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my-happy-little-bean · 3 years ago

Text

The Rainbow Manor

pairing: platonic DLAMP words: 5138 warnings: swearing, references to homophobia, toxic/homophobic parents, brief description of a small injury, blood, brief descriptions of panic/anxiety attacks, crying, angst

a/n - hello friends! hope everyone is doing well! i was lucky enough to be commissioned by the lovely @youronelesbianfriend to write this story (side note, their commissions are open too so...whatcha still doin here, go and do that!). i was overjoyed when i saw the prompt she gave me, and had such a good time writing it! (also inspired me to maybe formally advertise commissions? you can peek at my tumblr every now and then to see if i do, but if you also want one you can DM me!)

so without further ado, here is some content ✨

read on ao3!

—

The Rainbow Manor is a lot of things.

It’s a home for the biggest family that could exist. It’s a safe haven from the cold, stormy outdoors. It’s the kind of blanket made of the same velvet the night sky is made of; it’s quiet, it’s warm, and it’s filled with stars. All it takes is one step inside and you would find yourself filled with a sense of belonging, of hope.

You could run the furthest distance away from it all, and the Rainbow Manor would always open its doors to you.

Patton would know. He was the first one to try.

~*~

“Okay, so here’s what happened,” Roman Prince said, looking down at his clipboard as he weaved him and Patton through the halls. “I was going to show the new people around myself, but then I forgot the paperwork in your office — and then I realized, ‘hey, what better person to show them around than The Man himself!’; capital T, capital M!”

Patton half-heartedly smiled as he snuck a peek at Roman’s papers.

“How many are there?”

“Three, so it won’t be too bad. One of them’s Virgil — you remember Virgil, right?”

“Right.” Patton smiled fondly, remembering Roman’s birthday party last year. Him and Virgil had shown up covered in cake. He never really saw Virgil after that day, but clearly him and Roman stayed acquainted against all odds.

They turned a corner into the break room where three people sat around a table. Roman clapped his hands.

“Alrighty! Sorry for the wait.”

All three of them stood up. The one in the black and purple hoodie—the one Patton recognized as Virgil—rolled his eyes.

“Waiting is part of the contract with you, Princey.”

Roman faux-gasped. “Hey, that was one time! And if I didn’t take too long that day, we would have taken the wrong cake!”

“We did take the wrong cake, Roman. That’s why it exploded.”

“...Oh yeah.” Roman grinned. “Forgot about that.”

Virgil shook his head, but showed a hint of a smile. Patton took a step forward to extend his hand out to him.

“Nice to see you again, Virgil!” He then addressed the two behind him. “And if we’re talking cake, I guess you both can call me Patton-cake!”

The one wearing a black, short-sleeve button up frowned, adjusting their thin blue tie.

“I read on the website that your name is Patton Morgan.”

“It’s like patty-cake, but Patton-cake!”

“...Right.”

“Ignore my friend’s simply lively commentary.” The last person stepped forward. They wore a pale-yellow button up under a grey vest. “That’s Logan. Do not be astounded by how that pencil is both sharp and dull — he’s always like that.”

“And that’s Janus,” Logan seethed, crossing his arms. “They’re always like that.”

Patton chuckled. “Well it’s nice to meet you both. I’ll show you guys around?”

They all nodded, following Patton as he led them out the door. The icy awkwardness of first encounters fortunately thawed as conversation quickly blossomed. Patton learned that Logan was the new volunteer manager and was close friends with Janus, who was joining the growing team of counsellors. Virgil, on the other hand, was the newly-appointed social media and communications coordinator; a position Roman used to double as alongside being head of recreation and programming, until he overdid it with the website graphics and crashed the site for two days. Sometimes, change was necessary, Patton learned.

“So that’s pretty much the whole place!” Patton said brightly at the end of the tour, stopping outside his office. He handed them their job description packages. “I hope you all get situated soon! And if you ever need anything, you now know where my office is!” He motioned to the door with jazz-hands. “Here!”

“Thank you, Patton,” Logan hummed. He looked around idly. “I must say, I am rather impressed by how well-established and organized the facility is, especially for one that is fairly new.”

“Well call me corny, ‘cause all I can say is ‘aw shucks’!” Patton beamed. “You know, if you told me almost a year ago that I’d be standing here today, I think I’d be impressed too!” He nudged at Roman. “But I obviously didn’t do any of it alone. It’s the people that really make this place home — people like Roman, who’s been with me since the very beginning!”

“Oh, Patton! You make me sound like the hero of this place.” Roman pretended to flip his hair. “So thank you!”

“A humble hero,” Virgil retorted. Roman just stuck out his tongue at him.

“But in all seriousness, Patton’s downplaying his efforts to the floor!” Roman wrapped an arm around Patton’s waist and pulled him in close. He waved out in front of him. “He’s a true phoenix who rose from the ashes and built this place with his own two hands!” Roman then spun Patton away from him, a trail of giggles following suit. “Plus he does a bunch of other stuff too! He has, like, a gazillion side-gigs, he sometimes volunteers at an animal shelter…”

“It sounds like you may also be interested in a day off,” Janus piped up.

“It’s really not that much!” Patton awkwardly shuffled where he stood. “I...I like staying busy.”

Janus tilted their head at him. “Right.”

Patton shot them a quick smile before diving back into the end of their paperwork. Then the three of them, along with Roman, said their goodbyes and scattered to their respective offices.

Patton leaned against his office door with a wry smile. They all seemed like nice people, he thought. He was lucky to have them.

(Roman’s words from weeks ago echoed in his head; the same words that were said to him the night of his first breakdown, when they first called.

“You need all the help you can get, Pat.”)

And he needed all the help he could get.

~*~

A few days later, Patton found himself leaning against the front of his desk, outstretching his hand towards the teen in front of him.

“Jonah, your feelings are valid, no matter what they are.”

The words slid off Patton’s tongue almost effortlessly. Jonah sniffled.

“I know, Pat. And– and I’ve already made a lot of friends here that have told me that. It’s been so good for me here, but…” Jonah buried their face in their hands. “Every night before I go to sleep, I can’t stop thinking about what they told me before they kicked me out. It’s like I get tunnel vision. I can see the person I have grown to be on the other side, but all I’m doing is going backwards.”

Jonah looked up at Patton with teary eyes. “And I don’t wanna go back, Patton. I...I don’t want to go back.”

Patton felt a chill run through his spine. Quiet echoes buried themselves in the back of his mind.

“I understand that it’s difficult to feel like you’re moving forward when it feels like the most important people in your life are pushing you back. And it...it sucks. I’m so sorry.” Patton swallowed down the temptation to cave as he continued. “I...I think all we can do is remember that those important forces in your life aren’t what’s given to you, but are what’s found. And I feel like you’ve done a lot of searching — for now, try and let yourself be found.”

Jonah broke into a small smile. Before Patton knew it, the teen stumbled forward into an embrace, holding Patton tight and crying. Patton’s hands hovered in the air behind their back, unsure of what to do. Eventually, Patton came to his senses and hugged them back.

“I’m thankful I found this place,” Jonah mumbled into Patton’s chest. “It’s– it’s built on a lot of hope. I don’t think I could have found it anywhere else.”

Patton’s heart shattered.

‘I wish I could give you more.’ He squeezed Jonah tighter. ‘I’d give you all I had, and you’d never know.’

Jonah left a few minutes later, thanking Patton for giving them a space to be honest. All Patton could do was nod numbly. He knew Jonah was new and it was hard to be new here, but Patton was certain that they’d find their place. The kids who came here always did.

Patton walked around his desk to sit down. He took one look at his phone, frowned, then set it aside with a sigh. For a brief moment, Patton relished sitting in the precious silence that finally found his office.

Then, a knock on his door.

“Come in!” Patton said, straightening up and folding his hands neatly on his desk. The door cracked open and Logan’s head peeked in.

“Is this a good time, Patton?”

“Yeah, of course!”

Logan stepped inside and handed some papers to Patton.

“I filed through the volunteer applications and started arranging interviews in the coming weeks. I just wanted to run the dates by you before I start contacting people. Hopefully they suffice.”

“Wow! Thank you, Lo.” Patton took the papers, slowly sifting through them. “These look really good! I’ll have a look at them tonight.”

“Tonight?” Logan echoed. “Are you staying late again?”

“Oh! Yeah, I am.” Patton shrugged. “Just a bit of extra paperwork.”

“Well if you require any assistance tonight, I can stay around–”

“No, no! That won’t be necessary.” Patton waved his hand dismissively. “Go and enjoy your night, Lo.”

Logan’s stare seemed to bury itself through Patton, enough for Patton to look away.

“...Well, please do not hesitate to let me know if you need anything else.”

As Logan was leaving, Patton felt his phone buzz. He snuck a peek and paled.

‘Missed call(s): Mother (2) - 5:34 PM’

“Um, leave the door open, Lo!” Patton suddenly blurted out. Logan turned around and tilted his head. Patton flimsily added, “I– I think I’m going to try and get some air.”

Logan nodded, lifting his hand off the door handle before walking out. Patton took a deep breath and then stuffed his phone in his pocket before leaving as well.

—

Later that evening, Patton wandered into his office in a daze. He turned the lights on and inwardly groaned at the stacks of paper awaiting him.

He dragged his feet to his desk, only stopping to check his phone. The ‘missed call’ notification lingered, except now the number was ‘3’.

Patton felt his jaw tighten. He couldn’t run forever.

As he sat down, he noticed a small cup behind one stack of paper. He grabbed it. The smell of coffee swarmed his head. He smiled, noticing a small sticky note on its side.

“Keep up the great work. Your friend, Logan.”

~*~

“Okay everyone! Grab your brushes!”

Patton blinked. Somehow, his memory of the manor floors failed him, and he ended up in the recreation room. He felt eyes stare up at him, Roman’s included.

“Ah, Patton! Man of the hour! What brings you here?”

Patton sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “I, um, got lost! If you could believe it, heh.”

“ ‘Lost’ is just a way of saying ‘found, but with a few extra steps’!” Roman motioned to an empty seat. “How about you join us for a bit?”

Patton opened his mouth to protest, though felt cornered by all the expectant stares. He even spotted Jonah, who smiled and waved at him. Patton sighed. He had been wound up for days now; perhaps Roman’s theatrics was all he needed.

He finally nodded, going over to sit in front of the vacant canvas. Roman grinned at him with a warmth Patton let himself melt into.

“Alright! Let’s begin.” Roman cleared his throat. “I want you to pull on the colours of your heartstrings. Forget form, structure– even an outline. Your emotions know no bounds, after all! Just remember, your hand is not controlling the brush — it’s your heart.”

Patton felt the words wash over him. Roman, of course, was right; he didn’t even notice his hand moving as he painted. Though somehow, it didn’t feel as peaceful as Roman described it to be. Instead, it felt like something was being pulled out of Patton, as though a claw was scooping something out of his chest and spilling it onto the canvas.

Suddenly, his ringtone cut through Roman’s monologue. Patton jumped, dropping his brush. A line of paint dragged across the canvas as it fell. All eyes were on him again.

“Um, excuse me! I– I’m just going to take this.” Patton pressed answer without looking at who called as he stumbled out of the room.

“Hello?”

“I see you’ve finally answered.”

Patton’s heart dropped.

—

Roman was halfway through the end of his monologue when, in the corner of his eye, he spotted Patton re-enter the room, head ducked.

“Ah! I’m glad you’re back!”

Patton nodded, but in the stilted way Roman quickly recognized. His eyes looked Patton up and down, barely listening to Patton’s stammering apology for interrupting. His hair was disheveled, which meant he ran his hand through it far too many times. His eyes were red, his jaw was tight–

He was crying.

“Anyway, I’m sorry again for leaving so soon!” Patton’s voice brought Roman back to reality. “Keep painting you guys! I gotta Van-Gogh!”

A shaky laugh followed Patton out. Roman frowned, but he nodded for everyone to continue. He passed by Patton’s canvas and snuck a peek.

It was rather abstract, with overlapping strokes forming a gradient. Roman’s gaze followed the gradient downwards. The canvas was filled with dull blues that turned into darkening greys. Towards the bottom was a thin line of black trailed all the way to Patton’s paintbrush, abandoned on the floor.

~*~

The sun sets on a long railroad, it goes past the horizon, it outstretches a hand like it’s beckoning, it’s begging you to run, run faster, everything is going faster and they just told you to go so you have to–

“Pat?”

Patton shot up in his seat with a yelp. He blinked quickly, vision focusing on the silhouette of–

“Virgil!” A strangled laugh escaped his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in!”

Virgil replied simultaneously, “No, I’m sorry, you just weren’t answering and I got worried, but I didn’t realize you were sleeping–”

“Sleeping?” Patton looked down at the time. 5 PM.

“Oh sh– shoot, I’m gonna be late.”

“Late for?”

“Animal shelter,” Patton mumbled, stumbling out of his chair and grabbing his bag. “I forgot that I said I’d come in today– gosh how could I forget–”

“Hey.” Virgil rested a hand on Patton’s shoulder before Patton could go spiralling out the door. “Deep breath. I’ll drive you, it’ll be okay.”

Patton opened his mouth to protest, but remembered the time. He sighed and motioned wordlessly at the door. Virgil nodded, leading the two of them out towards the parking lot.

“Anyway, I’m sorry if it’s a bad time, I was just hoping to run some website revisions by you,” Virgil said as he started the car and backed out of the lot. Patton shakily smiled.

“No! It’s not a bad time at all, you can tell me about your ideas as you drive!”

“There’s not much. I was just thinking of ways to maybe make it more approachable. There’s not even really an ‘about us’ page or anything about you–”

“Why would there need to be anything about me?”

Virgil looked at him, almost confused. “It’s an amazing organization, Pat. Your name should be up there, especially as the founder…?”

“Oh! R-Right.” Patton let out a sharp laugh. “I guess I never thought about it before.”

“I could put something together tonight, I was just thinking it'd be cool to hear you talk about it.” Virgil turned at an intersection. The sign of the animal shelter soon came into view.

“I guess that’d be a good idea!” Patton shrugged. “But there’s, um, not really anything interesting to know.”

Virgil frowned, falling quiet as he parked the car. When they stopped moving, Virgil turned to face him.

“Say, would it be okay if I joined you?” Virgil shuffled awkwardly in his seat. “I, um, have a bit of a free night, and I was thinking that maybe I could just ask you stuff for the website now so I don’t have to bother you later…?”

Patton’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that sounds perfect! Liz will probably be okay with it. I think it’s bath night for the dogs, and we can always use an extra hand with that!”

Virgil chuckled, following Patton out the car and into the animal shelter.

Patton gathered the energy he had left to greet Liz and everyone else, already cooing over the various animals he and Virgil passed by. They reached the back and, with only a bit of struggle (Patton would never admit to these cute dogs being a struggle), took each dog a bath. All the while, Virgil asked Patton questions about the Rainbow Manor and his life in general, which Patton did his best to answer.

“I ended up founding the Rainbow Manor a year after I graduated.” Patton wiped his brow as they finished drying the last dog. “I had been living on Roman’s couch for so long after being kicked out and I just wanted to turn it around; not only for myself, but for other people.”

Virgil’s stare softened. “I– I’m sorry. N-Not about how you founded the place but, like...why you felt like you needed to. That must’ve been hard.”

“Yeah.” Patton forced a shrug. “It is what it is. Sometimes, you have to get lost to be found, right?”

“Right.” Virgil looked up at Patton. “Do...do you still keep in touch with them? Your parents, I mean.”

Patton felt his heart squeeze.

“It’s been so long,” he finally said. “I doubt they’d want to talk to me.”

—

Virgil offered to drive Patton back, but Patton insisted on taking a cab home. Virgil reluctantly conceded, but promised to email Patton when he drafted the additions to the website. Patton just nodded and watched Virgil drive off.

When he was sure that Virgil was completely gone, he shakily pulled out his phone and called a cab.

“Hi! I– I just need to go to The Rainbow Manor,” he said to the driver as he climbed into the car. He found himself laughing. “Long work day. It is what it is.”

~*~

Days passed, and Patton’s workload somehow doubled: new admissions, new initiatives, new everything.

(And his mother kept calling. And calling. And calling.)

To say it was a lot was an understatement.

Patton found himself going back and forth along the manor halls, forcing a smile at those he passed. He closed his eyes, turning a corner before he knocked into someone.

“Crap! I– I’m so sorry.” Patton quickly scrambled to gather the papers that had fallen onto the floor.

“Oh, don’t apologize, I always thought that important documentation would make for good confetti– ah, hello, Patton.”

Patton looked up. Janus appeared above him, outstretching their hand to help Patton up. Patton took it, scooping the papers up as he went.

“Janus! Hi! Well, if you’re looking for me...here I am!” He laughed, though it sounded scratchier than expected. “Everything okay?”

“More than, thank you. I just wanted to follow up about my schedule for the new admissions? You mentioned yesterday that I should come to you but I couldn’t find you…”

Patton winced. His chest tightened.

“F– I forgot, goodness how am I always–”

“It’s quite alright, Patton, I can always–”

“I–It’s not okay!”

In the corner of his eye, Jonah passed by. He felt their wide eyes on him. The air grew thinner.

“It’s– gah, it’s never fucking–”

“Oookay. We’re not okay and that’s...okay.”

Janus suddenly took Patton’s arm and led him to their office. They swiftly kicked the door shut with their foot as they let Patton settle on the couch.

“Breathe for me,” Janus said slowly, pulling up a chair and sitting across from Patton. They took Patton’s hand and motioned for him to follow their lead. “In for 4, hold for 7, out for 8…”

They repeated this a few more times until Patton let go of his head and his breathing evened out.

“I– I’m so sorry, Janus. I don’t know what–”

“It’s fine, Patton. I’m glad I could help.” A pause. Janus leaned back in their chair. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“No, everything’s fine.”

Janus raised a brow.

“Okay, everything’s not fine. But...but it will be fine. I have to be fine.” His mind drifted to Jonah. Patton buried his face in his hands.

“I can’t be like this,” he said, tears threatening to fall. “I...I just can’t. Not now, this– this can’t be happening now.”

“Unfortunately, these things tend to find us — not the other way around.” Janus squeezed Patton’s hand in a sudden moment of softness. “I...I know what this is, Patton. And I don’t have to tell you what to do because I know you know. You help so many people like you, but remember: when the plane is falling, you have to put on your oxygen mask before you help someone else.”

Patton locked eyes with Janus for a split second, opening his mouth to respond when he felt his phone ringing. Reflexively, he pulled it out in front of his lap. The air disappeared once more.

‘Incoming call: Mother’

Patton quickly pressed ‘decline’. He then looked up at Janus, whose eyes darted upwards as well.

Shit.

“I– I have to go.”

“Wait, Patton–”

“Thank you for everything, Janus,” Patton mumbled, and before Janus could reply, Patton sped out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him.

~*~

“I just don’t get it,” Roman muttered, leg bouncing under the table in the break room. “I’ve never seen him like this before.”

“You haven’t?” Janus circled the table like a hawk.

“What makes you think I have?”

“Oh, I don’t know! Maybe it’s the fact that he has about a thousand jobs! Or perhaps it’s that he’s been staying overnight every night to work as if he owns the place — oh wait! He does! But I have no idea why that might be stressful at all!”

Roman glowered at them, but said nothing.

“I can imagine that his workload presumably doubled this past month,” Logan, sitting across from Roman beside Virgil, adjusted his glasses. “Between the new admissions, growth in our volunteer admissions…”

“Okay, so he has a lot on his plate!” Roman pinched the bridge of his nose. “But I’ve seen him stressed out about these sorts of things. This is different.”

“So what else could be on his mind?” Virgil piped up.

Janus suddenly stopped in their tracks.

“His mother.”

Roman’s heart dropped. “His– his what?”

“She called him while Patton was in my office,” Janus murmured. “He left straight after.”

Virgil frowned. “Why would he...”

Roman felt as if he had burst into flames. The pieces clicked together in his head.

“The– the fucking nerve of that woman, I can’t believe she’s still–”

“Roman, what are you talking about?” Logan cut in.

Before Roman could respond, he felt a buzz in his pocket. He immediately pulled out his phone. His breathing hitched.

‘Help.’

“It’s Patton,” he blurted out, stumbling out his chair and making his way out of the room. Everyone exchanged looks, but quickly followed suit.

Roman weaved his ways through the halls until he neared Patton’s office. Loud sobs were muffled behind the door. Roman felt his heart breaking already as he opened it.

And there was Patton, on the floor, crying, and surrounded by shards of broken porcelain. Roman recognized it as a vase he had painted for him years ago. He winced seeing small drops of blood surrounding the pieces. His eyes quickly scanned the room as Logan immediately tended to Patton.

“What happened, Patton?” Logan murmured as Patton curled up closer to him, sobs still wracking his body.

“I– I’m so sorry.” Each word sounded like it was forced out of his lungs and into the air. “I– I tried to clean up, I’m sorry–”

“Shh, Patton. It’s okay.” Janus knelt down beside him, carefully lifting Patton’s wrist to examine his hand. A long cut ran across his palm. Janus looked up at Roman and Virgil.

“There’s a first-aid kit in my office, as well as a broom and dustpan. Can one of you grab it?”

Virgil nodded wordlessly, exiting the room. Roman noticed Patton’s phone beside Patton on the ground, and reached over to pick it up.

“What did she say, Pat,” Roman asked, fear edging the quiet of his voice. The words seemed to stab at Patton and let out more sobs.

“She– she found out about everything,” Patton wheezed through tears. “The– the Rainbow Manor, where I am– she wants to take it all– she can’t take it all–”

“Patton, I need you to follow my breathing, okay?” Janus interrupted, motioning at their chest with their hand as they inhaled and exhaled. “Can you see my hand? I want you to try and follow along, okay?

Patton numbly nodded, trying to breathe through hiccups and sobs. Janus repeated the exercise with Patton for at least fifteen minutes, with Virgil returning halfway and Logan moving to sit in front of Patton to start tending to the cut. Virgil carefully swept around Roman, Janus, Logan, and Patton on the floor.

“Whatever she told you, it isn’t true,” Roman said after Patton’s breath had evened out. “She can’t touch you here, not with us around.”

“I– I know,” Patton sniffled. Logan finished bandaging Patton’s hand and offered him a tissue from the box on his desk. “She said so many awful things, but– but the scariest part is that she didn’t stop at just saying things.”

“What do you mean?” Logan murmured.

“She...she threatened to shut the Rainbow Manor down.”

“What?!” Roman shot up from the floor. “But– but she can’t–”

“You know my mom, Roman,” Patton whimpered. “She has connections all over the city. If she wanted to, she would find a way.”

“So why hasn’t she?” Janus asked quietly. A beat of silence. Patton brought his knees closer to his chest and buried his face between them.

“She– she wants a percentage of the donations,” Patton finally admitted.

“What the fuck,” Virgil growled, stopping in his tracks.

“I know! It’s– it’s impossible, I–” Another sob. Logan and Janus moved closer to him, with Janus putting their arm around his shoulder.

“What did you tell her?” Janus pressed on.

“I– I told her no! Even if I wanted to, I can’t, but– but what else can I do?” Patton looked at his bandaged hand and grimaced. “And of course she got mad, and I freaked out, and I knocked over the vase– god, Roman, I’m sorry about the vase–”

“The vase is replaceable,” is all Roman said. “You aren’t.”

Patton just nodded, looking up at the four of them in his office with teary eyes.

“What am I going to do?”

Everyone exchanged looks. Roman lowered himself back to the floor beside Patton and wrapped him in a warm hug.

“You’re not going to do anything,” Roman said firmly.

“Roman…”

“All your life, you’ve taken care of people like they were your family, Patton. Please, let your family take care of you.”

Patton sniffled, looking around him. Virgil, Logan, and Janus nodded with small smiles, moving closer to him and joining the embrace.

And Patton just nodded, dissolving into tears; except this time, Roman could feel the relief from them. He felt Patton melt in his touch and smiled to himself, a similar relief washing over him as well.

(And for a moment, just a brief moment, Patton was home.)

~*~

One week later…

“Keep your eyes closed…”

“Roman, I don’t know how many more walls I can keep bumping into!”

“Just a little longer, I promise!”

Patton giggled, letting himself be led by Roman through more halls. Then, Roman stopped him.

“Okay, you can open your eyes in 3...2–”

“I’m opening them now, I’m too excited!” Patton squealed, and then opened his eyes. Suddenly, a burst of colour flooded his vision.

“Surprise!” a chorus of voices exclaimed.

Patton broke into a wide smile, blinking to focus on the sight in front of him. He was standing in the recreation room, with a big banner hanging from the back wall reading, “Happy Birthday, Rainbow Manor!”. Beneath it was a table with a cake, which was surrounded by Janus, Virgil, and Logan, alongside a bunch of other teens Patton recognized. Even Jonah was there, wearing a small party hat with a confetti popper in his hands.

Patton felt tears well up in his eyes. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you remembered!”

“Of course, padré!” Roman grabbed Patton’s arm and led him around the table to stand in front of the cake. “Always normal for a family to celebrate the man who built their home!”

“Oh, Roman!” Patton leaned against his shoulder, sniffling. “It’s perfect.”

He then looked at Virgil, Logan, and Janus. “I can’t believe you guys set this all up, it must’ve taken forever!”

“Actually, it just took a day,” Logan hummed.

“And the cake doesn’t explode,” Virgil said with a small finger salute. “I checked.”

“Additionally, we understand that presents are customary at a party,” Logan continued. “So while our present is not materialistic, we do hope it suffices.”

“Oh?”

“Sir Nerds-A-Lot is trying to say that we’re pitching in to give you a few days off!” Roman declared. “We handled a few responsibilities over the weekend while you were home, and split your workload for the week ahead! Consider this the fabulous gift of time!”

“Oh you guys! You didn’t have to!”

“But we did, and we did so gladly,” Logan said with a nod.

“Also–” Janus leaned over to quietly whisper in Patton’s ear– “I took care of your mother.”

Patton frowned. “You...what? Is– is she…”

“She’s fine, but she won’t be bothering you for a long time.” Janus winked. “Let’s just say I know people too.”

Patton exhaled a breath he felt he was holding onto forever. He nodded graciously at Janus as Roman handed him a cake-cutter.

“Alright! Before you take the first slice, you gotta make a wish!” Roman motioned at the lit candles on the cake. Patton stepped forward, closed his eyes for a brief moment, and then blew them out.

Everyone cheered as Patton was surrounded by hugs and laughter. He felt Janus, Logan, Roman, and Virgil crowd around him as they started to help hand out cake to all the teens.

And in the back of his mind, his wish echoed in his head.

‘I hope to always be able to share this home with my family.’

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fic #DLAMP #platonic DLAMP #patton sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #hurt/comfort #angst #thomas sanders fic #everything gets worse before it gets better :p

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princessofgayskull · 4 years ago

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Hi sunflower, what's your thoughts on T Swift's Betty being a catradora song???

Me, taking a break from spop to focus on my mental health and setting better boundaries:

Me, reading this ask:

This ask woke me up from like a deep, sleeping beauty type slumber, not joking. I don’t get asked to talk about Taylor Swift often, despite being a fan of hers since I was nine years old (I’m 22 now *wink*) and we are about to find out why. But I pride myself on taking any fiction piece of media I interact with and connecting it somehow to Taylor Swift. I can do so to varying degrees of success (usually depends on the ships and romance of the world) but there are so many songs of Taylor’s that have just fit Catradora so well for me, both in and out of canon.

Some of my favorite examples: out of the woods (AND IT KEPT ME UP AT NIGHT WHEN NOELLE SAID THIS WAS HER TAYLOR SWIFT SONG FOR CATRADORA LIKE GAH CASUAL TS LISTENERS WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND) bad blood, lwymd, don’t blame, dancing with our hands tied, the archer, breathe, you’re not sorry, the way I loved you, forever & always, should’ve said no, safe & sound- I could go on.

But I won’t because I wanna stay on topic and talk about betty. Now I have a number of songs from the folklore/evermore series that are for me catradora songs (we’ll get to that in a minute) but this one is… challenging. Because I could be like “yes, because [insert casual reason here]” or “no, because [insert casual reason here]” but I can’t because Taylor feeds her children well and there’s several aspects of this song I feel like should be considered.

This biggest one to be considered, for me, is the love triangle aspect. Folklore features at length the betty/james/Augustine love triangle, each of them having one main song on the album from their POV. Betty's is cardigan, augustine’s is august, and james’ is betty. (also I’m going to throw out the gender component for a second; I know taylor says that Betty is about a guy’s apology and I totally vibe with her reasons why she wanted to write a song about a boy apologizing BECAUSE HOW GREAT WOULD THAT BE?) The love triangle makes the application of Catradora iffy at best. Because it’s like, who would be who? I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you’re seeing Catra as James? I think that personality wise, Adora as Betty and Catra as James is not a stone’s throw away from fitting actually really well. Adora’s canon journey is one of coming to realize “I know what I want and I know that it’s okay to want it” and a big part of Catra’s arc is her being like “Well shit… there goes my plans. Kind of feeling like a dumbass rn” especially in s4/s5.

(That s4/s5 distinction is important; I’ll show why in a second)

But for me, there’s no augustine. Or one that’s obvious anyway. I never imagined that either Catra or Adora dated or even had any inclinations with anyone else during the five season run- that’s just my personal opinion, people are completely welcome to feel free to disagree. I don’t think Catra acted even out of distraction with Scorpia or DT, and I think Adora was so focused on being She Ra that when she wasn’t thinking about failing/abandoning Catra when she alloted time to do so, she was thinking about the crushing weight of her responsibilities. So you know, not that much time to get back out there. So I rule out what causes James to apologize in the first place- cheating.

Side note about James cheating- I’m pretty sure Taylor confirmed this, in the long pond studio sessions doc, when she’s telling Jack Antonoff (MY BOY JACK) and Aaron Dessner ( GRAMMY AWARD WINNING KING) that James “was a fool!” And James did sleep with Augustine as confirmed in august, but cardigan makes it seem like he was definitely dating Betty before the summer. Maybe Taylor took inspiration from friends and they “were on break.” I also believe that the kiss in the Heart is the first kiss, that Catra and Adora were never ‘together’ together before Adora found the sword and defected (again, that’s just an opinion, but Adora just looks so wonderfully gobsmacked), so…

We can rule out cheating, and I think we can accomplish this and still reserve the essential meaning of the song of “I did something wrong, I see that now, I apologize for doing it, and I still love you” by widening the lens of what the “did something wrong” was (or “did something bad” you know *wink*). In that wider lens really you could fit either Catra or Adora into the song, but I’m still going to assume Catra is the James in this scenario based on how much of her redemption arc is formed around her refusal to say sorry and then eventually doing so. Of course there is no standing your porchlight but rather standing while wrestling a bunch of murderous clones…. Hmm….

But there are some stupid friends! I wholeheartedly believe Catra is James because of the dissing of Betty’s friends. That’s what Catra does to Bow, Glimmer and the rebellion et al., for most of the show and by the end of s4 she has no friends for Adora to even mock (terrible and cruel of me, I know, but it’s true). Also I know people are like “he called her friends stupid and then expected betty to take him back?” but I scream sing the line “WILL YOU KISS ME ON THE PORCH IN FRONT OF ALL YOUR STUPID FRIENDS?” every time. It brings me serotonin.

Along those lines we can ask “Who’s Inez?” in this situation. When I think gossip no one from the show really comes to mind, well, expect for Double Trouble. But Double Trouble doesn’t ever speak to Adora about Catra. This happens vice-versa, and in Betty, James reveals that Inez told Betty he cheated on her.

I want to say something controversial… Glimmer comes to mind when I think “who’s the Inez?” And this is based off of two things: 1) Inez’s closeness to Betty, and 2) Inez drags James out to dry, rightfully so. And when I think of that I think of Glimmer screaming “Do one good thing in your life!” directly in Catra’s face. James gives Inez a bad wrap in Betty. Not cool James.

Of course there’s the pivotal, “would you tell me to go fuck myself?/ or lead me to the garden?” To me this a fun way of showing there’s vulnerability to what James is doing, so automatically I’m led to is the scene where Catra asks Adora to stay, or each time in s5 when Catra risks, basically an identity crisis to let Adora in how she really feels, but there’s always the potential that Adora could spurn her by not returning her feelings or rejecting her outright.

I think the best argument that can be made for “is betty a catradora song” can really be encapsulated by the lyric(s): “the worst thing that I ever did is what I did to you” and “the only thing I wanna do is make it up to you.” That is what about the song SCREAMS Catra to me. And yeah, it could be argued that Adora hurt Catra pretty brutally (Shadow Weaver makes that point EVEN THOUGH SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO) that she messed up by abandoning Catra- but Adora feels guilt for... literally breathing. Adora is the quintessential embodiment of “pick your battles, no that’s too many battles, put some back,” but Catra picked one battle first and foremost (yes, she had a few others but this was the one) and that was Adora. Everything that motivated her was surrounded around a narrative of surpassing Adora for a multitude of reasons, and because of that she pretty much hurts Adora every chance she gets after Promise. Adora is really Catra’s first casualty, it makes sense that she has to be her first apology. And I think that after being vibed checked back to back by DT and Glimmer and realizing “oh hey fuck, I’m still in love with her” and then almost dying just to not die because Adora saves her, I think much of Catra’s motivation shifts to “how to do I get Adora to want to stay?”

That’s my logic for how Betty could be a catradora song in canon. Now not all of my Taylor associations are with canon catradora, many of them do belong to uws catradora, because it’s a lot easier to apply the more modern details of Taylor’s songs to a modern au. The song Breathe is big that way. (it’s in Upper West Side, it’s the song Adora listens to and cries to after that first ride, I just never mentioned that it was taylor because my conditioned reaction to bringing up taylor is to have my head bit off with someone’s semi incorrect and slightly sexist opinion that I never, ever ask for) And this ask got me thinking about what it would look like if I applied not Catradora to Betty, but Betty to Catradora. What would it look like if Catra skateboarded and wore black lipstick, Adora wore a cardigan and they had homeroom together until Catra really messed up? What would it look like if they were seventeen when they admitted their feelings for each other instead of 21? What would it look like if they spent a summer fighting but dreaming of each other? What would their love story look like if Catra and Adora were in that town where Taylor envisioned this “same event that affected three people in different ways?”

I think it’d look something like this.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31141973/chapters/76952048

what do you guys think?

quick but INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT thank you to @gimme-tea-bitch for helping me with this, being my beta, and listening to me talk about folklore/evermore.

#I am literally SHAKING as I post this you guys have no idea #like vibrating through a wall shaking #i've been working on this for like the past two months #and I know everyone wants cruel summer but my goblin brain is like #AHHHHHHHH WRITE A FOLKLORIAN AU FOR CATRA AND ADORA YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO #IT'S 23K WORDS NO ONE WILL NOTICE #this was supposed to go up with two parts but tbh with you guys i have high key been feeling when jenny slate said #'i don't get the love until something beautiful goes out'#please be gentle with me

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felassan · 3 years ago

Text

Highlights and insights from the MELE launch cast & crew reunion panel

[rewatch link] [highlights & insights from the N7 Day 2020 reunion]

In case a text format is better for anyone (in terms of accessibility for example). Cut for length.

Some paraphrasing.

If anyone’s interested in just the line-reading session, it starts at timestamp ~1:04:45.

In addition to the cast and crew from the N7 Day reunion, at this reunion also in attendance were:

Mac Walters (Project Director for MELE, Lead Writer of the og MET)

Melanie Faulknor (Lead Producer for MELE)

Crystal McCord (Producer for MELE)

Fred Tatasciore (Saren)

Seth Green (Joker)

Kimberly Brooks (Ash)

Ash Sroka (Tali)

This was the biggest reunion / meetup of the cast so far, and some of the cast and crew were meeting for the first time here.

It’s been so long since the og MET that PW & KW are getting to watch their kids experience playing it for the first time

JHale doesn’t play but since MELE she’s been sneaking around Twitch jumping into peoples’ MELE livestreams to lurk, watch and comment a bit

What drew Seth to the character of Joker? The whole concept of the game. He likes games and MET’s mechanics (different trees of adventure, stacking reputation, choices carrying between games) at the time were the most sophisticated that he’d ever heard pitched. He thought this was new and exciting and wanted to be a part of it. For the character they cast him based on his personality traits (i.e. he sounds quite similar to Joker personality-wise)

Would Seth ever want to play Joker again if the opportunity presented itself? Sure, he loves the character, and if the writers ever had more things to explore/expand with Joker he’d be down for it.

Seth said that it’s a different kind of fan that approach him about this project. The fans have spent many many hours in an intimate exchange with “him” that he hasn’t been a part of, but they experienced it nonetheless. “I’ve hugged a lot of strangers, you know what I’m saying? It’s great, you get an interaction with fans that you never get as a performer in any other experience”

Seth has been a space guy since he was little, it inspires him

With the state of the world the way it is now [covid, masks etc], does Ash think Tali’s story will be more impactful now than it was before? Ash hopes so, and that anything they do here will have a positive impact on a bigger level. Ultimately that’s why most of them do what they do, they want to reach people in deep ways. She hopes Tali is an inspiration in courage, bravery, standing up for what’s right and thinking about the greater good

The [MELE I think] dev team had a last team meeting with Greg Zeschuk, one of the founders of BioWare, who they had invited to it. He was regaling them with stories of the inception of Mass Effect. “You would imagine this sort of well-laid out, drawing boards everywhere... [but] it was basically just a napkin sketch in a Greek taverna with him and Casey going ‘We wanna do a space opera’, and then it took off”

The process of creating lore through development is very organic. A lot of it comes from character and story development. It builds up over the course of the game’s development. They did the codex entries at the end, the idea being that if they saved them for as late as they could, then they could pull from the story, characters and meaningful moments, and build them from there

PW wrote a bunch of the codex entries, elevator banter & lots of little bits of lore. They describe their time on the og MET as being a “baby writer”. They originally came in after Mac had back surgery and a junior writer was needed to fill in. “It was really fun, it was us sitting in a room together going ‘What do you think a hanar or a krogan thinks about this or that’?” For a first project for them this was an amazing experience - the world building itself creatively with all these awesome people

They tried to add multiplayer in every game but only got it to work in ME3

They had a lot of plots laid out in ME1 that they called “global plots”. These were outside the core critical path and would take players from planet to planet, and were sprawling stories. They pulled out a lot of really interesting concepts and ideas from these that did make it into the game, but all of the global plots ended up getting cut due to time. Mac still has old diagrams and spreadsheets which detailed how all of these would have come together

Q. If you all had to take a long-distance road-trip with two squadmates, who would you take and why? PW: “Jack and Mordin. Mordin because the drive would never lack for things to talk about at length quickly, Jack because you know you wouldn’t pay for the room. You wouldn’t know how you’d get the room, but you wouldn’t be paying for it.” Courtenay: “I’d take Mordin because there’d be singing, and FemShep just to have this thing - happen. In the room that I get for free.” JHale at this point fistpumped while saying “Yeess” [then I think what she said was “steaming hot”]

Seeing as asari are long-lived, how open is Ali to one day reprising her role as Liara? “She’s a character very close to my heart, it was such a great opportunity. In some games that we work on the character has already been created or voiced by someone else, but this was really a group effort. When I first went into the booth, the only thing I’d seen of her was a sort of like, rendering, and we slowly kind of came to her voice and presence. I would love to bring Liara back any time... hey, she can live a really long time guys. :D”

Caroline and people who do what she does (Creative Performance Director) are so critical to the quality of games. Caroline: “This group of people are extraordinary. We were lucky to have such an extraordinary cast. Every [recording] session was new and challenging. It was a labor of love. I’m tearing up right now thinking about it. I’m remembering my last session with Jen, she was the last session, just sobbing and sobbing”. When JHale was trying to say the lines of Shepard’s goodbye with Garrus, a line hit her like a tonne of bricks and she was in tears and was like “Shepard does not cry”. “It took me a second, I got it out and took another run at it, it was in there but stuffed down as it should have been, and I finished the line [and there was silence in the booth when usually Caroline would have been talking to give direction or instruction] Did we lose her? Did Skype crash?” and it transpired that what had happened was that Caroline was in floods of tears

ME was the first time Keythe had ever come across branching dialogue. “Normally when we work on a script and it’s from page 1 to 100. In this it was get to page 5, then go back to page 2 and play it a little differently. The skill and the fun and joy of it was to be able to go back and play a scene in a different way, with different writing, with different outcomes. This was not only a challenge but a real treat. So to all the writers who dreamed up how this build-your-own-adventure plays out, you have my undying respect. It was a real pleasure”

VEDA is a proprietary system that BW use to record the dialogue, which is the closest way of having it feel like having people in the booth together (it’s all digital and VAs get to hear the line someone else has done in that scene). Caroline really pushed for this because of the amount of time etc that was wasted due to lack of this sort of thing on ME1. William: “It was a god send for me, thank you, getting to hear a cue from Jen or Mark.” Ali: “Us being able to bounce off each other helps make it more real. This for me was the most real acting experience on a game I had ever had - the writing being so good, Caroline helping us through, being able to hear each other.” JHale was always early coming in to record relative to the others so only got to use VEDA a few times - a bit of Liara content and the scene with Anderson towards the end. “Those two times, oh my god it was amazing”. VEDA being a thing also helps from a scheduling standpoint

Seth and Tricia Helfer (EDI) only got to be in the booth actually together 1 time, to record/shoot a piece of promotional video. “We actually got to record a scene together and we were like ‘oh my god this is the best thing ever’. It was great, even though I had to stand on a stool. She’s the best”

Seth: “As an actor, the kind of opportunity to do this kind of material in games just didn’t exist.” Fred: “Oh, never! I had never had a villain part that was complicated like that. In a game? Never before, it was really interesting”

Raphael always goes back to the fact that ME brought more women into gaming than any other game before it. “The writing and the complexity of the relationships gave us so much ballast”. “This set this apart from running, shooting, gunning, looting”

JHale: “What I noticed in the times before when I got to be around fans, there was a huge hunger among women in the gaming world for something they could really jump into. They were starving for something which fed them what they deserved and needed”

Mac: “[praising Caroline] Caroline would often come to us as writers and challenge us and say, as an example, ‘Do we really need another male character to do this? Why are we writing another male character for this?’ She pushed that very early and to the betterment of everything we created”

PW: “Karin and Cookie and all of the editors across the trilogy, [were critical in] making sure that Shepard sounded consistent - [especially since] we had a large writing team, writers came and went, Mac is the only one with a significant writing contribution on each of the games”

PW: “[on game dev] It’s a process of getting hundreds of people pointed in the same direction, all believing that this is something worth doing”

Ash: “Having all the different possibilities and avenues, going back to play them all out in the different ways [really helped to round the character of Tali out and make her feel like a natural person]”.

VAs only get paid for the original recording sessions, not again (as in they don’t any royalties or anything from something like the remaster)

In MELE, they left all the original credits at the end of each game in

Fred: “It’s creating in five dimensions [because of all the outcomes and relationships etc]”. Seth: “The cool thing is that the audience feels that. They’re immediately struck by how dense, thought-out, prepared and planned the entire universe is”

How was it for the new MELE devs coming onto this? Crystal: “I knew it [the series and fans’ love for it] was big, but I didn’t know it was BIG! Working on MELE there was this infectious excitement. Being part of it was so exciting.” Melanie: “I came on at ME3, I had a 3 or 4 year honeymoon period with BioWare. Coming onto MELE, I’m getting really emotional. One of my first meetings originally was going into a cinematic review for an epic Tali scene in ME3”. Crystal: “On MELE, we had an hour or 2 every day where the team came together to play the game. In those reviews, a lot of the devs who worked on the original would tell all these stories. It was really fun to hear all the inside stories on ME’s creation and be a part of that”

DC: “Should this unit get vaccinated?” Ash: “Of course”

How do they think ME will be viewed in the next 10-20 years, what do they think its legacy will be? A piece of history, ground-breaking. It broke down some barriers and opened doors for people. It’s a powerful, powerful community. It’ll continue to age quite well and be enjoyed by a new generation, it’s original and evergreen and there’s a lot in it that people go back to. There’s a lot of universal things in it (personal experiences, like there will always be love, people fighting to belong, trying to make sense of their pasts etc)

JHale and Alix did the “I love you Shepard, now go save the world again” Shep-Sam exchange and both got teary. It was then Seth’s turn to line-read: “Jesus Christ, now that I’m good and choked up, fucking mess”. Ali was also actually crying from it

Seth: “It can’t be overstated, this community is so large and global, it is one of the most powerful fandoms that I’ve ever been greeted with. Thank you”. Ash: “It’s the most amazing group of fans ever. We’re all so grateful”

Some funny anecdotes/stories:

PW didn’t realize that Alix could do different accents. They remember a time when they were listening in the booth and an Alliance soldier was complaining about the gear had been given. They said “Wow that’s really good, who is that?” and the VO producer said “That’s Alix, Patrick”, “because she wasn’t doing her [normal British accent but was doing a Californian accent instead]. Alix roasted me later for not recognizing her voice and never let me heard the end of it”

Alix: “[on Sam’s toothbrush] Caroline’s like, ‘So then she pulls her toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘What? Sorry? A toothbrush?’ and obviously it’s funny now as everyone knows that Sam’s thing is her toothbrush. Caroline’s like ‘Yeah, you’ve gotta like, flirt, over the toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘Who wrote this - a frickin toothbrush, are you kidding me? Really guys?’ ANYWAY. I was wrong and it worked. :D”

Fred: “I remember a 12 year old kid coming up to me and being like [flat tone] ‘Oh yeah. I killed you’.”

Keythe: “The other assasin I play is Kellogg in Fallout 4. People come up to me like ‘Omg. I love you so much. And then I fucking KILLED you!’”

Courtenay once went out to dinner in NZ with a few prominent people from the Game of Thrones cast. “Everyone around was making a big deal out of it like ‘Omg, it’s so-and-so from GoT’. I was feeling a bit like ‘Hi, I’m here, just nobody’. And I looked around in the restaurant and there's one guy in the corner and he’s got an N7 shirt on and he’s just looking at me like [knowing look, does a peace sign]. And I’m like ‘I got one! I love you guys!’”

PW: “I have a question for the cast members, because I don’t know if JHale has done this to all of you or if she just does it to the devs. Show of hands if Jen has ever made you do push-ups.” JHale: “It’s just you guys”

Karin: “One of my favorite editing files that I ever had was a ME file. It was before Seth was coming in for a session. I opened it up and it was just 20, 25 lines with the word ‘Shit’, over and over again, and I was like, ‘This file is perfect, I don’t need to do anything to it, have fun!’”

Seth: “Didn’t we do a track that’s like 60 seconds of laughing? Escalating laughing? I don’t know about other actors but for me getting into a laughing fit is kind of like trying to get into a crying fit, it takes the same level of commitment, you start to follow a path until like you’re hysterically uncontrollably laughing. I remember looking through the glass, and I’m deep in it at this point, and I make eye contact, and I can see from the other side of the booth and they’re like [making ‘okay you can stop’ now gestures] - ‘Like that’s plenty, we got it’ and I was like ‘okay, okay [dying]’”

JHale: “The craziest thing Mark and I had to deal with was how many times we had to say ‘I should go’”. Mark: “We also, Caroline and I tended to use that as short hand when I needed to go to the bathroom”

The panel host: “The first time I interviewed Ali was a decade ago. She did the ‘I’ll flay you alive with my mind’ line halfway through, it was my first interview and I literally fell out of my seat [from being star-struck]”

Ash line-read Tali’s drunk omni-tattoo scene and in response DC said “I totally get why people wanna romanticize all these characters :D”. Karin: “We’ve had more than one person come up to us and show us actual tattoos that looked like that”

[source]

#bioware #mass effect #video games #covid mention #long post #longpost #garrus vakarian #best boy #feels #lul

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himbo-buckley · 4 years ago

Text

The Big Buddie for Dummies Guide

Hello party people and welcome to whatever this was supposed to be!

Quite a while ago I got an ask by someone about doing a guide on all the canon indicators for Buddie to explain the ship to non-shippers and about 5 anxiety attacks and four weeks later, I finally did it!

So read, enjoy, reblog, validate, disagree!

Also here are some notes before we get started:

Buddie has been around a while now and there are some incredibly people writing about them and doing meta posts for them, some of which I asked for their opinion which I will link at the end and some of which I am quoting in a way / have been inspired by (Also feel free to send me all and every post related and I will link it in the text as I will try to do the same)

This Guide is organised by the following themes we find in the show with Buddie: trust - coparenting - connection and love life - subtext

I’m not gonna lie, this is incomplete af because tbh? There is so much stuff that can be interpreted as evidence for Buddie but this is too long already so I left some stuff out, I hope ya’ll don’t mind … (also the reblog option exists for reason, just add on what I missed, I’m not gonna bite!)

I’m gonna assume the person who reads this has a general understanding of the show and its scenes because I cannot explain every scene down to it’s very detail (I mean I can but that’s another 20000 words worth of meta and not sure anyone wants to read that … again) but I will try and link fitting gifsets (again, send them my way if you feel I should include sth.)

I should also add a warning for the fact that I, personally, think I am hilarious but others might not but fellas, Idc! (Also I cuss, some people don’t like that?)

So let’s get this show on the road then, shall we? I call this meta : „We might end up real close.“

(alternate title: „Buddie stans ship hard but canon ships harder“ or „This is Timbo’s story (of becoming more famous than Joss Whedon) and I’m just it’s vessel“)

Trust

We’re gonna start this off strong (I mean all of them are strong themes) by talking about the biggest theme with Buddie which is trust. It goes all the way back to 2.01 and the gym scene and Buck basically telling Eddie he doesn’t trust him (complaining about Eddie’s comfort level, anyone?) and that he needs to earn that - which rude but also I get it.

In fact there are two main themes which I combined into Trust which begin in 2.01:

„You’re my problem“ and „You can have my back any day“ both of which sort of sum up Buddie, because from the get go Buck decides hey, this guy is my problem and then he proceeds to make everything about Eddie his business. Eddie meanwhile tells Buck he’d love to have him watching his back - meaning Eddie trusts him and wants Buck to be his partner.

(Side note: isn’t it beautiful how that is a complete reverse of their usual attitudes? Usually Buck trusts way to easy and Eddie never does but with each other it’s the opposite!)

Let’s look at the episodes in order, okay?

2.01: „I think I’ve seen this happen in porn before“

- „You’re my problem“: I’m gonna talk about the gym scene later a bit more but this sort of establishes the dynamic Buddie has? Because both are fascinated by and focused on each other from the get go. I mean: Eddie got to the 118 and everyone seemed to be nice to him except this one guy and instead of giving him a few days, thinking he’ll come around , Eddie is like: nah, I’ll confront him! Why? Maybe it’s gay, maybe it’s Maybelline, maybe Eddie „I am not enough“ Diaz was just sick and tired of everyone putting trust in him because soldier and craved the vibe check?

- „You can have my back“: Basically what happened was, they got the bomb out (being partners and in sync even when they didn’t like each other yet) and they stood outside and Eddie tries a new approach cause for some reason Eddie decided out of everyone at the 118 he needed Buck to like him specifically and so he pays the guy - who was nothing but rude to him so far but who is also very competent - a compliment and Buck gets all flustered and thankful - and „You’re my problem!“ gets rephrased into „Or you know, you could have mine!“

(Also the look of pure elation on Buck’s face when Eddie compliments him, you know the person Hen has basically said is so awesome and pretty it transcends sexualities? And he picks Buck of all people to have his back? Buck has no choice but to stan!)

- In terms of Trust we also get the pool scene which is our second instance of them being in sync and partners by both jumping into the pool and getting the guy out basically at the same time

2.02 / 2.03: „Why Edmundo Diaz hates earthquakes part 1 and part 2 (of 2)“

- „Where do you want us, Cap?“: Now looking at the timeline of 2.01 they’ve known each other for approximately four days as this is their fourth shift together (we see) and yet Eddie is already comfortable enough to answer for himself and Buck several times. He’s the one who decides they will go in and he answers the roll call later for the both of them. This is our first real instance of them being in sync and just their whole interaction, from Eddie going along with Buck’s plan about the elevator to everything else just shows how much they already trust each other.

- „I, uh, I love kids“: Also Buck in this episode, why was it so important that Eddie knows you like kids? Please share!

- “Eddie, you’re kid is in the safest place he can be.“: Connected to this is a sub-theme I like to call: ‚They know each other better than anyone else does‘ which is established here with Buck realising that Eddie is full of shit when he pretends not to worry about Chris so Buck spends some time trying to assure Eddie Chris is safe at school.

- „Is everything okay?“: Of course, the fact that Buck was the only one to check in with Eddie’s mental state from the truck scene onwards is very telling, because everyone else likes and trusts him but they don’t really care (yet)

- And the episodes end with everyone reuniting with their families, including Eddie - while Buck watches from the car because Buck drove him there because he has his back (also see Subtext)

2.04: „Hearteyes, motherforker“

This whole episode is what made several people ship Buddie and well, I can see it and I will talk about a lot of it with the other themes but for now:

- „I just feel bad for him. (…) Eddie’s working on it“: This episode really leans into the whole „You’re my problem“ with Buck apparently driving Eddie to the hospital (or at least coming along) to Buck clearing Chris coming to the station with Bobby to worrying about them at home until finally he introduces him to Carla.

Mind you, they haven’t known each other that long, yet Buck feels the need to meddle in Eddie’s life and fix his problems for him which, yes, is very Buck thing to do but still: Considering Eddie was introduced to us as this super capable guy, it’s interesting that Buck immediately saw through him and decided: yeah, that guy needs me to take care of him.

Or you know, to have his back.

2.07: „*Tommy Wiseau voice* Oh, hi Shannon!“

- „I needed someone to have my back“: This episode establishes the significance of „You can have my back“ even more because in this episode Shannon comes back and you know what they fight about? Eddie not having her back. Shannon quite literally says „I needed someone to have my back“ which is almost the same exact Eddie tells Buck in 2.01 and with that wording as well ...

In the same scene Shannon also says how Eddie always knows best and is the one to make the decisions which is another parallel you can draw to Buddie where Eddie began like that in 2.01 (the scene at the mechanic’s) and then began to follow Buck’s lead (the elevator shaft) / let Buck help him (Carla))

2.10: „It’s all about ‚figured it was none of my business‘“

I love this episode very much because there are several Buddie hints in there.

- “I think it’s none of our business.“: Connected to the topic of Trust is the scene between Chimney and Buck when they buy the Christmas tree and Buck keeps talking about Shannon coming to the station and the fact that Shannon and Eddie hooked up while Chim seems exasperated by this and frankly doesn’t care and he tells Buck as much, saying it’s none of their business. Except it is because Eddie is Buck’s problem, remember?

- „So … not gonna say anything?“: And then the „None of your / my business“ gets repeated in the scene when Buddie sits at the fountain talking about Chris and Shannon and they both say it’s none of Buck’s business. Yet Eddie then still tells Buck all about it sounding all defensive.

- It’s also the first instance of Eddie willingly searching out Buck’s advice about Christopher.

- And related to the topic of knowing each other well, considering how surprised Buck is by all of this, one sort of has to wonder how often they hang out outside of work. Because the way Buck acts makes one assume it’s quite a lot, which is why Buck is so hurt he doesn’t know about it.

- Also the fact that they so casually go somewhere with Christopher and the way Buck talks about him making it clear they have done this before.

- „Trying to protect your kid.“: On the topic of Trust I also wanna mention the fact that Eddie doesn’t trust Shannon with Christopher. Which is a direct parallel to 3.03 when Eddie tells Buck there is no one he trusts more with his son. And also 3.09 when Buck gets to be back in Chris’s life after the lawsuit as soon as Buddie made up yet Shannon needs to really beg for it? I mean, yeah.

2.13: „ Evan *I colour coordinate with bae while my sister is abducted and my brother is dying* Buckley“

- „Oh, no, I know what you were thinking.“: The scene at the hospital between Buck and Eddie does have a bit of subtextual relevance but I do think we should note the fact that this scene was in the show at all like this because wouldn’t Bobby have made a bit more sense? After all they spent one and a half Season before that making him the guy Buck goes to for advice and he has sisters as well, yet here we get Eddie being the one to talk to Buck.

We get Eddie basically telling Buck exactly what he needed to hear and while not exactly condoning his actions, he is also not judging them. Instead Eddie is telling Buck he might have done the same, because Eddie and Buck know each other and see each other.

So I wouldn’t necessarily call that scene Buddie-hinting but it does definitely play into the whole ‚having each other’s backs‘ and ‚knowing each other well‘ thing they got going on.

Also compare it to 3.06 in the way that both times Buck did something wrong and it was Eddie who actually took the time to listen to Buck’s reasoning and be the one to understand him, which is a very important part of their dynamic.

And the line „I wasn’t worried about that.“ in response to how Buck thought he would get away with all of this might be one of the top 10 heartbreaking lines of this show for me and that is saying a lot with 911!

2.14: „‚It’s a miracle… bro #nohomo’“

I am not fully sure if the scene of Buck freaking out about Eddie going back in to save the kid really fits in here, but I’m also very unsure were else to put it, so Trust it is!

- „Eddie, what are you doing?”: It does fit into the whole having each other’s back thing with Buck immediately jumping into action to try and help Eddie

- But in all honesty prior to 3.14 this would have not made the cut as I would have been like: eh, that’s just who Buck is as a person - but as 3.14 will proof / has proven, he can be calm and collected even when his sister, his ACTUAL family is in danger and while I would argue it was in part because there was less he could do to actively help in 3.14, it still deserves to be mentioned now

- Side note: considering 2.13 / 2.14 and 3.14 / 3.15 this marks two occasions were Buck being worried for Maddie’s life was followed by an episode of Buck being worried for Eddie’s life and that too deserves mentioning

2.18: „insert *Jane Austen film*-gif: It’s about the hands!“

- I’m not really sure if this is really connected to Trust but Eddie holds Buck’s hand the whole time, even after he has dragged him out from under the firetruck until they disappear in the ambulance.

- Also the fact that Eddie, who is probably stronger than Chimney, is the one helping Hen drag Buck out from under the fire truck while Chimney helps lift it is … worth a mention.

- Definitely connected to Trust is Buck’s insistence to going to Eddie’s ceremony because this is Eddie and he has his back

3.01: „How you know he no sleep naked?“

Yes, this scene has a lot to unpack. In terms of *trust* / how well they know each other:

- „He’s just sulking, Cap“: Eddie says about Buck. In my opinion the phrasing combined with how before that they were talking about how Maddie can’t get Buck to leave the house and he won’t answer any of Bobby’s calls implies that either a) Eddie too has tried to contact Buck with no success or b) is actually in contact with Buck, has talked to him and has concluded based on what he saw that Buck is sulking - and yes, I am leaning toward b).

- “Maybe you’ll learn something.“: Which brings me to the fact that it’s Eddie who makes the plan to get Buck out of his funk and prove to him that he still has stuff to live for, despite how dismissive he had been about Buck’s feelings before, calling it sulking and saying Buck should just brush it off. Because Eddie has Buck’s back despite it all and is there for him and trusts him.

- „He’s hanging out with his Buck today“: In terms of actual Trust there is the fact that Buck is very much depressed in this episode - and what does Eddie do? Puts his son in his care, you know, the most important person in Eddie’s life, convinced that Buck will be able to take care of him despite how low and bad he is feeling about himself. One) because it has been the case for Eddie probably. Two) because this is who Buck is as a person even while depressed and Eddie trusts that. And three) because even before the Tsunami Eddie was very sure about how much Buck loved Chris.

- „Honestly I don’t know how to help him.“: This also parallels Maddie with Eddie in an interesting way because Maddie spends the whole episode worried about Buck and thinking he cannot take care of himself, while Eddie trusts in Buck to not only take care of himself but also his son. Which yeah, interesting.

3.02 „Eddie hates earthquakes - the remix“

- The episode sort of proves that while the others may have known what Eddie was gonna do, Operation „Buck up Buck“ was his plan because he is the one who has Buck’s back. (Considering for example Maddie doesn’t know about it as she thinks Buck is home and had Chim been involved he would have told her beforehand meaning this was Eddie’s plan and he executed it and then told the others about it while at work.)

- Also in terms of literal Trust: LA is hit by a Tsunami and Eddie doesn’t worry about his son once because Buck said they are going to the movies next and also because Eddie trusts Buck to protect Chris like he would.

3.03 „‚Do it for the trauma!‘ - Buck-edition“

Once again a subtext-mill but there is some textual evidence as well:

- “How do you tell your best friend that you lost his son?“: At the VA hospital Buck calls Eddie his best friend when he talks to Maddie which I always found weird in this context? Because it should always be hard to tell another person about how you got their child killed (which is not my opinion but the way Buck sees it here, okay?), yet the writers choose to put in a reference to how much Eddie means to Buck.

- Which connects to another subtext and text thing which is the voiceover which has Buck say the lines: „To be seen. To be found. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for?“ after talking to Eddie, which no longer just implies this is about Eddie but actually straight up says it - and it connects to the sub-topic of how well they know each other, cause Buck says in this episode: Eddie is my best friend and he sees me for who I really am. Which, yeah, is stuff one usually finds in connection to a love interest. (Will talk about it more with Subtext though)

- Also before that the voiceover has Buck say „Sometimes being lost is not knowing how to get from where we are to where we wanna be, where we need to be.“ right as Eddie knocks on the door, which basically states that Eddie and Chris might be where Buck wants to be but also how Eddie apparently knows how to get Buck there. Because he knows him so well. (He literally calls Eddie his life raft in the voiceover!)

- „Buck, there is nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you”: Now the Trust theme in regards to the loft scene is interesting in how it compares Buck to two people in Eddie’s eyes / life: Shannon and himself. Shannon, as I already said, we have with 2.07 and 2.10, both of which talked about how she left Chris (and Eddie) and how Eddie no longer trusts her because of this and refuses to let her back into Chris’s life. Which is different to how he always lets Buck back into Chris’s life, even after the lawsuit with virtually no hesitation once they made up as far as we can see. Meaning he trusts Buck more than he trusts Shannon. Who is, you know, his wife?

As for Eddie himself, I’m gonna flashforward a bit to 3.08 and the conversation between Eddie and Bobby. Because in 3.03 Eddie talks about messing up with Chris, yet how he never stops trying and how he knows Buck is the same way - which is interesting considering 3.08 has Eddie basically say that he has not forgiven himself for all those mistakes. Yet he forgives Buck both for the Tsunami and abandoning them during the lawsuit.

And now I wanna say something very controversial and hurtful but also connected to how I read Buddie and Trust which is that in my opinion? Eddie includes himself here. Eddie tells Buck here he trusts him more or at the very least just as much as he trusts himself with his son. Which is pretty big, considering he barely trusted his wife, the mother of said son, who he has known for at the very least about 11 years during Season 2? Someone he himself said he loves? Someone he at one point planned his future with? (Meaning he most definitely plans his future with Buck in it now…)

3.04 „discount!Buck in the house“

- Two things are in this episode, both of which are very much not about Trust in the literal sense but how much time Buddie spends together outside of work:

“Can’t fight city hall.“ Eddie being the only one on board with the fire drill Buck’s leading because he is a boy scout who follows all the rules but also because Buck probably talked to him about his job as fire marshal beforehand and so Eddie knows how important what is happening here is to Buck.

„You don’t know math.“: now, you can think this is another dig at Buck’s intelligence but you also have to acknowledge that at one point Eddie might have either heard someone reference Buck’s math knowledge in front of Eddie or Eddie has seen Buck try doing math and has remembered that well enough to immediately be able to pull out that dig. (Which brings us to a parallel I will talk about later!)

- “Uh, who - who’s that?“: I also firmly believe that Buck would have not been as willing to go along with the lawsuit, despite Bobby’s betrayal, had Eddie not immediately rushed off toward Lena at the firehouse, making Buck think Eddie (his partner) has replaced him. Does no longer need him to have his back.

3.05: „What if we fight like a married couple in a grocery store downtown LA, bro?“

Ah, yes, that episode! Filled with Buddie signs!

- “And if Cap says he’s not ready, he’s not ready.“: What I find interesting in terms of Buddie and Trust is the fact that Eddie apparently trusts Bobby’s judgement more than he trusts Buck’s. Which I find OOC. Or not because Eddie is a soldier and Eddie grew up fairly authoritarian it seems his first instinct will be to follow the chain of command / do as the person in charge tells him to.

- Now everything else that happens after including and specifically the street fighting storyline? That was a direct result of the lawsuit and the deposition in which Buck betrayed Eddie’s trust by revealing the info about Shannon. Which Buck is aware of because up until this point we see him still looking up, yet after this he drops his eyes and doesn’t really look at anyone again during the deposition.

- “And I’m not allowed to talk to Buck.“: Yet. YET despite this massive betrayal in Eddie’s eyes what stops him from calling Buck later is the fact that he wasn’t allowed to do so! Nothing else. Also the phrasing is very interesting as it gives us three entities Eddie considered to call: his abuela, Buck and the 118, meaning Hen, Chim and Bobby - the people he will call his family about 6 episodes later - are an uniformed mass but Buck is his own person - because up to this point Buck always had Eddie’s back. And we all know he still would have had! (Sidenote: this line is what made me an actual shipper and why ya’ll can read posts like this, so maybe say thank you to Lyndsey Beaulieu? Or fuck you, depending on your opinion of me ;P)

- „And now I can’t even talk to you.“: This whole scene gives huge character exposition and I’ve talked a shit ton about the fight in the grocery store before as have a lot of other people, but basically what it boils down to is that Eddie is mad at Buck because he revealed things about them to his lawyer but mostly because Eddie thought they had each others back and trusted each other and apparently Buck doesn’t trust and care about him the same way Eddie does for him because he didn’t even consult Eddie about the lawsuit? And Eddie misses Buck a lot. And Chris misses Buck a lot. And Eddie is already mad because Shannon wanted a divorce despite how hard he tried and then she died, meaning she left him again and now Buck left him as well and why is Eddie never enough for anyone?

And of course, as always, Eddie is mad at himself the most because he wasn’t enough for Shannon and he wasn’t enough for Buck and he’s probably not enough for Chris who is struggling so much and Eddie just feels angry and lost all the time!

I think this is the moment Buck finally understands how much he means to Eddie truly. How Eddie meant every word in 3.03. How for once someone actually trusted him, depended on him - and he let them down. Which was never his intention because Buck never understood that he could (which is not the topic of this post though).

- “Why can’t you see my side of things?“: On Buck’s side, while he isn’t nearly as mad as Eddie, he does raise the question of why Eddie didn’t have his back - which is a very fair question but Eddie is still too mad at Buck here to hear it.

- What is also very interesting about this scene is that no one, not even Bobby who was actually sued by Buck, is as mad at him as Eddie is and no one dares steps between them. Probably because everyone recognises they are closest with each other, so the conversation hits a bit different and also is about a lot more than the „stupid lawsuit“. Yeah.

(Real talk I have been very mad at friends before and I am known to make scenes but damn, this scene does not read platonic at all, it reads ‘married couple fights in grocery store in LA - what happens next will surprise you. News at 11.’)

- In other news, Eddie didn’t come to the rage room in the end and Buck was very very sad about it.

3.06: „*cries about the framing*“

(Sidenote: I feel Eddie so much in this episode, I too would be too embarrassed to talk to Buck had I just screamed at him in a grocery store in full view of all our coworkers. I too would avoid everyone like the plague and maybe join a fight club just so I would not have to deal with those feelings. I get it, my dude!)

- “Whew, dude, are you okay?“: We’ll talk about it with 3.08 as well, but it is very significant and pointed that Buck immediately knows something is wrong with Eddie when no one else at the station had seemed to be aware of that.

- “I don’t know what you want from me, Buck“: The apology scene is very subtext heavy but what it comes down to in the whole having each other’s back / knowing each other well / Trust - column is the fact that after being mad and avoiding him all day Eddie still sticks around and more importantly actually listens to Buck - which, as shitty as that sounds, but considering how he acted before if Eddie hadn’t wanted to still be Buck's friend he could have said something shitty and left or stayed and not actually listened to what Buck had to say - but he didn’t because as hurt as Eddie had been by Buck’s betrayal he still trust him and he wants to understand, which I do think sets Eddie apart from everyone else because Hen and Chim forgive Buck but they don’t ever try to figure out where he is coming from while Bobby is … being Bobby about all of. Eddie meanwhile, who has the most or maybe the only right to actually be mad about the lawsuit, still trusts Buck enough to know that he had his reasons and actually takes the time to listen to them. Even if he is being sassy.

- And on Buck’s side we do have his need to reconnect with Eddie the whole episode and we have him notice stuff about Eddie no one else did and we also have the really beautiful and mature line of Buck saying: „I just want you to talk to me. Even if it’s just to say you’re still mad.“ Which I love very much and tells us a lot about Buck and communication, because Buck values openness so much.

- “And I just wanted to…“ - „Punch someone?“: Also while it was important for Buck to explain himself to someone - it was especially important for him to explain himself to Eddie, both because he considers Eddie his best friend and also because the grocery store scene showed him how much he means to Eddie which probably floored Buck because as we learned before and also after: Buck is not used to people needing him as much as he needs them.

3.08: „XOXO gossip (fire)fighters“

- “Whoo. Nice truck.“: One thing about 911 is that it’s a very plot and action driven show, meaning sometimes it will lack the time to actually show us certain things, especially when it comes to relationships, so it relies a lot on telling us things about characters and their relationships and as these scenes here show us they do a good job at it. Buddie talking about Eddie buying a new truck is very casual and banter-y / flirty (this is a Buddie post so I call it like I see it) and light and shows us: hey, they are friends again and close again and they know each other very well - while also showing us: Eddie still keeps stuff from Buck but Buck knows something is off.

- “Eddie too.“: Which brings me to my next point and the thing I love most about this episode aside from Heidi which is Buck running around and going: ‚something is wrong with Eddie‘ while everyone else is like: ‚Eddie? Are you sure? I haven’t noticed anything‘

Which leaves two ways to read this:

Eddie and the rest of the 118 aren’t as close as it seems and they do not care about Eddie that much - which considering all the deep talk between Eddie and Chimney in 3b especially and the fact that he calls them his family would be fucked up and also doesn’t seem like the vibe they are going for OR

BUDDIE! I mean, look at what has been going on with the street fighting storyline, essentially the writers went: okay, so Eddie can't talk to Buck so he goes completely off the rails but no one will know because Eddie hides it so well - EXCEPT Buck will realise sth is wrong the second he looks at Eddie and once the lawsuit is done he will spend two episodes running after Eddie and trying to figure out what is going on

3.09: „#tw: mild adult themes & implied sexual content / #pwp - porn without porn“

- “He’s kind of obsessed with natural disasters.“: Honest question: Is Buck really obsessed with natural disasters or does Eddie have earthquake related trauma and Buck has been googling stuff and telling him facts to calm Eddie down every time the earth vibrates a little because a train or something passes them by?

In any case it’s a very cute scene with Eddie once more revealing how well he knows Buck and the writers confirming to us that yes, these boys spent a lot of time with each other and talking to each other - without needing to show the scenes

- “I could still take you“: AFTER ALL they needed the runtime to do this other little scene this fandom has not talked about at all ever mainly because it is so very straight basically people stopped shipping after.

I’m just kidding, obviously the whole scene was very queer both in subtext but especially in text, I mean, what even was that line about still taking him, Buck? There is a child not even 15 feet away, where is your sense for decency and decorum? DO YOU WANT TO TRAUMATISE HIM EVEN MORE???

A few notes on this scene:

- It’s been pointed out to me that Maddie complains about how everything around there gets shared with the 118 and how Buck … turns around and shares everything about his sister with Eddie, which I love because it seems so normal and comfortable between them like they do that all the time, which is way cute and domestic!

Added to that considering the conversation Eddie had the week before with Bobby about Shannon and the throwaway reference about thinking his marriage having been complicated, I wonder: Did Eddie talk to everyone about the street fighting and Shannon after his talk with Bobby in 3.08? Did he just talk to Buck about it? Did Buck know about Shannon wanting a divorce all along? (Yeah, you know were I am leaning, right?)

- “Especially if you aren’t around to see that they need saving“: As for the apology in and off itself, I’m not gonna talk about the character implications again cause been there done that, send an ask if you wanna know more, but what it comes down to is: Buck acknowledging that he should have been there for Eddie and he didn’t consider the Eddie of it all when he sued Bobby, which is interesting because OFFICIALLY Eddie really is just his best friend and coworker at this point so did he really have to consider his feelings all that much?

Also Buck is saying - and Eddie is not contradicting this - that Eddie street fighting would not have happened if Buck had been around, which, to quote a good friend of mine: Uff!

I think we can admit that while Eddie was mad at Buck, his anger was not primarily about Buck but it was amplified by Buck abandoning him. We can admit that Buck was what ultimately caused Eddie to lose his control and considering everything that Eddie went through in the past year with Shannon and considering everything Buck went through in the past two years: this is as close to unconditional love as these two can manage at the time and that is very beautiful and does support Buddie 100%. They are each other’s anchor and person the one they turn to in a crisis.

Or well, Buck is for Eddie. Buck does have more people like that in his life with his sister there and I do think before the lawsuit he wasn’t fully aware that he could depend on Eddie so fully because Buck always doubts how committed other people are to him because abandonment issues.

3.11: „Bist du single? Nein, eher Album!“

- „This is Eddie’s house. I’m not really a guest.“: Incredibly strong indicator / implications toward how much time these two boys spent with each other, considering how comfortable both of them are in each other’s space (and I don’t mean physical but material space). Eddie has a key to Buck’s apartment and just let’s himself in willy-nilly, while Buck is around in Eddie’s place often enough to not think of himself as a guest there. (And while that might be normal best friend behaviour to some of us, Maddie’s words imply that it is not for her / the Buckleys.)

3.14: „Frank says ‚Thank you, this paid for my new house!‘“ / 3.15: „MY therapist also says ‚Thank you!‘“

I’m gonna group these two together, since 3.14 in itself doesn’t have any relevance considering Eddie isn’t even in the episode but it does become relevant in regards to 3.15!

- Basically what it all comes down to is the contrast between Buck’s reaction to Maddie being in danger and his reaction to Eddie nearly dying!

Now I already said while talking about 2.14 part of it was that Buck was aware he was in no position to help Maddie and might actually make stuff worse if he intervenes while with Eddie he was HIS ACTUAL LIFELINE! He was actually responsible for getting Eddie out of the well and home to his family. BUT (!) it’s still very pointed, especially remembering they apparently changed the order of episodes around? Meaning we are really hit with the contrast and we have to consider the implications of it all!

- Also just Buck’s reaction in general, even with Chimney and Maddie in Season 2 he wasn’t this frantic, he wasn’t freaking out like that! This really seems like all those scene’s shows like that usually do to confirm one person is in love with the other by having them completely loose it at the prospect of the other dying.

And damn, does 911 delivers here, not just with Buck literally trying to dig down to Eddie with his bare hands but also with his conviction for the rest of the episode before going sort of catatonic near the end. Basically Buck was going through the 5 stages of grief over Eddie during the course of this episode and we just? Let him?

- Of course we should mention Buck has Eddie’s back always, so he doesn’t give up on him and doesn’t entertain the notion of Eddie possibly being dead for even a microsecond because this is Eddie and Buck needs him!

- And to add to the list of heartbreaking lines we have Hen saying: „Why? So we have two cut lines?“ because yes, Buck would choose to stay down there rather than let himself be saved if Eddie was already dead - and if Eddie wasn’t he would force Eddie to trade lines with him so Buck could be the one to die because Buck thinks Eddie’s life is more valuable than his and also he is a selfless idiot who loves Eddie more than himself - which frankly is a mutual thing if we look at 3.03

Option #3 btw would be that Hen knows Eddie has a legitimate reason to cut his line and he would explain that to Buck and - considering who they are - Buck would immediately agree and cut his line as well.

Anyways, no matter which option the writers were thinking off this line is heartbreaking and the implication interesting!

To sum it all up, the episode basically said: Buck would die for Eddie and he loves him more than anything else

- The Eddie implications of this episode are mostly Subtext, so we’ll get to them later in case you thought I forgot!

3.16: „The rope was a metaphor after all“

Tbh I do not think that this episode was really about how no person can be happy / live without regrets / not be lonely unless they are in a relationship with someone or they would not have put that much focus on the relationship between Maddie and Buck and the fact that his abandonment issues stem from her leaving.

- “He’s not gonna do it alone“: As for Buddie, the episode goes back to them being partners and in sync with the roof thing and yay, it has a different ending then the reversed situation the episode before but also it features a metaphor we will talk about later

- “Hey, you’re more than welcome to come and celebrate with a bunch of 9 year olds.“: Just like we will talk later about Eddie inviting Buck to the sleepover! Because while I don’t think the invite was all that serious and I don’t think even considering everyone else, Buck would have taken him up on it because celebrating with a bunch of 9 year olds around isn’t what Buck had in mind, it’s very interesting that the first person taken out of the equation is the guy Buck is closest to and probably spends the most time with.

- And now let’s talk about the playing pool scene because it once again shows that 1) Buck and Eddie are very alike, 2) they know each other very well and 3) they care about each other the most!

Because for 1) I do wanna point everyone to the fact that Eddie doesn’t have anyone outside his family and the 911 either or they would have mentioned him staying in contact with his army buddies or something.

2) Eddie is the only one who actually listens to what Buck says and gets what Buck is really asking, while Bobby, Hen and Chim are all too focused on their own experiences to get that the reason Buck tries so hard to help Red is because he thinks he is Red (I mean they do get it, but they don’t really realise how serious this is for Buck - yet)

3) There is also a lot of focus on Eddie in this scene which we will talk about later as well but it picks up the whole ambiguous „us“ from the grocery store which technically refers to the whole firefam but the way it’s said still implies that it is about the two of them especially.

To anticipate a bit: every time the word „Us“ is used in this scene Buddie only looks at each other. When Buck says „I mean that would never happen … to us.“ he looks at everyone else but turns to look at Eddie as he very pointedly says „to us“ and keeps his focus there for a moment. Eddie meanwhile technically turns to the pool table while he says the word „us“ but he only focuses on Buck before this and doesn’t look at anyone else because to him: Buck is the important aspect here. And no one else!

Not to mention the intense look Buck gives Eddie (and only Eddie) when he says „Better not.“. Like damn, in 3 Seasons Buck has never sounded this threatening before!

Basically the way this scene is acted combined with the words that were written it sort of reads like them going: We’re all family here but you and me will most definitely never leave each other!

I mean there is a reason why Buddie used the ambiguous „us“ while everyone else talked about the firefam being friends or being family.

(And yes, that might be a bit of a reach but this is a Buddie guide after all, so we are going with the buddie-est interpretation!)

3.17: „‚Don’t say her name‘-challenge“

- “Uh no, someone else.“: More of a subtext scene but it does seem pointed that Buck refuses to admit that he was thinking about Abby here, considering Bobby most definitely knew that Buck was talking about Abby because he was there for the hot-air balloon date, so even if he did not remember right away he knew the second Buck said he didn’t know from Maddie and since Hen and Chimney weren’t there in the truck (and also, they probably would have known who Buck was talking about as well) the only one Buck was hiding from was Eddie.

Which makes sense, even if you only look at them as best friends, because Eddie only saw the aftermath and what we canonically know that he heard about Abby were things like Buck’s speech in 2.08, so … even as just Buck’s friend he must really dislike her

(Also there is that whole parallel one can draw between Abby and Shannon which I talked about here)

- „Buck invites Eddie“: So I’ve been going back and forth on what to write here for a few hours now and what it comes down to is this: despite being 6500 words deep into a meta on Buddie and knowing full well the writers so far have no intention of actively doing Buddie, I would not accuse 911 of queerbaiting. HOWEVER, if the show ends and Buddie doesn’t happen I will consider this scene queerbaiting because there would have been ways to write this that did not leave the implications it did because the way it has been written the text is:

„If I bring my romantic life-partner to dinner with my best friend he will bring his romantic life-partner who will invite her brother who will invite his best friend and then we have to invite this other couple we are all close with.“ and well, one of them is not like the others, right?

(Well, technically two but Maddie and Buck are most definitely siblings despite that scene in 2.01)

Because essentially what that scene did here was say: If I bring my wife the evening turns into this couples night with all our friends - except Buck and Eddie aren’t a couple.

And sure, just like all great queerbaits there is a reasonable explanation as well as a completely platonic way to read this because of course Buck would not wanna be all alone with two couple so he would bring his best friend and the we’d have to invite the other couple we know as well so they don’t feel left out.

EXCEPT - and this is why it feel pointed and queerbait-ey: We have already seen the 118 hang out without Athena and Bobby at Chimney’s birthday and it was never mentioned to us whether they were invited and didn’t come - or Chimney didn’t invite them. Both explanations sort of make Hen’s point moot because it does proof that they can hang out without their boss slash friend and his wife slash her best friend without it being a big deal meaning especially if this was a make-up dinner for Chimney’s birthday they wouldn’t have needed to be there.

There is also the fact that supposably Alfred is still in town? You know, Chimney’s brother? So if they wanted to avoid the Buddie implication they could have also thrown in how Chim might bring his brother like:

„I invite you, so he invites Maddie, Maddie invites Buck, Buck invites Eddie, Chim might invite Alfred, and now we gotta invite Athena and Bobby“ - see how that has a completely different feel? Now there are three single guys and two of which are siblings of someone else in the group while the third is friends with the rest of the group, making this sound less like couples night out and more like a group of friends hanging out.

But they didn’t do it like that so now it feels like they are pointedly equating Buddie with the canon couples of the show which is quite queerbait-ey.

3.18: „TrainCRASH? More like train WRECK? *cries*“

Okay, so this episode is a little hard to do because there is so much going on and a lot of it is very hard to categorise! As for the topic of Trust and having each other’s back:

- I do think that a lot of Eddie here come down to having Buck’s back - even when Buck might not think that’s what Eddie’s doing like in the train car, but he probably realised later which is why we see Buck talk about it with Bobby but not with Eddie because they are at this point where you no longer need to have clarifying talks (about stuff like that, once romantic!Buddie hits they’ll have to do all the talking).

And that’s basically it when it comes to Trust because most of what is happening in the episode when it comes to Buddie is Subtext!

Coparenting

I think this theme needs less of an explanation - though I do wanna point out that while I think Buck has fatherly feelings for Chris and Chris loves Buck a lot, Buck is not actually his parent / father. He is slowly getting there and if or when Buddie happens he might become Chris’s other parent but right now he is not. So this theme is about Buck being a honorary member of the Diaz family in general and Eddie’s treatment of him most of all.

Because the way I see Eddie him dating anyone would always be tied to his son. Eddie has been shown to be someone who would do anything for family and his son in particular, so the fact that Buck is tied into this family is important. It also shows how much they are already a family without actually dating and proofs they spent more time with each other than we see and more than with anyone else.

I should also say that there is a very heavy overlap between this and the category of Subtext so some things will be repeated but all of them deserve to be repeated so there is that.

2.02 / 2.03: „Why Edmundo Diaz hates earthquakes part 1 and part 2 (of 2)“

- Like I already said when I discussed Trust Buck is the only one asking who Eddie is trying to reach, he is the only one trying to reassure Eddie and he does so even though Eddie is being sarcastic and pretending he doesn’t need to be comforted - also a staple in their relationship

And I think this is also were their dynamic of Buck being Eddie’s go to person when it came to Chris came from. Buck told Eddie he liked kids and then he proceeded to actually show Eddie he means it and he cares and considering Eddie says the mother isn’t in the picture and Chris has no one else (which as we learn throughout the show is not 100% true because technically Eddie's parents are there, even if they have no idea how to properly raise Chris, but in LA Eddie doesn’t really have anyone (yet) he feels comfortable burdening with his fears about Chris), so that must mean one hell of a lot.

- “Hey. Service.“: There is also the moment at the end of 2.03 when Buck immediately tells Eddie: hey, service is back! and then he drives Eddie to pick up Chris which is a scene that has so much subtext so we’ll talk about it later! It does however give us our first‚ Diazs plus Buck‘-family moment because while we see everyone reuniting with their loved ones, we see Buck with Eddie and Chris and yeah.

2.04: „Hearteyes, motherforker“

- One of my favourite things about Buddie is how they manage to be exactly what the other person needs - or in case of this episode figure out exactly what the other person needs and giving it to them. It’s happening here and again in 3.01 and 3.03 and some other smaller moments as well (see 2.01 honestly).

It’s also interesting that Buck is the one to drive Eddie again because we saw he has a car! So why is that? Maybe because he knows the way better?

As for the coparenting happening here, aside from Buck introducing Eddie to Carla because he knows she is what Eddie needs, we also have Buck clearing Chris coming to the station with Bobby which is something Eddie apparently hadn’t considered but Buck had and instead of telling Eddie he needs to do that - he does it for him! Because that’s who Buck is but also because Buck realised in this episode how much Eddie really needs someone to have his back and just do stuff for him.

2.07: „*Tommy Wiseau voice* Hi Shannon“

- And in terms of having each other’s back this episode really shows the significance of this phrase with Shannon pointing out, like I said before, that from her point of view Eddie didn’t have her back. She needed him to be her husband and her coparent and he wasn’t.

Now we can argue whether that is true or not but it’s still an important parallel and puts Eddie turning toward Buck for advice into a new light.

Because as Shannon points out Eddie was never good at letting other people make decisions for him or with him before yet we continuously see him turning toward Buck for exactly that: sharing the load with him. And to put that even more into perspective: Buck is the youngest from their friend group, he is the one considered immature and he is the one without kids or younger siblings, yet he is the one Eddie choose for helping.

2.10: „It’s all about ‚figured it was none of my business‘“

- The interesting thing here is that Buck as Eddie’s friend really doesn’t have any right to know about what was happening between Shannon and Eddie if Eddie didn’t want him to, but Buck as Eddie’s family does (a little).

But either way this episode gives us another instance of Eddie confiding in Buck about his family problems - problems he again is the one most inexperienced with. In other words Eddie talking to Buck about it was really about Eddie wanting Buck’s opinion specifically.

There is also the fact that Buck came to see Santa with Eddie in the first place which is most definitely a family affair as far as I know US customs? (We don’t do this in Germany / Bavaria, okay? We have the Child of Christ and around the 6th we gather in the town square and shoot at it.)

It’s even brought up in text with the Elf telling Buck they make a beautiful family - and Buck not disagreeing because honestly it’s just easier and he probably knows how they looked. But yeah. That!

- Also not to repeat myself but the topic of trust is important here! Eddie not trusting Shannon in 2.07 / 2.10 with Chris vs. trusting Buck in 3.03 / 3.09 / 3.10 is important!

Yes, sure Shannon is his actual mother so Chris has stronger feelings for her and the potential to get hurt is way bigger. Yes, Buck was only gone from their life for a few weeks while Shannon was gone for about 2 years. Yes, Buck apologised twice while Shannon just played the victim card tbh (even though she did have a point with some of the stuff she said). But still:

Eddie is very hesitant to let Shannon back into his son’s life (and really his as well) while he does have no such qualms about Buck once Buck apologises to him in 3.06. In fact their relationship returns to normal with Eddie asking Buck for help with Chris numerous times while say 2.15 makes it clear Eddie still keeps Shannon at arms’ length and out of a lot of aspects of raising Chris.

Of course, giving advice to Eddie is not the same level of involved as actually parenting the child and part of it is probably growth on Eddie’s side when it comes to Season 3 but right here: it’s a stark contrast and it deserves a mention!

2.17: „*fridges female character for man pain* Haha, we’re so random!“

- „Ice cream? Oh, I do not envy you putting him to sleep tonight!“: There is the scene here where Eddie facetimes with Shannon and she is out and about with Chris and Abuela and they are getting ice cream and Eddie is all like: damn you’ll regret that later - which is the same thing he says about Buck in 3.02

3.01: „How you know he no sleep naked?“

- Buck gets a card from Chris which is a child thing to do but also should be mentioned because Buck does not get a card from Danny or Harry. And considering how much Buck likes children and how good he is with them we do have to mention that we only see Buck interact with Danny once and never with Harry while it’s been implied several times before the tsunami already that Buck does spend a lot of time with Chris. (Of course, in part this is due to how much closer Buck is with Eddie than Hen and especially Athena but still)

After all the season ends with Chris giving a card to his literal father, tying these two scenes together. And pointing out once again how important Buck is for Chris and the Diaz family.

- Also as I mentioned during Trust there is that parallel / contrast between how Maddie and how Eddie see Buck with Maddie sort of treating him like a child who needs to be dealt with while Eddie is basically like: let’s give him something to do so he feels less useless! (Guess who had the right idea! Just guess! And you have one try!)

- „Are we the only one’s without kids?“: There is also the cut from Madney talking about being the only one’s without kids and then remembering Buck to Buck getting woken up by Eddie so he can babysit Chris which I won’t say confirms Buck being a father to Chris but does accentuate everything he does for Chris after and gives the vibe that Buck does indeed have some fatherly feelings for Chris. It does at least place the idea of the Diazs WITH Buck being a family firmly into our heads.

3.02 „Eddie hates earthquakes - the remix“

- „How’s operation Buck up Buck going?“: Buck sending Eddie updates and pictures of Chris and himself hanging out is just really cute

- Also Eddie isn’t worried about his son at all!

- And we do have that tweet from Oliver Stark about jumping into the receding water at the end of 3.02 being basically suicide but Buck still doing it because the director told him, he’d do it for his own kids.

3.03 „Do it for the trauma - Buck-edition“

- I talked about it before with Trust but basically Eddie, who has parents who are still alive and physically able and love his son very much, even if they have different ideas of how to raise his son, and a sister with at least one child not that much older than Chris and a grandma and an aunt and probably some more family in LA AND Carla who he literally pays to take care of his son, literally tells his best friend he is the one he trusts the most with said son. That is fucking meaningful!

3.05: „What if we fight like a married couple in a grocery store downtown LA, bro?“

- „You know how much Chris misses you?“: The fact that Eddie brings Chris up at all and to hurt Buck specifically is - in part about Eddie deflecting from himself but also about Christopher actually missing Buck, which says a lot about the relationship Chris and Buck have and how much time they spent together if that is something Eddie would bring up here.

3.09: „#tw: mild adult themes & implied sexual content / #pwp - porn without porn“

- „I’d rather be at home with my kid, enjoying the one good thing I got going on.“: Eddie says these words during therapy and where do him and his son spent the following evening or at least an evening that same week? With Buck at his loft. Because even though Buck wasn’t mentioned here as part of the family time Eddie would much rather have, apparently he is part of it.

3.10: „Parenttrapping for Beginners“

- „Well, I thought it would be nice to bring the boys together for a playdate.“ - „All three of `em.“: this speaks for itself, Buck being invited in the first place was … an interesting choice? A dig at Buck’s mental age? Exposition? What exactly, Tim? Like what was the vibe in the writers room here?

- „Hey, Buck? (…) Can I spent Christmas with you?”: The fact that Chris would rather spent Christmas with Buck than with his grandma and the rest of their family is interesting as well and again points toward Buck being an integral part of the Diaz family.

- The way Eddie looks at Buck here and the little head shake implied to me that Buck and Eddie had the same conversation Eddie and Hen have right then already.

3.11: „Bist du single? Nein, eher Album!“

- “Well, that’s what the 118 is. The family we chose.“: Again maybe more subtext than text but when Eddie talks about the 118 being his family the camera pans to *drumroll* Chris, his actual blood family, Albert, Chim’s actual blood family - and Buck, who is basically Chim’s little brother and Eddie’s, well, best friend? Coparent? Partner in work and life? SOULMATE?

Yes, it’s a little subtext, but it’s interesting that this scene shows only one character neither of them are related to and it’s Buck, emphasising once more that these two and especially Eddie (because he’s the one talking here) think of Buck as their family.

3.12: „There’s a horse loose in a hos… school“

- “(…) we should try it together”: Again with the emphatic inclusion of Buck in family scenes! (But this time Carla gets to be there as well - though only to record them?)

This episode introduces Ana Flores as a potential love interest for Eddie and then spends the whole episode contrasting and paralleling her with Buck, as one does …

In this episode as well Eddie gets advice about Chris from several people and it’s interesting that the one person whose advice he follows without disagreeing or trying something else first is once again Buck.

The episode also maybe implies that Buck was the one to built or buy or find out about the skateboard.

But really what matters here is Eddie reaffirming that there is no one he trusts more with his son (because he refused to take Carla’s advice right away but he did listen and think about what Buck had to say right away - despite his joking) and Buck being included in the family scene.

3.15: „MY therapist also says ‚Thank you!‘“

- „I’m always gonna fight to come home to my family.“: I’m not gonna comment on the lack of Shannon in the montage because I do believe part of it was that they didn’t really have scenes that fit and would have had to film them specifically which would then have to fit into the timeline / storyline before and also mostly it was about Shannon already being dead meaning she is no longer part of the family Eddie can come home to, so it makes a hell of a lot of sense for her not to be included, guys!

That being said I do believe Buck being in it quite a lot means something about how much of a part in Eddie’s family he is! Which is a big part and something I love about them a lot!

- Also Buck was so very happy Chris came to visit and then immediately walked over, which doesn’t really have any relevance except I thought it was cute and this is my guide.

3.16: „The rope was a metaphor after all“

- Obviously it was meant jokingly, but Eddie would have loved if Buck came and not just because being alone with a bunch of 9 year olds is no one’s idea of a fun evening and Eddie could probably use the help (still hoping Carla was there with him and still surprised Eddie was in such a good mood during the pool scene after), but because he likes to spend time with Buck and he did wanna celebrate with him - but he was also very aware that spending the evening with 9 year olds was not what Buck envisioned so he said it jokingly.

3.18: „Traincrash? More like train WRECK? *cries*“

- “Whoa! Whoa! Two weeks from home? Isn’t Chris kinda young for that?“: I don’t think I need to say more about that scene really, I think everyone who saw it understood that it confirmed the 118 but especially Buck being fairly involved in Christopher’s life and how that confirms: Buck = part of the Diaz family.

- Also all the interactions between Buck and Chris at the party both with and without Eddie around I mean, yeah, again, meaningful!

- In conclusion: Eddie, Chris and Buck are family and dems the facts!

Connection and love life

Now, this is where we are slowly going subtext and also really interpretation heavy!

The title might be a bit missleading but I didn’t really know how else to sum all aspects up. Basically this theme is about their love live but also about the parallels between their storylines - especially when it comes to their love life!

Also this theme isn’t organised by episode but by subtopics because I summed up so many different aspects here.

Parallels in their storylines:

- 3.15 / 3.16 and the rope metaphor as a metaphor for their dating life:

Technically the rope is a metaphor for their lives and them letting go of things in general but especially about their dating life because for Eddie in my opinion this is when he really fully comes to terms with Shannon’s death while Buck finally admits to his abandonment issues, in part caused by Abby leaving.

(Side note: the fact that Eddie choose to cut his line just like he choose to actually do therapy to deal with his issues for Christopher’s sake while Buck’s burns away and he is literally forced to deal with his issues through being confronted with Red and running into Abby at the train crash is … something.)

Their dating life is being paralleled:

This really isn’t technically something that explains why you should ship them but I do think it’s interesting that from the get go their love lives have been happening in parallels / contrasts to each other? As if they were connected? Magnets?

So yeah, that and also it goes like this:

- 2.01: Eddie references Buck being single

- 2.02 / 2.03: Eddie first mentions Shannon but indicates a break-up / Buck meets Ali and seems to bond with her

- 2.04: both refuse to hook up with any of the girls at the bar and don’t want to date because they consider themselves taken (I know Eddie says it’s about Chris but Buck called bullshit here and text told us to trust Buck on what he says about Eddie)

- 2.06: Buck flirts with Taylor and Eddie acts a bit jealous

- 2.07: While Buck finally comes to term with his break up with Abby in her absence, Shannon returns and we learn that Eddie has sort of been holding out hope so far (they kiss in the end) (Also Eddie and Shannon and Buck and Taylor both happen in parking lots which probably only means they ran out of location money but still!)

- 2.08: Buck hooks up with Taylor, then meets with Ali and begins dating her

- 2.10: it’s revealed that Eddie has been sleeping with Shannon and Buck is miffed

- 2.11 - 2.16: we get a few mentions of Ali and some scenes between Eddie and Shannon reminding us both these relationships are happening and they are growing closer

- 2.17: Shannon thinks she is pregnant, Eddie wonders about their relationship, Shannon wants a divorce but dies before they can go through with it

- 2.18: Buck gets a new apartment because of Ali, their relationship seems ready to become more serious, then Buck gets hurt and Ali is traumatised by this and tells Buck she needs to rethink the relationship

- 3.01: it is revealed that Ali and Buck broke up

- 3a: both of them work through the trauma of the past few months, no references to either of them dating are made, romantic and / or domestic scenes happen between them instead, the ambiguous „us“ happens

- 3.11: they are asked about their relationship-status to remind us about them being single (AND THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER? Wow.)

- 3.12: It’s pointed out again that Buck is single but he says he prefers it that way while Eddie meets Ana and shows some interest in her, then during a call Buck indicates that he might not be as happy being single as he told Madney and Josh while also seeming a bit happy Eddie won’t be dating Ana (probably)

- 3.15: Eddie finally fully comes to terms with his past, including his relationship with Shannon and her dying

- 3.16: Buck reveals he might still be hung up on what happened with Abby and he realises he needs to move on, the ambiguous „Us“ is brought back

- 3.18: Buck runs into Abby and actually moves on

- Side note: considering 2.08 and 2.10 and 3.09 and some remarks made throughout the show, Buck and Eddie are somewhat aware of the relationship struggles the other had which isn’t really relevant but also sort of is

Parallels with canon couples

This is TV and TV and especially shipping lives through tropes and parallels inside the story to subtext tell you something you need to know without actually having to say the words, but just to plant the idea in the viewers head.

For example, and please I am just spitballing here, you are writing a show about Lifeguards. And there are these two characters who are named … Paddie and Tucker. They have amazing chemistry and they are best friends and love each other a lot. Now, you, as the showrunner, are considering making them a romantic item but you need to do it slow cause while you do have queer characters and a queer following this show is fairly mainstream and also the characters have presented as straight in text so far. So you need to do crumbs, right?

Okay, so how do you best do that? Well, Tucker is known as this really caring guy and very open with his feelings and he freaks out when someone he loves is in danger - so you put Paddie in danger, right? Proofs he loves him, right?

But then you want it to have some deeper queer implications, right, in case you do decide on making them romantic? So how do you best do that? Well, lucky for you, Tucker has a sister. And you were planning on putting her in danger as well this season anyways, so you just have Tucker react a bit more subdued here, right?

But then you really want it to hit people, like you need people who are more casual and mainstream and might not have noticed the romantic undertones Tuddie has had to notice that, right? So you put these two episodes back to back.

Except „Paddie Begins“ is set to air first and well, Tucker IS known to lose his shit about people he cares about being in danger, so they might not actually notice anything more. Or they will just consider Tucker not reacting as hard about his sister, Sadie, being in danger bad writing. And you can’t have that!

So how do you fix that? Well, you just change the episode order! Now the episode with Sadie in danger airs first and people will spent a week complaining about how out of character Tucker was and it will be still on their minds when „Paddie Begins“ happens and Tucker goes feral and it will hit EVERYONE! Like damn, apparently Tucker cares more about Paddie than Sadie? Why? What makes Paddie so much more important?

Anyways, this is how you test out an idea in TV and why tropes and parallels are important…

Moving on:

- 2.14: „‚It’s a miracle… bro #nohomo’“: Now I have already written a bit about Buck’s reaction to Eddie potentially dying to safe the kid and while it is fairly tame for Buck it’s still something you usually see a guy do for a love interest (Any of ya’ll watch „Chicago Fire“? Because I watched like the first two Seasons and the main „Will they / won’t they“ - couple had a scene like that about once every three episodes. Cause it’s a trope!)

- 3.02 „Eddie hates earthquakes - the remix“: This is a teeny tiny bit of a stretch and there wasn’t even any nice cuts to anyone in the firefam to indicate they were referenced (which I found odd, considering this would have also fit for Bobby) but the guy who got impaled with his son in law said: „She‘s the love of my life but he‘s her‘s.“ which considering this episode has Buck doing everything to protect Christopher means a lot and I think about it once a day, okay?

- 3.14 vs 3.15 vs. 3.16 vs. 3.17 vs. 3.18 - Losing the love of your life and how to deal with that:

This may be the biggest parallel of all, and maybe I could have included 2.14 as well but I didn’t because it’s a whole season removed. It also seems meaningful that this episodes happen one after the other, making us naturally compare the scenes and see / look for patterns.

But to explain real quick:

In 3.14 Maddie is in danger and Chimney, who is her boyfriend and told her he loves her just one episode earlier, freaks out completely

In 3.15 Eddie might die / is considered dead by several of his friends already and Buck utterly looses it! We are talking frantic screaming and trying to dig Eddie out by hand and running around trying to figure out ways to save Eddie only to turn full on catatonic when none of that works. I mean, his mood turns faster than mine when I am hangry while on my period and that is saying sth!

3.16 could be considered a bit of a stretch but we do see Red lash out a lot when he realises that Cindy, the woman he considered the love of his life and someone he pined after for quite a while doesn’t exist like that anymore.

In 3.17 Athena is put in great danger and Bobby is forced / able to listen to it and while I am not sure if the blank look on Bobby’s face is bad acting, a deliberate but accidental acting choice OR done consciously in a way that mirrors Oliver’s acting in 3.15 - it’s there and it’s a parallel and we can watch it and compare it and see it.

To bring this whole thing home for us they contracted another outside player in the form of Connie Britton playing Buck’s ex-girlfriend Abby, who similarly to Red and Buck, turns frantic upon possibly loosing her fiancé and starts panic and lash out a little, which is fair and also part of a motherforking pattern, ya’ll!

- Another fairly obvious parallel between 3.14 and 3.15 is Buck telling Sue - as the watch Maddie and Chimney hug - that Maddie already has everything she needs when Sue asks him why he didn’t immediately rush toward his sister. Which can be compared to 3.15 were he does immediately rush to Eddie’s side and support and hug him!

- I’ve already written about 700 words on 3.17 and the line „Buck invites Eddie“ so I’ll just point you back toward that part of the guide where I pointed out that Buddie was actively compared to the three main canon pairings here. Which is a lot and also could have been avoided and probably queerbaiting.

- Again, teeny tiny bit of a stretch maybe but like, we’re here to talk about anything in canon pointing toward Buddie and also this is my guide and I do what I want but in 3.18 we learn that Abby is now engaged to a single father and considering she was only gone for about two years (Season 2 takes place over the course of one year and in 3.13 we learn that Madney has been dating for just under 11 months so unless there was a time jump somewhere in the last 5 episodes we weren’t really told about, we clock in at about 2 years and maybe one or two months, tops, at the end of Season 3), they have been together for less than that time, even if we think Abby already knew him when she was still dating Buck. Which timeline wise puts them meeting maybe around the time Buck met Eddie, maybe a bit after, meaning Abby met and began dating and fell in love with and decided to marry a single father in the same timespan Buddie did … whatever it is they are doing! Which is meaningful because for the viewing of the Abby/Buck relationship which I am glad more and more people are realising was very unbalanced and provides an interesting parallel to Buddie because this means Abby and Buck met and developed feelings for a single father around the same time. Idk, I understand that the whole father thing was to make Buck care even more but damn, it’s a parallel so I mention it!

- Michael and Doctor Hale vs Eddie and Ana (3.17/3.18 vs. 3.12ff.)

Now, of course we need to realise that Eddie and Michael are fairly different characters and Michael has way less relationship related baggage than Eddie has which is why he goes after what he wants way faster (also, carpe diem, he just found out he won’t die). Also of course, there is no moral component to address in Michael dating some doctor vs. Eddie dating his son’s teacher, but still:

Michael and Dr. Hale had one scene together and it wasn’t even overly flirty and yet, we knew where it was heading, we felt the chemistry and everyone ended the episode saying: I ship it, more of that - which they did give us, just one episode later. They had some awkward moments, yet the show never left a single doubt in your mind where this is heading.

Now look at Eddie and Ana:

First of all we learned more about Doctor Hale in the two short scenes than we did about Ana in four scenes. That seems deliberate.

Second, while we do realise Eddie thinks Ana is attractive from the get go she repeatedly shuts him down by pointedly saying „Mr. Diaz“.

Third, every scene between Michael and Doctor Hale was romantically coded and we know where this was heading while aside from the initial scene between Ana and Eddie and maybe the second scene there were no hints of romance between the two. In fact in 3.15, an episode that is about Eddie moving forward in his life and letting go of the past she is both mentioned and actually appears, yet there are no hints of romance and romantic interest, not from Eddie and not in form of teasing from Buck and especially Carla, who pointed out Eddie’s interest in her previously. Soooooo…

Parallels with Love Interests

Now, obviously we also cannot talk Buddie without talking about them dating in general and then relating this to each other. In other news: there are parallels between each and every love interest Eddie ever had and Buck and also between Eddie and Abby.

(Side note: I could probably also find parallels between Eddie and Taylor and Eddie and Ali but tbh both of these barely qualify as love interests, especially Ali, who despite actually being in a relationship with Buck we know nothing about (hi, original Ana! You did good and I am sorry people hate you for having boundaries!))

Eddie paralleling Abby

I mean the truth is we don’t even need Eddie paralleling any other girlfriend of Buck cause there are so many between Abby and Eddie!

- Abby and Carla vs. Eddie and Carla:

The biggest one might be parallel that both employ Carla and why. Which is in part because Buck brought Carla to Eddie but goes deeper than that.

There is that conversation between Bobby and Buck about Abby and her mother in 1.09 when Buck wanted to break up with Abby and Bobby basically said: if you wanna date someone you have to love them baggage and all and should be there for them as well - and while Buck did try doing that with Abby, well, Patricia died before he could fully step into the ring and then Abby left, BUT he showed no hesitation after that to step right into Eddie’s life, into his issues, with him. And he even brought in Carla as a baggage carrier, isn’t that nice?

Also the whole reason why they need Carla around in the first place as both of them are taking care of a family member (plus the fact that Christopher is a literal child so even without CP Eddie would need help taking care of him working the hours he has).

Also tía Pepa quite literally calls Eddie a saint and I am pretty sure Abby was called sth similar by Carla and Bobby in Season 1 though I don’t care enough to check mainly because the implication was there all through the first ten episodes about how Abby was such a great person for taking care of her ailing mother.

But really it comes down to the parallels between Bobby telling Buck that a real relationship is about sharing the load and the conversation between Maddie and Buck as well as anything else in 2.04 where Buck is so desperate to be there for Eddie and help him.

- There is also a definite parallel to be drawn between the conversation Abby and Buck had in the Jeep while looking for her mom about how Abby hasn’t had sex in a year and Buck asking Eddie about dating in 2.04. It’s a little subtextual, but between the expression on his face and the topic and the teasing and the walking shoulder to shoulder it does feel alike to me so I mentioned it.

- street fighting vs. the apology: losing yourself

Now this one I love a lot because while it does happen half a season apart and isn’t explicitly expressed on the show: Eddie’s whole ark in Season 3a is about losing control and by extent losing himself because Buck wasn’t around. Abby meanwhile talks about how she found herself after she left LA and how she would have lost herself again if she returned to Buck (which is absolute bullcrap but not the point).

- There are also some parallels to be drawn between Buck, Eddie, Abby and Shannon (and technically also Maddie) and the whole leaving each other thing, with Eddie leaving Shannon for the army without consulting her about it while Abby left Buck for Ireland and then also the lawsuit where in a way Buck left Eddie like Shannon did, being so caught up in his own feelings he didn’t consider what Eddie (and Christopher) were going through.

But we can also acknowledge how it must have felt to Buck with Lena / Eddie taking Bobby’s side like he was once again replaced / left for someone else, much like Abby left him for Ireland and Maddie left him for Doug.

Buck paralleling Ana, Lena and Shannon

Buck on the other hand side parallels Eddie’s love interest a lot sometimes down to the clothes (and yes, technically Lena isn’t a love interest but Ryan Guzman thought she was and aside from the fact that he’s into women that could beat him up (which for once, not judging you, bro) and considering the parallels with Buck … that means if Buck was a woman, well, ya know?) so let’s talk about that

- Buck and Shannon:

I’ve already talked about that one a lot so I will only mention it here real quick but the whole Eddie not trusting Shannon vs. trusting Buck despite his betrayal again like right away once he apologised (which yes, what Buck did was not as bad and far more justified) and letting him back into Christopher’s life IS a parallel, considering for example how Shannon asks about Chris missing her (though it’s been over two years, at one point children just stop asking as we know Chris did) and Eddie telling Buck Chris misses him in the grocery store scene.

Also Eddie not trusting his wife and Chris’ mother with him fully even after they reconciled and him telling Buck he was the one he trusted most in the world when it came to his son is … something.

There is also a little parallel to be drawn between 2.17 when Shannon goes for ice cream with Christopher and Abuela and Eddie is all like, well, don’t come crying to me when he won’t sleep because sugar high and saying basically the same thing to Hen and Chimney in 3.02 when they ask about „Operation: Buck up Buck“ because Chris ate loads of pancakes.

Also Shannon in 2.07 said she needed Eddie to have her back and Eddie says he always did but Shannon disagrees (which might be a little how Buck felt with the lawsuit) and you know, Buck and him agreed to have each other’s backs just six episodes earlier.

- Buck and Lena:

Now, with Lena, despite her being most connected to Eddie, the first (and second) time we actually see her is in 3.01/3.02 through Buck, which connects the two from the get go.

Eddie then finds out she was at the pier in 3.02 (before meeting her) just like Buck (though he doesn’t know that) and then meets her in 3.03 and she spends the whole episode running around LA trying to find her Captain while injured, much like Buck is doing in the same episode.

I also mentioned in my meta-series how I think one of the reasons why Eddie likes Buck so much was that Buck wasn’t impressed by his military background like everyone else (or his looks, I mean, it was probably more about his looks tbh) and how when Buck started liking him it was really about Eddie and not whatever he had heard about him - yet Buck was / is still never afraid to call him out bullshit, much like Lena from moment one.

There is also the fact that Eddie goes to her for advice and she literally uses Buck’s locker (and will I ever stop laughing about the tape? Probably not, I think it was hilarious, okay?)?

Then of course we have Buck in 3.04 reacting quite similar to seeing her for the first time as he did with Eddie in 2.01, even saying basically the same thing.

- Buck and Ana

Now, Ana is an interesting case because we see her a total of four times and she is mentioned two more times throughout the show and each and every single moment is connected to Buck somehow and sometimes so very unsubtle to.

In „Fools“ we cut from Buck saying he likes being single to Eddie doing parent-teacher conference and yes, meeting some other teachers first but also Ana, showing us that while Buck is fine with being single - Eddie might not be. And then Eddie introduces himself as Eddie and Ana knows immediately this is short for Edmundo - unlike Buck in 2.01 who guessed Eduardo? Also, Carla’s „big blue eyes“ line which is a little clown-y, so take it with a grain of salt that it could connect us to Buck.

Then of course her next scene is Eddie getting in her face about Christopher being hurt. Later in the episode we see Buck reference this on a call, meaning either Carla or Eddie told Buck about it (I am leaning a little toward Carla making fun of Eddie in front of Buck and Eddie then having to come clean about all of it, because I cannot wrap my head about the idea of Eddie telling Buck about having a crush, I’m sorry.) (And will I ever be over Buck being so gleeful that Eddie will now be dating the teacher after all? Because boy was close to cackling which even if he was in love with Eddie at the time and therefore happy he wasn’t off the market - still quite rude for a best friend if you ask me! Like, sure, do that but in front of strangers?)

Her next scene is Eddie coming to apologise to her and she gives her speech about limitations - which we can of course connect to Buck and Eddie talking about Christopher and his limitations before that and then afterwards going skateboarding with them. (It does feel a little deliberate.)

And then of course we have „Eddie Begins“ and you guys, they could have very very easily have either Carla or Buck make a joke about Mrs. Flores and Eddie’s crush in the firehouse scene, but they didn’t! And then we do get to see her at the end where she has one whole line and Eddie barely looks at her and you know what happens? They have a child ask the same question Buck asked at the beginning about ever just wearing the medal (which sounded very not straight in its delivery, Mr Stark, what were you thinking about?), making us think of Buck. Like, it would have been enough to establish Eddie doesn’t feel like a hero if the question was asked only once - twice in the span of 45 minutes constitutes a callback, meaning we are supposed to think of the other scene and that means thinking about the other person that asked, which was Buck.

Is this … flirting

Now, some of these are quite ambiguous but there are several scenes that imply they consider each other attractive or feel like flirting and here they are:

- 2.01: „I think I’ve seen this in porn before“

Now, we all know Buck’s initial dislike of Eddie was about Eddie being to good at the job and Buck being afraid of being replaced, but considering one of the first things we hear about Eddie is Hen saying that boy is so fine it transcends sexualities and considering they talked about the calendar which chooses them based on hotness just before and then all the references to the calendar throughout, it stands to reason that Buck considers Eddie attractive.

Also their whole conversation during the gym scene, what was any of that? I mean, Buck thinks the pictures of Eddie are professionally done which means he thinks they are good which means, yes, Buck thinks Eddie looks good in those!

Plus the whole scene is riddled with (sexual) tension. From Buck constantly increasing the weight he is lifting, while throwing looks at Eddie as if double checking that he sees he could bench press him and the way he gets in Eddie’s face to Eddie’s veiled barbs about the girlfriend breaking up with him and doing the same thing as a firefighter but he was getting shot at. I mean, what was that if not the beginning of a porno? (And here we have our first parallel between Buck and Eddie as we find out later because Eddie, too, has been left by a woman. Now the real question would be does he consider them broken up?

Not to mention that when Bobby tells him at the end of the episode that he wasn’t chosen Buck immediately assumes Eddie was and also is so very happy for his new friend, because he thinks he’s hot (right?).

- 2.04: „Hearteyes, motherforker“

In 2.08 Buck has a conversation with Chimney about his pick up technique and well, did anyone in production watch this episode because when Buddie walks away from tailpipe-girl-emergency he literally does everything he described.

Also Maddie says the words „Does this man crush on Eddie mean you are finally over Abby?“ to Buck and his only reaction is „Cute.“ meaning one) Maddie has teased him about his Eddie gushing before and two) maybe Buck does have a bit of a crush?

- 2.06: „Bucky Barnes murder strut - 911 edition“

Again with the Maddie and Buck scenes!

Basically what happened was Maddie talked about how cute Chimney was but Buck assumed she meant Eddie because apparently if someone says cute, Buck thinks Eddie. This is just a fact, okay?

- 2.14: „‚It’s a miracle… bro #nohomo’“

Like my name for the episode already says, there is this scene were Buck and Eddie stand next to each other and Eddie says „That was incredible!“ and Buck who is already standing in Eddie’s space leans in further to basically whisper the words „It’s a miracle.“ into Eddie’s ears and then lean back a little and I am not sure if that wouldn’t fit better with Subtext but also Buck looks at Eddie like he wants to eat him alive and Eddie looks like he would let him and say thank you after while still embarrassed because he cries during sex.

You know, acting.

- 3.04 „discount!Buck in the house!“

Listen, I am convinced this is all Ryan considering the reaction of Kenny / Chimney and Aisha / Hen but that doesn’t change the fact that they used a take which had Eddie stare at Oliver / Buck’s butt the whole time and I mean, what horrible things happened in the other takes that made production choose this one unless they want us to see Eddie looking at Buck’s butt while Chimney and Hen stand around looking amused?

- 3.09: „#tw: mild adult themes & implied sexual content / #pwp - porn without porn“

Listen, from the moment Buck says „Cause you would prefer working it out in the ring?“ and then does this dorky thing with his arms while Eddie smirks into his beer about how he fought in a cage not fenced in (which, I’m a little unclear on the distinction I think, but I am nitpicky af so who am I to judge? Probably just stuff getting lost in translation) that whole scene changes vibes, going from apologising to teasing. And I think it’s very interesting that this is when Buck chooses to come closer (and then keep coming closer until he is right in Eddie’s personal space while touching his belt which we all learned by now means he is thinking about sex) and they have this whole conversation about who could take who which happens in sort of half sentences and does not feel like they are talking about fighting each other at all.

I mean, Buck keep coming closer, while Eddie stands there rooted to his spot, leaning against the bar, smirking, like every hot guy in a bar ever who knows one smile and a bit of smolder and they will come to him (which Buck does, playing right into it, I mean, come on, bro, weren’t you once a serial dater? How do you not know how to play hard to get?) and holding the beer (you know, phallic shaped obj- okay, I’ll stop here, it’s a reach), occasionally drinking, like maybe he tries to draw attention to somewhere or he has a very dry throat and honestly: this is how porn starts!

I don’t think my writing (or anyone’s writing really, not that ya’ll aren’t talented af) can properly express how very not platonic and innuendo-heavy this scene felt.

- 3.13: „‚Bro, what if I flirted with you in a bowling alley while out on a call?‘ - ‚Bro, what if I invited you out to lunch after telling a friend to say I love you before it’s too late?‘ - ‚BRO 😍‘“

Again, the title gives everything away but like so many scenes between these boys that moment at the bowling alley when Buck channels Arnie and Eddie is all: you’re a dork and also wrong! and then later when Eddie invites Buck to get lunch (which is sort of Eddie’s thing, remember 2.01?) after earlier telling Chimney to tell Maddie he loves her if he has a chance because he might regret it. And to really drive the point home or maybe make it in the first place, after Eddie asks Buck - and only Buck - to have lunch with him, Buck then declines because of a little blood (Evan, come one, you’ve seen worse! I know I have!) - only for Chimney to consider this the push he needed to invite Maddie for dinner so he can tell her he loves her.

So, you know, platonic.

- 3.16: „The rope was a metaphor after all“

I mean, what was that scene in the locker even with Eddie leaning against the doorway all cheeky and grinning like: yeah, come hang out with me! - obviously it was about Buck never saying yes to babysit a group of nine-year olds when he could be out drinking (as someone who works with kids, I approve), but yeah, that’s not what it felt like? So unless ya’ll cannot act anymore this was deliberately a bit over the top and ambiguous.

Jealousy

Now, no good ship works without jealousy and neither does Buddie so here are some examples of Buddie being jealous.

- 2.06: „Bucky Barnes murder strut - 911 edition“

Now, your probably saying: Bucky Barnes murder strut? That’s a tall order! But damn, Ryan nailed that, okay? Listen, we’ve seen Eddie walk out of uniform several times at this point and NEVER before and never after has he struted this predatory. Eddie walks tall and military, you know, the way he stands, Eddie doesn’t strut!

Yet, here he does! And what I love about this scene is that we see him in the background while Bobby talks to Taylor, working out with no care in the world - and then Buck comes over and flirts with her, suddenly Eddie feels the need to be part of the conversation?

And he doesn’t even wait until he is standing next to them to talk, he calls over while still sitting on the lifting things.

So yeah, that one is him being jealous.

- 2.10: „It’s all about ‚not my business‘“

- Now 2.10 is a great episode for Buddie and in part it is due to Buck’s facial expressions in the background and out of focus of the camera when Shannon comes to the station.

I mean, Oliver always plays Buck very intense and expressive and with his whole face but that was a bit much, you’d think he just found out Eddie broke a vow of chastity or had an affair while being married (which technically is what Buck compares it to later so kinda makes sense he looks like that but also doesn’t, Buckeroo, what’s the big deal? Did Eddie show up at your doorstep a week earlier telling you what a punk ass bitch his wife was, or…?)

- 2.17: „*fridges female character for man pain* Haha, we’re so random!“

„Talk to Bobby. Maybe he can get you guys a discount.“: There is a point to be made about Buck just not liking Shannon considering everything he knows about her and has heard about her, the same way Eddie doesn’t Abby, but still. This scene and this line, Buck does not sound happy for Eddie or truly interested and yeah, it’s off and it seems jealous.

- 3.04 „discount!Buck in the house!“

It’s actually not just my interpretation, it’s actually - between the similarities to 2.01 and everything that happens after with the lawsuit and how Buck explains himself - literal text that Buck was jealous here with Lena. So there!

- 3.09: „#tw: mild adult themes & implied sexual content / #pwp - porn without porn“

Tim Minear please send me over some scripts or have someone call me and explain what they were going for with the „You had sex with your therapist?“-scene because Eddie was so huffy and offended and I need to know!

- 3.12: „There’s a horse loose in a hos… school“

Buck sounds awfully gleeful Eddie will probably not date Christopher’s teacher and while that might just be him making fun of his best friend being so very overprotective and short tempered when it comes to his son (Mr. Control has left the building!), still, it reads a little like jealousy over some unknown pretty woman Chris might have mentioned some time and Carla probably described in great detail when she told Buck all about Eddie losing his cool!

- 3.17: „LegsTM“

It’s technically not really a jealous moment because it’s not Eddie being jealous but Buck simply refusing to mention his ex-girlfriend here, but considering 3.18 and also and most importantly the fact that there are only two other people in the truck, one being an unknown firefighter driving the truck and the other Bobby, who very much knows how Buck was supposed to take a hot air balloon ride with Abby, for who but Eddie was Buck concealing her identity for because Bobby already knows?

There really is only Eddie left, who probably figures out what Buck was about as well because bro may not be Buck and his out of the box thinking smart but he is fucking smart and he can figure shit out as well! Yet Buck refuses to mention Abby’s name and for what? So he can pretend Bobby and Eddie don’t know he is still bitter about her? I mean, fucking hell, send over the motherforking scripts, Minear, I am done with you!

- 3.18: „Traincrash? More like train WRECK? *cries*“

While I think Eddie is being more protective than jealous here, he is awfully involved and he is uncharacteristically out of control and emotional here and I wanna know why? Does Abby being back remind you of Shannon? Is it jealousy? WHAT IS GOING ON??? WHY YOU SO MAD, ARMY BOY???

Subtext

Now, I am first gonna talk about Subtext things in general like clothing choices, music and cuts between scenes and I am gonna be honest, I probably missed quite a few!

- One of my favourite is that while Buck wears the same colours in 3.03 as Shannon does in 2.07, Eddie wears the same exact shirt - and considering the fact that Ryan got buff between Season 2 and 3 that was deliberate, someone bought that shirt again because we are supposed to connect these scenes with each other!

- As I wrote before in 2.10 we can see Buck and his reaction out of focus when Shannon comes to the firehouse to talk to Eddie and ya know, why?

- Tim Minear himself said the elf in 2.10 was an easter egg for us Buddie shippers and he also said we can make out of the fountain in the background what we want, so there, Buddie is talking about Shannon and Eddie having sex and how much that messes shit up while a fountain shoots water in the background and yes, that is an innuendo and subtext and I hate it a little.

- 2.13 has this hospital scene I love a lot and you know what? Buddie is basically dressed the same, because the subtext of this scene is these two are alike and connected and they GET EACH OTHER.

- Another scene I really love is in 3.01 when Buck comes in for the surprise party because not only does he not hug his sister or Athene but runs up to Eddie first, Bobby actually shoves Eddie at Buck so he is the first person Buck hugs (and then the hug itself, what was that? The way they hold onto each other for a moment just looking while their hips are still touching?! Is that how you two hug because I want in!).

- Also they are dressed basically the same, should we discuss this as well?

- And still in 3.01 when Buck thanks Bobby and they talk and Bobby tells Buck he’ll find someone better and then asks him if he is doing okay, the first person the show cuts to is - nope, not Evan Buckley’s sister who is also there but his best friend, Eddie! Jup!

- And still in 3.01 when the firefam talks about helping Buck in the firehouse, Eddie first acts dismissive but the scene ends with Bobby saying Buck has them even though he may not believe that right now and half of that is said while the camera is on Eddie’s face who looks thoughtful - only to cut from them to Maddie and Josh discussing the same thing and mainly how Maddie doesn’t know how to help Buck and what he needs from her. Which you know, the episode ends with Eddie basically giving Buck a swift kick in the butt like she though he might need (and then 3.03 has Eddie basically telling Buck everything is gonna be okay, so we see Maddie talking about helping Buck but never see her doing it and instead we get two scenes of Eddie being there for Buck and also no Maddie in relation to the lawsuit but an extreme focus on Eddie? Writers, I see you and you aren’t wrong!)

- Also worth another mention is the cut between Madney talking about children, saying Buck didn’t have any either - to Eddie waking up Buck so he can babysit Christopher and specifically calling Buck „his Buck“ to make us think on their relationship and let us know how close they are and also to tell us to not trusts everything Maddie says about her brother because she gets shit wrong.

- In 3.03 after Buck tells Eddie he lost Christopher and then Eddie sees Christopher and rushes over and and Buck collapses and while Eddie holds Chris after he checked for injuries and Chim and Hen and Bobby hold Buck and Bobby asks Buck if he is okay, well, this whole time Buck is staring at Chris and Eddie and Eddie is staring back at him and Bobby, if you wanna know about me, gotta tell you, I am not okay?!

- And then we have the loft scene and yeah, okay, this deserves 5000 words of his own, from the fact that they played „Photograph“ by Ed Sheeran which includes lyrics about how they will never be alone and how loving can heal and mend your soul and the fucking song ends on the words „Wait for me to come home“ just as Eddie knocks and brings Christopher over and tells Buck there is no one he trusts more with Christopher than Buck and I am sorry, what are we supposed to think here? This show is from the US, these people speak english, it’s not like these lyrics leave much room for interpretation!

Not to mention the whole monologue Buck did about being lost and not knowing how to get from where you want to be to where you need to be before Eddie showed up and then talking about how a few choice words can sometimes be the life raft one needs to get home and how we are all just searching for someone to see us? I love Maddie and I love the Buckley siblings, but damn, she’s not the one he has been searching for!

(And I keep bringing up Maddie here because as his sister she is the person Buck could feel closest to and should care about the most and be cared about the most by and yet all canon evidence points to Eddie being that person! Also she is the person next to Eddie Buck has the most scenes outside the firehouse with.)

- This one is a bit of a stretch but Buck looks very uncomfortable during the whole deposition in 3.05 but he looks everyone in the eyes until the lawyer mentions Shannon and suddenly his lap is so much more interesting and yes, after is when all of them get asked the really hurtful question but still, this is when Buck stops being despondent and realises, fuck, I went a bit to far

- Someone please find for me where the director talked about purposely framing them as romantic in the apology scene because I cannot find the post for the life of me, but never the less: In 3.06 during the apology, in the beginning of the scene we see Buddie from quite a distance and Eddie has his back turned toward Buck and there is a column in the shot to visually indicate the divide and yeah, the whole framing is quite something and the way the camera angle goes from far away making it seem like unbridgeable distance cutting to closer shots and how we slowly see alongside the words hey, they aren’t actually that far apart, like yeah, this scene was something else!

- Not a direct cut but during therapy Eddie talks about how he wants to be at home with Chris because he is the one good thing he has going for him and the one thing he gets enjoyment out of (because he is so fucking depressed and I cry), yet when we later see Chris and Eddie together it is neither in Eddie’s house nor are they alone, nope Buck is there as well, meaning Buck is considered a part of that one thing even if he wasn’t explicitly mentioned!

- During 3.10 when they take the photo with all of them Buck is grouped between Madney and the Diaz family, like right between and not just next to them. Also earlier when the eat Buck sits next to Christopher who sits next to Eddie and therefore on the opposite side of his sister and her boyfriend.

- Yes, they were probably amused by the meddling mom asking then „Are you boys single?“ in 3.11 but come on! They look at each other and smirk? For real? Hand over the script, Timbo!

- Also as mentioned before the fact that when Chim and Eddie talk about family and the 118 being the family they choose the camera is on Albert, Buck and Christopher, no one else is in the shot. And of course the song that is playing here, another song about home.

- The callback to Buck in 3.12 of Ana immediately guessing Eddie is short for Edmundo unlike Buck as well as Carla saying blue eyes (which Buck has) is also Subtext.

- Said it before but: the scene in 3.13 when they arrive at the hospital and Eddie asks Buck out to eat and then Buck changes his mind but Chimney runs off to call his girlfriend because he wants to have dinner so he can tell her he loves her like Eddie told him to do at the beginning of the episode is … interesting.

- I already explained why I think Shannon wasn’t in that many scenes in the video in 3.15 yet Buck was in most of them but it bears repeating. Also again it’s subtext that Buck is part of Eddie’s family and Buck is very important to Eddie and Eddie loves Buck.

- Also the question about the medal in 3.15 and the little boy at the end repeating the question, sorry, were we not supposed to think of Buck here, Tim???

- Also just in general 3.15 focuses very very heavily on Buck and Buck’s reaction - much like 3.18 later does with Eddie. All the non-Eddie scenes feature Buck and Buck freaking out about Eddie potentially dying and Buck making plans and being frantic and the driving force of hope cause homeboy cannot even for a second entertain any thoughts on Eddie’s passing.

- The rope metaphor in 3.15 / 3.16 is of course also subtext but I already explained that one and don’t have anything to add really.

- This one is a little bit of a stretch but I do think there is a reason Eddie was the first one to be taken out of the equation in 3.16 and because of his son and not a love interest.

- Also the pool playing scene in 3.16 there visually we see Eddie and Buck together in nearly all shots, there are two shots of Eddie without Buck in it but not a single one of Buck without Eddie in it and considering camera angles and actors literally being told were to stand it is deliberate that Buck is only seen with Eddie by his side here.

- I’m repeating a lot of things here but Buck refuses to say Abby’s name in 3.17 even though Bobby clearly knows who he is talking about.

- „No. He stopped waiting for me a long time ago.“ cuts to „Summer Camp?“ I mean sorry, what were we supposed to think here? Because this does imply he really did stop waiting because now he has Christopher and Eddie!

- Not to mention it sort of hammers home what I wrote before how Abby is dating a single father and Buck is sort of dating a single father.

- Also 3.18 puts a lot of focus in general on Eddie and his reaction to everything when say, Bobby, who actually knows Abby and was there for the relationship would have made more sense - unless they are pushing an agenda here!

The first person we have Abby interacting with at the traincrash is Eddie and then Buck joins them and the scene literally goes: Eddie *talking to Abby* > cut to Buck, coming closer > Buck: „Abby?“ > cut to both Abby and *Eddie* > Abby: „Buck?“ while the camera is still on her and Eddie > cut to just Eddie’s face having a realisation > cut to Buck

So sorry, why do we focus so much on Eddie here, Mrs. Lynch? Is there a particular reason, oh director, who art also directed 3.01 and which has also loads of Buddie subtext?

There is also Eddie coming to stand visually between Abby and Buck when Sam is loaded into the ambulance as if he is physically putting himself between them and then Buck running back toward the traincrash and Eddie following him after and all the shots of them and Christopher during the party together and once again having Bobby asking Buck if he is okay visually connected to Eddie, though in reverse this time because the scene goes from Eddie and Chris having fun to Buck and Bobby talking. (And should we talk about how this is the first time Buck actually answers the question because finally he has an answer or are we thinking about that right before sleep today when it’s easier to cry?)

- Also very interesting subtext is the fact that Buck and Eddie wear nearly the exact same colour and a similar cut pullover when Buck talks to Abby at the end and when Eddie says goodbye to Christopher and I mean, thematically both scenes are about saying good bye and letting someone go? But also it connects Buddie with each other and connects these scenes, which Idc, I probably wouldn’t have done without the clothes?

Not sold seperatly

- Also subtext / visual thing is the fact that Buddie is basically always with and next to each other at the firehouse and on calls (and before anyone says: well, they are partners, Hen and Chim aren’t as much), and that is a long list so I am just giving examples: in 2.05 they sit next to each other at the table while in 2.06 they sit next to each other on the couch and in 3.08 they sit next to each other at the table again and then we have 2.02 standing outside and 2.04 walking away from the scene together and Eddie handing Buck a weapon in 3.17 and walking toward the ambulance together in 3.13 and several other times, the point is there are a shit ton of scenes of them being right next to each other in case you thought that was a fanfic thing!

„The Buck lens“ / „The Eddie lens“

I’m pretty sure there is an actual technical term for what I am trying to describe here but basically there are several instances where we see Eddie the way Buck does, meaning while the scene shows us Eddie doing something the focus is on Buck watching this. Sort of POV but not quite I guess? Also the reverse is true as well, even if those scene aren’t as pronounced!

- Let’s talk about 2.01 once again as we have done for most of this meta and finally, finally look at Eddie’s first scene which we all know is sort of gay and the first time we see Ryan shirtless because Tim accidentally wrote a certain quota of shirtless scenes he needed to do into Ryan’s contract and he needed to get started on those right away.

Also please remember while we as well as the core four are watching Eddie get dressed „Watta man“ plays in the background, which, considering we are introduced to Eddie through Buck’s point of view might be the song playing in his head here? Anyways, back to the topic at hand and how we as the viewers don’t see Eddie until Buck turns around and sees him as well. Which is significant because several times through the conversation between Buck, Hen, Bobby and Chimney we see the locker room in the background so they could have filmed that differently.

Instead they had Chim, who stands off centre, noticing something while Buck banters with Bobby about how he will get to represent the 118 in the calendar, then the camera changes angle so we no longer stand between Bobby and Chimney but rather behind Buck, making him centre stage and putting a focus on his reaction to Eddie. In this scene we have Buck framed by two people commenting on Eddie’s attractiveness. Now we don’t get to see Eddie until we have gotten all reactions of the core four to him, with special attention to Buck, both in filming and text with everyone taking a jab at Buck before walking over to introduce themselves to Eddie which leaves Buck alone, watching.

(Now keep in mind this scene also has Hen basically say Eddie is so hot it transcends sexualities while „Whatta man“ plays as Buck slowly turns around and Idk, mate, that does seem shippy to me.)

- Another scene that focuses very heavily on Buck is when Eddie rushes and hugs Chris at the end of 2.03. In fact for most of the scene we see Buck in the car watching them.

- Also, the hospital scene in 2.04 and how once again we see Eddie interact with Chris while Eddie watches them because fuck knows why.

- Similar to the Buck lens we have 3.10 where Eddie talks to Hen about Chris while the two (or rather Eddie since he sits at the centre) watch Buck play with Chris and Danny. This is significant because Buck is also placed in the middle, putting him opposite Eddie and also making him the focus of the camera for most shots when the scene was about Christopher and Eddie feeling guilty. Huh, we say!

- Something similar happens in 3.11, which is the next episode several months removed when Eddie talks to Chimney about the 118 being their family and while this time Chris is the one sitting in the front, Buck once again is in the middle and also in focus in a scene shot from Eddie’s POV.

Other people reacting to them / commenting on them

Now, I am not sure if this is really Subtext but who knows where else it fits in? (This is a rhetorical question, only my opinion counts around here while I write!) So It goes here! And I think the title is self-explanatory enough.

- I’m a little on the fence on the Bobby looks because - no offence to Peter Krause - he doesn’t have that many facial expressions in general, but yeah, at the mechanics Buck watches Eddie and Bobby watches Buck.

- Our first real one of those scene is the truly savage tía Pepa who is a woman after my own heart because she says the mean shit to your face and the nice things behind your back because she loves you but she loves vibe checking egos more! And well, she is understandably confused by Buck’s being there at the hospital and asks Eddie who that is and why he is here and gives one of the best lines of the show by being so sarcastic, because oh, you work together? Damn, wouldn’t have guessed from the fact that both of you wear LAFD t-shirts! (I love her!)

- In the same episode Maddie comments on Buck’s boycrush on Eddie and while I am unsure whether that is supposed to make it sound less gay or it’s Maddie saying: Bro, you sound 12! but oh well! It’s a comment on them!

- I loath a little to include the elf in 2.10 because Tim has said that was an easter egg for Buddie shippers and a tongue in cheek thing but yeah.

- Also Bobby watches the whole „It’s a miracle“ exchange in 2.14 with that look.

- In 2.18 we get some text on the screen when they help instagram girl about how hot the both of them are and also how THEY should be dating which I’m putting into the same box as 2.10.

- The fact that Bobby shoves Eddie at Buck in 3.01, like sorry, why was it so relevant that this is the first hug?

- When Eddie / Ryan stared at Buck’s / Oliver’s ass in 3.04 we see Hen and Chimney grin about it.

- I know I have said myself that Maddie’s reaction in 3.08 was due to the fact that she just said: can ya’ll stop gossiping - and Chim and Buck were like: sure thing! and then started gossiping but still.

- There is Buddie flirting at the bowling alley in 3.13 and once again Bobby gives them the look and yeah.

- In 3.15 everyone seems very worried about Buck especially and they keep reassuring as if he were Eddie’s next of kin.

- Again a Bobby look I am unsure of but in 3.17 we see him giving them the look in the truck and yeah.

Other people’s heartache

Now, as I’ve said in the beginning, I didn’t wanna just include my perspective on Buddie, so I asked a few other people about this and while this isn’t a representative statistical number it’s still interesting, right?

(Also originally this Guide was organised by episode and I would have included the comments when the things came up but alas that didn’t work and I think I turned a little grey because of that)

@buckleysbabe:

When i first watched 9-1-1, I had no idea that Buddie existed (i hadn’t been on tumblr a lot at the time so I hadn’t seen gifs or anything) and when i started s2 I really thought they were just best friends, but then 2x10 and the ”you two have an adorable son” scene happened and Buck’s ”thank you” and the shy smile AND I WAS ON BOARD!! That was really the first moment, then I got the confirmation after 3x03 and the scene where Buck sees Eddie in the tsunami scenery, and then the whole Eddie saying theres nobody in this world....like in that moment I felt like they were seriously in love 😍❤️

About the 2x10: that scene has so many things. Like the water fountain in the back, Chris in the scene with them (like they are a family), then the elf saying what she said, Buck being for a second like ”huh?” and then you see the light bulb going on when he’s like ”ohhhhhhhh yeah” and then he says thank you 😍😍😍 saying HE IS CHRIS’S COPARENT. AND THEN THE SHY SMILE

@theleftboobgrabber

Right off the bat I thought they had chemistry but I think the entirety of 2×04 is when I genuinely started shipping it. Like.... the constant heart eyes, the support, Buck trying so hard to be there for Eddie and Eddie absolutely never questioning it, the look Buck gives Eddie at the fire house was absolute fire (when Bobby tells Eddie Buck asked for Chris to stay with them) like Eddie's like you did this for me??? And Buck has just this massive Big Buck Energy from where he's sitting like "get used to it" and I remember absolutely loosing my mind that Bobby got the hug and not Buck at the end of the scene like in what universe??? And yeah the rest of the episode is just the same but that feeling of 'that's the wrong man you're hugging' was the tipping point

@emotionalsupportfirefam

Okay so mine was kinda two moments?1) when Buck took Eddie to Chris' school after the earthquake and we see his reaction to Eddie's joy and relief as he holds Christopher and then spends the next episode trying to find ways to help Eddie with finding a suitable caregiver/ support for Chris and 2) the fact the took them whole of five minutes to go from 'rivals' to the 'dynamic duo' after the grenade call.

@evaneddie

Honestly? Literally every scene they have is romantically coded. The first scene of them, with Eddie being shirtless and us seeing it from Buck's perspective with „Whatta Man“ playing? That's subtext.

You can have my back any day? Yo.

The scene when the elf Blair(e) said they have an adorable son and Buck just said thank you instead of correcting her before he literally skipped away?

Eddie showing up at Buck's apartment and Buck not even questioning how he got in?

The way Buck is like a second father to Chris and protects him like one in the tsunami?

"THERE'S NOBODY IN THIS WORLD I TRUST WITH MY SON MORE THAN YOU"?! REALLY EDDIE? WHAT ABOUT LITERALLY ANY OF YOUR FAMILY? OR CARLA? Baby, that's love.

THE HALLOWEEN HUG?!

THE KITCHEN SCENE, THE WHOLE SEXUAL TENSION IN THAT SCENE?! BUCK'S HAND ON HIS BELT, THE GLANCES, "I'D STILL TAKE YOU", ON THE COUCH EDDIE LOOKS TO BUCK'S LAP, LIKE COME ON!

"You boys single?" *Looks at each other*

"This is Eddie's house, I'm not really a guest"

Buck's breakdown when he lost Eddie under 40 feet of mud. That was not the breakdown of losing a friend, that was the breakdown on losing someone you love. There's a meta I saw once literally just for this scene alone, the way Buck dug so desperately at the mud with his bare hands, the screams of heartbreak, the way he collapsed into Bobby, the pure dissociation as Bobby was giving instructions later on, Eddie's memories filled mostly with Christopher and Buck. Sure, the others were there, but, it was FILLED with Buck and Chris.

Then the ending scene of the season?! What was he trying to do with the necklaces? Thrusting his hips towards Eddie, hitting him in the face, then that soft touch on his face?

@adamngoodbuck

Hey! Nice question and for me really easy to answer. I started watching the show back in 2018 when it first aired but I was a casual viewer. Very casual. So casual I actually watched everything up to 2x10 and then I thought it was the season finale so I forgot about it. And then season 3 started. And nothing made sense. So I checked and welp, I had to catch up. And I did and something started brewing inside of me. I wasn't part of the fandom yet. And then. The THE SEARCHERS happened. And that scene. The there's nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you scene. My icon scene. And I was done. Hook, line and sinker.

@the-family-we-choose-118

My main ones were all the big ones: the kitchen scene, the end of 3x03, the Christmas episode one where Buck is helping Danny and Chris make gingerbread houses and then plans a whole party for the firefam, Buck clawing at the ground in 3x15, Eddie interrupting Taylor Kelly when she came to the station to do the documentary in Dosed, the fact that Eddie was introduced from Buck's POV with „Whatta Man“, the entire earthquake episode where Buck is reassuring Eddie his kid is okay and then drives him to get his kid later on, and the scene where Buck introduces Eddie to Carla in (I'm pretty sure it's) the same episode where Maddie asks him if his boy crush on Eddie means he's over Abby (that was my main one). And I was fully convinced when Eddie walked in Buck's apartment in the beginning of S3 and ripped his blankets off him and was so sure he doesn't sleep naked/wouldn't have anybody over.

And the „official“ part of the guide is done but I do wanna say something else real quick which is:

You have just read about 20.000 words I painstakingly wrote over the course of several weeks and while I get that meta is even more harrowing to reblog than gifsets or fics because meta involves so much opinion and interpretation and what if you disagree with parts of it?

Well, again, I invested a lot of time in this and also: IF YOU DISAGREE TELL ME!!! TELL ME IN THE REBLOG OR IN THE TAGS!!! Because different to fics and gifsets meta is a dialog and I can’t have a dialog unless people talk to me! I’m not here to lecture you on right or wrong, I am here to tell you: okay, this is how the scene looks from my point of view, what do you say? So honestly, please consider liking and reblogging and tagging and maybe talking a little about it with me, because screaming into the void is so very boring

(And also in general: reblog reblog reblog! All these funny posts you see on buzzfeed and instagram screenshoted from tumblr? Half of them were made great by reblogs and all of them were noticed by these sites because of reblogs)

Anyways, before I (REALLY) let you go it would be hypocritical now to not talk about some people who inspired some of this (but ya’ll have to understand I cannot talk about everyone)!

I can however say these four especially helped me write this:

- @diggorypuff , who I have never talked to but whose posts about interesting parallels actually sort of got me into thinking deeper about this show: (X)

- @ingu, who fairly recently did a series of gifsets on Buddie and how Buck is framed as Eddie’s love interest which gave me life: (X)

- @matan4il, who is such an amazing friend and does the most concice and well thought out metas on Buddie without having to watch the show a million times like other people we shall not name have to (me, I am talking about me). Find her buddie metas here: (X)

- And most importantly my girl, my babe, my love, @chimbuckleys who is the voice of reason between us and always lets me rant about stuff and was the sounding board for this and so much else I have written - I couldn’t do this without you! (ALSO I AM GOING TO BED NOW, BABE!!!)

AND DEAR READER, you made it! Now go have a blessed day and plant some trees because earth is dying and we with it!

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buddie meta #eddie meta #buck meta #911 meta #911 #911 fox #textpost #meta #holy shit I made it but also I think this is actually quite literally too long to be posted at once and I cry?????#FUCK #my meta #the big buddie for dummies guide

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jungshookz · 5 years ago

Note

no but like what if one day ballet!yn was being teased by some of the girls in the class during their pre-class stretch about how she thinks balletteacher!jm is a SMOKE n shes like gUYS SHUT UP but jimin is like >:))) oh oKAY

➺ pairing; park jimin x reader

➺ genre; balletteacher!jiminiverse!!! mr. park is back n hotter than ever!!! everyone seemed to miss him so he’s bACK i’m going to be honest with u there is some sexual tension here but we all saw that coming

➺ wordcount: 3k

➺ what to expect; “park jimin is a tall glass of water and we are all thirsty.”

➺ optional reading: not necessary but you can read this drabble before getting started on this one!

➺ note; this was sent in a whiLe ago!! better late than never >:-)i have no idea why i was suddenly inspired to write aLL of this tonight because i have to wake up at 8 and it is currently 2:15am and i haven’t showered yet but i had to do it for ballet teacher jimin because just like y/n i too am hot for teaCHER

»»————-　♡　————-««

“surprise, surprise… look who’s late again!” seulgi smiles a little toO sweetly as you stumble into the classroom

“the bus was late, it’s not my fault-“ you grumble as you drop to the floor to join the other girls who are in the middle of warming up

“well, you should think about leaving campus a little earlier if it means coming here on time like the rest of us.” seulgi sighs as she turns side to side to check herself out in the mirror

“oh my god-“ you gasp in mock shock in the middle of pulling one of your leg warmers on

seulgi glances at you from the mirror “what?”

“…is that a pimple i spot?” you point up towards her forehead and her eyes widen in horror as she leans closer to the mirror

“what?!” she smooths her fingers over her forehead furiously and you can’t help but snort

that’ll keep her occupied for the next twenty minutes or so

you let out a grunt of relief as you focus on working the kinks out of your shoulders and your neck while rolling your ankles at the same time

pop crackle snAP

ever since the incident (aka you attempting a grand jeté and failing miserably leading to a very sprained ankle) you’ve been taking it easy buT you went to a check-up over the weekend and the doctor says your ankle seems to have healed veRy well and you can go back to doing what you were doing

as long as you knoW what it is you’re doing, of course

maybe stay away from the grand jetéing for now

“so, y/n, when are you going to tell us what went down between you and mr. park?” ailee nudges your thigh with her foot and you let out a light laugh before raising a brow

“what are you talking about?” you arch your back and hiss quietly when you feel a particularly loud crAck

goD that’s good

“you know, when he basically kicked us all out of the room just to help you and your ankle.”

“you weren’t even there when we got kicked out, ailee.” wendy snorts and ailee rolls her eyes

“i know, but still!!”

“i don’t know what stories you guys have concocted but he basically just patched up my ankle for me and that was it.” you shrug while rolling out your pointe shoes

“don’t play dumb, y/n!” lisa calls out from across the room and you twist slightly to look at her “park jimin is a tall glass of water and we are all thirsty-“

“oh my god, you guys!” you interrupt her before she can finish and a couple of the girls burst into giggles “he’s our teacher!”

“i don’t know about you but i’m veRy hot for teacher-“

“it’s unprofessional because we’re his students and we shouldn’t even be talking about him like this-“

“but you have to admit you’ve thought about kissing those lips-“

“do you guys remember that time he yawned and stretched and his shirt rode up a little bit because i definitely do-“

“oh god and he smells so fucking good all the time-“

“and that ass just does noT quit!”

“i would kill like ten people if it meant i could sit on his face.” seulgi mutters as she smooths some tinted chapstick over her bottom lip

“seulgi!” you laugh and peel your leg warmer off jusT to hurl it at her “it’s concerning that you have a set number of people to kill just to sit on someone’s face”

she catches it right before it hits her arm before throwing it right back at you “it’s more concerning that not once have yoU ever openly admitted to thinking that park jimin is insanely attractive-“

“first of all, we should be addressing him as mr. park because he told us to-“ you point out as you slip your leg warmer back on “and secondly, i’m here because i want to become a professional ballerina, not because i want to gawk at my teacher like the rest of you-“

“hey, we wanna be professional ballerinas just as much as you do, but who says we can’t have a little fun?” jisoo giggles before wiggling her eyebrows

“you know, there’s only one logical explanation i can come up with to explain why you don’t gush about mr. park the same way we do.” seulgi sighs as she takes a seat across from you and begins to stretch out her legs

“enlighten me, detective kang.” you can’t help but roll your eyes because wHY are you guys still talking about jimin when you should be talking about,,.,.,. like.,,.,. stretching? or somEthing else related to ballet and noT your teacher

also

on a slightly unrelated note

you and seulgi have kind of become friends? but not really

you guys have a best frenemy kind of relationship if that makes any sense

the two of you are still very much competitive with each other anD will not hesitate to take jabs at each other when the opportunity arises

but other than that you guys sort of get along

except when performances are around the corner because she gets super bitchy about getting whatever role it is she wants

anyways

back to it

“because you have a crush on him.”

you immediately freeze in the middle of tying the ribbons around your ankle

“i’m sorry, i what now?”

“you have a crush on him!” seulgi smirks veRy cockily “think about it! you don’t like it when we talk about him because you want him allllll to yourself and you can’t even fathom the thought of another girl lusting over him-“

and this would be one of those moments where seulgi likes to get under your skin just to get a reaction

you poke your tongue against the inside of your cheek as you take a second to consider the possibility

do you have a crush on your teacher?

he’s mr. park

you can’t have a crush on mr. park because he’s mr. pARK

he’s very strict and controlling and sometimes a little mean like that time he yelled at you in front of the class for being the only who missed a count

but also he can be really sweet and caring and surprisingly funny and you’ll never admit it to anyone for as long as you live but one class you started daydreaming (this was the class he yelled at you about missing the count lol) about what it’d be like to hold his hand and kiss his cheeks and dig your nails into his oh-so broad back as he-

your movements slow down slightly as you think about what happened on the night of the incident

“you really are something, you know that?” he laughs lightly as he smooths the bandaid over your cut

you can’t help but let out a little huff “…is that a good thing?”

he gives your knee a little pat before reaching over a tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear

“miss y/l/n - it’s a very good thing.”

“that is the most ridiculous theory i have ever heard in my entire life-“

“every single time we talk about how attractive jimin is, you get all quiet and blushy in the corner and you neVEr contribute to the conversation-“

“yeah, maybe because there’s a line of professionalism and respect that i need to stay behind unlike yoU guys-“

“oh, and now you’re getting all defensive because you know for a fact that every word coming out of my mouth is TRUE! just admit it, y/l/n, you have a crush on our teacher-“

“i mean, i think i have a crush on mr. park-“ jisoo chips in and you and seulgi immediately turn to glare at her as if to say stay ouT OF IT

“i- you know what, this is just ridiculous!” you scoff and get up off the ground “i’m going to go and get some water to cool off-“

“oh yeah, you’re gonna cool off? is thinking about jimin’s face in between your legs getting you all hot and bothe-“

“jesus ch- lalalaLALALALALA-“you immediately stick your fingers into your ears and start babbling loudly while seulgi starts speaking louder and louDER

“you loVE HIM!!! YOU WANNA KISS HIM ROMANTICALLY!!!” seulgi’s practically shrieking at this point and the other girls are having a hoOT

in fact some of them are chiming in to make fun of you as well

“oOoooh y/n do you wanna hold his hand-“

“do you think about him in class sometimes?? a couple of us have noticed that moony look in your eye from time to time-“

“maybe if you ask him nicely he’ll help you with stretching-“

“y/n, look, this is my demonstration of what you wanna do to mr. park-“ lisa turns around so that her back is facing you and she wraps her arms around herself before sliding them up and down sensually anD making kissy noises

“oh, real mature, lisa-“ you take your fingers out of your ears and wince because woW these girls are loud “okay, everyone shuT UP-“

everyone quiets down a little but they’re still giggling and whispering among each other

“what’s it gonna take for you people to drop this duMB theory??” you cross your arms and raise your brows as you tap your foot on the ground impatiently

“all you have to do is admit that you have a crush on our teacher and i’ll be satisfied.”

“but i don’t have a crush on him!”

“y/n, need i remind you that i’m, like, slightly psychic? because you are totaLLy lying through your teeth right now.” seulgi inspects her nails casually and you let out a quiet huff

okay

you know what

yEs

maybe you do have a crush on jimin

maybe it’s true that you don’t like it when the other girls talk about him because a part of you selfishly wants him all to yourself

maybe everything seulgi’s said is truE

and the whole class obviously knows that you like jimin because a) seulgi is the biggest gossip on the planet and b) even if seulgi said that the earth was flat, everyone would believe it regardless because she iS the top dog around here

and if you admit it then hopefully they’ll leave it alone forever

“alright, fine!” you clear your throat and stand up a little taller “i have a crush on park jimin.” you gasp dramatically and make little jazz hands

you know what

if you’re going to confess you should do it right

you should go aLL out

“in fact, i think mr. park is a complete smoke show. i think he’s the hottest person i’ve ever seen in my entire life, and yes, i have noticed his pillowy lips, and i did notice that time he stretched and revealed his glorious six pack to the world, and i am very much aware that he smells like he stepped straight out of a shampoo commercial, and yes, you’re right, he has a veRY nice ass - and you know what, seulgi? i’ll say this one just for you.” you narrow your eyes and lean forward a little bit “i would 100% love to sit on park jimin’s face because i, y/n y/l/n, am 110% attracted to him.”

seulgi nods slowly and presses her lips together

it almost seems as though she’s stifling a laugh

…which was not the reaction you were expecting

you were expecting her to get all gloaty and i-told-you-so about it

“wow. and now everyone’s gone quiet!” you point out the obvious before crossing your arms

her and the rest of the girls get up off the ground and immediately form a line before getting into first position

and you know exactly what that means

every single hair on your body prickles to life when you hear someone slurping up the last of their drink behind you

“good afternoon, ladies.”

god

“good afternoon, mr. park.” everyone (except for you because you are understandably moRTIFIED) responds politely

you feel like your feet are glued to the ground and you want nothing more than for a black hole to appear and swallow you entirely

“i said, good afternoon, ladies.”

it takes every fibre in your body to twist around slowly and you force yourself into first position

you’re a mere one and a half steps away from jimin and that’s making you more nervous than you already are

you swallow thickly

jimin offers you a sly smile as he runs a hand through his (newly dyed!!) ashy silver hair before taking his sunglasses off

“g-“ your throat closes up as soOn as you try to speak “good afternoon, mr. park.”

you feel like there’s a rock in your stomach

you also feel like you’re about to projectile vomit everywhere

why do bad things always happen to you

WHY

you just-

you just openly confessed that not oNLY are you romantically attracted to your teacher, you are also sexually attracted to your teacher!

great!

good one!

love that energy for you!

you know what

maybe it’s not as bad as you think

maYbe he didn’t hear anything

maybe you’re in the clear and you’re just overthinking it

“would you like to join your peers in line, miss y/l/n?” jimin asks and gestures towards the girls

“yes, sir.” you nod stiffly before quickly heading over to join lisa at the end of the line

the room is dead quiet as jimin sets his belongings down before taking his jacket off

oh god

he’s wearing that thin white shirt that gets a liTtle see through when he’s sweaty-

“how bad was it?” you lean over to whisper to lisa

her face is getting pink from how hard she’s trying to not completely burst into laughter right now

her cheeks are literally tremBLING

“he was here for the opening line and he was here for your final statement, which i think, pretty much summed up your entire speech.”

i would 100% love to sit on park jimin’s face because i, y/n y/l/n, am 110% attracted to him

yep

it’s official

you want to: die

you’re already sweating through your unitard and you guys haven’t done anything

“no talking please, ladies…” jimin hums as he plugs his phone charger into the outlet

maybe you can just pretend like you lost your voice so you won’t have to speak for the rest of eTERNITY

“okay!” jimin claps his hands together before crossing his arms “i’m gonna rock your world-” you’re verRy aware of the fact that he maintains strong eye contact with you the entire time he says that “with some grand jeté’s today. everyone ready?”

“yes, mr. park.” everyone responds simultaneously except for you agAIN

“-es mr. park.” you blurt out at the last second

you stop nervously picking at your chiffon skirt when you see jimin’s eyes flicker down to your hand

oops

surprisingly enough jimin doesn’t jump straIght into the grand jetés right away (he’s taking it easy just for u because he’s still worried about ur ankle)

he makes everyone practice balancing and standing in the final position which is basically just standing up straight on your pointes

also anoTher surprising thing that he’s doing

he said that today was more of a casual class so he’s letting everyone talk amongst themselves while practicing

of course you haven’t said a word because your lips still feel like they’re glued together

also you decided it’d be best if you hung out at the very baCK of the classroom just to attempt to avoid being spotted by jimin

“arms straight… chest out… very good…” jimin slowly makes his way down the back row and you curse quietly when you feel yourself wobble slightly

your eyes widen in surprise when you feel two hands place themselves on your hips from behind

“back straight, miss y/l/n.” jimin reminds you gently before sliding a finger from the small of your back up to the centre of your back “arch here. chest out.”

his other hand slides around so that it’s resting right on your stomach and you feel like your entire body is on fiRE “squeeze your core tight.” he mutters into your ear

you feel your cheeks heat up almost immediately because that should noT have been as hot as it was

christ almighty

get it toGETHER

“you seem a little distracted today, miss y/l/n.” jimin murmurs quietly as he moves to stand in front of you

he leans back a little to look at both your arms before reaching over to raise your left arm a bit “everything alright?”

“everything’s alright, mr. park.” you somehow manage to keep yourself composed even though jimin is basically staring two holes into your soul right now

“mhm.” jimin reaches over and places his pointer finger under your chin before raising your head a little

you lock gazes with him and you notice a little glimmer in his eyes “can’t have you sprain your other ankle because you were too busy thinking about sitting on my face now, can we?”

help me help you make your wishes come tru (aka send me a request)

requested drabbles masterlist

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coldflasher · 3 years ago

Text

Title: don’t threaten me with a good time Chapters: 1/1 Length: 7.7k Fandom: The Flash (TV 2014) Rating: Gen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Minor/Background Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Kamilla Hwang, Barry Allen/Iris West Characters: Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Kamilla Hwang, Caitlin Snow, Killer Frost, Iris West, Leonard Snart, Original Male Characters Additional Tags: Alcohol, Drunken Shenanigans, Bisexual Barry Allen, The Flash 7x12 Good-bye Vibrations.

Kamilla leaned forwards to read the front page. “The Barry Allen Drunkenness Scale.” Bemused, she looked up. “What’s this? “This,” said Cisco, “is the result of a great deal of research and a number of hard-earned lessons.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, pulling the folder towards them. “There are eight stages of Drunk Barry, each one with a varying level of severity. It begins with stage one.”

Inspired by the Santiago Drunkenness Scale from Brooklyn-99. Team Flash are throwing a party to celebrate Kamilla and Cisco’s departure from Central City, and Kamilla wants to make sure they go out with a bang. But with great power comes great responsibility, and sometimes responsibility means making sure your friend doesn’t break the sound barrier by doing the worm at Mach 2.

Read on AO3

@dctvgen (i hope this is okay!! didn’t really use any prompts but i had this one saved up and seemed like a good time to post it, lmk it’s not suitable!!)

Life came at you fast. After seven years being besties with a speedster, working to save the world, Cisco knew that to be true in more ways than one. But apparently despite everything he’d seen, it still had the capacity to surprise on him.

One minute the thought of leaving Central City had been a vague, abstract thought – a ‘what-if’ or a ‘maybe’ he dwelled upon whenever yet another crisis announced itself with a shower of broken glass raining into his Vibeuccino, or when he’d compared the news in Central City, which was all doom and gloom and murderous metas, to somewhere nice and peaceful like Keystone, where the biggest news story of the day was some kid winning the national Spelling Bee Championship. Then the job offer came in, and Kamilla had tested the waters with wanting to leave – and now their stuff was all packed and in boxes, he had a start date at ARGUS, and what had been a daydream was now a very clear reality. He’d hung up the gloves, said a final goodbye to Vibe.

It was the other goodbyes that were going to be the hard part.

“It just feels weird, you know?” he said, pausing in the middle of hanging bunting from the corner of the cortex. “We’re saying goodbye to everyone we know. This has been my life for almost eight years now. Team Flash are my family. It feels weird to celebrate leaving all that behind.”

“Don’t think of it as a celebration of what we’re leaving behind,” said Kamilla, who was sat at the desk, partway through ordering pizza. “Think of it as a celebration of everything we’ve accomplished. Making friends and building inventions and saving the world! I know it’s difficult and change can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve done amazing things, and I think it’s important to honour that.”

Cisco sighed as he successfully stuck the flags to the wall. He climbed down from the table he was stood on and joined her at the desk in his usual chair, pushing himself back and forth with his foot. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re always right. I’m not getting cold feet, I promise. I’m excited. We’re going to make this work. We’ve done amazing things, and we’re going to do even more. Together.”

Kamilla beamed. “That’s the spirit.” She held out her hand for a fist-bump.

Grinning, Cisco returned it. “You’re such a dork.”

“Which is exactly why you love me,” Kamilla countered, with a few final clicks and a flourish as she placed the pizza order. She consulted the list on her phone. “Okay, so we’ve got the cake, the decorations, the drinks, and the pizza is in transit. There’s just one more thing we need.”

She slid past him and made her way towards the small metallic fridge tucked away in the corner. Kamilla typed in the passcode 05-20-80 – the release date of The Empire Strikes Back – and the fridge unlocked with a clunk, revealing two test tube holders – one containing a single emergency vial of Velocity IX, and another that held eight tubes of liquid a few shades lighter than blood.

Cisco glanced over, bemused. “Babe, did you stash your Kraft beers in my security fridge? Because that seems a little excessive.”

Kamilla eased the second rack of tubes off the shelf like a tray of freshly baked cookies out of the oven. “No, I’m just getting a couple of vials of 500 proof for Barry. I didn’t want him to feel left out of the festivities.”

Cisco had met a lot of speedsters in his time, but in that moment he was pretty sure he moved faster than any of them as he sprinted across the room to intercept. Startled, Kamilla jerked back and the test tubes clinked together like champagne glasses mid-toast.

“Sorry, can we just back up a little bit – you’re what now?” said Cisco.

“I’m grabbing some drinks for Barry,” Kamilla repeated slowly. “This is his special speedster booze, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cisco said nervously. “It is, but…”

“But…?” Kamilla prompted.

“Listen,” he said, hands up in a pacifying gesture. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but that is a highly controlled substance and it’s really in everyone’s best interests if you put it back.”

Kamilla grew wide-eyed. “Why? Is it dangerous?”

“I mean, if any normal person drank it, it’d pretty much liquidize their insides, but that’s not the problem.”

As he spoke, Cisco headed over to the shelf on the wall, ran his fingers along the various binders tucked onto the shelf, and pulled one off. Cisco carried it over to the table, pushed aside the keyboard and laid the folder flat in front of her.

“The problem,” he said, flipping it open, “is this.”

Kamilla leaned forwards to read the front page. “The Barry Allen Drunkenness Scale.” Bemused, she looked up. “What’s this?”

“This,” said Cisco, “is the result of a great deal of research and a number of hard-earned lessons.” He picked up the metal test tube rack and returned it to the fridge, his fingers flying across the buttons to input the code before he slid the vials back into place. “It’s also the reason why this stuff doesn’t leave the lab except in dire emergencies, including but not limited to break-ups, deaths and severe metahuman disasters.” Decisively, he closed the fridge and it locked again with a clunk and a beep.

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s because you are fortunate enough to have never before encountered an inebriated Barry Allen,” said Cisco. “Let me walk you through it.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, pulling the folder towards them. “There are nine stages of Drunk Barry, each one with a varying level of severity. It starts with stage one.”

1 DRINK BARRY: A LITTLE CLINGY

One of Barry’s many wonderful qualities is his propensity for affection. Unimpeded by the bounds of modern-day toxic masculinity, 1 Drink Barry generously bestows physical affection on everyone he encounters. To put it plainly: he’s a hugger.

Standing outside Barry and Iris’ front door, Cisco checked his watch.

Usually at this time of night, he’d be hanging out in the cortex watching the red dot darting around on the monitor as Barry did a lap of the city, or in his lab tinkering with some new invention. Tonight, though, was different. They’d all agreed work was off-limits – time to take a hard-earned break. Cisco had been looking forward to it all week, but he guessed the rest of Team Flash didn’t share his enthusiasm, because they were late. That wasn’t like Caitlin at all. Shrugging, he lifted his hand to knock.

The click of heels made him turn just in time to see Caitlin bouncing up the stairs in her heels. “Hi, I’m here! Sorry I’m late; Frost and I couldn’t agree on an outfit.” She leaned in. “Did you bring the, uh…”

Cisco slid a silver flask out of his pocket slightly. “Sure did.”

“Then I guess we’re ready to go!”

“Damn right. …Ladies first?”

Caitlin knocked. They waited, listening to the rattle of six locks being unfastened one at a time, until the door opened to reveal Iris standing on the threshold wearing a tight red dress and a leather jacket.

Cisco whistled. “Damn. You look good.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” said Iris as she stepped back from the door to allow them entry. “Barry will be down in a second, he got held up at work, so he’s a little behind –”

There was a whoosh and a crackle of lightning, and Barry skidded to a stop beside her with windswept hair and a grin. “Here! Hey, guys.”

“Oh. Famous last words.” Iris reached for her purse and swung it onto her shoulder. “Well I’m also running late, so I’d better get going. You guys have fun! And try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

“I’m afraid we can’t make any promises, cos everybody knows there ain’t no party like a Team Flash party!” said Cisco. “You sure you don’t wanna come with us? It’s gonna be one hell of a night.”

“Thank you, but I’m going out with a couple of the girls from CCPN tonight, so… rain check?”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Cisco warned.

“You’d better.” She rested her hand on Barry’s arm. “I’ll see you later, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Barry, and he leaned in for a kiss.

“Boo! Get a room!” Cisco hollered.

Iris rolled her eyes fondly. “Goodbye, Cisco,” she said, and headed out.

Cisco sighed. “And then there were three.” He looked from Barry to Caitlin and back again, stretching out on the sofa. “Okay, drinks!” He headed into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine in one hand and three glasses in the other.

“Uh, isn’t the drinking supposed to start after you leave the house?” asked Caitlin.

“Only if you’re an amateur! You always have a drink or two before going out on the town. It’s financially savvy.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” said Barry when Cisco offered him a glass. “No use wasting perfectly good alcohol when it doesn’t even touch the sides.”

“That,” said Cisco, “is why you’ll be drinking this.” He pulled out a silver flask from inside the breast pocket of his blazer. “I call it 500 Proof 2,” he said, and held it dramatically aloft like Frodo holding the one ring.

Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “Really?” she said.

“The name’s a work in progress,” he admitted. “But the drink itself…” He kissed the flask. “She’s ready to go.”

Barry eyed the flask warily. “I don’t know…”

“Oh, come on, you’ve earned it. The city can manage without the Flash for one night. Go on, live a little.” When Barry continued to look skeptical, Cisco started to chant. “Barry, Barry, Barry–”

Grinning, Caitlin joined in. Barry endured it for all of thirty seconds before he rolled his eyes and snatched the flask. Caitlin and Cisco both cheered.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” said Cisco.

He splashed wine into his and Caitlin’s glasses, and passed one to her. She took it with a twinkle in her eye.

“All right, Team Flash!” Cisco whooped, and they clinked their glasses against Barry’s flask before they all drank.

Barry pulled a face. “Jesus! That’s – that’s potent.” He coughed, eyes watering.

“You’re welcome,” said Cisco. “We made a couple of tweaks to the formula. It should stay in your system longer instead of just burning off in thirty seconds flat like the first batch.”

“It tastes like rocket fuel!”

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll put some hairs on your chest,” Cisco said dismissively.

“You can say that again,” muttered Barry, massaging his chest.

“Speaking of hairs on your chest,” said Caitlin, curling up comfortably in her seat. “Did they grow back yet?”

“Not entirely,” admitted Barry. “It’s sort of a peach fuzz.”

“That’ll teach you not to get so close to my experiments,” said Cisco.

“Maybe it’ll teach you to label them better,” said Caitlin.

“Really? Don’t do me like that!”

“Sorry, it’s true.”

This triggered a bout of good-natured bickering as they debated the results of some of Cisco’s more disastrous experiments. Before long they were all laughing, loosened up by the drinks. Barry, who was perched on the arm of Caitlin’s chair, leaned against her.

“I love you guys, you know that?”

“We love you too, Barr – ooof! Oh. Okay,” said Caitlin, bewildered. Barry had slid off the arm of the chair and squeezed up next to her, taking up half the chair like a Great Dane still trying to sit in its owner’s lap.

“Look at him, he’s getting tipsy already,” Cisco teased.

“Shhh.” Barry rested his head contentedly on Caitlin’s shoulder. Amused, she patted his knee.

Cisco downed the rest of his drink. “All right, let’s get this show on the road.”

He offered Caitlin his hand – only to have Barry grab it instead. Then he grabbed Caitlin’s hand too.

“Oh, we’re holding hands?” said Cisco. “Is that a thing we do now?”

“It is when we’re running,” Barry said, grinning.

Caitlin’s eyes widened. “Oh. No, no, no runni–”

The rest of her sentence was lost to the wind.

2 DRINK BARRY: KINDA CLUMSY

When Barry became a speedster, he gained a massive boost in motor functions, including enhanced reflexes that have massively improved his coordination. Prior to this transformation, his ability to walk unhindered across a flat surface was roughly equal to that of Bella Swan from Twilight. Two-Drink Barry is harmless, but he must be kept at a safe distance from breakable objects.

Okay, so travelling at super speed sucked – Cisco would stick to breaches from now on, than you very much – but he had to admit it had its advantages. They’d beaten the evening rush by minutes and found themselves a table, where they had been comfortably situated for the past half hour. Since then the bar had filled rapidly, and now they were surrounded by people. Glasses clinked, bodies gyrated. All around them was laughter and the throb of music; he could feel the buzz of the bass against his elbows where they rested on the table.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” asked Caitlin. “No monsters, no metahumans… just the three of us having a few quiet drinks.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Cisco said darkly. “Also, I don’t know that the ‘drinks’ part is entirely accurate. The fastest man alive is about to lose his title. Where the hell is he?” Barry had offered to get the next round, but that was ten minutes ago and they hadn’t seen him since. Frowning, Cisco and scanned the room.

Just as he had started to get concerned, the crowd parted and Barry appeared with three glasses in his hands.

“It’s about time! What took you?”

“I’m so sorry,” said Barry. “I got held up at the bar, there was a huge li–”

Whatever he’d been about to say next was cut off as he abruptly tripped over his own feet.

All three drinks spilled everywhere. Lightning flickered as he lurched forwards to try and intercept, and he managed to right the glasses, but not before the majority of their contents had ended up all over the table.

Cisco’s plastic cup floated across the tabletop in a puddle of dismally fizzing coke, which dripped steadily into his lap. Caitlin looked down at her soaked sweater, hands held up in shock. Her eyes flared white.

“This,” snarled Frost, “is a cashmere sweater.”

Barry’s eyes were wide. “Oh my God, guys, I am so sorry.”

With a jerk of her head, Caitlin regained control. “It’s fine,” she said, then winced, presumably in response to whatever Frost snarled in the back of her head. “Really. It happens to the best of us.” She pulled the sopping wet fabric away from her with a grimace. “Um… does anyone have a tissue?”

“Let me get some paper towels!” said Barry.

Cisco reached out to stop him. “Actually, Barr, maybe you should –”

But it was too late: Barry had already turned around and crashed into a guy going in the opposite direction, who slopped beer all over himself. Cisco winced sympathetically.

“I’m sorry!” Barry said, while the guy glared and shook his wet hands.

“Maybe you should take a seat,” said Cisco.

Still apologising profusely, Barry sank onto his stool and shrank in on himself, nursing what was left of his drink while Caitlin went to get something to clear up the mess.

“So I guess those adjustments we made to the 500 proof are working, huh?” Cisco said with a smirk.

“Oh, they’re working,” said Barry. “Speaking of which, can I get a top-up?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Caitlin asked, returning with a wad of paper towels. She started to mop up the table.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I’m not even buzzed, seriously. Tipsy at best. Come on, hit me.” He waved at his drink.

Cisco and Caitlin exchanged looks. There was a slight flush to Barry’s cheeks, and his eyes were a little brighter than usual, but other than that he seemed stable.

“I have wanted to study how the speedforce interacts with alcohol,” Caitlin admitted. “Metabolic processes aside, I am interested to measure the effects.”

“What the hell,” Cisco said. He unscrewed the cap of the flask and tipped it in to Barry’s glass, pouring a generous measure. “Knock yourself out.”

Barry beamed and picked up his drink. “Cheers,” he said, and they all clinked their half empty glasses.

Three Drink Barry: Barry Dance-Pants

This Barry is able to flawlessly replicate the choreography for every single Britney Spears music video unprompted. So far we have been unable to determine where he acquired this information.

They all agreed that it was best if Cisco got the next round. He didn’t retrieve the next lot of drinks any faster than Barry had – if anything, he was slower; people kept shoving in front of him every time he got close to the bar – but at least the glasses stayed upright this time. When he returned to the table, though, Caitlin was alone.

“Where’d Barry go?”

Caitlin frowned. “I thought he was with you.”

“Nope.” He passed her drink over to her.

Caitlin worried at her lower lip.

“Hey, don’t stress,” said Cisco. “Barry’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”

“I don’t know. He’s been gone a while, and he wasn’t exactly steady on his feet. He might hurt himself.”

“Good thing we have a doctor on call,” said Cisco, sipping his drink.

“That’s not funny. Seriously, I’m worried about him. I’m not sure he should be left unsupervised.”

She had a point. Speed and immense clumsiness wasn’t a great combination – they’d learned that the hard way. Cisco downed the rest of his drink with a grimace. “All right, let’s go look for him.”

They got up and headed out onto the dancefloor. The music was so loud that the entire room vibrated, Britney Spears’ Womanizer throbbing through the room. Caitlin pulled back and made a face as she almost inhaled a mouthful of some stranger’s coarse blonde hair. She batted it away like cobwebs.

“Ugh. Remind me why we decided to come out on the busiest night of the week?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” muttered Cisco, craning his neck. “Man, I can’t see him anywhere. It’s like playing Where’s Wally? Hey – hey, excuse me! Can I just squeeze – guys?” He attempted to slide past a knot of people, only to give up with a frustrated sigh. “Jesus, it’s like talking to a brick wall. What the hell are they looking at?”

Caitlin stood on her toes. “It looks like...” She stopped. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

She grabbed his arm and steered him through the crowd, using him as a battering ram to force her way through. Eventually, breathless and sweaty, they made it to the outskirts of the dancefloor, where Cisco finally got a good look at exactly what had captivated everyone’s attention.

Barry was in the middle of the dancefloor, tearing it up. He strutted up and down, squatted and slut-dropped before he arched his back and pumped his hips forward in several lewd thrusts. The crowd cheered.

“Oh my God,” said Caitlin.

“He is killing it!” Cisco cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Yes, Barry!”

Barry winked and blew a kiss, rolling over to air-hump the ground with an alarming level of enthusiasm.

“Should we maybe go over there?” asked Caitlin.

“In a second,” said Cisco. He held his phone up, pressed record and zoomed in on Barry’s gyrating body, careful to keep his face in shot. “I wanna get this for posterity’s sake.”

“Cisco!” Caitlin scolded, and reached out to cover the camera.

Cisco jerked the phone out of reach. “You are aware that his ringtone for you is still thirty seconds of you butchering Summer Lovin’?”

Caitlin pursed her lips. “On second thoughts,” she said. “I hope you’re getting this in HD.”

Cisco grinned and went back to recording.

“Okay, that’s a little embarrassing,” Kamilla conceded.

“That? That was iconic,” corrected Cisco. “The man has moves. I swear he was a professional dancer in another life. I still have that video; I’ll show you later if you ask me nicely…”

“I’ll hold you to it. But none of this explains why this stuff has to be so rigorously controlled. I mean, being clumsy, affectionate, kinda sloppy, tearing it up on the dancefloor… that sounds like pretty standard drunk behaviour.”

“The first three drinks aren’t the problem,” Cisco said darkly. “It’s what comes after that you have to worry about. See, drunk Barry is insatiable. One drink is never enough. Once he’s had a taste of that sweet, sweet 500 proof concentrated speedster juice, he won’t rest until he’s had more. And while he may be an icon, three-drink Barry soon gives way to…”

FOUR-DRINK BARRY: LOUD BARRY.

Barry Allen is a hero in every sense of the word. Time and time again he has sacrificed everything for the noble goal of making the world a better place. Barry doesn't save lives for the glory or the recognition; he does it because it's the right thing to do. But four-drink Barry… he thinks a little recognition might be nice.

The final chords of Womanizer faded out into a sea of applause. Beaming from ear to ear, Barry took a series of bows, flapping his hand as if to say, ‘oh, stop it!’ After a few more moments of thoroughly enjoying the spotlight, he disengaged from his loving admirers and headed back towards Cisco and Caitlin and slid breathlessly back into the booth. His sweaty hair stuck to his forehead.

“Where did that come from?” Cisco asked, impressed.

Barry shrugged. “I’m full of surprises.”

“Clearly. I think you just earned yourself another drink!”

Cisco handed him the flask, and Barry clinked it cheerfully against Cisco’s beer bottle before he tipped it back and swallowed with a grimace. His eyes watered.

“Damn. That never goes down any easier.”

“Well it is just concentrated alcohol,” Caitlin reminded him. “Speaking of which…” She pulled her testing kit out of her purse. “Four drinks should be more than enough to start showing some side-effects. Let me take a quick blood sample.” Before Barry could object, she stabbed a lancet into his finger.

“Ow!” Barry put his finger in his mouth and sucked on it.

“Everything okay there?”

They all turned. A blond man in a grey t-shirt stood a short distance away, looking at them in concern.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m good. Just hurt my finger.” He held it up ruefully.

Blondie moved closer. “Well it’s your lucky night: I’m a nurse. Why don’t you let me take a look?”

Cisco plastered on a smile. “That’s real nice of you, but our friend here is actually a doctor, so –”

Barry held out his hand, overriding Cisco’s objections. Blondie took it and examined it, tracing his palm with the tip of his finger. Cisco rolled his eyes hard and took another swallow of his drink.

“I was just watching you out on the dancefloor,” Blondie said. “Those were some impressive moves.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Barry said modestly.

“No, it was definitely something. If I busted out a routine like that I’d be laid up for a week. What’s your secret?”

“Funny you should say that, cos…” Barry leaned in and said impishly, “I’m actually the Flash.”

Cisco choked on his drink. It went straight up his nose; his sinuses were on fire. He coughed hard, eyes watering.

“Are you okay, man?” the stranger asked concernedly.

“Great,” Cisco managed.

Satisfied, Blondie’s attention returned to Barry. “Well, I think your finger’s okay.” His thumb pressed against the inside of Barry’s wrist and his forehead creased slightly. “Your pulse is pretty fast, though.”

“Is it?” Barry said, resting his chin on his hand. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes.

Blondie released him, but he showed no signs of leaving. He looked Barry appraisingly up and down. “So you’re the Flash, huh?”

“Yep,” Barry said. His eyes twinkled. “Fastest man alive.”

“Mm. Maybe we’ll have to test that.”

At this point, Cisco decided, enough was enough. He slapped Barry on the back hard enough to make him stagger and complain, “Ow!”

“Ha!” he said. “This guy. He’s a kidder, right? A real riot. Hey, uh, Barry, can I talk to you for a second?”

Before Barry could object, Cisco had grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him out of the main bar area into the corridor, where there was a line of people waiting for the bathroom. Out here it was cooler and while he could still feel the throb of the music through the sticky soles of his sneakers, at least he could hear himself think.

“Dude,” he said. “Seriously? What the hell?”

“Oh, come on. It’s just a little harmless flirting. Iris and I, we have an agreement–”

“I’m not talking about the flirting! You can’t just –” Cisco stopped and made himself take a very deep breath before he lowered his voice. “You can’t just tell people you’re the freaking Flash!”

Barry gave a slow, confused blink. “But I am the Flash.”

He didn’t say it quietly. Several heads turned their way.

Cisco gave an uncomfortable laugh and rolled his eyes, before darting them at Barry like, ‘this guy, am I right?’ After a moment, the bystanders lost interest and went back to their conversation, and Cisco lowered his voice. “I know that, Barry, but it’s a secret, remember?”

“A secret?” Barry’s eyes widened and he clapped his hands over his mouth. “Oh! Right, I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“You know what? It’s all good. Just a little misunderstanding. But uh, let’s keep that one under wraps from now on, okay? Lips…” He mimed zipping up his mouth.

Barry nodded dutifully. “Got it.”

“Okay.” Cisco exhaled heavily. Jesus. Babysitting a drunken speedster was hard work.

Barry patted him on the shoulder. “M’gonna go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in…” He held up two fingers. “Two seconds.”

“You’d better be. And remember –” He made the zipping motion again.

Barry imitated it, pretending to lock his mouth up and tossed away the imaginary key. Then he went to join the queue.

Feeling like he’d just aged a decade, Cisco made his way back to their booth. Mercifully, Blondie had gone to chat up some twink at the bar. Cisco sank back onto his stool and buried his head in his hands.

Caitlin, who was squeezing a few droplets of Barry’s blood onto a testing strip, made a sympathetic sound. “Not having a good time, huh?”

“I’d be having a great time if Black Canary over there could quit singing about his secret identity for five freaking minutes.” Cisco snatched the silver flask off the table and screwed the cap back on with a sharp twist. “We’re cutting him off right now, before we get into any more trouble.”

“Oh, come on, cut him a little slack. He doesn’t exactly get to let loose very often.”

“There’s letting loose and then there’s whatever the hell this is.” Cisco shook his head. “It’s like –”

A high-pitched shriek cut him off, and Cisco grimaced as it rang throughout the room. Everyone turned to the source of the commotion – and Cisco’s heart sank. Barry stood on the stage, fumbling with the microphone stand.

“Is this thing on?”

“Oh God,” said Caitlin.

Cisco launched himself at the stage, fighting through the crowd. As he did, Barry continued to ramble into the mic.

“Hi. My name’s Barry, Barry Allen, and I just wanted to say something real quick. Because I love this city. It’s like… my favourite city. And I love all of you. Especially you.” He pointed unsteadily at someone in the crowd and gave a clumsy wink. “Anyway, I’m gonna tell you a secret while I’m here. You guys can keep a secret, right? Shhh!” He put his fingers on his lips. “See, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but…” He leaned in so close that his lips brushed against the mic. “I’m the Fla –”

Just in time, Cisco jerked the mic away from him. “Flaaa–ha! Okay, that’s quite enough of that. I think my buddy here needs some air. Come on, Barry, let’s go.”

Luckily, Barry didn’t resist. He whooshed cheerfully as Cisco shunted him back to their booth and into his seat, then lolled sideways against Caitlin, who – with reflexes well-honed from constantly grabbing flying paperwork – managed to save her testing kit from being swept off the table.

Barry giggled. “I’m fast,” he said.

“Okay,” Cisco said resignedly. He turned to Caitlin. “Got any better ideas?”

She shrugged. “Pray that six-drink Barry is a little more tight-lipped?”

It sounded like a terrible idea. But when had that ever stopped them? With a shake of his head, Cisco withdrew the flask from his pocket.

“Hold on.” Caitlin’s voice had dropped an octave, and silver began to creep down from the roots of her hair. “I wanna see this,” said Frost. “It’s gonna be a total shitshow.”

Unfortunately, Cisco suspected she was right. He splashed more alcohol into Barry’s glass. “Here you go, big guy. Drink up.”

Barry looked down at his drink and frowned. “Can I get ice in this?”

Frost passed her hand over the glass and a chunk of ice dropped to the bottom with a clink.

“Awesome,” Barry said, and downed it.

“Oh God,” said Cisco. “We are so gonna regret this.”

“Okay,” said Kamilla, looking up from the binder. “I think I’m kinda starting to see the problem. But we won’t have that issue tonight. Everyone at this party knows Barry’s the Flash.”

“Listen,” said Cisco. “Four-drink Flash is a cake-walk. The worst is yet to come.” He flipped the page. “Let me introduce you to five-drink Flash.”

5 DRINK BARRY: THERAPIST BARRY

Five-drink Barry got a little too invested in Iris’ Intro to Psychology textbook in college. He’s all heart, zero clinical training.

Leonard Snart lay back on his bunk in Iron Heights, one leg resting lazily over the other, flipping through a nudie magazine. At least, that was how it appeared from outside the cell. Tucked between the pages was a blueprint of the prison, which his sister had smuggled in during her last visit. The bed creaked as he shifted his weight.

One of the guards struck the bars with his baton. Len glanced up.

“Snart. Get your ass out here. We’ve got a phone call for you.”

“Who from?” Lisa didn’t usually call so soon after a visit, and Mick never called at all; the signal on the Waverider was terrible.

“What do you think I am, your PA? Just get your ass out here.”

Interest well and truly piqued, Len tossed his magazine aside, careful to make sure the blueprint stayed safely tucked between his pages as he crossed the cell and waited for the door to be unlocked. Given his status as a high security prisoner, the guard cuffed him before leading him to the payphone booth in the reception area, the walls marked with grease stains and graffiti. With some difficulty, Len picked up the phone.

“Hello, this is Leonard Snart speaking. How may I be of service?”

The quality of the call wasn’t great. He could hear the throb of music, people talking and shrieking and laughing in the background.

Then a familiar voice said, “Snart? Is that you?”

Len’s forehead creased. “Barry?”

“Shmart. Snart.” Barry cleared his throat. “Hi. Are you okay?”

“…Peachy.” Len flicked a glance over his shoulder. The two prison guards stood watching him with folded arms and distinctly unimpressed expressions. “Can I ask if this is a business or a personal call? Because this isn’t exactly a secure line.”

“I just –” A loud, deep burp echoed down the line. “Wanted to check in n’ make sure you’re doin’ okay.”

“What?”

“Because I wanted you to know,” Barry said, his voice thick and indistinct, “that it’s okay not to be okay, you know? You shouldn’t bottle up your emotions. You gotta let ‘em out, you know? After everything you’ve been through with Lewis, I just wanted you to know that if you ever needed to talk…” He choked up, before recovering. “I’ll be here.”

“Barry, are you drunk?” Len said incredulously.

“See, there you go again, changing the subject. Have you ever noticed that you often use de… def… deflection as a way to avoid talking about difficult subjects?”

“I’m hanging up now,” said Len.

“No, no, no, no, wait! Wait!” Barry said urgently. “You need to talk about what bothers you. Don’t just bottle it up. Your emotions are a beautiful thing. Emotions are what make us–”

“Barry?” came another muffled voice on the other end of the line. “Who are you talking to?”

“No one,” Barry said immediately.

“Barry, give me the phone.”

“No.”

“Just give me the god damn –”

The sound of static and scuffles crackled down the line, and Len grimaced, lifting his head as far away from the speaker as he could to keep from being deafened. Over the commotion and the continued music blasting in the background, he could hear Barry shouting.

“You can be anything you want to be! Your past does not define you!”

“Okay,” said Len, and went to put the phone down.

“Wait!” said Barry. “Before you go, do you have a number for King Shark? Because I wanted to check in and make sure he’s doing okay. I know he looks scary, but underneath that slimy exterior he has the heart of a –”

Len rolled his eyes and hung up.

Sober Barry was a seasoned fighter, with speed, agility and hard-won experience on his side. Fortunately for Cisco, however, Drunk Barry’s combat skills comprised of slapping and some half-hearted attempts to bite, which meant that he was able to wrestle the phone away from him fairly easily. As he hung up, he glanced at the caller ID and blanched.

“Seriously? You’re making phone calls to Iron Heights? Are you gonna tell all the bad guys your secret identity too?” He held Barry’s phone up. “You know what? I’m keeping this; you clearly can’t be trusted.”

“My phone!” Barry said, and made a pathetic grab for it.

“Nope. Not happening, pal.” Cisco tucked it into his back pocket.

Barry pouted.

“Hey, don’t give me that look. I’m going to give it back later, I promise. I just need you to sober up first.”

“Okay,” Barry said sorrowfully. His bottom lip started to tremble.

“Oh, no,” Cisco said. “Not the lip – oh God, Barr, you’re breaking my heart here.”

“What’s happening?” asked Frost, returning to the table with two more beers, frost creeping down the side of the bottles. She gave a disinterested look at Barry, who was staring at the table with tears brimming in his eyes. He sniffed hard.

“Uh-oh,” said Cisco. “Six-drink Barry must be…”

SIX-DRINK BARRY: SAD BARRY

Shortly after his fifth drink, Barry loses his well-honed ability to repress and crumbles under the weight of well over a decade of trauma. In times of crisis, he can be medicated with chicken wings or, in a pinch, large servings of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Cisco turned to Frost for help, but she inched away, rapidly shaking her head. Great, thought Cisco. Super helpful. He rubbed Barry’s back tentatively.

“Hey, Barry. You doing okay there, bud?”

Barry looked up. “I just got off the phone with Snart. He’s having a really hard time, you know? I mean, some people just can’t catch a break. He had a crappy abusive drunk for a father; he practically raised his sister. In and out of juvie, never graduated high school – and in spite of all of that, he comes up with these brilliant heists – like seriously impressive – and then the Flash comes in and totally ruins every single one of them. I mean, come on. The guy’s gotta make a living somehow, am I right?”

“Uh,” said Cisco.

“I always said to him, you can do better.” He poked Cisco clumsily in the chest to emphasize each word. “You have what it takes to be a hero. So the guy joins the Legends, becomes a hero, and then he freaking dies in an explosion. Kaboom! And then he comes back, returns to Central City to start over, robs one lousy bank and gets thrown straight back in prison. How is that fair?”

“Jail time seems like a fairly reasonable consequence for grand larceny,” said Frost.

“It’s just a bad habit,” Barry said forlornly. “He deserves help and compassion, not a prison cell. Do you know what it’s like in Iron Heights? The food is terrible. My Dad spend a decade in there and he always said…”

He trailed off. For a moment Cisco thought he’d gone into a trance, as he stared down at the table, forehead slightly creased. Then he saw the haunted look in Barry’s eyes. The face of a man who had seen terrible things.

They needed a distraction. Luckily, Cisco had just the thing. “You know what?” he said. “Maybe the food in prison isn’t great, but you know what’s awesome? The food you can get delivered right here. Nice, starchy, alcohol-absorbing food. Let’s look at a take-out menu and see what we’ve got.” He pulled up JustEat on his phone. “We could get you a pizza… maybe some fries… a couple of burgers; that sounds–”

“Chicken wings,” Barry said distantly.

They both turned to look at him.

“Chicken wings?” said Frost sceptically.

“Chicken wings,” Barry insisted.

“Okay!” said Cisco. “We’ll get chicken wings.” He added one portion to the basket. Then took another look at Barry’s face and hit the plus button several times. “Lots… and lots… of chicken wings.” He locked the phone. “Okay, food should be with us in a couple of minutes. So what now?”

“More drinks!” Barry said.

“No! No more –”

It was too late; there was a crackle of lightning and then the flask slammed back down onto the tabletop.

Cisco closed his eyes in defeat.

8 Drink Barry is a Michelin-star chef

Sober Barry’s cooking is average at best, but 8 drink Barry reveals a deep inner passion for the culinary arts.

It was a little past two am when a breach opened at the top of the stairwell, pulsing and flickering with pale blue light. Frost and Cisco staggered out of it, each holding one of Barry’s arms to keep him from escaping.

“Okay, almost there,” said Cisco. “You’re doing a great job. Can you let us in?”

Barry patted himself clumsily down until he found his keys and tried to open the first lock. He kept missing the keyhole. After his third attempt, Barry sighed and collapsed forwards, head resting against the wood panelling. Then he started vibrating.

Cisco suddenly realised what he was trying to do. “No, no wait, don’t–”

There was a buzzing sensation, a sickening lurch, and then all three of them fell straight through the front door.

Frost gave a full-body shudder and released her hold on Barry’s shirt to rub her arms.

“Never do that again! It makes my skin crawl.”

“I feel like we should have a rule about phasing under the influence,” Cisco muttered.

Together, they managed to get Barry onto the couch, where he lay blinking up at them, floppy as a rag doll, barbecue sauce smeared down his chin. More of the wings had ended up on his face than in his mouth, but Cisco hoped the restorative properties would kick in soon.

“Hey, Sad Flash. How’re you holding up?”

“I’m hungry,” Barry said. He clawed his way to a standing position. “Gonna make food.” Yellow light blazed as he sprinted into the kitchen.

Frost turned to Cisco. “He’s still hungry? He had like, eight servings of chicken wings!”

“Just go with it,” Cisco muttered, and then the alarming sounds of crashes and bangs came from the kitchen. “Barry? Do you need some help in there?”

Lightning crackled erratically as Barry sped around the room. Within seconds, every available surface was strewn with culinary equipment: a chopping board; a stained knife; various ingredients. A knife flashed as he rapidly diced an onion and swept it into the pan too fast for the eye to follow, and then the burner came on with a click and a whoosh. Oil sizzled as Barry dropped a steak into the pan. He grabbed a wine bottle off the side, yanked the cork out with his teeth and spat it across the room; it missed Frost by inches, and she recoiled in disgust. Barry sniffed the wine, and after a moment of consideration, he sloshed a generous amount into the pan. Flames leapt skyward, and Barry expertly tamped them down.

“Uh… what are you doing?” said Cisco.

Barry flipped the steak with a flick of his wrist. “Cooking.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but I thought you were going to make pasta, or fries, you know – normal drunk people food, not –” Cisco inhaled. “What even is that?”

“Braised steak in a red wine sauce, with asparagus on the side,” Barry said.

“…Right,” said Cisco. “Sorry I asked.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Kamilla.

“It isn’t,” said Cisco. “It’s goddamn awesome. The problem with 8-Drink Barry is that hot on his heels is –”

9 DRINK BARRY – SLEEPY BARRY.

On the night the particle accelerator exploded, Barry went into a coma and remained unconscious for nine months. During that time, his score on the Glasgow Coma Scale was a 5. Rumour has it that nine-drink Barry scored even lower than that.

“This is the worst night out I’ve ever been on in my life, and I share a body with Caitlin. Her idea of fun is wearing hideous pyjamas and watching documentaries on Hulu,” Frost hissed.

They stood on the doorstep laden with plastic bags while Cisco searched through the assortment of keys Barry had given him, trying to find the one for the first lock. “Look,” he said, inserting one into the lock with a crunch, “I know it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, but hopefully he’ll have got the rest of it out of his system while we were out breaching to every grocery store in the city.”

“Right, because Gordon Ramsay in there had to have…” Frost slid the bottle of wine out of the grocery bag. “Whatever the hell this is. Chateau Belair Mona–whatever. As if a hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottle is going to taste any different than the fifteen-dollar fifty bottle from the liquor store.” She rolled her eyes. “What the hell is he even going to do with it?”

“To be honest, as long as he doesn’t drink it I could care less what he does with it. Just keep him distracted for long enough to get some more food inside of him and make sure any breakable objects are out of reach before he gets down to the two-drink level.” He shook the keys in frustration. “Jesus, how many keys do they have?”

“I still don’t see why we had to–” Frost paused and narrowed her eyes. She sniffed sharply. “Is something burning?”

They looked down. Thick grey smoke billowed out from underneath the kitchen door.

Seconds later, the door burst off its hinges in a cloud of icy fog.

Inside the loft was total chaos. Barry slumped at the kitchen table, dead to the world, his hand still loosely clasped around the flask of speedster booze. A small puddle of drool on the table shone in the firelight. Behind him, his frying pan lay abandoned on the range, smoking violently while flames leapt towards the ceiling.

The piercing shriek of the smoke alarm tore through the room. Frost blasted the frying pan with a thick stream of ice and cold energy crackled from her palms, barely making a difference in the temperature of the room. Cisco grabbed a damp tea towel off the side and beat at the flames, trying frantically to extinguish the blaze. Behind them, Barry didn’t so much as twitch, his snores drowned out by the alarm.

“Okay, I think I get the gist,” said Kamilla, looking up from the folder. “No-booze Barry is the way to go.” She hesitated. “But just out of morbid curiosity, what about nine-drink Barry?”

“Unchartered territory,” Cisco said darkly. “We figured eight drinks was enough.” He closed the folder conclusively. “So yeah, it sucks that Barry can’t drink with us, but with great power comes great responsibility. And sometimes responsibility means making sure your friend doesn’t accidentally break the sound barrier by doing the worm at Mach 2.”

Cisco went to slide the folder back onto the shelf. As he did so, his gaze caught a framed photo on the countertop. He paused and picked it up, smiling sadly. It was a picture of himself, Caitlin, Barry and Thawne – or Wells, as they’d believed back then – from the early days. They all looked so young, grinning at the camera, hair tousled where Barry had sped out from behind the phone before the shutter clicked. His chest ached.

Kamilla put a hand on his arm. “You’re going to miss them, aren’t you?”

“Always.” He put the photo down. “But we gotta keep moving forward. Speaking of which, it is beyond uncool to be late to your own party, so we’d better get shaking.” He held out his arm. “Ready?”

“You go,” said Kamilla. “I just have a few last-minute things to take care of. I’ll catch up.”

“Okay.” Cisco kissed her on the cheek and slipped out of the room.

Kamilla glanced over her shoulder, bit her lower lip. Then her gaze slid over to the fridge.

Tiptoeing across the room, she approached the container and input the code again. Her hair tossed as she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that no one was watching. Then she slid out a single blood red vial and tucked it into her purse.

Just in case.

#DCTVGenPrideMonth #the flash fanfiction #my fics

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robinrunsfiction · 4 years ago

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A Long Way Back - Part 1 of 2

Pairing: Gerard Way x Female Reader

Rating: General

Requested By: Anon

Word Count: ~7,900 total, ~3400 in part 1

Author’s Note: This request asked for current Gerard with a singer who is younger and to be honest, I started this request immediately when I got it, but I’ve been picking it up and putting it down on and off since then. I was inspired by His Smile Will Keep You Safe by @xxfanfiction-emo-trinityxx and I Know I’ll Lose by @sunsetinmyvein and while this story is nowhere near as long as their stories, I hope that you guys enjoy it regardless. I’ve also thrown together a playlist if you’re interested as well

“We are Garden of Woe and don’t you ever forget it! Thank you Milwaukee!” (YN) shouted as the band hit their final notes and the lights went out. The crowd was cheering and (YN) felt that addicting mix of adrenaline and exhaustion that she always felt after an amazing show.

“That show was sick!” Liam the guitarist raved and (YN) nodded enthusiastically as she took a swig from her water bottle on the way backstage.

“Hey guys, great show as usual,” their manager Clark grinned when they walked in the dressing room. “Can I get your attention for a second?”

(YN) looked at her bandmates, a look of confusion shared amongst them. “What’s going on?”

“I didn’t wanna tell you guys before the show and have yall be in your heads, but” he paused. “You’ve been asked to open for My Chemical Romance on their US reunion tour.”

(YN) thought she was about to either faint, puke, or die on the spot. “Clark don’t fuck with us.”

“I’m not fucking with you.”

“Oh my god, this is, oh my god,” Jake the drummer muttered, a far away look in his eyes as Rebecca the bass player just stood there with a shocked look on her face.

(YN) sunk down on the couch, legs unable to support her anymore. “I had just hoped to get tickets to one of those shows,” she said with an astonished laugh, holding her head in her hands.

“Well if you accept, you’re gonna be going to every show, getting paid to be there, and getting more exposure than you ever could dream of,” Clark replied.

“I think I speak for everyone when I say hell yes!” Liam exclaimed, the rest of the band agreeing instantly.

“Then it’s settled, I’ll get in touch with their management tomorrow morning and you better get ready because you’re about to go on a wild ride.”

To (YN) it felt like an instant and an eternity at the same time before Garden of Woe departed for the first stop of the MCR reunion tour. A lot of buzz had been building around their band since it was announced that they, along with Taking Back Sunday for the first half of the tour and Crystal Lake Cemetery for the second half, would be opening the shows.

“Are you so stoked Becs? Are you? Are you?!” Liam shouted, shaking Rebecca’s shoulders excitedly as their bus rolled down the highway.

“If you keep doing that I’m going to barf on you,” Rebecca snapped back.

Everyone’s nerves had been on edge since Clark had told them the news and arguments had been erupting about things like the setlist, or what their merch would look like, and the tension only seemed to grow the closer they got to the start of the tour. Rebecca wouldn't even return (YN)'s calls for a week over a debate about what they should be wearing on stage.

“Oh my god Liam, I say this with all the love in the world, but please shut the fuck up,” (YN) muttered.

Liam, with his endless energy, bounced across the tour bus to where (YN) was sitting and climbed onto her lap. “You! This is literally what you’ve been talking about since you were 16 years old! This is why we formed Garden of Woe, why we’ve been struggling and starving for a decade!”

“I know, but you’re never gonna see the stage if you keep bugging everyone like this,” (YN) retorted to her friend in her lap.

“What are you gonna say when you finally meet them?”

“Will we even meet them?” (YN) asked, trying to sound aloof. She had been trying not to think about actually meeting the band that she had been obsessed with and saved her life when she was a depressed teenager back in 2004. When she and Liam founded Garden of Woe, she modeled her stage presence on Gerard’s after watching hours of live performance videos. When My Chem announced they were getting back together back on Halloween 2019, (YN) cried tears of joy for hours and they did an extra encore of just MCR covers at their show that night.

“We’re gonna be on the road with them for two months, of course we are,” Jake replied.

(YN) groaned. “I can’t deal with this right now,” she grumbled, pushing Liam off her before climbing into her bunk.

A while later Clark was calling her name to come out as they had arrived at the first venue. “Alright, here is the itinerary: you guys have soundcheck at 5:30, doors are at 6:30, you’re on at 7:30. After your set, you should get to the main merch booth to sign things for the fans, but you can watch Taking Back Sunday and My Chem if you’d prefer. Then two hours after My Chem finishes, we load back in and it’s on to the next stop.”

(YN) glanced at her phone, it was just before 2 PM, which meant they had hours before their soundcheck. Hours to build up more nervous energy, to possibly run into My Chem or Taking Back Sunday, another band she’d looked up to for just as long.

The bus rolled to a stop and they grabbed the things they’d need for the show that night and headed inside. There were other big black busses already parked outside and roadies moving things around.

“This is real, this is really real. This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done and we’re really here,” Rebecca said, totally astonished as (YN) linked arms with her.

“I’m really trying not to think about it,” (YN) replied. Even from the back of the stadium they could hear the crowd already waiting out front. When they got to the door, they flashed their badges and were escorted to their dressing room.

“Do we just wait here? Can we go walk around? I wanna go check everything out,” Liam babbled excitedly.

“How much coffee did you drink today, dude?” (YN) asked, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice.

“None. Come on, let’s get out there and meet our tourmates! Who is with me? (YN), Jake, Becs?”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “I’m gonna try to calm down and center myself and not piss off the people who are employing us.”

“I’ll go,” Jake replied.

“Yea me too, get it over with,” (YN) mumbled. She’d met so many people touring and opening for bands she looked up to that it shouldn’t make her nervous, but Gerard, Mikey, Ray and Frank were legendary. The three bandmates started to wander the halls, peeking in doors until they heard people talking.

“Is this happening? Are we about to meet them?” (YN) looked at Liam, her heart hammering.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing her elbow and leading the way. “‘Scuse me, sorry to interrupt, but we wanted to introduce ourselves. We are Garden of Woe.”

“Hey, nice to finally meet you guys, I’m Gerard,” Gerard said, getting up to shake their hands. Jake and Liam introduced themselves like normal humans, but (YN) was screaming internally.

“I’m (YN),” she squeaked, and Gerard gave her an amused smile and she was certain her brain melted. Then all the sudden she was introducing herself to Mikey, Frank, and Ray as well and it was as if she had transcended to another plane of existence. She listened as they easily made conversation with Jake and Liam, but she couldn’t put together a coherent thought to join in.

“Are you ok?” she heard someone asking. Shaking her head to pull herself out of her thoughts, she realized it was Gerard.

“Yea, yea, thanks, just kinda overwhelmed by everything that’s going on,” she admitted.

Gerard nodded. “Yea, being back in the tour life has been kinda weird. Overwhelming, like you said.”

“For sure. And I don’t wanna seem like, I dunno, a crazed fan, but I have to tell you, I’ve been listening to you guys since I was 16 when Three Cheers came out. It got me through so much and your performance style inspired me so much and how I perform and yea. Sorry to ramble, I just had to get that off my chest, I won’t bug you about it again,” (YN) said with another shake of her head as she put her hands over her face. She didn’t know why, but tears were stinging at her eyes. “So sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he replied and he reached out and rubbed her arm. “We saw you guys performing and that’s why we asked you to come out with us. You have a lot of talent.”

“Well thank you, this is literally a dream come true,” (YN) blushed. Receiving a compliment like that from Gerard Way himself was mind blowing.

“My Chem, you’re up for soundcheck,” someone with a headset called from the doorway.

“We’ll see you around,” Gerard waved as they made their way out the door. After the band was gone (YN), Jake, and Liam stood alone in the dressing room silently for a moment.

“Holy fucking hell we just met My Chemical Romance!” Liam shrieked.

“I know!” (YN) shouted in reply, throwing her arms around her friends in a celebratory hug.

"(YN). Earth to (YN)," Liam said, pulling her from her thoughts. "You ready?"

"No, not at all," she replied and Liam could see the fear in her face. It had been a long time since he had seen her that nervous before a performance.

"You got this," he said to (YN). "We all got this, come on!"

Just then the stage lights dimmed and the crowd roared like she'd never heard before. The other three took their places on stage. "Fuck it," she muttered to herself and ran out on stage.

45 minutes later Garden of Woe was taking their bow and hurrying off stage so the roadies could switch out their equipment for Taking Back Sunday’s. The four bandmates were wrapping each other in sweaty hugs and jumping up and down, as the set had gone better than they ever could have hoped. After cleaning themselves up a bit, they went to the merch booth and signed autographs and took photos for a while, but the line cleared out again once Taking Back Sunday went on. After they finished, there wasn't much time before MCR were going to take the stage, so (YN) hurried backstage and found a crate to sit on and watch while the greatest band of their generation took the stage.

The show was absolutely awe inspiring; to watch the way Ray shredded on his guitar, the way Frank and Mikey moved around the stage, but most of all watching Gerard. He was a natural on stage, even after all this time away from it. While she had watched enough interviews on youtube to know that he was soft spoken, the way he turned that off and started to just command the stage and the crowd was incredible. What she couldn’t believe was that no one else was with her watching the show. Did they not realize what an opportunity they were missing she wondered.

"Enjoying the show?" Gerard asked when they came off stage before the encore.

"So much! You're kicking so much ass out there!" She beamed and the guys all laughed in appreciation.

Once the show was over and everyone was cleaned up, the bands all came together to celebrate a little before it was time to reboard the busses. The drinks were flowing for everyone that partook as people talked happily, but (YN) found herself without a place to sit until she decided to crash on Liam's lap.

Ray smiled as he walked over to them. “Hey, how’d the first show go?”

“Amazing!” Liam grinned.

“So amazing, but you guys, holy shit!” (YN) gushed. “I suppose when you’ve played together for so long you don’t just lose that, even after a break.”

"That’s true,” Ray nodded. “How long have you been a band?”

“About ten years,” (YN) replied. “We talked about it in high school, but neither of us could play an instrument, and life was so hard back then. We couldn’t get our shit together until after he graduated from college. It's only really been in the last few years we've been able to find some success with it.”

“So are you two together?" Ray asked, looking between the pair.

"Oh nooo," (YN) laughed. "Liam's practically my brother."

"And I'm gay," Liam interjected.

"And there's that," (YN) nodded.

“Well you guys have a real dynamic that works,” Ray shrugged. The way he treated them as if they were equals to everyone else on the tour was exactly the confidence boost (YN) needed as the tour got started.

The next few days of the tour were very much the same. Rolling into town, hurry up and wait, getting to know the guys in the other bands, and then finally getting on stage. After signing for fans, (YN) would rush backstage to watch MCR perform, and after that everyone would gather again until it was time to load back into the busses to the next town.

Each day was a little less nerve-wracking than the last and (YN) finally felt like she was coming out of her shell. She’d hoped that Rebecca would be her right-hand woman, since there were so few other women out on the tour, but Rebecca had been heading straight to the busses after the shows, instead of hanging out with everyone else.

“Do you have any idea what’s up with Becs?” (YN) asked the other two members of the band after their soundcheck.

“Nope,” Jake replied quickly before heading back behind his kit again.

“Just go talk to her,” Liam suggested.

(YN) grumbled before nodding and heading back to the dressing room. “Hey Becs!” (YN) said as chipperly as she could muster. “Are you gonna hang with us after the show tonight? I miss hanging out with you, and the guys are all super fun to talk to.”

“I dunno, maybe,” she replied, but (YN) couldn’t get a read on her mood.

“What are you gonna wear tonight? I was thinking my Mikey Fuckin Way shirt that I cropped,” (YN) said turning to their wardrobe rack.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Rebecca said before quickly turning and almost running out of the room. Moments later Liam came in.

“What the hell was that about?”

“I have no idea dude, I tried though, I really did.”

Despite the weirdness between Rebecca and the rest of the band, the show went well. (YN) again ducked out early from their signing to catch the MCR show from her favorite spot at the side of the stage. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was imagining things, but it seemed like whenever Gerard looked her way, he’d always smile just at her.

“Still enjoying the show?” Gerard asked when he came off stage before their encore.

“I’ve got years of not seeing you guys live to catch up on, I’m never gonna get sick of it,” she laughed.

Gerard nodded. “I caught your show tonight, you guys are really killin it.”

(YN) could have sworn her soul left her body for a moment. “R-really?”

“Yea, I really-”

“Gee, we’re back on,” Ray said tapping him on the shoulder.

(YN) waved him off as he went back on stage and the crowd roared again. She tried to keep from screaming herself, but for an entirely different reason.

At the end of the show, everyone convened as usual for the post-show celebration. (YN) was glad to find that Rebecca had joined the group, even if she was mostly just talking to Jake. She had meant to talk to her, but got pulled into a conversation with Adam instead.

“Ok, but can you teach me to swing the mic like you do and not kill someone?” (YN) asked with a laugh.

“Sure thing, how ‘bout after your sound check tomorrow?” Adam offered.

“Perfect, can’t wait!” (YN) grinned, but in the corner Rebecca was rolling her eyes.

From the other side of the room Mikey was trying to talk to Gerard, but he was noticeably distracted. Following his brother’s line of sight, realized Gerard was watching (YN)’s animated conversation with Adam. He bumped his shoulder into Gerard’s.

“You really are into (YN) aren’t you?” Mikey asked with a knowing smile and Gerard just shrugged dejectedly. “Why don’t you just ask her out or something?”

“I can’t,” Gerard replied.

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why? Why? What good reason do you have?” Mikey argued.

“Because I’m older than her, because I don’t want her to feel obligated to spend time with me just because we’re on this tour together. Because I’m not… I’m not the Gerard Way I used to be.”

"What the fuck does that mean?" Mikey asked sternly.

"I know I'm not a sexy rock star anymore, I'm a divorced dad with grey in his hair and," he sighed. "You know what I mean."

"Gee, you know you're in a better place now in so many ways than you were before. Stop talking yourself out of it.”

Gerard just grumbled in response. He knew his brother was right, he was better off now than he was ten years ago, worlds better than he was even longer ago than that. But he couldn’t help but worry that (YN) wouldn’t be interested in him. At least not the current version of him.

But that didn’t change how he felt about her

The next stop on the tour was Riot Fest, but Garden of Woe would not actually be opening for My Chem and Taking Back Sunday. They had been relegated to one of the smaller side stages earlier in the day. (YN) and Liam were hanging out on the curb outside their bus in the warm, mid September Chicago air when Frank and Gerard came by.

“Hey, when are you guys on today?” Frank asked.

“At 4:30, why?” Liam answered

Frank climbed in between the two and pulled out his phone. “Gerard is always talking about how awesome your show is, so I was gonna promote you guys.”

(YN) looked up at Gerard who smiled shyly. “Well Gerard, why don’t you get in on this too then,” she smiled.

“Sure,” he nodded and sat down next to her as Liam took Frank’s phone and held it out so he could get everyone in the shot.

“Hey guys, we’re at Riot Fest, and before we play tonight, you gotta go check out our friends Garden of Woe," Frank said to the camera.

“4:30 on the Riot Stage,” (YN) added, flashing a peace sign before Liam finished recording. “Thanks guys, we really appreciate it. I don’t know how many people would be stopping by our set without the promo.”

“Well they should be, like I said before, you’re amazing,” Gerard replied as (YN) looked over at him with a soft smile. Over (YN)’s shoulder, Liam and Frank were exchanging knowing looks.

Hours later the band was waiting off stage, a few minutes before they were due to go on for their set.

“Holy shit, I didn’t expect the crowd this big,” Jake said after peaking out.

“I guess Frank’s post worked,” Liam shrugged.

“What post?” Rebecca asked.

“This one,” (YN) replied, pulling out her phone and pulling up the post she’d bookmarked. She let the video play, smiling happily at the four of them on the screen.

“Look at you all cozy with My Chem, what a surprise,” Rebecca deadpanned.

(YN) shot her a confused look and was about to open her mouth when Liam interjected.

“Ha, look at these comments,” Liam said, snatching the phone away. “People are totally shipping you and Gerard, (YN).”

“Shut up, no they aren’t,” she replied, but could feel her cheeks burning red.

“Yea they are, look!” He said pointing them out. (YN) scrolled through and couldn’t help but feel honored that people would think that she and Gerard made a cute couple. She could only imagine what it’d really be like.

“Don’t we have a show to play?” Rebecca asked snidely, snapping her from her thoughts.

“Becs is right, come on let’s get ready.” (YN) nodded, putting her phone away.

The energy of the crowd was great, and the fans that were up front were actually singing along, which brought a smile to (YN)’s face. An even bigger smile crossed her face when she glanced at the side of the stage and saw Gerard and Frank were there watching the show too.

Part 2

#gerard way x reader #gerard way fan fic #gerard way fan fiction #gerard way imagine #my chemical romance fan fic #my chemical romance fan fiction

49 notes · View notes

franeridart · 5 years ago

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Anon said: I love your cartoon mice! You could make a series out of them!

I could!! I’d love to!!!!!! If you guys would be interested in me posting more of the original/cartoonish animals-and-still-life stuff I doodle I wouldn’t mind sharing at all!!!

@notanerd579 said: hey! i’ve been a fan of yours for quite a while and i’ve had your post notifs on for some time. lately i noticed how quiet you’ve been so i looked up your page, and i somehow was no longer following you? i don’t know what happened, but i wanna make sure u know in case it’s happened to any of your other followers

Answering this publicly cause it seemed like you wanted me to, thank you so much! Both for following me again and for being worried it might have happened to someone else!! I hope not ;;;;

Anon said: your iidayama fusion... love him so much

Ohhhhhhhhhhh I’m glad, I loved that one concept probably the most out of every other one!

Anon said: Ahhh i love your art style so much!!!! Thank for all the good Kiribaku stuff my dude!!!❤❤

No anon thank you!!!!! 💕💕💕

Anon said: So, I’m just wondering what makes u ship Seromina? My friend only said that their shipped because there the only last two in the Bakusquad, ( Kiribaku, Kamijirou )

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH oh, okay! Actually I have no clue if that’s why other people ship them? It might be? It might also be that them being the last two out of the group made people consider the ship and then start actually enjoy the possibility of it? I don’t know! Personally SeroMina is one of the ships I’ve been shipping the longest (I’ve been on it since before starting to like kamijirou, actually!) and one of the only three ships in bnha I have a seriously hard time breaking up and shipping around (the other two being ochadeku and bakushima) so I’m reasonably sure my ending up liking them was an independent thought process and it wasn’t guided by shipping other things? But it’s been so long that I can’t really say why I first considered them as a possibility, so who knows, really! Might be, might not!

The reason why I’m still shipping it right now is that I find them highly compatible, that their interactions in canon give me life, and that I just find them extremely visually pleasing - I think I have a very specific way of shipping them? In my head? I have this story about them, or... an ideal way in which I like to think they might happen, and it makes me very happy and makes me feel very warm and it’s just, it’s ideal? To me, the possibility of Sero and Ashido ending up together would make for an ideal lovestory and relationship, it just gives me the fuzzies haha it’s like, you know, they’re very very good friends, and to me that’s the most solid base to start a relationship, and they’re comfortable with one another which is wonderful. They’re the same type of silly and extra and rowdy which is fun, and I’m very very stuck on the fact that when Ashido was talking about her future agency she just assumed Sero would be in it - she wants him in her future??? how cute is that!! he wasn’t the only one she mentioned so I’m not saying it’s “canon proof” or whatever, I just like that out of the squad the only one she assumed would be with her in the future is Sero, it’s soft I like it. And I like how she’s by canon called bright and shining and eyecatching and Sero’s by canon called plain, I like the possibilities in that, the feelings in that, but especially I like the idea of bright shining wonderful Ashido with her love for everything romantic and always in search of her own shining love story one day looking at Sero and realizing that she doesn’t want anyone else!! because he makes her laugh! he makes her happy! he makes her feel like she’s perfect the way she is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with her loud laugh and childish sense of humor and overly-bright fashion sense, and I love love love the idea of Sero thinking her completely out of his league and never thinking anything could ever happen between them but like, not in a sad pining sort of way? more in a “she’s ideal and I know she’s out of my league so I’m not putting any thought in it but she ideal”, only for Ashido!!! to confess!!!!!!! To HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just thinking about it makes me feel all warm inside I’m talking too much okay I know I just love them So Much Hori please don’t pair them off with someone else I’ll cry a river

Anon said: Have you seen the newest BNHA chapter??

THIS WAS ABOUT THE KAMIJIROU ONE HELL YEAH I READ THE KAMIJIROU CHAPTER HOLY H E C K

Anon said: Kiribaku, am I right?

you’re So Right, anon

Anon said: first off, i LIVE for your art, it always makes me so happy to see the boys!! also i am impressed with the way you made sero's elbows look anatomically correct he is a Good boy but man is he hard to draw and u did that

THANK YOU!!!! I actually spent a whole lot of time trying to figure out a way to draw his elbows that made sense to me and most times I still struggle with it a lot but I’m super happy to hear the way I go about it makes sense to you!!

Anon said: I was just wondering if you were still into Haikyuu?

Hell yeah! Both following the new anime season and still following the manga!

Anon said: Blue, grey, cinnamon, periwinkle, mauve, blush, indigo, fuchsia, lavender, saffron, plum, sage, viridian, burgundy. Colors taken from mk-58

...............................anon I’m sorry I have no clue what this is about orz

Anon said: Hey there! I love your art so much! Would you ever consider drawing Genos from One Punch Man? He’s my friend’s favorite character and she would totally love it. If not, that’s ok whatever you’re comfortable with :)

Ahhhh I’m sorry anon but I don’t really make a habit of drawing OPM stuff ): I’m glad you like my style, though! Thank you!!

Anon said: IS THIS WHERE YOU'VE BEEN HIDING MY DEAR~?? I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR YOOOOOOOOU~~~~~~~

I also don’t know what THIS is about!!!! is this a song I’m supposed to know because I feel like it is but it’s been weeks and my brain just isn’t cooperating!!!

Anon said: Not a question but I NEED you to know that your bokuroteru tattoo au comic gave me the biggest motivation to start writing again (albeit for bnha, instead of haikyuu) because it's just sooo good!! Their interaction, the way bokuro seem confident and comfortable even tho they're actually lame dorks who blush a lot, the way teru confessed to the two guys, their kisses //// just gahhh everything about your comic gave me the dokis. You're an inspiration

I’m so so so happy to hear that oh my god!!! (TTATT) the fact that that comic can still make people feel stuff means so much to me holy heck I’m gonna cry ;;;;;;;;;;;;;; 💕💕💕💕💕💕

Anon said: CAN WE HAVE MORE AKANE?? PLEASE I LOVE THAT CHILD TO DEATH!!!! I'm new to the blog so Idk if this would be a request but...I just really want some Akane...

I do wanna draw more of her!!!!!!!!! I just don’t have any ideas at all!!!!!!! I hope inspo will come back to me soon ;; meanwhile thank you so much for being interested in my little rude bean TT^TT

Anon said: !!! i just scrolled through my dash and saw some icon set post that had a a character i didn't recognize, but the image in the middle was familiar, and i realized it was your art ;; so i 1) was proud of myself for recognizing your style immediately and 2) asked op to take the post down since there was no credit and the image was edited. hope you have a lovely day! i got your back 💞

Thank you so much for looking out for me, anon!!!!!! 💕💕💕💕 you’re the best and I appreciate you A LOT

Anon said: OH MY GOD YOU DREW GALO AND LIO I JUST WATCHED PROMARE TODAY AND I THOUGHT "THEY LOOK FAMILIAR"

I have so many more ideas for those two!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m not sure WHY I’m not drawing more, honestly!!!!! my hands lately haven’t been very cooperative orz

Anon said: Ok so Idk if I lowkey offended u with my last ask so IM SO SORRY PLEASE FORGIVE ME IT WAS A JOKE

NOT OFFENDED SORRY FOR THE WAY I WORDED THE ANSWER seriously I’m really sorry I was just kind of already beating myself up over the fact that I haven’t been posting enough so the answer ended up sounding like that because in my brain I was like yeah fran where IS the stuff!!!!! so, yeah. It was more on me than on you, I’m really sorry for that ;;

#fran answers #i kind of went off on that sero***mina ask didn't i #oops #sorry i talk a lot about the stuff im passionate about hahaha

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whats-rambled-rambled · 4 years ago

Text

Stuck in reverse - playlist

You can find it on Spotify here.

Okay, let’s talk about it!

Sam Smith – Fix you

I remember crying to the original song (by Coldplay) back in 2005. Whoo boy, lots of teenage feelings!

I’m not the biggest fan of Sam Smith’s music, but one day I was just driving home from work and this song began playing on the radio and by the end of it I could barely see the road.

// When you try your best, but you don’t succeed When you get what you want, but not what you need When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep Stuck in reverse And the tears come streaming down your face When you lose something you can’t replace When you love someone, but it goes to waste Could it be worse? //

That one line – stuck in reverse – felt just so perfect for a story set in the universe where people invert themselves back and forth.

It became one of the three main songs that inspired me to write the whole damn thing, and also the only title in the story that is not a title of a song as well.

Chapter 1: Ben Platt – Ease my mind

This is one of the songs I have on my daily playlist, I just love it, and the lyrics are so fitting:

//Most days I wake up with a pit in my chest There are thoughts that I can’t put to rest There’s a worry that I can’t place

Most nights, I am restless and quiet won’t come So I lay there and wait for the sun There’s a trouble that won’t show its face

You came out of nowhere and you cut through all the noise I make sense to the madness when I listen to your voice//

We learn more about the nightmares in the next chapters, but it all starts here. That melancholic vibe stuck with me for the rest of the story I guess.

Bonus song: Lewis Capaldi - Before you go

The combat scene in one song, or at least what I imagined was going through Reader’s mind at that point.

//I fell by the wayside like everyone else I hate you, I hate you, I hate you but I was just kidding myself Our every moment, I start to replace ‘Cause now that they’re gone, all I hear are the words that I needed to say When you hurt under the surface Like troubled water running cold Well, time can heal but this won’t//

Have you ever felt that way? Trying to hide your broken heart under anger? I don’t know, it just resonated deeply.

The second part of the song kinda seeped into the next chapter:

//Was there something I could’ve said To make your heart beat better? If only I’d have known you had a storm to weather

//Would we be better off by now If I’d have let my walls come down? Maybe, I guess we’ll never know//

Chapter 2: Kaleo - I can’t go on without you

Another song from my daily playlists (side note – I saw Kaleo once live on a music festival and they were mind-blowing, you should really check out more of their work).

It worked with the story because of its desperate and painful mood.

Bonus: Calum Scott - Dancing on my own

Holy shit, I FELT this one. (Been there, done that). Of course I had to write it into Reader’s past. Actually, I wrote it first and then found the song, but it doesn’t matter, that’s the flashback scene right here:

//Somebody said you got a new friend Does she love you better than I can? And there’s a big black sky over my town I know where you’re at, I bet she’s around And yeah, I know it’s stupid But I just gotta see it for myself I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her, I’m right over here, why can’t you see me? And I’m giving it my all //

Chapter 3: Billie Eilish – Bad guy

No feels, pure bop. This song is so BADASS, I really needed to get that vibe into the undercover mission, I didn’t want Reader to be an emotional mess and nothing else, you know?

Bonus: Tones and I – Dance Monkey

I shit you not, I’ve had that one on repeat for the dance scene. There is something incredibly seductive in that beat, I just couldn’t get it out of my head.

Bonus: Kings of Leon – Closer

It just makes my heart clench and leaves me breathless.

Chapter 4: Ben Platt – Bad habit

Ah, that was the moment when I cursed at myself for using Ease my mind for chapter 1, but we already talked about it.

Even though this song is very emotional, it’s not that heartbreaking, you can hear a faint smile here and there and it just makes my heart sing.

And oh my god, those lyrics:

//You always said that I’d come back to you again ‘Cause everybody needs a friend, it’s true Someone to quiet the voices in my head Make ‘em sing to me instead, it’s you Hate to say that I love you Hate to say that I need you Hate to say that I want you But I do Bad habit, I know But I’m needin’ you right now Can you help me out? Can I lean on you? Been one of those days Sun don’t wanna come out Can you help me out? Can I lean on you?//

They just work with that plot, you know?

Bonus: Dodie – Sick of losing soulmates

Another song that just resonates with the story.

//What a strange being you are, God knows where I would be If you hadn’t found me, sitting all alone in the dark A dumb screenshot of youth Watch how a cold broken teen Will desperately lean on a superglued human of proof

What the hell would I be, without you (what the hell would I be) Brave face talk so lightly, hide the truth (hide the truth)

'Cause I’m sick of losing soulmates, so where do we begin I can finally see, you’re as fucked up as me So how do we win?//

Chapter 5: Adele – Someone like you

The whole damn sunset scene + this song on repeat = feels

The pain in her voice? God, it just reduces me to a puddle of tears.

Reader could just sing it at some point to Neil almost word for word.

Bonus: Passenger – Let her go

Okay, the case of that one is quite funny, because I kinda needed to figure out how to get from point A to point B of the chapter, and I was browsing Spotify looking for „campfire songs” or something like that. Of course I’ve heard this one before, but I’ve never actually focused on the lyrics.

And oh boy, suddenly it all became clear.

Headcanon time – in my head, Wheeler and Neil are close friends, she treats him a bit like a younger brother, I just can imagine they know each other very well at that point. Of course she knows hows about his past. Of course she heard about Reader. And she thinks they are both silly babies and they should just kiss, right? That’s why she chooses that song.

Those lyrics – they fit Neil’s backstory so damn well.

//Only know you love her when you let her go

And you let her go//

And he was stupid enough to let her go. Because his timing was off.

Those lyrics are also perfect to make Reader think about his ex-girlfriend, because of course that is what you’re gonna it’s all about.

Bonus: Del Amitri – Tell her this

Ahh, there it is – the second out of three main songs for Stuck in Reverse.

I remember the moment I found out that Rob Pattinson sings and writes music, then I listened to some of the songs and my heart went whoooosh. So I just had to make Neil play a guitar, I just needed to find out what song would be The One.

Do you remember that flashback about them both watching a tv show on his couch? Here, you’re welcome.

I recently started rewatching Scrubs and when I got to that episode – ding, ding, ding!

This is the ultimate “hey, I fucked up, I shouldn’t have let you go, I’m an idiot and I love you.”

Chapter 6: Imagine Dragons – Next to me

I adore that song. It warms my heart. I think it fits Neil and Reader’s relationship.

And I needed all the fluffy feelings to switch the tone of the story to something lighter.

Bonus: Michelle Branch – Everywhere

This one is a silly bop, and it always puts me in a good mood. A nice song to listen to when you are happy, in love, and you are making breakfast.

Bonus: Ashlee Simpson – Pieces of me

This one (same as the one before) came to me from Zach Braff’s workout playlist, haha. I mean I almost forgot about it, but it makes me smile every time I hear it, and the lyrics work nicely:

//On a Monday I am waiting Tuesday I am fading And By Wednesday I can’t sleep Then the phone rings I hear you And the darkness is a clear view Cause you’ve come to rescue me

Fall, with you I fall so fast I can hardly catch my breath I hope it lasts

It seems like I can finally Rest my head on something real I like the way that feels It’s as if you know me better Than I ever knew myself I love how you can tell All the pieces, pieces, pieces of me//

Bonus: Kaleo – I want more

Is there such a thing as a warm melancholy? Because that is a vibe I get from that song.

//Turn back, leave all you had Forgive, I’ll forget 'Cause what we need is what we once had Time won’t stand still Just say you will 'Cause I need you there and now

If you leap, I’ll come falling too Running deep 'til that rivers through I don’t mind what you have to do 'Cause I won’t think less, less of you

Yes, I want more, more Looking for more I want more, more 'Cause I want more

Old grounds Feels like the weight has been lifted away So don’t you leave me there wanting more//

Chapter 7: Ben Platt – In case you don’t live forever

I mean it’s not my fault that Ben’s songs make me FEEL things, damn it.

The whole damn song = utter heartbreak when you think about Neil coming back to Reader before he goes back to Stalsk-12 to open that damn lock.

//I, I’ve carried this song in my mind Listen, it’s echoing in me But I haven’t helped you to hear it We, we’ve only got so much time I’m pretty sure it would kill me If you didn’t know the pieces of me are pieces of you

I’ve waited way too long to say Everything you mean to me

In case you don’t live forever, let me tell you now I love you more than you’ll ever wrap your head around In case you don’t live forever, let me tell you the truth I’m everything that I am because of you//

Bonus: Charlene Soraia – Wherever you will go

Why am I doing this to you? Because we all like pain.

This one is for the scene on the deck:

//So lately, been wondering Who will be there to take my place When I’m gone you’ll need love to light the shadows on your face If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all Then between the sand and stone, could you make it on your own

If I could, then I would I’ll go wherever you will go Way up high or down low, I’ll go wherever you will go

And maybe, I’ll find out A way to make it back someday To watch you, to guide you through the darkest of your days If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all Then I hope there’s someone out there who can bring me back to you//

Bonus: Rhys Lewis – No right to love you

No light, only pain and suffering.

//'Cause I have no right to love you When I chose to walk away I have no right to miss you When I didn’t wanna stay And I have no right to need you And I knew what my heart was gonna lose I have no right to love you But I do, I still do Yeah, I still do//

Bonus: Knox Brown x Gallant – Reignite

This song is just so incredible, it makes my palms sweat and my mind going places. Yep, it was on repeat.

Oh you know which scene this one is for.

Bonus: Freya Ridings – Lost without you

The last dialogue. On repeat. Because this song breaks my heart and leaves me a sobbing mess.

//Strangers rushin’ past Just tryna get home But you were the only Safehaven that I’ve known Hits me at full speed Feel like I can’t breathe And nobody knows This pain inside me My world is crumbling I should never Let you go I think I’m lost without you//

(OI, SPOILERS)

Chapter 8: Florence + The Machine – Never let me go

I have only one thing to say:

Fuck you, Nolan.

Third out of three.

//And it’s over and I’m going under

But I’m not giving up I’m just giving in

Oh, slipping underneath So cold and so sweet

In the arms of the ocean, so sweet and so cold And all this devotion, well, I never knew at all And the questions I have for a sinner released In the arms of the ocean deliver me

(Never let me go, never let me go Never let me go, never let me go)//

Bonus: Sasha Sloan - Dancing with your ghost

Suffer with me.

//Yelling at the sky Screaming at the world Baby, why’d you go away? I’m still your girl Holding on too tight Head up in the clouds Heaven only knows Where you are now

How do I love How do I love again? How do I trust How do I trust again?

I stay up all night Tell myself I’m alright Baby, you’re just harder to see than most I put the record on Wait 'til I hear our song Every night I’m dancing with your ghost Every night I’m dancing with your ghost//

#stuck in reverse playlist #stuck in reverse #bts stuck in reverse #im gonna make yall suffer with me

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writers-hes · 5 years ago

Text

christmas record.

hello! thank you so much for reading cherry, falling, and late christmas. if you haven’t read them yet, you could do so by clicking the link here.

if you want to be a part of my taglist, you can do so by clicking this link.

this is a fluffy christmas fic and even though christmas is done, i hope you enjoy it! this is my longest fic yet, with 6785 words! how cool is that? anyways, read and enjoy! send me feed back and requests, i really appreciate them :)

HAPPY 100+ FOLLOWERS I LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!

warning: unedited ! i was rushing to post this before christmas but i’ll be going over my fics soon to edit everything. thank you!

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

you were a photographer. you liked going to free shows around town, taking pictures of everyone in it. you liked how music swayed them and made them live in the moment. photography was your way of immortalising that fleeting moment. still, you weren’t as successful as other photographers to make it as your main source of income and that was okay. as long as you get to share your art with an audience, you knew you were doing something. you were on a break from your shift at baskin robbins when your phone notified that you just received a message.

helenepamburn.photography: Hello i just want to say i absolutely love your work!!

your phone read. helene pemburn was a photographer you’ve never heard of before. you decided to look at her instagram and check out her work and damn, it is amazing. it seems as though her muse was harry styles, your best friend’s favourite male artist. you have listened to his songs before, even downloaded his first album and he was good.

35mmdiary: oh my god!! thank you so much. i love yours too!! portrait is something that i’m not entirely good at :-)

helenepamburn.photography: Im helene, by the way ! What camera set-up do you usually use? 35mmdiary: hi, helene!! i’m y/n. i usually just use a minolta xg-1 camera and i switch up on the lenses…i’m more of a film photographer than a digital one… helenepamburn.photography: Ah! so you don’t use dlsr cameras?? 😮

35mmdiary: i do but i just take whatever photo and then edit it on lightroom…with my old presets hehehe

35mmdiary: oh im sorry i have to go i have to finish my shift!!

 the conversation ended at that at first but weeks into it and you found yourself really enjoying talking to helene. she became an instant friend, exchanging tips and tricks on photography. she would even talk about how it was touring with harry and etcetera. you wanted to meet each other soon but it was hard, seeing as your finals was right around the corner and harry releasing his new album.

———

“helene, who are you talking to? you’ve been on that phone for so long!” jeff azzof asked. it wasn’t unlike helene to type away at her phone 24/7. she was usually in her corner, editing harry’s photos for the world to see. “y/n,” she muttered. “who?”  “i found her on instagram and she really has amazing shots! look,” helene said, showing your instagram to jeff. “and this is all film! no editing,” she praised. “oh wow, she is good,” jeff commended. “yeah, well…about that. i think i’m gonna take a break from work first,” helene started. jeff looked at her quizzically. “i know harry’s about to release his album and there’s the thing at the forum and etcetera but i think y/n is gonna be a good replacement, no?”  “does harry know?” he asked. he was a little concerned that helene’s leave was a little sudden. sure, she’s been working hard, always going where harry was and taking photographs of him but still, it was abdrupt and it wasn’t quite what he was expecting. “ah, no not yet. i was hoping you could talk to him about it?” she shyly asked. harry’s been a ball of stress lately and helene knew that if something out of the schedule were to happen, harry would freak. “helene…” jeff warned. helene looked at him, practically begging him to go tell harry. jeff only sighed and nodded. “thank you!” she gushed. “i owe you one, big time,”

———

it was almost the holiday break, and you can already feel the christmas in l.a.—it’s not snowing, particularly and it’s not as iconic as new york christmas but you can already see christmas lights hanging downtown and at the grove. starbucks already released their holiday drinks and their holiday cups. you were finishing your last paper for the term, ready to finally get back to photography. you finished ahead of everyone else in class and begged some of your professors to let you take some quizzes and tests in advance. perhaps you were lucky this christmas because they allowed you to and you passed your term with good grades.

helenepemburn.photography: y/n I have a question to ask… 35mmdiary: sure what is it??

helenepemburn.photography: Are you done with classes? The semester?? 35mmdiary: yeah why?? helenepemburn.photography: How would you feel about replacing me as a photographer??? Im about to go on a break and I want you to be my fill-in??? You will be paid the same fee as I do during those days too

35mmdiary: What??? are you sure?? helenepemburn.photography: Yes!! The team will be in l.a. next week for a couple of interviews and etc so would be able to meet you and show you the ropes and hang out!!

35mmdiary: sure!! send me the details…i’m free until christmas anyway :)

helenepemburn.photography: See you then !! Im so excited to finally meet you !!

———

it’s been a few days and your best friend was absolutely ecstatic to know that you were harry styles’ photographer for a few weeks. you’ve been thinking about backing out but from your conversations with helene, it seems like she was really craving for a short break. she told you about going to japan and malibu with harry to take behind the scenes photographs. she loved it, of course but she was getting drained. besides, you will be paid a good amount of money for your services, unlike some of the previous bands who told you that you will have a shoutout for the ‘free’ photos you would give them. artists who don’t support artists suck, don’t they?

“i can’t believe! harry fucking styles!” your best friend, gina, exclaims. she was a harrie, the biggest one you’ve seen. she went to the forum, the closing venue for his first solo world tour, bought merch, and runs a fan account on twitter. “shh! keep it down, gina! it’s just a temporary job. i just took it as a favour to helene and also because it pays well. i can pay a little more to my college debt,” you muttered. “still! once you’re on tour with him, don’t you ever forget me,” she fake cries. “i just want a video greeting for harry, okay? like the one that i got you when i met adore delano,” she told you. you nodded and she squealed, jumpy in her seat because she was about to receive a personalised video from harry styles.

———

helenepamburn.photography: Im free right now if you want to meet up!! Im in la and i forgot how much i hated la traffic ://

35mmdiary: sure! where do you wanna meet? helenepamburn.photography: Harry rented an airbnb for all of us in beverly hills…would you like to meet in a coffee shop near it?? Im really craving for american starbucks right now 35mmdiary: sure! i’ll meet you there at 2:30? helenpamburn.photography: Ok and then we can go to the airbnb to meet up with jeff so he could walk you through the details sound good? 35mmdiary: okay…i’ll see you in a bit! be safe !  

you immediately went inside your shower to take a bath. you were finally meeting helene! you didn’t know who jeff was but you decided to dress a little nicer today just in case this jeff guy was a little strict. opting for minimal make up, your favourite floral pants, white shirt, and your boots, you decided to head out with your iPad and film camera to show helene some of your photos.

it’s almost 2:30 when you arrived at the coffee shop. helene was already there, waving at you excitedly. you smiled and jogged up to her. “helene!” you called as she greeted you with a hug. “y/n! i’m so happy i get to finally meet you!” she laughs. “i hope it’s alright, i already ordered for you,” she says. “oh! thank you. how much was it? i’ll pa—“ “don’t be silly now! it’s okay, you don’t have to worry about it. now, tell me, how have you been?” she asked. you chuckled. “i’m good! i finished all my papers early to focus a little bit on my photography,” you tell her. “college is really sucking the life out of me! i worked part time in baskin robbins too so the stress is just too much,” you grumbled. “ah, well, i promise photographing harry isn’t that stressful. he’s quite chill with whatever you present him as long as it’s in black and white,” she joked. “kidding aside, harry’s whole crew is kind. very approachable and very good people,” she informed you. her words brought comfort over you as you were worrying about how they would treat a newbie. “i’m just really taking a break because i’m so tired! besides, my best friend will get married on christmas and i wanted to be there and take some pictures,” she says.

“you did mention that you like wedding photographs too,” you told her. “i love them! they’re so fun and the vibe is so different. i’m a bridesmaid so i just have to be there, you know? i’m wearing a really cute dress too! here, i’ll show you,” she gushed. she took out her phone and opened the picture. it was a great dress. it was a long peach dress and helene said that all the bridesmaids had dresses inspired by the colours of the sunset. “that’s so cool! i wanna get married someday but then again, not really,” you shared. helene nodded at that. you both spent the afternoon together, walking around beverly hills and just talking.

“hey, let’s go back to the airbnb so i can introduce you to everyone!” she gushed. she booked an uber and then immediately dragged you to the car. you loved how chatty and enthusiastic she was, basically telling you her life story and her friend’s life story in just a few hours. you rode the car once it arrived and it zoomed past the fancy beverly hills neighbourhood. it was a few minutes after when you arrived at a big house. “we’re here! i’m so excited for you to meet jeff, mitch, sara, claire, and everyone else!” she squealed. she beat you into paying for the fare and then dragged you again to the main, where she knocked and cursed at jeff for not opening the door immediately in french.

“fuck’s sake, helene! hold on!” a man called from the inside. “that’s jeff, he’s the oldest in this house but doesn’t seem like it,” she snickered. you were about to reply to helene when a friendly-looking man opened the door. he was scowling at helene, a facial expression she only chuckled at. “hello, jeff! this is y/n, y/n, this is jeff,” she introduced. “hi, it’s nice to meet you,” you told jeff. “same here,” he brushed off. “come in, enter,” he said cooly. you frowned, helene said that they were nice people but jeff seems so intimidating. “give the poor girl a break, jeffrey!” helene said. she guided you to the living room and made you sit on the the couch. “so, i take you’re helene’s replacement while she’s away?” he asked.

“uh—yeah,” you replied, picking on the loose thread of your white shirt. he chuckled at your nervousness. “you dress like harry,” “sorry?” you asked. helene laughed, noticing how similar you dressed with the star. “she does! i just noticed that!” your friend exclaimed.

“anyways, i’ll be fetching some papers and documents you have to sign. harry’s a big star after all, we can’t trust everyone,” he said before going to god-knows-where. “i’m sorry! he’s not really like that. it’s just that many people before you came here with me as an intern or something but they always end up leaking photos, putting harry in trouble and all that,” helene apologised. “oh, i totally understand. it’s no problem,” you reassured. you were fumbling on your shirt, once more, when jeff arrived. “here,” he put the folder on the coffee table. “read the document over and sign it if you agree, of course…it’s just about harry’s privacy and all that,” he said. “call me when you’re don, i’ll just make us a drink,” he left the room again and probably into the kitchen. you read over the document a few times before signing on the required pages. it was basically concerned with harry’s privacy and how you couldn’t sell harry’s photographs to the tabloids. helene was there with you to explain the whole contract and how the ropes would work.

“she’s done, jeff!” she called. jeff emerged from the kitchen with a tray of iced coffee and some fruits. he laid the tray down on the table gently and took the folder from your grasp. you watched as he made sure that you signed all of the pages on the papers and smiled. “welcome to the team!” he suddenly beamed.

“thanks,” you smiled at him.

“i’m sorry for being rude earlier. it’s just that some photographers and ‘newbies’ take this job for granted. so, anyway,” he coughed. “help yourself to some coffee and tell me about yourself,”

“well, uh—i’m y/n y/l/n. 21 years old and i’m currently taking up business ad. i really love photography but my parents aren’t really set on supporting me have it as my profession in the future. i, uh, also take photographs of artists in free shows but i mostly do film, if that’s okay? harry’s photos will be developed after four hours if we’re here in l.a. but probably more than that if we’re not here, which i’m assuming won’t happen? i have a friend from one of my electives who knows how to develop film,” you told him.

“it’s worth the wait, jeff! do you have some photos, y/n?” helene interjected. you nodded and took out your iPad.

“uh, you can just swipe through the images of the scenes and people i took,” you told him, opening the photos app and into your digital portfolio. you handed jeff the ipad and waited anxiously. “wow, these are good. helene actually showed me your instagram already and i’m impressed. now, we will give you some money for the films and the development process when you start working, which is tomorrow—“

“ah, it’s okay. the salary is enough to cover for everything,” you reassured. “no, no. i insist. helene also had the same budget. besides, you’re doing us a favour for agreeing to this job instantly,” he said. you nodded shyly. “anyways, you could stay here in the house or something since helene will leave the day after but that’s your choice, completely.” he said. “i’ll just stay in my apartment,” you told him. he nodded and looked at the time. “well, dinner’s about to start. i suggest you attend so you could meet everyone,” he smiled. you nodded, not really wanting to piss your new boss. “i’m sure everyone’s excited to meet the baby of the team,” he chuckled.

“ah! i’m so excited for you to meet claire and sara. you’re gonna love them!” helene squealed. “wait here, okay? i’ll just change into my pyjamas,” she said. you nodded and watched her leave the living room, leaving you alone with jeff.

“so, where did you grow up?” he asked. “i actually grew up here in california and then moved here in l.a. for my studies,” you informed him.

“that’s great,” he nodded. “let’s just wait for everyone else to come,” he said. you nodded and spent the following minutes chatting with helene and jeff. he may have been intimidating at first but he was a pretty chill guy. you liked his humour and immediately clicked once helene told him about the time some bands were lowballing you with a shoutout, to which jeff told you you should be charging more for your shots. it was nearing eight when two girls barged in the door, bringing some takeout.

“sara, claire!” jeff greeted. “this is y/n, the newest baby of our team,” he said. you waved at them shyly.

“she dresses like harry,” sara observed. “that’s what i thought so too!” jeff chuckled. he took the paper bags from the girls. “i’ll just fix this up in the kitchen while your girls chat,” he said while going back to the kitchen. “jeff is such a dad to all of us,” sara said once she sat in front of you with claire. “yeah, it’s nice knowing that there’s parental love going around here or it would be such a mess! mitch is the slobbiest person ever while sara here, hates his mess!” claire said. “so, how did you know helene was about to leave?” she asked. she wasn’t asking in an intruding way, she was just curious.

“well, helene and i are ‘internet friends’,” you told them. “i’m a photographer and i mostly use film. it was her who told me to come fill-in for her while she was away,”

“wait, youre 35mmdiary?” sara asked. you nodded. “she’s been raving about your work and harry seemed to like it too! i follow you on social media!”

“me too! i love your work! so, so good,” claire added.

“thanks, guys! that really means a lot to me,” you said. you took a mental note to follow them back once you go back home.

“where are the guys, anyway?” helene asked. “we couldn’t start dinner without them,”

“mitch told me he was with harry, buying some chinese food. they’re on their way back, though.” sara said.

“oh well, let’s just wait for them to come back,” helene said. you girls nodded and chatted for a bit until eighteen minutes later, the door opened, revealing the harry styles himself and mitch.

“i told you, haz! you should’ve bought soup dumplings instead of the fried ones,” a guy with long hair complained.

“but there might be holes in the dumplings and all the soup would fall out. fried dumplings are the safe option, honestly,”

“guys—“

“sarah, tell harry that soup dumplings are better that fried o—“ he stopped, just realising that there was another person in the house. “hello, who are you?” he asked, utterly confused.

“i’m the photographer filling in for helene while she’s away,” you spoke. “ah, well in that case, hello! my name is mitch,” he said. when he noticed that harry wasn’t speaking soon, he spoke again. “this is harry and that over there is adam,” “oh yeah, i know. hi, harry,” you shyly waved at him. you also waved a greeting to adam to which he returned. harry gave you a tight-lipped smile. you always imagined this moment to be somewhat chill but right now, your cheeks were absolutely burning because of how beautiful he was. pictures didn’t do him justice, no offense to helene but it was the reality. “i’m y/n,” you added.

“hi, y/n. i’m harry but mitch already beat me to it,” he muttered. mitch only laughed and told him to go to jeff so he could set up the table.

“she kinda dresses like you, no?” mitch commented once he thought they were out of earshot.

it was less than ten minutes when jeff called you girls to go to the dining room. you were sat beside helene and in front of harry, who seemed to look everywhere but you.

“well, this was supposed to be a simple dinner but it isn’t. let’s welcome y/n into the family and bid farewell to helene,” jeff started. “everyone say ‘welcome to the family, y/n’!” there was a chorus of welcomes around the table and you only managed to mutter a shy ‘thank you’ to everyone.

“so, how did you know helene?” mitch asked. “oh we met through the internet,” you replied. “she messaged me about my work and then i looked at her profile a bit and decided that i loved he work too,”

“we’ve known each other for months but only met today, actually.” helene said. “huh, i would’ve thought that you knew each other for years but then again, helene has always been the noisy one,” adam commented.

“you’re just as noisy as i am! i cant believe this is how you treat me on my last day until i come back,” helene faked sobbed.

“let’s jusy eat dinner, yeah? poor y/n must’ve been so tired and hungry from all the talk you’ve been drilling into her,” adam said. everyone nodded and took their food. you shyly opened your chinese take-out box.

“y/n, i’m sorry if this is rude but i haven’t seen any of your work before,” mitch suddenly said.

“i’m not really a big photographer,” you started. “honestly, i just go to free shows and then offer my services for a cheaper price,”

“you should definitely see her work, babe. so, so, good! she does film and that’s like, super hard,” sarah added. babe? “y/n, show him your ipad so they’ll believe me!”

“alright...” you nodded and fished for your ipad, opening the album that contained your beat shots so far. you handed it to mitch. you stared at him for any reactions and was glad to see him focus on your pictures, zooming in on some of them.

“these aren’t filters? damn, you’re good. yo, look at this, adam! isn’t this the band you’ve been listening to on soundcloud?” mitch asked, showing adam your photograph of the vocalist of peach pit. adam looks over and gapes.

“y/n, this is so good! what’s your username on insta? i’ll give you a follow!”

“it’s 35mmdiary! i’ve been showing you gus her work for months now,” helene grumbled.

the dinner started and ended like that, with friendly banter from what seems to be a loving environment. jeff was definitely the father of the group. you liked everyone but harry. he hasn’t talked to you all night, just stealing some glances at your direction. helene booked you an uber and told you to text her once you’re home. you nodded and bid her good bye before riding into the car.

———

“harry, what do you think of y/n?” jeff asked once you left.

“pretty cool girl, yeah?” he commented.

“you barely looked at her! she’s quite lovely,” claire added.

“probably because he finds her cute or something,” mitch teased. “always does that! playing hard to get but really, what is there to get?”

“shut up, mitch,” he blushed. it was true. harry did sort of find tou attractive. you were so kind to everyone, taking their compliments gracefully. you got along so well with the other members and he wanted to talk to you but adam and helene hogged the conversation. perhaps he should talk to you alone, sometime?

“okay so, christmas is coming soon and once again, we will be needing to have our secret santa!” sarah said, changing the subject as harry looked like a poor fish gaping.

“should we include y/n?” adam asked.

“of course! she’s a part of our family now, even if it’s temporarily,” helene said.

“yeah and we should take you out instead...” harry teased.

“hey! that’s not nice,”

“well, she’ll be coming in tomorrow and basically everyday to accompany harry on photoshoots and to get some shots as well. we could talk to her about it tomorrow,” jeff informed. everybody nodded at that.

“gotta go back to my room, m’tired from today,” harry yawned. everybody said good night as he left tahe living room.

———

unknown to them, harry was actually looking theough your instagram. he decided to follow you once he reached his assigned room. everybody was right, you are good. he was so excited to have you as a part of the team.

harrystyles: Nice meeting you today, y/n. x

35mmdiary: hi hi!! it was nice meeting you today too :-)

harrystyles: Your works are lovely. I’m so excited to see more of your work.

35mmdiary: thanks ! i hope you like what you see so far. thanks for hiring me by the way

harrystyles: It’s quite alright! I loved what Helene showed me. I tried to get into film photography but it never worked out. So hard to figure out the settings. :(

35mmdiary: i actually started with dispposable cameras! they really helped me know what i like! i could teach you some of the stuff i know if you like. im not a pro or anything but i think there’s a few things i could teach you?

harrystyles: That sounds great! When are we doing it?

harrystyles: Can we do it tomorrow? I’m free tomorrow.

harrystyles: Only if it’s okay with you. :)

35mmdiary: yes of course ! i could meet you in the house tomorrow morning ?

harrystyles: No, it’s okay. I’ll just have someone pick you up just send me your address. I’m not a serial killer, I promise.

you gave harry your address and your number, just in case he needed it. that night, you looked for your spare disposable films while harry told jeff that you would be accompanying him tomorrow. jeff only teased harry but allowed it anyway.

———

“good morning!” you chirped as you entered the black range rover. harry smiled at you. the driver at the driver’s seat nodded at you.

“good morning, love. i got you breakfast, if it’s okay. if you don’t like it i could eat it and we could go somewhere else for breakfast,” harry rambled, offering you a brown bag. you looked into it and saw a ham and cheese croissant—your favourite sandwich.

“this will do just fine. this is my favourite sandwich,” you said as you dug into the bag to get your sandwich. “would you like some? we could share if you like,” you offered. harry shook his head no, telling you that he already ate the same sadnwich as you did.

“by the way,” you started as you swallowed the pastry. “i got some disposable cameras that you could use in my bag,”

“you shouldn’t have...” harry pouted. “i basically hogged your whole day and now you’re giving me stuff too?”

“it’s okay. i wanted to. as long as we end just in time for me and helene to say goodbye to each other,” you smiled.

“lunch is on me then! i know this place near santa monica that served the best chicken wings!” he declared. you chuckled at his etermination to get even with you. “what are we doing today, by the way?”

“well, i was thinking we could go on a classic photowalk. it’s basically just us walking and taking photos of the things we like,” you told him. “i was thinking we could take photos downtown...” you trailed off, not realizing that the paparazzi might see harry. “or somewhere else you like so we could avoid the paparazzi,”

“we’ll go downtown then!” he said, not really caring about tomorrow’s tabloids. harry liked your presence. for some reason, it made him feel at ease. he didn’t care if you’d be labelled as harry’s girlfriend tomorrow. he just wanted to have a nice afternoon walking around and taking photos that he like.

“well, for me, it’s the perfect place. if you’re into portraits, you could photograph people! if you’re into sceneries, you could do that too,” you gushed as you finished the last of your croissant. “i like sceneries and candids a lot. taking portraits is something that i’m not really good at,”

“at least you know something! i’m such a beginner,” he admitted. “drop us off here, please, thank you.” harry told the driver. the driver nodded and stopped the car. harry immediately went out, dragging tou by the hand to hide from onlookers. it’s not like he didn’t want to meet fans, he did. it was just that he’d rather be unnoticed when dealing with private matters, such as spending time with a girl whom he finds cute to gain some brownie points. he led you to an empty alley.

“you alright?” he asked. you nodded and fished out for the cameras in your bag.

“harry? here are the cameras. there are 36 shots per camera and because i brought you theee, you could do more than a hunderd. just give them back to me after you use it so i could have my friend develop them,” you breathed.

“thank you so much, y/n! you didn’t have to because i also have my own camera. just don’t know how to adjust it,” he frowned, looking down at the expensive camera hanging on his chest.

“i could take a look at it, if you like,” you offered. harry beamed at you and nodded rapidly. that day, you spent the afternoon taking photos of people living their daily lives. it was such a great day, walking downtown with cameras at hand. the day consisted of you and him talking about the most embarrassing stories you could think of when you were younger. he told you about the many times he fell onstage during his concerts, to which you laughed at, saying that you tripped on a wire once when you were photographing a gig for a local band. onlookers wouldn’t think that you were strangers at all but you didn’t mind.

that night, at the beverly hills mansion, you and the team huddled together to pick names for the small exchange gift. you left the house with a smile on your face a few hours after, really loving the group.

“alright, who picked y/n?” harry asked as soon as he walked back in from waiting outside until you left.

“why?” mitch asked. “well--” “he obviously likes her, dumbass,” adam said.

“you just met twice why would you like her immediately?” mitch asked again, clearly missing out on something. “she’s really a nice girl. besides, what’s wrong with finding her cute?” harry asked, clearly giddy about the day he spent with you. “she’s so cute especially when i told her earlier that she looked good in what she was wearing! then, she gave me these disposable cameras,” he added, showing off the cameras hanging on his wrist. “i really wanna get her something for christmas but i think it’s a little straightforward to just give her one, no?”

“what would you do for you to get her name?” sarah asked. “i’ll pay you a hundred dollars and treat you and a friend to a nice dinner,”

“i got her,” jeff said, giving the paper to harry and harry giving another piece with a different name on it. he gave jeff 300 dollars for the dinner and the monetary gift and said thank you. he smiled with his dimples showing and retired to bed.

“he’s whipped,” mitch mouthed to sarah. sarah only nodded, really finding it cute how harry found y/n cute.

-------

you’ve been photographing harry and his band for so many days now, rarely even having the time to clean your apartment, which was fine. it was always clean, only feeling like it wasn’t because harry was at your place, going over the photographs that he would be posting on his social media. you told him that you could come by the house in beverly hills but he told you to just stay at home so it would be safer. you didn’t protest but you did stress clean for a little bit.

“i really like this photo,” he pointed at your laptop. “i think mum would really like this, yeah?”

you nodded. it wasn’t your best shot but so far, it looked like it was harry’s favourite image of himself. you were done for the night and you were tired but you didn’t want harry to leave yet. you were enjoying his company and it seems as though he was feeling the same when he decided to open a new conversation.

“so, who did you pick for secret santa?” he asked as you opened your spotify christmas playlist and played it softly on the bluetooth speaker on the coffee table. “i can��t tell you that! it would ruin the whole thing,” you replied. you were perched on your couch, facing harry.

“why not? it’s not like you got me, unless you did…” he teased.

“maybe, maybe not,” you shrugged. harry pouted but started to hum to the christmas music anyway before sipping on his hot cocoa. “you know what i would love from you?”

“what?” he asked. he’s been tearing his hair for a perfect gift for you but nothing really came up. he wanted to get you a film camera but that would be too basic. “a christmas record from you! your voice is so good,” you gushed. “it would sound so great and i’m sure you’d sing christmas classics like the one paul mccartney sang,” you mused, clearly unaware of what was going through harry’s head. he finally found a perfect gift for you. “if you ever release a christmas album, hit me up immediately! i’d stream and buy the hell out of it. i’ll even wear your christmas merch,”

--------

“everyone shut up! i’m gonna record something in my room, don’t bother me,” harry breathed as soon as he arrived in the rented home. everyone’s eyebrows shot forward. they were huddled in the living room, playing uno. “okay, i’m sorry just don’t make too much noise!” he apologised. he ran to his assigned room after that, locking his door and taking out his guitar. clueless as to where he would start off, he decided to text helene.

harry styles: Helene!

Helene.: Harry !

harry styles: Do you know y/n’s favourite Christmas songs?

Helene: Not really but she’d be into classics dont you think?? Why ??

harry styles: I kinda got her for secret Santa and I don’t know what to give.

harry styles: Do you really think she’d be into the classics? Helene: Yes now stop talking to me i have to attend the dinner rehearsals why do you have to rehearse for dinner?

that night, harry set up his personal microphone, a device that he could just slip into his laptop’s usb, and sang at least three songs that he would sing with gemma whenever he was home for the holidays.

-------

it was after harry’s successful live show at the forum. you were busy capturing every moment of the tour with your camera. gina, your best friend was in the crowd too. it was your early christmas gift for her, along with a personalised video from harry like you promised. she squealed and hug you for being the ‘best best friend ever’. you laughed and received her hugs with joy. you were supposed to have a small staff-only after show party but decided not to come. you were tired and all you wanted was sleep. you told jeff about it and he nodded, hugging you and asking you if it was okay if you left alone. you nodded and wished him a good party. that night, you went home to your apartment, looking over the new photos that your friend e-mailed you so you could show them to harry the next time you see him. you took note of the pictures you liked alot.

“where’s y/n?” harry asked as soon as he greeted everyone. “oh, she left! said she felt tired and just wanted to sleep,” jeff shouted over the loud music and the loud people. the party became bigger as staff invited friends and family to come over. harry didn’t mind, he liked crowds. harry nodded at jeff, a little disappointed because he was hoping to get to you. he would be leaving for london next week for another live show and he was sure that you wouldn’t be able to come. the live show at the forum was supposed to be the big ending for the celebration of harry’s album in america. if he wouldn’t be able to see you now, he wouldn’t see you at all, probably.

--------

it was nearing 1 am when your doorbell rang. being a light sleeper, you woke up from your slumber in the couch. you must’ve fallen to sleep while finalising images you wanted to show harry next day. you fixed the coffee table a little bit then begrudgingly walking to the door, only to reveal the man who’s been keeping you busy.

“hi, y/n. may i come in?” harry asked. you nodded and opened the door wider, the cold from your air conditioning unit greeting harry.

“what are you doing here?” you asked as you and your guest settled on your couch. “well, i was at the party and i noticed you were gone so, i decided to come by. i’m sorry if it was so sudden it’s just that, i picked you for secret santa and i wanted to give you my gift before i leave for london next week,” he rambled. he the handed you a pretty christmas box.

“thank you, harry. what about your party?” you asked. “it’s fine, they’re fine. i just wanted to be here with you more.” he smiled. “go on, open it!”

you opened the box that revealed a red sweater.

“you said you wanted christmas merch, right? that you would wear it?” he asked. you nodded and unfolded the sweater to reveal a ‘harry’ sweatshirt in red. it was the one that gina wanted for so long but in the colour pink. harry’s name was embroidered on the soft red sweater in white, and his motto ‘treat people with kindness’ was embroidered on one of the sleeves in red.

“i picked out the colours and i hope you like it! it’s not from the same manufacturer but i figured you would like it,” he said. you looked deeper into the box to find a cd and a flashdrive. the cd cover was you and harry, a selfie he took using his phone when you were out having a photowalk. “you said you wanted a christmas record and here it is,” he said. you were smiling widely and thanking harry for the thoughtful gifts he got you. “i, uh, you have to listen to the songs and text me if you liked them, alright? text me as soon as you finish it.i have to go back to the party and entertain but i’d really love to hear your thoughts on the record, okay?” he asked, standing up from his seat and kissing your forehead. you nodded and watched him go outside your door, too overwhelmed with his thoughtful gift. you inserted the flashdrive in your laptop’s usb and clicked on track 1.

track 1 was harry’s rendition for paul mccartney’s wonderful christmas time--your favourite christmas song. you casually mentioned it to him once but didn’t think that he would remember. there were 8 tracks in the flashdrive, harry’s voice and guitar playing filling your apartment. you were wearing the sweater he gave you, feeling giddy at the gifts he gave you. you just finished track 7 and waited for track 8 to play when harry’s talking voice was heard from the speakers.

“hi, y/n,” he started. “well, i hope you like my gifts for you. the truth is, jeff was actually the one who picked you and i picked claire but i bribed him so i could give you this gift. truth be told, i like you. like, i’m crushing on you and if you feel the same way, i’m waiting in the parking lot. i just wanted to say this and was wondering if you wanted to go out on a date before i go back to london for the show and the holidays. wow this feels like a goddamn movie and i sort of like it. i hope you really love my gifts. i’m waiting outs--” you stopped the audio and immediately ran to the door, opening it. it revealed harry who was sitting beside the door, waiting anxiously. once he heard you go out, he stood up and smiled at you.

“silly boy! of course i’d go out on a date with you,” you said as you hugged him. he was chuckling, thanking the heavens for giving hime a wonderful christmas.

“what about when i’m in london? how would we talk then?” he asked. “we’ll make it work, yeah? see how it plays out,” you said. you felt him put his chin on the top of your head after kissing it.

it was the perfect ending to a perfect night and as the christmas lights surround you with your wreath hung on your door, you both wished for this christmas miracle to last.

-----

im soff

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