn’t either.

They hadn’t seen him in person in nearly two years, and he hadn’t called them since their last fight over a month ago.

Still, Eddie was shot in the streets by a sniper and he didn’t call them.

Mom, listen...

The last time they spoke, it was a phone call, not a video chat, maybe because at that point just the sight of each others’ faces was enough to set them all off. In that phone call, Eddie spoke of a friend whose family was somehow worse off than their own, but who, miraculously, were finally making the effort to fix the broken ties between them in therapy.

“Mom, listen… I spent a long time being angry with Shannon instead of trying to reach out to her and now Christopher is never going to have her in his life again. I don’t want that with you,” Eddie said, his voice brusque but calm, measured. “I don’t want to grin and bear it when you call or when we visit. I want to be glad to pick up the phone, I want to be excited to see you all at Christmas, I want you to be part of our lives. But I can’t do that without you meeting me halfway.” He was resolute, but he was pleading too. “I don’t want to spend the next ten years of our lives like this.”

But the idea of therapy was anathema to the Diaz family and it took only Ramon’s dismissive scoff to reinforce her own distaste of the idea. They called Eddie back to say they had no intention of paying a stranger to tell them everything was their fault and he was blameless.

They didn’t get another call after that.

“— my son!” Ramon yells at Isabel in the kitchen.

“Because, mijo, when you come here, you don’t see your son! You don’t see him living here, growing, Christopher thriving! You don’t see how when you come up here you bring sadness and misery when you should bring joy and comfort.” The words are too close to what Eddie said for them not to have spoken about it together. “By the time I knew he was hurt, he was already out of surgery and doing well. If he wasn’t, I would have called immediately.”

“Oh bueno, so you’ll tell me my son is dying but not that he’s okay?”

“Ramon! Escúchame.” It’s not often that Helena gets to bear witness to the steel in Isabel’s voice, the one she passed down to both her kids. It’s in fine form today. “He was doing well, and had all the help he needed. As soon as things stabilized, I called you. Keep acting like a fool and see if I call you at all next time.”

“If you call? Are you —”

Mom, listen…

“Ramon!” Helena snaps, surprising them all.

“Ramon,” she repeats, more calmly this time. “Listen to her.”

The shock on Isabel’s face almost makes her smile, but her heart is too heavy to commit to it.

“Helena, two weeks she —”

“Our son was shot, and he didn’t tell us.” Helena says, her voice trembling. “Our son was shot, he could have died, and the last thing we would have told him is we weren’t willing to fight for him and Christopher. Weren’t willing to — what? — put our egos aside? Our pride? For one fucking minute to listen to him. To listen to what he needed.”

Ramon’s eyes widen and he hangs his head with a sigh.

Helena faces Isabel, her phone tucked in her palm against her stomach.

“What can we do? We’re listening.”

——————-

Ramon walks it off and Helena helps Isabel in the kitchen in exchange for a promise they’ll go over to Eddie’s for supper. She’s been making care packages for Eddie and Christopher since the shooting, and she’s working on a pasta sauce while Helena starts on her famous banana brown sugar bread — Eddie’s favourite.

“How is he, really?” she asks once her dish is tucked into the oven.

“As well as can be expected,” Isabel replies, throwing spices into the pot with an ease Helena never grew into. “He was tired for the first few days, but now it’s like a broken arm. Uncomfortable but not so painful.”

“How long is it supposed to take to heal?”

Isabel casts a suspicious eye her way as if she can anticipate the date of Helena’s return flight adjusting already, but answers, “they say 6 to 8 weeks. It’s for the bone to heal, mostly, in his back. The rest should be sooner.”

Helena broke her wrist years ago, when the kids were nearly teenagers, and it was three months of hell trying to manage a household one handed while Ramon spent most of that time travelling across Texas.

Who’s helping him? Is Carla back in the picture? Is she working overtime? How can he afford that on sick leave? Is Pepa or one of the cousins going over? Is his girlfriend there? Who’s helping with Christopher? How is he managing?

The questions — all genuine and well-meaning, all a shade too accusatory — are on her tongue, pressed to the back of her teeth to keep from escaping. She’s entitled to answers, even if she doesn’t like them. She knows she has the right to at least know how her son is caring for himself and her grandson while he’s injured. If he’d told them when it happened Helena could have been here in a heartbeat to help, but no, Eddie’s just as stubborn as they are, just as prideful. He’d rather suffer alone than accept their help. Fine. But she’s still his mother, and Christopher’s grandmother. She raised them both. She has a right to—

Mom, listen…

Helena takes a deep breath in, anchors herself in the mixed scents of the rich sauce and the sweet bread cooking, and breathes out. Isabel sends her another look but says nothing.

————-

Helena cries when she sees Eddie, and cries a bit harder when she sees the apprehension in his eyes. Her baby boy looks a bit pale, but he’s standing on his own two feet and answering the door himself.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmurs, wrapping him gently into her arms, mindful not to press into the sling or his back.

“Hi, mom,” he says quietly, like he’s trying to gentle the stiffness in his voice.

She releases him, but not before pressing three kisses into his temple, always three. One for each of her kids.

Ramon steps into the space she leaves when she continues into the house and from the corner of her eye, she sees him cup the back of Eddie’s head and take a good look at him. For Ramon, it’s the equivalent of collapsing to the floor in tears.

Helena quickly toes off her boots and makes room at the entrance for the others behind her, which also puts her first in line to catch a sight that nearly knocks her down.

“Who is this young man I see?” she cries, throwing her hands wide to gesture at her grandson. “Last I saw you, you were just a little tyke. Now look at you, you must have grown three feet!”

Christopher giggles and Helena smiles in return as she folds him into her arms, but it’s forced. She’s not lying — he’s grown so much more than she expected. She hasn’t seen him in person since Eddie’s graduation and while video chats are priceless, they didn’t capture this growth spurt.

She can’t believe she let this happen. That she went from spending most of everyday with this little boy and now she’s missed out on two years of his life. Can’t believe Eddie kept him fro—

Mom, listen...

Supper goes well enough. Eddie never truly shakes loose the tension in his shoulders; he trades many looks with Isabel, seemingly spooked by his parents’ behaviour. He talks a lot more than he usually does, probably out of nervousness. But overall, they let Christopher take the reigns; they’re all more comfortable with that. It’s been too long since they’ve last spoken and Christopher is full of stories about his school and his friends.

“Buck says we can go to the Griffin soon. It was closed because of COVID. But before, I went with my class and they made a comet right in front of us!”

Buck. It’s the third time his name has been dropped at the table since they sat down.

She first met him, briefly, at Eddie’s graduation, but didn’t really register him as someone in her son’s life until Eddie and his crew stopped off in El Paso for dinner on their way home from fighting Texas wildfires. Buck had been cropping up in Christopher’s and Eddie’s stories for months by then and she was curious to properly meet him in person. He had seemed...young, she remembers.

“The Griffith Observatory,” Eddie corrects fondly. With Christopher, at least, it’s impossible for him not to soften.

Eddie’s only eaten half the pasta on his plate but Isabel seems satisfied. Helena bites down on the impulse to encourage him to eat more. To remind him he needs his strength to heal quickly for his little boy. She does lift the basket of garlic bread in his direction, because she can’t help herself. He eyes the basket warily as though he expects her to do more, but when she doesn’t, he shakes his head with a small smile of thanks.

“Yeah,” Christopher agrees, “it was cool but we didn’t get to stay long enough to see everything. And if we go later, Buck says we can see real meteors in the sky.”

Fourth mention.

“Christopher is on an astronomy kick,” Eddie adds redundantly.

“Wait, I gotta show you —” Christopher is sliding out of his seat before anyone can stop him and racing down the hall to his bedroom.

“Oh, honey —” Helena grips the arms of her chair out of reflex to jump up and help him — he doesn’t have his crutches, he’s only using the wall for support and he’s wearing socks — but Eddie looks over when her chair creaks.

He can’t really expect her to just sit here while Christopher—

Mom, listen…

They can hear Christopher make it to his bedroom without injury, so Helena slowly settles back in her chair and Ramon clears his throat. “He seems...okay. More okay than I would have expected.”

Eddie keeps his eyes on his father for a beat too long, assessing the comment for any hidden messages.

“He’s a resilient kid. Buck stayed here with him while I was in the hospital, so his routine wouldn’t get messed up. I think that helped a lot.”

Fifth ment— wait.

“Buck stayed with him?” The words — the tone — are out of her mouth before Helena can stop them.

On the shortlist of people she expected to hear stayed with her grandson to watch him and care for him, alone, while his father was in the hospital — Isabel, Pepa, Carla, or even Ana — Buck’s isn’t a name she expected to hear. A coworker — an unrelated man with no children of his own, over Christopher’s family? Over Christopher’s own aide? Over a schoolteacher?

Eddie’s jaw squares up and he sits up in his chair. Like light gray rain clouds suddenly turning dark, weighty with an incoming storm, a heavy tension builds in the air between them.

“Look!” Christopher exclaims as he rounds the corner, nearly throwing a thin, blue hardcover book on the table. Eddie catches it before it can slam into Christopher’s leftover pasta and sets it down on the table for him. “It shows all the things we can see in the sky over the whole year!”

Christopher climbs back into his chair and opens the book up to a random page, describing everything he seems to have nearly memorized already. By the time he reaches the upcoming meteor shower, the tension at the table has dissipated enough for Helena to excuse herself to the bathroom and not have it come off like a passive aggressive storm-off.

She washes her hands with soap pumped out of a fish-shaped dispenser that wasn’t here the last time she visited and trains her eyes on the basket of gauze, scissors and tape tucked away on the shelf above the toilet. That wasn’t there last time either.

Her baby boy was shot by a sniper. In LA.

A bullet tore through the body she created and almost took her son from her forever.

Mom, listen...

But only after she’d almost pushed him so far away he might never come back.

The tears well up again and she sniffs through them, blinking up at the ceiling until she’s back under control.

As she pivots to turn the light off, she spies a purple toothbrush resting on the ledge just above the sink. The other two toothbrushes are electric — one adult-, one child-sized — and stand on the counter.

—————-

Helena and Ramon meet the infamous Ana by accident.

When they leave Eddie’s house on Friday, Helena sends a text message to say what she couldn’t manage to say to his face — that they’re here for him, in whatever capacity he needs, that they’ll take their cues from him, even if that means giving him some space.

To that, she receives a, Thank you.

When she asks for the contact information of the therapist he had scoped out for them, she gets a phone call.

“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth,” her son says, “but are you just doing this because I got shot?”

“Honestly? Yeah,” she laughs mirthlessly. “I’m sorry to say it took our baby boy nearly dying to get our heads out of our ass.”

Eddie huffs a laugh on his end. “Well, I’ll take that silver lining.”

After that, Eddie invites them to a restaurant for brunch on Sunday, but when they reach his doorstep, they find it already occupied by a woman who’s just rung the doorbell, holding a casserole dish in her hands.

When the door opens, Eddie takes in the three of them, his eyes wide and apprehensive.

“Ana, I wasn’t expecting you,” he says, his eyes darting over her shoulder to his parents. He’s smiling, though there’s a clear strain in the corners of his eyes and mouth. They’ve been critical about Shannon for so long — and with good reason, nothing will change Helena’s mind on that — no doubt he’s expecting them to hate this new woman on sight.

“You’re Ana!” Helena exclaims with a wide smile, imbuing her voice with as much welcome as she’s capable. “Hi! It’s so good to finally meet you!”

When Eddie releases the breath he was holding, she knows she was on the mark. Ramon follows her lead and invites Ana to brunch with them on the spot and won’t hear her protests about intruding.

Eddie, of course, doesn’t protest at all but invites them in so Ana can store the casserole in the fridge — it takes both Ana and Helena’s organizational skills to find a spot for it among Isabel’s and Eddie’s tupperwares already invading all available space — and he can finish getting ready. He was already dressed in a nice polo and jeans but when he comes back from his bedroom it’s in a smart button-down he must have struggled with out of sheer stubbornness. Both his parents and his girlfriend are in the house and still he didn’t ask for help.

Eddie and Christopher decide to hop into Ana’s car and Helena asks loudly for directions to keep Ramon from insisting they should all ride together.

“So how long have you kids been seeing each other now?” Ramon asks when they’ve been seated at the restaurant.

“Nearly 7 months now, I think, isn’t it?” Ana replies, looking at Eddie with a dazzling smile — she truly is gorgeous. Eddie was still talking to them when he started dating her so they know she’s a schoolteacher turned vice principal but to meet her in person blows all their other expectations out of the water. She’s lively and sweet, patient and understanding, Latina — a big plus in Ramon’s books ironically. Eddie picked well this time.

Eddie hesitates a moment and nods. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

Every now and again, he squirms in his chair, like he can’t quite settle in and Helena wonders when his last painkiller was taken. But when he catches her face, she smoothes her worry out into a cheeky smile that says I like this one. He smiles back and there’s nothing she can pinpoint exactly but something about it makes her uneasy.

Eddie’s too quiet as they wait for their food, his face pinched, and just when Helena’s about to break, Ana does her the favour of asking gently, “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to take anything for your arm?”

But Eddie shrugs off her concern. “No, thank you. Next one isn’t until noon.” He taps his phone twice and she smiles.

“Sorry, I forgot. He’s got them all on timers with a special ringtone. He’s so organized,” she tells Helena and Ramon with a sunny smile, rubbing her hand down his good arm. “I have one multivitamin and I forget to take it half the time.”

“Buck set it up,” Eddie defers, and Helena schools her face not to react; even at brunch Buck is with them in spirit.

Ramon either takes no issue with the mention or doesn’t register it. He takes the opportunity to share how his new pharmacy pre-packages his heart and arthritis medications into AM and PM slots and Ana listens attentively. Eddie’s fingertip taps absently against the phone case until their food arrives.

Christopher ordered a waffle, and with Eddie indisposed, Helena is already moving to help him when Ana beats her to the punch again. Helena tucks a smile away as Ana leans over and starts cutting the waffle up into smaller pieces.

“He can do that,” Eddie says when he notices Christopher sitting back in his chair, realizing only when Ana startles that his tone is sharp. His voice is softer when he follows up with, “Right, buddy?”

“Yeah,” Chris agrees, picking up his own cutlery with enthusiasm despite his hands being nearly too small for them.

Eddie throws an apologetic grin Ana’s way and brunch continues peacefully, though the stiff line of Eddie’s shoulder never does quite soften.

Mom, listen…

————-

Their first therapy session takes place in Isabel’s kitchen at Eddie’s request. Isabel thinks it’s so he has the option of leaving when he needs to (in other words, when he gets fed up and runs) but Helena hasn’t missed how Eddie has been careful to keep them away from his home since the first day they saw him.

They’ve seen Eddie and Chris numerous times in the week and change they’ve been in LA — more than they’ve seen them since they left El Paso — but always outside of the house. Sometimes they pick Chris up from school, sometimes Eddie and Chris come to Isabel’s for supper, sometimes they go out to restaurants or other outings, but they haven’t been invited back to his home again. She wanted to believe it was because he was hiding the news that Ana had moved in but that’s been shot out of the water both by her ringing the doorbell and an errant comment at the end of brunch about how she hadn’t seen him since the welcome home party.

So it’s out of pettiness, then. Stubbornness. Out of pig-headed inability to accept that he needs help and willingness to believe that they’re making an effort to meet him on his own terms.

She tries not to let it rankle her, tries to find some of that resolute commitment to letting things be and not push. But the next thing she knows, she’s yelling about it to a stranger at Isabel’s island counter.

To be fair, the session with Dr. Jamieson wasn’t going great to begin with. It’s awkward as hell, the three of them balancing on stools, squished in next to each other to try to fit into the screen, but also trying to keep the laptop close enough to still hear her and not have to shout. It’s happening while Chris is at school so they don’t have to worry about keeping him distracted but they can’t exactly ask Isabel to go wait in the LA sun for an hour so she doesn’t overhear, so it’s basically a given that she’s the fourth person on this virtual couch from the next room over.

And beyond that, Helena has kept her mouth shut for over a week which is frankly more time than anyone would have bet on, including herself, and given the opportunity to express herself freely...well…

“You want space? We’ve given you nothing but space since we got here. How much more can we give you, Eddie? You’re hundreds of miles away from us already. Forgive us for feeling the need to check in on our only son who almost died last week,” she yells, her hand nearly colliding with her coffee mug as she gestures.

“Last week?” Ramon echoes with a bark of dark laughter.

“Oh, no, that’s right,” Helena picks up. “I’m sorry! Not a week ago! Nearly a month ago! Because apparently we don’t warrant even a text when our only son almost dies, but that’s not enough space?”

Eddie rakes his fingers aggressively through his hair, his lips pursed.

“We have to move to Mexico,” Ramon continues blithely. “Is that enough space? No, better yet! Sweden! Your family still lives out there, no? We can live on their farm. Completely different timezone, we won’t even be reachable.”

“Yeah,” Eddie bites back, a sour grin blooming on his face, “that’s what I want. I ask you to give me some breathing room — to respect me, my life — and you translate that into living in a fucking commune in Sweden. And you wonder why we’re in therapy. I can’t talk to you, you don’t listen!”

Mom, lis—

“Listen to what, Eddie?” Helena yells, getting out of her seat to pace. “Listen to the months of silence you’ve sent our way? Because we either get on board and blindly cheer on every mess you get yourself into or we don’t get to know you anymore? Don’t get to know our grandson?”

“I never kept him from you — you have our number, the phone didn’t ring. That’s not on me.”

“Because you would have picked up?” Ramon exclaims, pushing away from the island to better look back at their son. “Easy to claim when it’s after the fact in front of the doctor.”

“So now I’m a liar! You raised a liar?”

“I think we’ve gotten off-track,” Dr. Jamieson’s tinny voice interjects from the laptop.

In the bottom right hand corner of the screen, only Eddie remains in the frame.

————

Firehouse 118 was a lively crowd at Eddie’s graduation but it’s nothing compared to the party thrown at the Grant-Nash house in honour of a new probationary firefighter.

Dr. Jamieson pointed out the self-fulfilling prophecy that Eddie protecting himself from criticism and pressure by withholding details about his life in LA was leading to his parents’ growing insecurity over not knowing anything about their son and feeling the need to intervene more and more.

The solution? Let them in on his life and trust that they could hold themselves in check.

For that, even Ramon was in agreement that maybe therapy wasn’t a load of shit after all.

So here they find themselves welcomed into this beautiful and loud home nearly three weeks into their stay in LA. They were allowed to pick Eddie and Chris up so they arrive together but Christopher peels off immediately to find kids his own age.

It’s impossible not to feel the warmth of family radiating from every inch of the home so when Eddie’s shoulders seem to loosen a little as they walk in, Helena can’t find it in herself to begrudge him.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” a woman around Helena’s age drawls, crowding into Eddie’s space for a delicate hug he doesn’t hesitate to return. “Though I could have done without seeing another one of these for a few hundred more years,” she says, gesturing to the sling. “How much longer?”

“Another month if everything checks out,” Eddie says, releasing a sigh.

“It better,” she warns with a twinkle in her eye that says if she learns he’s been aggravating his injury there will be hell to pay.

The woman, they find out, is Athena Grant-Nash, wife of the 118’s captain and consummate host. While Eddie splits off “for a minute”, she leads them to the main area for drinks and introductions before leaving them to mingle. Captain Nash — Bobby — meets them with appetizers and introduces them to the Lees, the de-facto parental figures of the young man who just joined the team.

From the spot she claims at the edge of the dining room, Helena keeps an eye trained on Eddie outside. She feels an itch under her skin knowing it’s been nearly twenty minutes and Eddie hasn’t checked on Christopher, but she knows she shouldn’t go herself. Eddie can do everything on his own, right? He can look after his own kid at a party.

She can, however, go to the washroom and take a peek at what Christopher’s up to while she’s wandering, and that’s exactly what she intends to do.

But for now, she watches as Eddie criss-crosses through the crowds of the patio, prompting a localized burst of cheers at each stop as he reunites himself with teammates he hasn’t seen since the shooting. She recognizes the woman who was on the trip to Texas but the rest conjure only the vaguest memories of Eddie’s graduation and the occasional picture on Instagram — before he stopped posting that is. Just one more way they’ve been iced out.

But he seems happy, almost carefree in a way she realizes she hasn’t seen with her own eyes in...longer than this trip, actually.

Probably years, if she’s honest.

And it occurs to her, slowly, creepingly, that her son is outside, smiling freely and easily, surrounded by people he’s made his new family, while Helena stands inside watching his life through a glass window in a stranger’s house.

Mom, listen…

She swallows past the lump in her throat and sighs. Ramon’s arm comes around her waist and without looking at him, she knows he’s had a similar revelation.

Their next therapy session is in a few days, and they’re not going to fuck it up again.

There’s a late arrival to the party, one of the only people in Eddie’s life she can recognize — Buck. He’s as tall as she remembered but he looks a shade less young now maybe. He greets everyone with a hug or kiss on the cheek as he moves through the party, and bestows a cheer and an enthusiastic hug on Albert, the guest of honour.

When he moves on to the patio and approaches Eddie’s circle, however, the cheerful, long-awaited reunion of best friends she expects doesn’t happen. They catch each other’s eyes for a few beats and share a welcoming smile, then the conversation resumes as if nothing of consequence has happened. Buck doesn’t even linger long, heading back into the house after a few minutes.

When the cake starts being doled out, Eddie returns to meet them at the table and accepts the plate Helena offers him. Helena is scouting the yard for a chair he can sit on to eat when Buck reappears.

“He couldn’t be pulled away?” Eddie asks in surprise.

“Nope,” Buck replies with a grin before turning to them. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz. Good to see you again!” Before they can return more than a smile, Buck continues, “he’s cheating at Unicorn Temple with Harry. Not even cake can pull him away.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and smiles. “My son is not a cheater.” To them, he says, “Buck thinks that whenever he’s losing at a video game, it’s because his opponent is cheating.”

“Not always! Just when they are,” he replies with exaggerated emphasis before scooping a piece of cake onto a plate. “I’m gonna go hide this in the fridge for him for later before it’s all gone.”

Eddie ducks his head and smiles down at his plate, and the questions are building up behind Helena’s teeth again.

Christopher’s been playing video games all this time? Is it an age-appropriate game? Why is Buck checking on your son? Why is Buck saving him cake when nobody asked him to? Why—

But Eddie looks up with an uncertain expression and says, “there’s a table out there if you guys want to join me.”

So Helena stows her questions and says, “that’d be great.”

They eat the overly-sweet cake in peaceful silence until Ramon casts an eye around and says, “you must be glad about the new firefighter. You won’t be the baby on the team anymore.”

Eddie snorts. “I’m 33 and my kid is nearly a teenager — and that’s totally not freaking me out at all,” he adds wryly. “Besides, I was never the baby of the team. Buck is younger than me and forever a kid at heart so I was never in any danger of it.”

“Oh god, don’t remind me that Christopher’s growing up,” Helena only half-jokes. “I can still barely believe he’s old enough to hold his own head up.”

Eddie huffs a laugh and Helena banks it as a win.

“Do any of your coworkers have teenagers?” Ramon asks. “Might have some words of wisdom to share.” Since you won’t ask us, is unspoken and politely ignored by all.

“Athena’s daughter May is just leaving the teen years now, but after her, Christopher’s the oldest. Harry, Athena’s son is 9 and Denny, Hen and Karen’s son just turned 8. It’s great for play dates but not for getting advice on what’s coming up unfortunately.”

“Karen,” Ramon echoes.

Eddie’s fork pauses on its way to scoop some excess icing off his cake and his back straightens.

“Hen’s wife,” he says curtly, daring.

Helena wants to roll her eyes at the posturing. It’s 2021, who cares who anybody loves. She knows Ramon doesn’t, not really, not anymore. It’s a 50-year-long reflex to make a comment, one they’ve been working, if only to have some semblance of a civil conversation with Sophia while she works through a degree in women and gender studies.

But she knows that excuse isn’t going to fly with Eddie.

It hasn’t flown since Eddie was 20 years old and realizing he’d lost a good friend to his father’s caustic words. And Helena can’t ever go back and examine the hurt in Eddie’s expression with fresh eyes. Shemanages to forget about it most of the time until something happens to dig it out of the cold, hard ground and shove it in her arms.

Mom, listen...

But she’s come to LA because she wants to be in her son’s life, in her grandson’s life and she can’t be a coward now.

“They’re a gorgeous couple,” she says, almost too loudly in her enthusiasm. “Are they thinking of having more kids?”

Eddie turns his assessing eyes to her and is mollified by her effort. “Yeah, they’re foster parents now. They’ve fostered three kids so far.”

“That’s great,” she says sincerely. Then, accidentally on purpose and only in part to bring Ramon back to a safe topic, she asks, “Does Ana want a large family?”

Eddie sees through her attempt, but nods. “Yeah, she loves kids.”

Helena doesn’t miss Ramon’s approving nod, or the dark look that passes over Eddie’s eyes when he catches it.

“Was Ana not able to come tonight?” Ramon asks.

“I didn’t ask her,” he answers, his voice a shade too casual. “This is more of a team thing.” As if they hadn’t just been discussing the other families all around them.

“That Ana—” Ramon begins but is interrupted by the arrival of Christopher with a hint of blue icing on his nose and Buck following behind him with two paper plates filled with cake.

Christopher sits backwards on the picnic table bench and uses his arms to lift his legs over while Eddie watches but doesn’t offer to help, and when Christopher is set, Buck places one of the plates in front of him with a plastic fork stuck in the top like a flag.

“Buck was finally able to pull you away, mijo?” Eddie asks as Christopher digs in.

“No, May took her room back so we can’t play on her tv anymore. Harry’s gonna ask his mom if we can play in her room.”

“Yeah...” Buck draws out, sharing a dubious expression with Eddie over Christopher’s head, “I wouldn’t hold out for that, bud.”

“Maybe you can teach the others how to play Scrabble!” Eddie suggests.

Christopher’s nose wrinkles, “Scrabble is boring.”

“Hey!” Buck protests and takes a forkful of Christopher’s cake in retaliation, which prompts Christopher to yell and attack Buck’s cake back, taking much more than a forkful.

The commotion draws attention to their table and Helena’s gearing up to tell Christopher to settle down when she catches Eddie’s eyes on her, waiting.

Helena looks back out to the backyard to say, People are staring.

Eddie looks back impassively as if to say, Let them.

Mom, listen...

Helena swallows her impatience, her anxiety, her embarrassment.

“Hey,” Buck calls, his mouth half full of icing, “did you take your 6?”

Eddie hesitates and that’s enough for Buck to swallow and look put out, already turning and lifting a leg out of the confines of the picnic table.

“Did you turn off your alarm again?”

“I didn’t turn it off the first time, I don’t know what happened.”

“What happened is it woke you up at 6am and you turned it off because sleepy Eddie makes bad life choices.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You don’t have —”

“Right pocket?” Buck interjects, already walking away.

“Yeah,” Eddie sighs.

Christopher looks at him and shakes his head with exaggerated disappointment.

“Don’t you start,” Eddie warns, scooping a fingertip of icing and dabbing it on his son’s nose too quickly for him to duck.

Christopher shrieks and reaches for his cake fingers-first.

“Oh no, no,” Eddie laughs, catching Christopher’s fingers with one hand. “Truce, truce.”

Christopher doesn’t look interested in a truce and Eddie’s other arm is in a sling, so Ramon quickly pulls the cake out of Christopher’s reach, and then Buck’s abandoned piece and Helena does the same with Eddie’s.

“Not fair!” Christopher cries, still reaching.

“Your dad’s hurt, mijo, you can’t attack him with icing while he’s healing,” Ramon says reasonably. “Wait till he’s all better.”

“He’s fine!” Christopher declares with the confidence of a trauma surgeon as he tries to climb up on the bench.

Eddie’s not in a position to pull him back down and Helena doesn’t know how far they can take their non-interference but she’s not about to let her grandson hop over a table to fall into three plates of cake. She’s half-decided she’s going to pick up the cake and walk it back inside when Buck returns, depositing a glass of water on the table and a small white pill into Eddie’s palm before swooping in and tickling Christopher’s sides.

He shrieks loudly, gaining looks from all around the backyard, but it gets his butt back down on the bench and Buck sits back down next to him, boxing him in between himself and Eddie.

“What happened to our cake? How’d it get all the way over there?” The plates are very easily within Buck’s reach; it’s a question for Christopher’s benefit.

“Dad got me like you did!” Christopher cries indignantly, pointing to his nose. “I’m getting him back!”

“Oh man,” Buck nods seriously before his finger darts forward, swipes the icing from his nose and brings it to his mouth. “Mmm, this is better than the one I got you with. You sure you don’t just wanna eat it?”

Christopher looks unconvinced.

“How about this?” Buck ducks down to whisper loudly. “You call a truce with your dad, and then I’ll steal all his icing and we’ll eat it.”

The icing on Eddie’s cake is mostly piled in a corner of his paper plate. He’s never been able to stomach the pure sugary sweetness of store bought icing.

“Okay,” Christopher nods back, reaching out again for his plate but without making grabby hands.

Ramon assesses him for a moment before taking the chance to push the plates back within reach.

“Hey, Eddie,” Buck calls deliberately. “You should take your medication now.”

“Thanks, Buck,” Eddie replies with a smile that conveys an eyeroll. “I’ll do that now.”

While Eddie pops the pill and takes a very long drink of water, Buck “sneakily” pulls his plate towards them and scoops all the piled icing onto his own plate before pushing the cake back to Eddie’s side of the table.

Christopher laughs and pushes Eddie’s plate an extra few inches away out of spite.

Eddie plays the disappointed victim passably well with a half-hearted gasp and a shake of his head. “You little thieves.”

As promised, Buck doles out some of Eddie’s icing to Christopher who immediately protests at the amount left on Buck’s plate.

“Hey, when you’re a big guy like me, you get more icing. Keep eating your proteins and you’ll get there in no time.”

Christopher accepts that easily enough. “I’m gonna be tall like dad.”

Buck scoffs, “Aim higher, kid. Literally.”

“I am barely two inches shorter than you,” Eddie laments, not for the first time, it sounds like.

“It’s practically three. Are you really going to lie in front of your parents?”

Wouldn’t be the first time, is on Helena’s tongue because it’s been hours since she could speak her mind, but she holds it in.

“How was the trip from Texas?” Buck asks them suddenly, bringing them back into the fold of a scene they'd never left but somehow stopped being a part of. “Flights have new restrictions on them now, don’t they?”

Mom, listen...

When the party is winding down and they walk outside to the driveway, Eddie surprises them by offering them both a hug.

“Thank you for coming,” he says sincerely, though Helena hears the underlying “and behaving” and can’t help but bristle.

“Thank you for inviting us, mijo,” Ramon says; his turn to save Helena from herself.

And when Eddie lets them know he and Chris will be getting their ride back from Buck, Ramon takes Helena’s hand and they smile almost sincerely as they say their goodnights.

—————-

The next week happens to be Isabel’s 80th birthday and Helena and Ramon keep themselves busy by helping to throw a party that will reunite every vaccinated member of the family in the area (they’re not about to take a chance on Isabel’s health).

Things have been getting better with Eddie. They had a second therapy session, again at Isabel’s island counter, where they lasted a good 25 minutes before devolving into yelling. The next day, Eddie asked Ramon for a ride to physical therapy, and easily accepted his father’s offer of lunch after the appointment.

Then, when Helena asked if she could pick up some groceries for him and Christopher, she was refused — in no small part, she thinks, because he still won’t let them in his house — but instead of going off on him, she channeled that anger and resentment into nearly buying out Costco for Isabel’s party. It felt like progress Dr. Jamieson would be proud of.

That’s why, despite the party officially kicking off around 11am, they’re just past supper time and all tables and counters are still nearly buckling under the weight of the food. They’ll have to send everyone home with leftovers if the flow of people stops. Isabel’s front door has been a turnstile since this morning and Helena knows from experience it’ll likely stay that way until the late hours of the night. Most recently, Helena’s daughters made their appearance, and it’s not at all the reason Helena is back in the kitchen.

Despite coming from opposite ends with different travel distances, Adriana and Sophia arrived within a half hour of each other, a move Helena saw through instantly. The idea that her children coordinated to arrive together instead of risking the possibility of facing their parents alone sets a fire raging in her heart, and she realizes suddenly that she isn’t prepared to be hypervigilant of her every word with all three of her kids here now to push her buttons.

So, she retreats to the kitchen.

She doesn’t expect one of them to follow her in.

“I heard you guys were doing therapy,” Adriana volleys as she approaches.

Helena cracks open the tray of chocolate chip cookies and starts plating them, her face angled down so any kneejerk expression of distaste isn’t as visible. “Apparently, that’s what the cool kids do nowadays.”

“It is,” Adriana agrees, the bangles on her wrists clinking on the countertop as she reaches for the box of oatmeal cookies to plate. She’s a year into her Master’s in communication. What she intends to do with that is a mystery to them. So much of their kids’ lives are a mystery now. Helena closes the lid of the cookie tray hard and relishes in the snap of the plastic groove into the tongue.

“Paying a stranger to tell us when and how to talk to each other is cool,” she bites. It’s not posed as a question, just a bitter acknowledgement.

Adriana is quiet and Helena starts plating mini quiches onto the cookie platter just to stay occupied while her daughter walks away. Sophia is a yeller, she stands her ground and gives as good as she gets. Adriana, however, is a runner, just like Eddie.

But Adriana doesn’t leave in a huff. She turns to the counter and grabs a second platter, moving the mini quiches onto that one.

“It’s cool that you’re open to trying,” she says. “I think that, in any family where there’s love, there’s going to be hurt. And the longer we stay stuck in that hurt, the harder it becomes to talk about it without causing more. We get stuck in patterns that we can’t break out of, and people on the outside can be the best ones to point out those patterns and help you break out of them to get to what you actually, truly want to say.”

Helena knows what she actually, truly wants to say. That’s not the problem. The problem is that none of her kids want to hear it.

“I see a therapist,” Adriana continues. Helena stills and looks at her daughter, calmly arranging the mini quiches into concentric circles. “Since my last year of undergrad. When things got really hard and I couldn’t understand why. They helped me. A lot. Helped me figure out what was wrong and how to get myself through it.”

“You didn’t tell us,” Helena says, her voice thick.

“I know,” her daughter replies simply. “I didn’t know how. I’m telling you now because what I actually, truly want to say is that I’m proud of you and dad for doing this. And maybe if you don’t hate it...maybe we could try a session later too.”

There’s an offer in her daughter’s words, an open hand reaching out. But in that hand, Helena sees her failures as a parent, the judgement of the world for failing her kids, and she doesn’t want to reach her own hand out.

Mom, listen…

Helena looks at her eldest daughter, almost a stranger to her, with an entire life Helena is only starting to realize she has no part in. It hurts — it always hurts when the kids pull away but to realize she didn’t even know the extent of it...she wants to hurt back.

Mom, listen…

But she’s trying so hard to break those patterns Adriana speaks of. So instead, Helena thinks of the therapist’s advice leading them into a piece of Eddie’s life they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten to see and swallows past the indignation in her throat to reach down and find the words she actually, truly wants to say.

“You say when, and I’ll be there.”

———-

The sun is setting when Helena finally agrees to get off her feet and just enjoy the party outside while the cousins take over the serving and cleaning. There are four generations of Diazes gathered around but for the first time ever, most of the cousins are young adults, not teenagers, and it’s nice to be able to pass on the hosting responsibilities to them for a bit.

The sky is clear, the sunset resplendent from Isabel’s backyard, and the conversation is flowing easily. It’s a beautiful evening, warm with a gentle breeze cool enough to let her lean back against Ramon in his lounge chair, one of his arms wrapped loosely around her hip.

For the first time since getting Isabel’s text, Helena feels something like peace wash over her and she almost feels bad for the thrum of vindication in her stomach when she spots Eddie slumped comfortably in an armchair, his legs propped up on another chair.

He’s at home here.

Yes, he was at ease at his captain’s house but this is family, this is where he can really sink into the love and comfort and rest. With his aunts and uncles, cousins and sisters around to take care of him. And Christopher, who spent the afternoon running around and chomping down on all the sugar he could get his hands on, slumped against him, nearly asleep. This is family.

She knows he could find that peace back in El Paso, they both could. Eddie had friends there, and his parents, who knew his son better than he did for most of his life. And there are fires in El Paso same as there are in LA, but less smog, less general insanity.

But Eddie’s a lot like his parents, too much like them maybe, and once he’s decided on a course of action he can’t be swayed. So Helena has made peace with it. Rather, she’s made peace with pretending to be okay with it while she waits for him to come to the realization that he should move back.

And in the meantime, if they can mend this thorniness between them, then maybe she and Ramon can make more of these impromptu trips. Maybe even convince Eddie to come home for Christmas this year. At the very least, go back to regular video chats.

But all that ruminating feels far away right now. She’s moving gently with the rise and fall of Ramon’s chest, and she’s so close to slipping away to the feeling of contentment when a new arrival makes her open eyes she didn’t realize she’d closed.

“Feliz cumpleanos,” she hears someone say in half-decent Spanish from the front door on the other side of the side yard fence.

She doesn’t recognize the voice as yet another cousin or uncle, but Eddie shakes Christopher’s shoulder gently, and says, “hey, guess who’s here.”

It takes a moment, but the words penetrate Christopher’s sleepiness. His eyes pop open and he shimmies out of Eddie’s lap and into his crutches to power walk over to the gate just in time for it to open, admitting Isabel, holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and a sheepish looking Buck behind her.

“Buck!” Christopher yells.

Buck’s smile widens and he immediately opens his arms. “Hey, superman!”

Buck crouches down and Christopher throws his arms around his neck, crutches and all. When it’s time to break apart, Christopher’s still hanging on and Helena feels a stab of dark vindication at what’s about to happen, and the look Ramon sends her way tells her she’s not alone. Because Christopher is now officially in the double digits, and while he’s always been an independent kid, becoming 10 years old was a big deal for him and his perceived level of maturity, and apparently the year he decided no one was allowed to carry him anymore.

And now Christopher’s tired and in the grip of a powerful sugar crash. He’s not going to suffer any indignities, and Helena knows she should feel bad about not trying to stop Buck. About just watching this play out to see him be rejected. But she wasn’t expecting to see him here, in this safe haven of Isabel’s backyard, in this space for family and loved ones, and it rankles her. It feels like everywhere she turns in LA, she finds him there. And his being here is just another nail in the coffin of Eddie stubbornly refusing to let his parents back into his home. That he would call his friend to this party just to avoid letting them give him a ride…

So she’s a little bitter, a little resentful of the persistent, low-key rejection. Sue her. Eddie has made it clear he doesn’t want them interfering anyway so this is on him.

“Christopher,” Eddie calls, a warning to not make a scene.

Buck looks over Christopher’s shoulder and smiles. “He’s fine,” he says.

Then he’s heaving Christopher’s body up into his arms and onto his hip and Christopher…

...Christopher slumps down over Buck’s shoulder like a baby koala. No sound of protest leaves his lips. His face, if it shows any displeasure, is hidden behind Buck’s neck.

And when Eddie gets up, it’s not to intercede, it’s only to grab the errant crutches before they hit something, and to pull his own armless chair out for Buck to sit on because apparently Buck is staying, and apparently Christopher is staying with him.

“He���s a bit old to be carried around, no?” Ramon says with a bite, because he can’t help himself.

Eddie, who’s been watching his son fondly, barely bats an eye. “He gets cuddly when he’s tired, and Buck’s nearly the only one left who’s big enough to carry him.”

“Ah, that’s why you spend so much time developing these,” Pepa says with a sly smile as she pinches at Buck’s bicep. The same familiar pinch she gave her own grandkids’ cheeks.

“Gracias a Dios,” Isabel adds meaningfully.

“That was adrenaline,” Eddie dismisses with a teasing grin.

“That was 100 squats and 50 pushups a day,” Buck returns blithely. “...and maybe a little adrenaline.”

“What’s this?” Ramon asks before she can.

Instead of prompting more teasing, the mood falls slightly and everyone looks to each other.

Finally, Eddie sighs. “When I got shot, Buck army crawled under a ladder truck to get me out and lifted me into the truck to get to the hospital.”

It strikes Helena suddenly, shamefully, that in the shock of finding out they’d missed the event itself, the hospital stay, and two entire weeks of healing, that they’d never circled back around for details on what actually went down the day it happened.

She never thought to wonder how he got off that street. How he got to the hospital. Who might have saved his life.

And she wishes she were a better person then. Wishes that learning Buck saved her son’s life overpowered her irritation at having him sitting here in Isabel’s backyard like he belonged here when Helena herself barely felt like she did herself. It does help, though.

“They released the street footage of the shooting,” Pepa continues quietly. “It’s on YouTube. Before I even knew it happened, Marguerita from church just sent me a link saying ‘they said it’s a Diaz, do you know him?’ and I saw.”

The idea of her son’s shooting being passed around like a cat video makes Helena sick, but Pepa lamenting how she hadn’t known when she learned about it in a matter of hours and sat on it for weeks…

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Pepa says decisively. “But they have an angle where you can see our Buck here go and get Eddie, pick him up like he doesn’t weigh a thing and get him into the truck to get to the hospital. Probably why he’s alive today. So gracias a Dios for those squats.”

Eddie and Buck are both looking away, both looking safely at Christopher while the table digests the news.

“If you were looking for a story of something really dumb, I can point you in the direction of another video of Buck,” Eddie says, his tone jovial but his eyes strained.

“You need to let that go,” Buck says in a definite whine.

“Do I?” Eddie asks. “Abuela did you see the video of the firefighter who went up the crane all alone?”

“Dios mío, Buck,” Pepa laments.

“Did you send it to me?” Abuela asks her, pulling out her phone and her glasses to check.

“No, mamá, it was an idiot firefighter but I didn’t realize it was the one we knew.”

“In the middle of an all-out declaration of war on firefighters,” Eddie begins, quietly for Christopher’s sake, but impassioned, sitting up in his chair, “this idiota and his squat count climbed up a crane ladder, completely exposed and defenseless—”

Buck looks pained. “I was wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet. And that’s the job sometimes—”

“The paramedics’ job, actually, which you aren’t. So, no, that wasn’t the job.” Eddie’s tone edges into something darker without his meaning to. He takes a drink of his lemonade looking for all the world like he wished it was a beer. “And you know that or I wouldn’t have found out about it from Chim a month after the fact.”

Helena clenches her jaw tight and squeezes Ramon’s hand even tighter so neither of them can say, So you have a problem being left in the dark too?

“Buck,” Isabel sighs with disappointment.

Buck winces. “It was before— ” He cuts himself off, his wide eyes darting towards Helena and Ramon of all people.

“Hmm,” Isabel answers noncommittally, as if to end the conversation.

Just then, Sophia brings out a platter of bite-sized desserts, making the rounds of the whole circle for people to pick at before leaving it on the table. The opportunity to move on is there. That doesn’t mean they’re interested in taking it.

“Before what?” Ramon asks, his tone is forcibly casual.

The silence that greets Ramon’s question is heavy. Guilty. When Helena casts her eyes around, she’s greeted by stiff shoulders and a mix of apprehension shared between her son, her mother- and sister-in-law, and Buck.

Mom, listen...

“Before what?” Helena repeats, her voice uncompromising.

———-

The fight they have in Isabel’s guest bedroom is a Hall of Famer. It’s a screaming match, no doubt about it. The doors from the bedroom to the yard are all closed but there’s no question every member of the family — and Buck — can hear every word.

“Do you really hate us that much?” Helena demands. She’s crying but she doesn’t know if it’s heartbreak or fury, she just wishes it’d stop so she could lean into her anger. “Genuinely, honestly, Eddie.”

“I don’t hate you,” he protests, keeping his own voice down, making it seem like they’re irrational for their anger.

“Bullshit,” she spits.

“You must!” Ramon adds. “You hate us so much that you have to hate your sisters too? Your cousins? You would rather leave your only son to a stranger, some gringo coworker, than with family? That’s how much you hate us? Hate our name?”

“Our name?” Eddie shoots back incredulously. “What are you talking about, our name? We’re not royalty, papi, and Chris’ name would never change.”

“You would leave him to your coworker,” Helena stresses, disgust dripping from her tongue.

“To my best friend,” Eddie retorts, “who Christopher adores, if you haven’t noticed. And who adores Christopher right back.”

“That’s not normal, mijo,” Ramon warns.

“Jesus christ,” Eddie seethes. “Please do not star—”

“What kind of single adult man bonds with another man’s child like that?”

“You’re describing a tío, you understand that right? What, you think it’s weird that Pepa loves me like her own? You think Sophia should stay away from Chris too?”

“That’s family,” Helena argues.

“And they’re women!”

“Ramon, shut up,” Helena snaps.

“Buck is our family, and he’s a man, and he’s got the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. If anything happened to me, Christopher would be taken care of like if I was still here.”

“Buck, the one who nearly got him killed in the tsunami? That’s the same guy right?” Ramon throws out, his eyes a little wild as he paces.

“The one who saved his life in that tsunami, despite being injured and then some. And the one who’s saved my life more times than I can count, including from being gunned down on the street. We’d both probably be dead if not f— ”

“Isn’t he the one who’s family is worse off than ours?” Helena recalls. “So he has no family, no support, no girlfriend even! So a worse position than you’re in now. That’s what you want to leave him with.”

“He doesn’t need a girlfriend to raise Christopher right, I don’t! And he has a great sister, he has the 118, he has Carla, and he has our family. You think Abuela and Pepa would shut the door on him? He’d be here every Sunday, with Christopher, just like I am.”

“And what does your girlfriend think of this?” Ramon presses. “The vice principal, she thinks this is normal?”

“Ana doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Eddie says, frowning.

Helena balks. “You think the woman you’ve been seeing seriously for nearly a year has nothing to do with long-term decisions about your son? You think maybe she wouldn’t want the option of taking Christopher in if something happened to you?”

“That’s not happening, he’s going to Buck and that’s final.”

“What’s going on with you and this gringo?” Ramon asks suspiciously. “Are you even going out with Ana or was that another lie?”

“Ramon, don’t go there,” Helena sighs, her heart clenching. That’s all they need in this clusterfuck, that layer of pain.

“No, let’s go there because you know what?” Eddie asks darkly. “There is no one on this planet I trust with my son more than Buck and yeah, if we need to lay it all out there, that includes the two of you. I know you love Christopher, just like I know Shannon loved him, but that’s not always going to be enough. Buck isn’t going to fill my son’s head with ideas about the wrong kind of way to love someone. He’s not going to tell him he’s not good enough for his family to love him or support him. Buck’s going to make sure Christopher grows up to follow his heart and find whatever makes him happiest in the world, no matter what that looks like.”

“How could you think—”

“What if he grows up to be gay?” Eddie asks pointedly, staring his father down. “You’re telling me you’re going to be the one to help him pick out a suit to go to prom with his boyfriend?”

Ramon purses his lips but tries, “it’s a different world now,” as if he hadn’t just tried to make crass insinuations just to hurt his son.

“Okay,” Eddie says, not believing him for a moment, “what if he’s trans? Tells you at 15 that he’s a girl and he wants to transition. You’re going to get him on hormone therapy?”

“Eddie that’s not—”

“What if he’s 20 and he tells you he got a girl pregnant by accident and he doesn’t know her enough to love her, and he’s not ready to be a father let alone a husband?”

Helena tries to speak but her throat is suddenly too tight for words to get out.

“You gonna tell him he’s not a man if he doesn’t marry her anyway?”

Ramon says nothing.

“Christopher is going to Buck, and that’s final.”

——————-

Helena and Ramon don’t show up for the third therapy session.

Their plane tickets were only for three weeks, originally, and as the days run out, they don’t talk about extensions.

———-

Helena is sitting out in Isabel’s backyard, trying to conjure up that feeling of serenity she got to bask in for all of two minutes the night of the birthday party.

It’s not working.

They’re going back to El Paso tomorrow, leaving their relationship with Eddie in worse straits than when they arrived.

There’s always been a tension between them and Eddie, but there’s also always been love and respect, and that love and respect formed a polite barrier around the things they couldn’t talk about. It kept their relationship safe. Kept them from getting too close to real honesty where things hurt in ways that couldn’t be walked back.

It feels now like that barrier has fallen. That Eddie’s finally reached the limit of what he could hold back and now there’s nothing to help them pretend everything is okay. Nothing to help Helena believe this is all something that could blow over.

That’s to say nothing of Christopher, who’s never felt as far away as he does now, even while they linger in the same city, only a couple dozen blocks away.

Helena scrolls listlessly through her phone’s camera roll for the last few weeks. There are pictures of Christopher mostly, but Eddie and the rest of the family are there too. It hurts to notice how Eddie is markedly happier in the shots where he’s looking away from the camera. Away from her.

Mom, listen…

Helena opens up Instagram and lets herself forget for a moment that anything is wrong. On Instagram, there is only joy and fun. And Buck.

Eddie hasn’t posted anything to his account in months but starting from the end and working backwards, Buck features heavily. He’s in at least a third of the pictures, usually with Christopher. One of the posts includes a short video that she watches. It’s of the day they unveiled the adapted skateboard, and it nourishes her soul. There’s no sadness here, or tension, only pure radiating happiness and excitement. It’s magical.

And it’s meaningful.

Mom, listen…

Helena is out of her chair and pocketing Isabel’s car keys before she can talk herself out of it. The drive to Eddie’s house is made with a carefully blank mind. She knows if she lets herself think about what she’s going to say, she’s going to spiral and get to a place where all this fear and sadness turn dark and ugly, and she can’t afford to risk it.

Finally, she’s knocking gently on a front door she’s only seen three times in the weeks she’s been here.

Buck answers the door.

————-

The house is quiet when Helena steps in.

She doesn’t bother taking her shoes off this time, she’s not sure how long she’ll be allowed to stay. But she notices that the space where her shoes would have gone is taken up by a pair of large boots she imagines fit perfectly on Buck’s feet.

Buck disappears into the living room and she follows quietly after him. The lights are off but the muted tv glows brightly enough for her to see Eddie reclined on his back on the couch, sleeping, and Buck sitting down on the edge of the coffee table to shake his arm.

Eddie’s always been a light sleeper, especially after the army and Christopher. He doesn’t wake easily now.

He’s wearing the sling, but it’s the only indication that anything is amiss with him. There’s no sign of pain or worry on his face, no tension in his shoulders. He’s practically melted into the recesses of the couch. He’s a picture of comfort. And why shouldn’t he be? He’s in his home, away from family, from expectations, and judgements. Just him and Christopher. And Buck.

Eddie finally takes a deep breath that shows his body is coming around but his eyes stay closed. Buck is murmuring something but she only catches, “ — mom — here.”

Then, at last, Eddie’s eyelids part, and the deep laxness of his body disappears almost in the blink of an eye.

“What?” he croaks, already trying to sit up.

Buck’s hands are already moving to support his back.

“ — says she wants to apologize.”

Eddie scoffs and sits upright, feet firmly planted on the floor as he blinks himself awake.

“Mom?”

“I’m here,” she says, stepping closer into the light of the tv.

Buck catches Eddie’s eye and they have an entire conversation in five silent seconds that ends with Buck nodding and getting up from the table, watching Helena warily as she approaches further.

“Watch your eyes,” Buck says quietly to Eddie before flipping the wall switch and illuminating the room. He lingers for a moment, clearly undecided about leaving, before saying, “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Finally, Helena is alone with her son in his home. The quiet is almost peaceful, she doesn’t want to break it. Eddie does instead.

“Buck said you wanted to apologize, so I’m assuming he misheard,” Eddie says wryly.

There are pillow creases on the side of his face and Helena can’t remember the last time she saw him look so disheveled, so at home. It makes her heart ache for the days when she’d have to force him out of bed at noon on weekends, drive him to wrestling practice early in the morning, watch over him as he slept sometimes, just to make sure he was okay.

“Shockingly, no,” she smiles sadly.

Eddie blinks up at her for a moment before shifting down on the couch, leaving her some room to sit. She takes the invitation, but once she’s sitting down with Eddie’s full attention on her, she realizes not preparing what she wanted to say might have been a mistake. She has no idea where to begin. What scab to pick at that won’t cause more bleeding.

Then she remembers Adriana’s words.

What is it, under all the posturing, all the hurt feelings, all the history and baggage...what is it she actually, truly wants to say?

“I’m sorry I missed therapy.”

Eddie huffs a surprised laugh. “Of all the things…”

“I know, I know,” she rolls her eyes. “But I am. I…” She forces herself to slow down and consider her words. “I realize that therapy was an olive branch for you. One we took way too late and I’m...I’m just so fucking grateful we were able to take it at all, in the end.”

The tears are coming and there’s nothing she can do to stop them. They gather in the corner of her eyes and she tries to blink them away but has to settle for wiping away the ones that fall anyway.

“You were right,” she says. “You said — and your sister said, and the therapist said — that there’s a lot of hurt, and it’s become too hard to...to connect with each other because of it. And therapy is probably the only bridge through that. So even though I was pissed at you, I should have showed up.”

She hazards a look up at Eddie to find his brown eyes wide and cautiously wondering.

“Therapy is what’s going to help us and the only way to fail at it is to not show up.” It’s what the therapist had said in their first session. It had sounded like an easy thing to do then. “And that’s not okay. I’m not going to do that again.”

Eddie nods and looks away. His fingernails are flicking nervously against each other — a habit he picked up from her. “Is dad on the same page as you?”

Helena takes a deep breath, and blows out, “No, your dad is looking for a match to light the page on fire.”

Eddie rolls his eyes but there’s heavy hurt behind the indifference.

“I hid all of them,” Helena offers, “and left Abuela with the fire extinguisher.”

That gets a small smile.

“I really expected you to be more pissed about it than him,” Eddie says, he reclines against the arm of the sofa but no part of him looks comfortable with this conversation.

“Oh, I am—” The rage swells up in her. The outrage and indignation. But again, Adriana’s voice comes to her. “I...am...really, truly hurt, Eddie. I feel...I feel like you told me I’m not good enough to love Christopher how he needs.”

Eddie’s face collapses with disbelief. “You mean the way you’ve been making me feel since he was born? Are you kidding me?”

“What?”

“Since the moment Shannon got pregnant, you’ve both been hammering it in on us that we’d never be enough, we’d never be good enough for him. Why do you think I joined the army? Why do you think Shannon ran?”

The accusation makes her breathless, it makes that familiar rage bubble up closer to the surface. “Shannon made her own choices, you’re not going to pin that on us. And so did you.”

“No, I can’t pin that on you. She did choose to leave,” he concedes, his voice hardening. “But you spent five years telling her over and over that nothing she ever did was good enough, and when I got back you did the same to me! ‘Don’t drag him down with you.’ Does that ring any bells?”

“I spent five years helping her, being a second parent to Christopher when she was in over her head. She needed help. She wasn’t cut out—”

“No, she wasn’t,” Eddie agrees. “Neither of us were. We were stupid fucking kids who barely knew each other. She was supposed to get back on a plane to California when the semester was done and instead we got married in the backyard because you told us that’s what we had to do.”

“Jesus Christ, Eddie. You want to blame me for Christopher being born? For raising him in a family with two parents?”

“You’re not listening,” Eddie spits.

“I’m listening to you say over and over how I ruined your life because I didn’t let Shannon get an abortion. And that’s somehow the reason to keep us out of Christopher’s life now?”

“No, you’re not—” Eddie closes his eyes and clenches his jaw. “I love Christopher with everything I am. If I had the chance to go back and do everything differently, I wouldn’t. I would never. Being his father is the most important thing I’ve ever done.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I was a kid in over my head and my parents didn’t know what was best for me. Didn’t know how to help me. And I figured that out on my own, I grew up and became the man I am now on my own.” She wants to argue but he’s on a roll. “And that’s fine, no parent is perfect. I know I’m going to make mistakes and I hope to god Christopher can forgive me, so I need to forgive you yours. But I need you to see me, now. I need you to look at me and realize I’m not that kid you put in a suit in the backyard. I’m not the kid that signed up to get shot at instead of facing his life. I’m not that kid anymore, mom. I’m not.”

“I see that, Eddie.”

“No, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t constantly be telling me I need to move back to El Paso to take proper care of Christopher. You’d see that our lives are here now. I have a job I love and pays what we need. Christopher loves his school, his friends. He’s a popular, genius kid. He’s happy. I’m happy. And we’re doing good. But you don’t see that. You see that dumbass, scared kid making his next mistakes. And I’m sorry but I’m not going to let you drag me back into that spiral. If you need to be the parent to that kid, I can’t be the kid you’re parenting. I’ve grown up, mom.”

“So,” Helena clears her throat, hoping the waver in it will clear too. “That’s what the guardianship is? We...lost sight of you growing up. We didn’t give you what you needed. So you’re punishing us?”

Eddie sighs as if she didn’t understand.

“No, you know what? No, I’m sorry,” she switches tracks, her voice hard, “how are we supposed to see this new person you’ve become, Eddie? You left El Paso, left us behind, you won’t come home for holidays, you even stopped posting on Instagram, and when we come here to see you’re alive you won’t even let us into your home. So how? How are we supposed to see this magical transformation when you won’t let us in?”

Eddie watches her for a moment, weighing his words. “You show up for therapy.”

And that takes the wind out of her sails.

That’s what she came here for.

To apologize.

Not keep yelling.

Mom, listen…

Helena takes two deep breaths and crooks a smile. “Yeah.”

“You yell a lot.”

Christopher’s voice startles them both, pulling a short grunt of pain from Eddie as his shoulder jerks back. Christopher is leaning against the wall into the living room, wearing the disgruntled pout of someone who was woken up for no good reason.

“Christopher…” Eddie begins, trying to leverage himself off the couch.

Helena pushes him back down, and turns to Christopher, opening her arms.

“I do,” Helena admits softly, as Christopher comes over and leans into her side. “I do yell a lot. I’m...trying to yell less.”

“Dad never yells.”

Eddie smiles tiredly.

“Hmm,” Helena agrees, “I think there’s a lot of things I need to learn from your daddy.”

Christopher nods, his eyes drooping. “He’s the best,” he says, snuggling into her shoulder. She’s getting on a plane tomorrow so she takes the opportunity to relish in this hug, and press a long kiss on his curls.

“Ah, I thought I heard an escape artist on the prowl,” Buck says as he turns the corner.

“We woke him up,” Eddie says redundantly. “We’ll keep it quiet now, buddy.”

“K,” Christopher mumbles.

“Okay, buddy, let’s get you back to bed” Buck says quietly as he leans over to carefully scoop him into his arms. Christopher’s arms loop around his neck like he’s done it a million times, and his head falls to Buck’s shoulder.

“Buck’s the best too,” Christopher mumbles.

Buck’s ducks his face away.

“That’s what I hear,” Helena allows in a tone she hopes is gracious.

As they leave, they can hear Christopher say, “they stole your bed.”

Buck responds but it’s too quiet for them to follow the rest of the conversation.

Eddie ducks his head and sighs.

“That’s why you were keeping us away?” Helena asks, her voice more gentle than she thought she could muster at this point. “Because Buck’s crashing on your couch?”

Now that she’s looking, she spots the folded duvet stacked on the chair in the corner, the pillows tucked neatly below. It only makes her more aware that she found Eddie sleeping soundly on the very same couch.

“I didn’t — I didn’t want questions. I didn’t want dad’s look, the same look he has every time Buck comes up. The same look—” Eddie sighs harshly. “I didn’t feel like fielding questions. He was here for Christopher when I was in the hospital and when I came home… He helps. A lot.”

Helena nods pensively, and surprises herself by finding a kernel of gratitude towards Buck burgeoning in her chest.

“So, speaking of fucking up as parents,” she begins with a crooked smile that fades by the end of the phrase. She doesn’t know how to finish that sentence so she starts a new one. “The...hurt that piles up, that makes it hard to talk through...does some of it come from Matty?”

She can see an instinct flare up in her son to shake his head and dismiss the topic, but he doesn’t let it take hold. It’s time to face this.

“It didn’t help,” he admits.

Eddie and Matty met in sixth grade and became best friends almost instantly. They spent weekends in sleepovers, fought off other classmates to be each others’ group project partners, and spent every summer going to the same camps. Matty was an honorary Diaz before they even hit their teens.

Five years later, Matty came out to his family, and then to theirs. His parents took it well, Eddie’s parents didn’t.

The sleepovers stopped, the summer camps stopped, and if Ramon could have sent Eddie to another class he would have.

The day he came out to them was the last day he stepped foot in the Diaz home, a natural consequence of Ramon having run him out with caustic, angry words.

“We…” Helena licks her lips and looks away to gather her thoughts. “There’s a lot of reasons we reacted the way we did. Ignorance, more than anything. It really was a different world back then. But...the world has kept turning, things have kept changing and we can’t pretend to be ignorant anymore.” She looks Eddie in the eye to say, “we were wrong. We were wrong to chase him away. And if the day comes that Christopher is gay or trans or any of the other words we haven’t learned yet, we’re going to love him just as much as we do now.”

Eddie keeps her gaze for a moment before nodding. “I’m glad to hear it.” The way his shoulders gather near his ears says he doesn’t believe her though he’s trying.

Because when Eddie and Matty stood shoulder to shoulder to tell Ramon and Helena the news, Matty wasn’t the only one crushed. And they know, somewhere deep down, that their reaction was as extreme as it was because they were never fully sure if the hurt in Eddie’s eyes was on behalf of his best friend, or if they exploded before more news could be told.

And it still scares Helena to this day, to this very moment sitting on her son’s couch. It’s why they welcomed Shannon at first, the first girl Eddie really brought home, even though they didn’t approve of her overall.

But she knows now that there’s nothing anymore, not her pride, not her ignorance, that will stop her from trying to bridge the gap between them. So she continues deliberately, “and if this new, grown up version of you comes with any of those words, we’re not going to love you any less either.”

His eyes widen and for a moment she’s looking at her 17 year old son in the living room, eyes wide as Matty runs out of the house. She wishes this moment could replace that one, stamp out that mistake forever. But it can’t, so she has to make this one count even more.

“I’ll still be here, and I’m listening. I...I see you,” she says. “You and Christopher. I see you settled in so well here, even now with your injury.”

Eddie remains quiet, but apprehension creeps across his face and his eyes dart behind her where Buck and Christopher disappeared.

“I see the boots at the entrance,” she continues, her voice pitched low, “the extra toothbrush you forgot to hide away. The tupperwares full of food Isabel and Ana didn’t make. But more than anything, I see Buck. Everywhere.” A smile creeps up her lips. “The only place I didn’t see him was at brunch with Ana and call me crazy but I feel like you would have preferred he was there too.”

Eddie’s lip is being chewed to within an inch of its life, and his eyes are trained on the couch cushion.

“Hey,” she taps his knee. “You...grew up to be a good man, and a good father.” The words are so many years too late but she’s grateful to see them land as Eddie’s eyes begin to shimmer. “And you deserve everything you want for Christopher. Happiness, whatever that looks like.”

Eddie swallows thickly and clears his throat. “And dad?”

“Dad...has his head too far up his own ass to see or hear anything,” Helena admits. “But he’s due for a colonoscopy soon so I’ll work on it.”

Eddie chokes on a laugh that catches him off-guard and suddenly they’re both laughing, quietly so they don’t wake Christopher up again.

When they recover, Eddie invites her to the kitchen for a drink, where Buck is packing Christopher’s lunch for school tomorrow.

When she leaves, her stomach is in knots she imagines won’t smooth out for a few weeks yet, but a weight’s been lifted off her chest and her heart is full in a way it hasn’t been in years.

When she lands in El Paso, her phone pings with a message from Eddie: Hope you had a good flight. Free Friday for a call?

———-

When Friday comes, after catching up with Christopher, Eddie tells them he broke it off with Ana.

Helena digs her nails into Ramon’s knee instinctively, but she prepared him well and despite his continued reservations, all he says is, “That’s too bad, mijo.”

———-

Two months of virtual therapy and video chats later, Eddie tells them he’s bisexual. They react the way they should have all those years ago, and Helena tries to be grateful they got to have this moment at all instead of mourn for the years Eddie lost because of them.

There’s no mention of Buck, but Eddie’s eyes flit fondly over the laptop screen every once in a while at Christopher and someone else off-screen.

The call takes place at 8am LA time, and the sling has been gone for nearly three weeks.

———

At Christmas, Eddie and Christopher are waiting for them with smiles on their faces at LAX’s baggage claim. When they get home, Buck is there opening the door and helping them with their luggage.

Isabel isn’t there to mediate but supper that evening goes smoothly. The tension that lurks is anticipatory on all sides, a feeling of this being too good to last. But by dessert, everyone is sitting back in their chairs and smiling. And when Buck rounds the table to start the clean up, he places a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, his thumb brushing the back of Eddie’s neck, and Helena watches as the last bit of strain melts out of his body.

The basket of gauze is nowhere to be found in the bathroom, nor is the purple toothbrush. Instead, there’s a third electric toothbrush standing in line with the rest.

Helena’s been keeping an eye out for opportunities to follow Adriana’s advice. To find the words she actually, truly means, and say them before she runs out of time. So before turning in, she takes Eddie aside and tells him, “I’m really happy you found your home here in LA. I’m really proud of the family you’ve made.”

And when she closes her arms around him, she can feel him fold into her like he used to as a kid, no polite distance or anxiety. Just comfort.

[imaginesbyabi]

Positive

Summary: The reader has some news, how will Cisco take it? 

Pairing: Cisco Ramon x Reader (The Flash)

Word Count: 852

Notes: This one-shot was requested by an anon, asking for the prompts “Oh God, I need a drink” (193), “You’d be a great dad” (58), and “I’m pregnant (39). I believe this is one of the first requests that I’ve done, and I hope I did the request justice! This was a little bit more angsty at the beginning than I aimed for, but I hope the ending was fluffy enough for your liking :D

Warnings: Pregnancy.

The tile of the bathroom floor felt cold as you sat upon it, spine resting uncomfortably against the hard wooden door. Impatience left you tapping nervously, wishing that the results of the silly piece of white plastic would just hurry up. The five minutes gave you plenty of time to think about how to tell the man that had wormed his way into your heart, yet as the timer on your phone went off you couldn’t help but swallow down the heavy feeling in your throat. Were you ready for this?

Pulling yourself off the floor, you took in a huge gulp of air, eyes closed so tightly that when you opened them there were little swirls of bright white in your vision. The test laid flat upside down on the bathroom counter, your fingers trembled as you flipped it over - holding in the last breath of oxygen you had taken in. 

Positive.

Laughter bubbled from your chest, unsure how to react. You weren’t ready for this? Were you? The idea of having a mini version of you or Cisco was pleasant in theory, but in practice, who knew what could happen? 

“Y/N, you in there?” Cisco knocked from the other side of the bathroom door. You looked up into the mirror, wiping away tears that you hadn’t even noticed dripping down your face. You wondered how Cisco would react, swiping the test from the counter and hiding it in your sleeve as you opened the door. 

“I think we should talk,” you murmured and pulled him to sit on the bed that you had been sharing in your combined apartment for the last year and a bit. The idea of having a baby became more pleasant the longer you pondered on it, yet the nerves of how Cisco would react had thrown a real spanner in the plans you two had developed. 

“What?! What happened? Did I do something wrong, are we breaking up?” Cisco rambled nervously as the two of you sat, you shook your head insisting for him to be quiet for a moment. Slowly, you showed him the pregnancy you had taken not even 10 minutes prior - the bright pink plus sign now visible. 

His big brown eyes widened, “you’re pregnant!”

“I’m pregnant.” 

He chuckled nervously, the panic obvious on his face as yours dropped. The image of the two of you growing old together and settling down with a few kids had dissipated from your mind. 

“We’re going to have a baby,” he deadpanned. The slight nod of your head had satiated his nerves, body quickly shooting up from the bed. “Oh God, I need a drink.”

You hadn’t even managed to get a word in before he had disappeared from the apartment entirely, leaving you to sit alone on the bed you shared with him. It felt like time had come to a stand-still, hearing the front door shutting abruptly and the walls shake from the force. 

The tears you managed to swallow prior now working their way back, face warm with embarrassment and fear. Cisco left, you kept repeating to yourself as the sobs wreaked havok throughout your entire body. 

It had felt like forever before he had returned home, several bags in hand of things you couldn’t tell. He gently shut the bedroom door, noticing you hadn’t moved a single inch since he had left a few hours prior - eyes softening with love and adoration as you turned your head to look him in the eye.

“I got some stuff from the store, there weren't many places open so this will obviously have to do for now,” he started. His hands worked quickly in taking things out of the shopping bags. One by one, baby onesies in multiple sizes were revealed, alongside books related to parenting and birth, baby toys and more. 

You glanced up at him, the excitement on his face as he rambled about what the baby would be like had quickly turned your fear and abandonment into strong feelings of pride and love, something that you had built your relationship upon almost two years ago. 

Cisco pushed his hair back behind his ear, watching you nervously as you stared at him. Suddenly, you pulled him into you, crushing him with a hug and smothering him with kisses across his entire face. “We’re going to have a baby.”

A huge smile worked its way upon both of your faces, his arms wrapping around you and pulling you into a position that you could both comfortable lay down in, the love shared between you had grown - the image of growing old old together and settling down with kids had returned to your mind and you laughed with anticipation of what the years had to come. 

“You’re going to be a great dad,” you whispered to him, cuddling into his chest further as you both stared at the ceiling with fond imaginations. You hoped your child would have his appearance, his hair and nose and smile, and every little detail you loved about his face. 

“And you’re going to be a great mother,” he reassured.

[miss-kittys-magical-library]

Don't Leave Me This Way

Warnings- angst, marital spats, language, a hint of spice

A/N- After a decade together, Honey and Leon have come undone. But on the anniversary of the day their lives changed, Leon decides to mend that. For @forenschik

Part One:

Honey was, in a word, incensed. That Leon would even think about the two of them going out on a weekday bothered her. Then again, at this point in their busy lives going out on ANY day bothered her. But that, Leon told her, was the problem. It was eat, sleep, work, kids, eat, sleep, work, OCCASIONALLY have sex. Throw in Sunny’s growing powers and the odd alternate universe traveller for good measure. That was the rhythm of married life she responded rather dismissively.

Leon took the club scheduling book out of Honey’s hand and held it high above his head where he knew Honey couldn’t fathom reaching it. “How about fuck off with this rhythm of life.”

“LEON!” Honey both whined and raised her voice at her husband as she scrambled to her feet and attempted to climb him. When that didn’t work, and he simply laughed at her and held the book higher, she stood on the desk chair. “How about you go fuck yourself?”

Leon threw the date book. Honey jumped to go after it, but he blocked her move. He held her tight in his arms so she was made to stand still. “Fuck’s sake, I was asking for a date. Now I’m telling you. You’re gonna go upstairs and get ready and put on that sexy purple dress. I’ve packed up The Littles. We’re taking them to your parents, and then we are going to that Italian restaurant you love on Mulberry Street. Then we’re coming home, and you’re getting a right good seeing to.” Before she could protest Leon clamped his hand over her mouth, “Now.”

Honey shockingly obeyed her husband. Her face crimson with anger as she held her chin in the air, arms crossed in front of her chest before throwing up the double finger. In the shower she realized something. It had been so long, and their lives were so busy, that Honey couldn’t discern being mad from being turned on. A lump formed in her throat because she was ashamed. Or disappointed? When was she ever NOT enamored by Leon? Maybe this date was exactly what they needed.

---

“I don't know, I think we should maybe homeschool Sunny. He's not going to have a handle on anything until he's come to the end of what he can do. Maybe we can communally teach him? Selina is fine, she always will be. She could use other normal kids. I think she and Sun are too dependent on each other. They're only six and seven. Usually that level of codependency comes later in life. Like you and Jonathan. I don't know, what do you think?”

Leon watched as his wife took her first breath since their dinners arrived. She swallowed most of her wine before chasing a tortellini around her plate. Her head in one hand like an insolent child instead of a woman in her thirties. Honey looked at Leon expectedly. He took a breath of his own, but she interjected just as he was about to speak.

“They might resent us if we separate though. Sunny needs to feel as normal as possible. They're in Montessori school, so all those kids are bound to be a little strange too. I guess if they were homeschooled you would have to cut back on your classes, and we would have to scale back on bookings.”

Leon clenched his jaw between sips of his bourbon. He stabbed at his dinner, chewed and swallowed while simmering. He sat back with the expectancy that Honey would continue, uninterrupted the same way she had for the last decade. He could feel the simmer start to boil just below the surface while, sure enough, she kept on.

“Punk is just taking off. I know CBGB is where it's at, but Hilly’s been a mensch sending us Patti, Debbie and The Ramones. I know we're still stuck in folk, but I REALLY think it can turn around into rock. There's this outrageous glam or metal or whatever band from LA. Oh! Did you get to hear that demo from the Irish band? Klaus said they're like, one of the biggest bands in the world. I don't know if that would be in our timeline too, but he's onto something. Get in while we can. But who wears sunglass-”

“αρκετά!!” Leon yelled. ENOUGH!

He banged a fist on the table which drew attention from nearby diners. His nostrils flared with anger and embarrassment. While the outburst mortified Leon, he also wouldn't take it back. It was his only means of getting Honey’s attention. And it did.

She sat back with her arms crossed. One eyebrow arched in challenge. Honey was no shrinking violet. She did tend to her grudges like a little garden. If she had to add Leon to it for a little while, so mote it be.

Leon’s face softened, his shoulders sank while he bit into his lip. Then he sat up straight, an air of defiance about him. Before she knew what was happening, Leon slid Honey around the booth with ease so that they sat side by side. He made a bold move when his wife turned away from him.

Leon snuck a hand inside of Honey’s bare thighs. He knew her. Knew she wouldn't be wearing any panties. It wasn't even meant as a tease. She just couldn't with this particular dress. He took advantage of that.

Letting two of his fingers delve inside of his wife, Leon slid them as painfully slow as possible. Her body reacted. It became instantaneously wet allowing him to slip in with ease. He continued in Italian.

“Tesoro mio, non stai zitto da dieci anni. Hai chiesto la mia opinione e io ne ho una.” His fingers pumped faster. One found her clit for a brief moment before abandoning it “Ora sii una brava moglie e lasciami dire la mia.”

My sweet, you haven't shut the fuck up in ten years. You asked for my opinion, and I have one. Now be a good wife and let me have my say.

Honey swallowed oxygen and choked on it. Her heart pounded in places she forgot carried a beat for the man beside her. Her hips shifted forward while she spread her legs to accommodate Leon.

“I'm.. sorry..” her breath came out choppy. “What.. what do you think?”

Leon removed his fingers and draped his arm along Honey’s shoulders. It curled around her neck but with a gentleness. All of the anger dissipated seeing his wife submit to him so easily. That sexual reminder he had as much agency in this marriage as she did.

“I think,” Leon lifted Honey’s chin so her face drew closer. Instead of her lips he kissed her forehead and caught her gaze, “It's time to send the Littles away without us.”

Honey inhaled ready to release a protest. Leon clamped a hand over her mouth. “For longer than a few days at the lake. Or a weekend down at the shore with your sister's kids. Or overnight at your parents place. It's time Yía Yía takes them to Greece.”

Leon felt his wife’s body start to tense. He knew she was processing what he had to say but was prepared to fight him every step of the way. He kept on, “We can take the kids to London, stay a day or two. Then the two of us are going away together for the first time. Not a weekend here. Or a day there. PROPER vacationing just us.”

“We-”

He cut Honey off with a kiss this time. “We can afford to close the club for a while. I love you, and I bloody love our kids. The three of you are my whole fucking world. Don’t you think we’ve gotten a bit lost? It hasn’t been just us since the 60s. You don’t even know what day it is, do you?”

Honey blanked. Her eyebrows knit together as her brain searched back through time to what she may have missed. Why a random day at the end of August was so important. Leon stared at his wife, willing her to remember. He knew she maybe just took it for granted that this instance had always been there. Neither could remember a time when it wasn’t.

Honey’s body deflated. “Oh, Leon.” Hot tears sprang to her eyes which she angrily wiped away. “When HAVEN’T I loved you? I don’t think I was ever able to boil it down to our last time away together. Has it really been ten years? I always thought the moment I saw you was the moment I fell in love. I held you at bay didn’t I?”

Leon used his thumbs to brush the tears away from her cheeks. One traced along her bottom lip before he pushed her hair off her shoulder to kiss it.

"Gracie, look at me." He lifted her chin again so their eyes met. She sniffled. "I think you know that little bits of me and you could scatter across the cosmos, and we would always find one another. It's why we need to get away, the two of us. C'mon, wanna go for a walk?

He stood, laid more money down than necessary, and reached for Honey's hand. She took it but rebuffed the rest, "Leon, it's midnight. It's the hottest summer on record. And someone is murdering women with dark hair and their lovers."

"So?!" She frowned. "Oh bugger off!" he teased. "Klaus said his name's David Berkowitz, and he never goes outside of Queens. I just want to hold my missus's hand and walk beside her a little while. That's all."

How could Honey resist?

Part 2 coming next week 💋

@elliethesuperfruitlover @magic-multicolored-miracle @maerenee930 @nightmonsters @neuroticpuppy @firstpersonnarrator @frogs--are--bitches @rob-private @bisexualnathanyoung @super-unpredictable98 @messengeronthemoon @a-ghoulish-tale @love-is-dirty-baby @vonkimmeren @duck-noises @feed-davis-and-steve @ghouls-buddy

[hedgiwithapen]

What IF …. Cisco was the one to die instead of Dante after/during/because of flashpoint

Barry stumbled into STAR Labs, his legs aching from the run. He needed some stability, something familiar, after all the blurring memories. After the grief. Caitlin and Cisco and the computers and lights of the cortex, anything. Caitlin sat at one of the desks, frowning at her monitor. A mug of coffee cooled beside her. With the rush of air, she looked up. “I’m--”, Barry cut himself off. Back didn’t really fit, did it? He wasn’t sure where in this timeline he had broken through, and too much was muddled in his mind to figure it out yet. Caitlin turned in her seat to look at him, slow. “Barry,” she said. Time seemed to freeze as Barry took in everything around him, his brain speeding up to process all the things that didn’t add up, that didn’t fit, that weren’t right. There were police files on Caitlin’s desktop, a mess of them alongside uncapped hi-liters, and rings from myriad coffee mugs. It was a far cry from her usual tidiness. The glass board was wheeled back against one wall, photos of criminals stuck to it, some faces more familiar than others, some he could not place at all. Beneath the papers that still rustled with the breeze of arrival, he could see the places where an eraser had not gotten all of the marker off. The markings were long straight lines and filled in circles, not the complex calculations or Lord of the Rings family trees that usually cluttered every available writing surface. The satellite feed that usually lit up a screen near the slot in the wall for his suit was blank. And Cisco’s desk… Cisco’s desk was like a lit beacon of Things That Were Wrong. The Star Trek mug had been replaced by a plain green one, and an unfamiliar leather portfolio case was aligned neatly with the side of the desk. A few thin coils of wire were arranged around a few small tools, but there were no blueprints, no pens going dry, no pencils loose. There were no bolts or washers scattered across the surface, and the computer was off, with a thin layer of dust. A suit jacket was arranged over the back of a straight backed chair. “What are you doing here?” Caitlin finished. Barry blinked. “I-- came to see… you?” he asked, then corrected. “How you were doing.” He had not missed that Caitlin’s eyes, while dry, were red-rimmed. “How do you think we’re doing?” she asked, her voice suddenly the harsh snap of cracking ice. She held the silence for a moment and then sighed, softening. “I--know it’s been a hard summer. Did you find anything?” “Anything?” Barry echoed, looking back to the desk that should have been Cisco’s. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to lose his memory of previous timelines, for a little more clarity here. “What, uh, am I looking...for?” “What do you mean, what are you looking for?” a voice that was far more angry than it was familiar rang out, beating its owner through the doorway. “ How could you possibly not remember?” Barry stared at the man facing him. A pair of dark-paned goggles had been pushed up above his eyes, mussing short, styled hair. Barry recognized him, but seeing him here, in Cisco’s goggles, was startling. “Dante? Dante … Ramon? What are you doing here?” he asked, his words too fast to pull back. All he could think of was the teacup in Jay’s hand, precarious. “What am I doing here?” Dante repeated. “Some friend you are. But then, you’ve already shown that. I’m here trying to do your job for you, since you won’t.” “Dante,” Caitlin said, face pinched. “What?” he snapped. “Someone has to actually keep this city safe. He let them kill my baby brother, and I’m not going to let them get away with it.” Barry stumbled, feeling as though another bolt of lightning had just struck him, his whole body numb. He could see the teacup, shattering. “Cisco’s…” Barry managed to say, the pit in his heart that had torn open when Zoom killed his father bursting. Dante advanced, and Barry noticed for the first time that his palms were wrapped in layers of bandages, his fingertips creased and callused and burned like he’d been working with hot wire. He saw it coming, clearly telegraphed, but

could not move as Dante gripped the air in one hand, twisting, and gripped Barry’s shoulder with the other, holding back the hiss of pain. His eyes blazed golden, and he released Barry with a shove so hard Barry hit the doorframe behind him. “Dante!” Caitlin leaped to her feet, but Dante ignored her, taking a step towards Barry. “What,” he asked, his voice dangerously soft, “ did you do?”

[whateverthedragonswant]

I have to talk about this one shot right here: Bittersweet Triumph by @marvelingjules. Tbf it's part of a whole amazing series called "The Evolution Of Buddie" (which you should definitely check out if you get the chance), but I absolutely made the mistake of reading this before bed last night.

By the time I was done reading it, I was angry, ready to storm over to Eddie's fictional house, pull Ramon and Helena out by their ears, give Eddie a huge bear hug while also making sure he also had his boys within reach, and I was anxious as hell. I didn't expect this one shot to affect me so deeply (not that it isn't amazingly written) but I didn't actually expect it to get me so worked up. I felt like a huge boulder was sitting on my chest, my brain was going 1000 miles an hour, I had a lot of nervous energy, and I needed to ground myself more than once. I barely got any sleep and I was dragging all day. This might sound like a negative reaction or not an urge for people to check this one shot (or series) out at all but I promise you it's just the opposite.

This only affected me so deeply because of the way the writer shows you these horrifying interactions between Eddie and his parents, and then his parents, Christopher, and Eddie. They literally just come in and seek to tear down everything Eddie is by whatever means necessary. And you see how Eddie struggles, how he went from a happy, independent, gaining-more-confidence-as-a-father, and free man to anxious, insecure, feeling very much alone, fearful, unhappy, trapped, and never-given-a-break-from-the-oppressive-atmosphere-these-two-bring-into-his-house, and feeling-like-a-constant-failure man. All within a super fast time frame. It broke my heart to watch them work and to see just how it affected him, Chris, and Buck by extension. But it affected me deeply personally as well because I knew exactly how Eddie felt. That's how good this one shot (is that the correct term when in series btw?) is and how well the writer handled each part of this situation, that I was able to step into Eddie's mind and experience this horrible moment in time with him. It was all legit, real as could be, and horrifyingly accurate.

If you think it's going to affect you negatively at all, please don't read it. Self-care is absolutely essential if you think it will make you upset or anxious in any way (like it did me). I myself will not be going back for a reread for a bit lol (but I will be going back!). It hit a bit too close to home for me personally. But that doesn't mean it isn't one of my new favorites. Yes, this is a Buddie series but this one shot was all about Eddie for me and a glimpse into just how bad things could get should Ramon and Helena continue their manipulation tactics and tearing down of their son verbally and emotionally full-time in LA, leaving Eddie with no escape. I know this is an interpretation of how Ramon and Helena could act, but to me, it's not that far off base. I still think back to "don't drag him down with you" and the attempted manipulation in 2x18 where Ramon and Helena work as a team to take Eddie on (while Helena is nice to him at first in order to soften him up), "I know you love your son and that is why I know you're going to do the right thing", and "why doesn't Daddy go be a hero in the kitchen and find a big old juice box?" This author literally took those building blocks, these hints, and weaved them into a truly horrifying (imho) but brilliant glimpse into what could be if we had been given more time with that dynamic between parents and son. Had Christopher stayed with Ramon and Helena. I think it's very possible the way it played out in this one shot.

So long story short, I just felt compelled to recommend it because let's face it, regardless of the subject matter or your own personal experiences, if something affects you so strongly whether it be a written work or a piece of media, that means the creator is doing something right. (and this author absolutely is!)

So please, if you like, please please go check it out (and the series!).

[breanime]

Ahhh I hope I’m not too late but could you do a HC where you and rio are out together and a guy tries to get rough with you/hurt you and Rio getting super protective?

So I read this ask last night, and my mind couldn’t come up with any scenario where a guy would see you out with a man like RIO, and be rough with you in front of him, but then... as I was going to sleep, my eyes popped open and I was like: “remember that scene in SOA where the guys try to kidnap Tara when she’s with Jax?!?! That... BUT WITH RIO”

So here ya go:

*gif not mine*

As soon as Rio hears the screech of tires, he’s on edge

You were a few yards away from him, and when he turned to look at you--

--it was like everything was moving in slow motion

A van pulled up behind you, and the door rolled open

And Rio watched as someone reached out and tried to pull you in

You screamed his name, and just like that

Time was moving again

Rio runs towards you, his gun already out

He pops a couple of shots off, his heart pounding as he hears your panicked screams

A terrible knot of panic and fear builds in his chest as he sees that they’ve dragged you into the van, and they’re trying to close the door and drive away

Rio canNOT let that happen

He stops, crouches onto the ground, and shoots out the tires

The van veers, unable to function, and he chases after it

It hits a tree, and Rio wastes no time

He nearly tears the door off of the hinges when he gets over to it

You’re on your side, hand holding your forehead

Rio grabs your arm and pulls you--harshly--out of the van towards him

He holds you to him, one hand on the back of your head

And then he empties his clip into the van

He’s absolutely ENRAGED, but he makes sure to leave one alive

The last guy breathing is doing so with a lot of difficulty, but he’s alive

Rio drops his gun and puts both hands on either side of your face

“Are you okay?” He asks, eyes wide and chest heaving

You’re crying, but you nod

Rio clutches you to him again, kissing the top of your head as he whispers

“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay” into your hair

He holds you like that for a good minute before he pulls back, a little calmer now, and checks you for injuries

You’ve got a few scrapes and cuts from the crash, and he can see the beginnings of a bruise on your forehead, but otherwise you’re fine

“We gotta get out of here,” he says, kissing your hairline

He takes your hand--

--because it’s going to be a long, LONG time till Rio lets you out of his sight again

And takes you back to his car, checking you--once again--for injuries

He makes a call, one hand on your knee, and before 5 minutes is up, a black van is pulling up

You watch from behind Rio as the black van pulls up to the white one and gathers the bodies before driving off

Rio tells his guys to “use Ramon” to call the cops

(Ramon, you know, is a teenager with a high pitched voice. Cops usually assumed he was a young kid, which made it so much easier for him to drop “anonymous” calls)

And then he gets in the car with you, buckles you up himself, and drives off

Once he gets you home, and no one else is around

He holds you to him

He’s shaking

And you can’t see his face as he hugs you, but you imagine his eyes to be a bit watery

“I’m so sorry, mama,” he croaks, “I promise you, this shit ain’t ever gonna happen again...” He pulls back, and his eyes are red. “You sure you’re not hurt?”

You assure him that you’re fine

And he kisses you

A soft, careful kiss, a kiss that makes you feel like prized, fine china

A kiss that says “I love you, and I almost lost you”

After that, Rio’s protectiveness goes into overdrive

He hires two bodyguards: one for you, and one for Marcus, who are to be near you at all times

He’s more selective about where he takes you, scoping the scene out himself at least 24 hours in advance before he brings you there

He doesn’t like you going out, but he knows you have to, so he asks you to just let him know when you’re leaving and around what time you’ll be back

He checks his phone 1000 times a day when he’s not with you, making sure he’s communicated with you every few hours

If you don’t respond

He gets anxious

Obviously, he calls your bodyguard and gets a report

But Rio is irritated that you didn’t answer him

So you two argue when he gets home

“When I tell you to message me back, I expect you to message me the fuck back!” He yells

“I lost track of time,” you shout back, “Jesus, Rio--you gotta let me breathe!”

“I’m trying to keep you safe!” That knot of anxiety would be back in his chest now. “I need to know where you are, and who you’re with and what you’re doing because if something happens to you, I--” he chokes on his words, unable to even voice his greatest fear

And you soften immediately

You hug him to you, and Rio holds you back, his grip tight

“Okay,” you say softly, “okay... I’m sorry.”

“I just need to know you’re safe,” he answers back, his voice low, “I can’t lose you, mama.”

“I know. And you won’t”

After that, you make an effort to be more patient and understanding with Rio

And eventually, he eases up a bit on the protection as life starts to go back to normal

He keeps the bodyguard, but he tries not to hover over you as much

He also takes you on dates to the shooting range once a month, and he’s very pleased with your progress

Rio even buys you your own rose gold pistol with both of your initials engraved on it

He really is a romantic at heart 

*******************************************************************************************

Thanks for reading! This was fun to write!

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