#i think about the boys (gn) and their stupid little grand siesta apartment i love them somuch

[thehallstara]

hi tumblr i’m doing that thing again where i throw part of this wip on here bc i’m having a moment with it so uhhhh enjoy about 800 unedited words about edric declan and baby (cw for like. implied toxic relationship) (that’s maybe the best way to put it idk)

You meet Declan at 20 years old, him about 3 years your senior. You’ve already been with the Firestarters for about a year strong at that point, eager to prove your worth. When Tyreek asks you to bring him on a call, it’s not even a question, just a scramble for approval. They’re cocky at best and cruel at worst and you know in an instant they could destroy you if you let them.

That’s how you find yourself teetering on the edge of something rotten at the cusp of a new era. You and Morrow are rocky at best these days, petty jabs and broken kisses and not much else in between. You’re bitter that they chose a Charleston far away, and they’re bitter that you didn’t choose theirs and so instead you try and summon the dredges of a broken future.

Declan is jealous and Declan is self-assured in a way you’ll never be and Declan laughs as the crowds cheer his names till it’s almost cataclysmic. It’s heated kisses with backs against locker room walls, and bitter, bitter fights, and it’s expertly aimed jabs you both know will hit, verbal sparring matches that leave your mouth with the taste of tears and acid. The peanut only makes them even more unbearable.

It’s a relief when you switch.

The Declan of Chicago is kind, and misguided, and a bit too much of a mess, but he quickly becomes one of your only friends. Once you get past the bravado, you can see what your former self saw in him, puppy-dog eyes and an eager smile and an overflowing heart that makes up for the mistakes of it all, at least for you. The rest of the team has a harder time with him, but to you it’s such a refreshing difference that you can’t help but love him, even just a little.

You let 12 runs in your one game in the internet series, and they have an allergic reaction that ends up winning you all the championship. It's a match made in heaven.

In Deerfield you were too soft. Here, you’re all harsh lines and sharp edges. It's bristling at the winds, chafing against a rigid structure you don’t know how to deal with. Here, your back is as straight as it used to be at barre. Here, it’s a tension in your fingers, restraint that’s foreign to you. Here, you try. By god, do you try.

Baby, who you never really talked with much before, takes to you for the opposite reason. Xe likes you for your sharp edges, spits bitter curses at your former self, smokes with you outside while everyone else gives disapproving glares. Xe doesn’t understand why you’re this way, and xe don’t try to. That’s not what your relationship is about; you are there to prove their apathy right. Both of you know this, and you’re okay with it because xe has never followed a proper expectation in xir life, it’s a matching painted middle finger to everything around you, every side glance and whisper you receive as they spur you on. You make out at parties in Baltimore while Declan fucks around with Tillman, both of your jokes a little too sharp to hide the truth of them.

Of course the three of you end up together. Of course it’s messy and wonderful and all a little too much. Of course you crash and burn in spectacular fashion the moment any actual weight is put on it.

It is what it is.

Season Twelve is bad. Season Twelve is worse than Season Four, which is saying something mighty. In the months leading up to it, the three of you debate whether it’s better to keep your apartment or move back into the Firehouse, eventually deciding on the latter, but not without a fight. It’s better in the long run though, as becomes immediately apparent. Still, none of you are ready. How could you be?

Your second game, you feel the air tingle as the Jazz Hands steal a win from you and the black hole deafens. You hear the jeers of the crowd and can’t help but cringe. Twenty-six days in, something causes Baby to vibrate out of their skin, something that has only happened to one other person, who just happens to be married to hir sibling, and there's no way in which that ends well. Day after that there's a rotation reverb, and you've only felt the fear that runs through you when the vibrations hit once or twice before. Forty-two days on, Declan goes into anaphylaxis and you're not even on the field, but you watch as Josh stabs them with the matching epipen most of you keep in your pockets and you watch as Baby rubs their back and stares you straight in the eye. Day Sixty-one–

Well.

Day Sixty-one, your life flips itself upside down for the second time, and there's nothing you can do but try.

Josh dies and you're not there and Declan gets shadowed and you're not there and that's all that it is. Baby goes first when you push too hard and then Declan clings desperately as all the pieces fall apart, but by the time the next season starts it's all over. You don't think you could have changed it if you tried.

It doesn’t matter, in the end.