#it was a lot of fun to write though

[the-amber-raven]

as you send, so you receive

Buck and Bobby's text messages through the years, from [Sent 16:37] Hi Evan, please make sure you bring photo ID on Thursday. We will need it to complete those last pieces of onboarding paperwork to [Sent 13:17] Yeah well you are my kid. – Or, the progression of Buck and Bobby’s relationship from probie and captain to father and son as told by text messages (and the occasional missed call and draft message they can't quite bring themselves to send).

Gen | Chapters: 1/3 | Word count 9,524

Read on Ao3

[wardingshout]

Zelda goes mushroom girl

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Get Souped!

[pizzaqueen]

A snippet from a future fic I'll probably never write, where Steve is a widower with two teenage kids, and he and Eddie randomly meet up, rekindling their old flame. This is when they've been together a while:

“Thank you,” Steve says, coming up behind Eddie at the bathroom sink.

Eddie pauses, catching Steve's eye in the mirror. “What for?” he asks, mouth foamy with toothpaste.

Steve slips his hands along Eddie's hips, hooks his chin over Eddie's shoulder. “For loving my kids.”

“You don't—” Toothpaste dribbles down Eddie's chin and he stoops to spit what's left in his mouth into the sink, gathering his hair to one side. He rinses his mouth out, wipes his face with a towel, then turns to Steve. “You don't have to thank me for that. Of course I love them.”

“Not everyone I've dated has.”

“They're idiots.” Eddie grabs the hem of Steve's shirt, pulling him close. “I mean, first of all, they're part of you, and I don't think I could love you and not love them. But...” He trails off, a small smile tilting his lips. “They're amazing kids.”

Pride swells in Steve's chest; he slides his arms around Eddie's waist and says, “They are.”

“And I'm pretty damn honored I get to be part of their lives,” Eddie says, “so thank you,” and he butts his head gently against Steve's.

Steve huffs and slides his hands up Eddie's back, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I love you.” He presses a kiss to Eddie's neck.

“I love you too.”

“And they both love you as well.”

Eddie lets out a shuddering breath. Steve knows how nervous Eddie was, when they started dating, that he wouldn't be welcomed, but it's almost like he's always been part of their family now. “Good to know,"”Eddie says.

Steve holds Eddie a little tighter. All those years ago, back in Hawkins, when they ended things, Steve thought he'd never see Eddie again. But here they are, together—a family—and Steve's never letting him go this time.

[callisteios]

I have a new uquiz for you, go on a pilgrimage with me. discover who you are.

[bleue-flora]

Ok, I recently wrote an essay [here] talking about the definition and duties of civil engineering as well as the ethics because of the brain rot @swordfright gave me with calling Dream Sam’s ultimate engineering project. So, because I actually am a civil engineer I took it upon myself to design the title and summary of quantities sheets just like I do at work for roads but with Dream as the project instead. And in honor of angst day sponsored by @sixteenth-day-event, I figured I’d share it because I feel like it kinda works for the prison of the mind prompt.

“Sam’s “ultimate engineering project” he deemed too damaged like a bumpy road or crumbling building that wasn’t worthy of patching and filling in the cracks or reinforcing, that’s too eroded to be fixed and preserved. So, Sam strived to tear him down to the bedrock so he could remake, remold, and reengineer Dream according to his design for the common safety, public health and well-fair.”

{These are very similar to the actual sheets I make day to day, which I shall not share for the sake of doxing my location, but yea pretty much everything has a significance. Some of it doesn’t necessarily make sense but that was because I was more so taking inventory of what we see in lore (so you know I counted ;) lol)}

[abaroo]

I realised I had to refine Ceroba for my au…

In the cowboy swap au, Ceroba is actually the Sheriff and leader of the Feisty Five. Clover is still the Deputy and goes by “Lucky Star”. He loves hanging around town with his Mama ☺️. I haven’t come up with a cool cowboy name for Ceroba yet, although she probably wouldn’t use one :/

Cowboy Swap Masterpost

[kg-clark-inthedark]

My gift for @puddtoast for @dishonoredgiftexchange’s 2024 fugue feast. I went with the prompt of Aramis Stilton thinking about lost love in the wake of Luca’s downfall while listening to his last audiograph from Theodanis Abele, and then realizing he’ll be okay when a monarch butterfly lands on the audiograph player.

I’ve been head over heels for this emotional sucker punch of a prompt, so I hope I did it justice!! Also I’m delighted to have finally drawn Stilton for the first time. Thank you for providing such fun and detailed prompts to choose from! (Btw I didn’t know what symbolism you were hoping for - if any - when requesting a monarch, so I ran with what I grew up with, in terms of the whole “carrying souls of the dead” thing. Hope that works for you!)

[reksink]

A Little Survivor (With Grand Gourmand Bonus💚)

[gingermintpepper]

I continue to be in the foulest of moods so here are some Zeus + Apollo headcanons because they make me happy :)

(Important note: this is largely specific to my original work and is not me making inferences from mythical or historical texts)

Zeus and Apollo spar. Like a lot. Like a lot. A big reason why Apollo gets so good at boxing is because he usually sparred with his father as a young god and getting hit with one of Zeus' punches is!! Not advisable. He focused on becoming fleet-footed to combat Zeus' more solid fighting style which was definitely helped by his dancing. Conversely, Hermes would later develop wrestling partially as a response to Apollo's annoying fleet-footedness in combat.

Zeus decides to tie his mind to Apollo's when the strain of Apollo's visions become too intense for him to handle alone. When Apollo first returns from his exile after slaying Python, his visions are so severe that he suffered from 'time-blindness' where he could only percieve the future and was completely unable to see the present. Zeus shoulders some of that strain until Apollo becomes strong enough to handle prophecy on his own - though Zeus is careful not to give Apollo absolute prophecy lest he get overwhelmed again.

Despite their closeness, or maybe because of it, Zeus and Apollo argue quite a lot. Usually it's banal things like administrative work or squabbling over which of them should get the larger portion of a hecatomb, but they do argue about how prophecies should be carried out quite frequently too. There's a general agreement for Zeus not to bring up Apollo's children after how messy Aristaeus' anointing was (and how angry Apollo was at Zeus' disagreement with his decision to make his firstborn son a god) but the odd occasion where it cannot be avoided is usually when they have their most grave spats.

One of Zeus' greatest regrets is his relationship with Ares, partially because Ares grows up seeing him dote and teach Apollo with his full attention. There is... a lot of himself that he sees in Ares. A lot of Kronos too and the part of Zeus that is a warrior before he is a king has done his best to keep the boy at arms length entirely because of that familiarity with the face staring back at him. It's another of the things he and Apollo have argued ceaselessly about. Naturally, Apollo has attempted to bridge that gap many times and while Ares is still quite close with Artemis, when it comes to Apollo, he is particularly sensitive.

Zeus is the one that ultimately decided that Apollo should never marry. Due to Apollo's love-curse and his already concerning tendency to be overly attached and committed to his mortal affairs and offspring, Zeus decided that marriage would be doom to Apollo's spirit and proclaimed him unfit for the ceremony and its status. Instead of the expected argument, everyone was quite surprised when Apollo merely bowed his head and accepted such an outrageous decision.

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[ashilean]

LHIKAN, toa Mangai of fire (1/11)

Astride his lava board, Lhikan patrols the towers of Ta-Metru as the last of the city's toa heroes. While matoran from every corner of the city stare reverently as he passes overhead, he casts a long shadow, and one hero can only be so many places at once...

When setting out to make the Mangai, I wanted them to stand out and use some of the less-common elemental colour schemes--taking heavy inspiration from the matoran in the Legend of Mata Nui and MNOG. In Lhikan's case, a toa of fire that is all smoke and golden sparks is both unique and a good fit for the pre-existing elements of his character I am keen to retain.

More to come soon!

[moonandris]

✨NEW WRITEBLR TAG GAME JUST DROPPED✨

If you're struggling with breathing life into your OC's, try this funny yet stupidly simple trick/writeblr tag game I just came up with. I call it the 'Roast Your OCS and Make It Into a Title' tag game. 🤣

So, we've all heard of fictional character archetypes and stereotypes that are often present in fiction, right? We all know it's not good to have shallow, surface level characters that have no complexity or nuance to their personalities, because real life humans contain multitudes, contradictions, and are in general very complicated beings.

Throw all that shit out for this exercise and toss it into the trash! 🗑️ In this tag game, we're gonna be reducing all our OC's to the most basic, mundane, stereotypical/archetypal renditions of themselves and making it Fit Into a Title!

Here's an example of my main character + his besties from my Science Fantasy WIP:

Cold and Stoic Pretty Boy Loaner With Social Anxiety and Unhealed Trauma Tries to Save His Sister

Disowned Goth Femme Fatale With Bitchy Yet Gentle Attitude Is Socially Neglected and Cries A Lot

Occasionally Serious Himbo City Boy Cop Tries and Fails to Fight Crime With Therapy and Rehabilitation

Snobby Know-It-All Imperial Man Who Somehow Has Both A Superiority and Inferiority Complex

Protective Amazonian Lesbian Sadist Who Will Absolutely Step On You and Ruin Your Life Forever

Gifted Slutty Bisexual Boy Genius Is Hiding a Dark Secret and Is Very Zesty (Rude) About It

For this tag game I'm gonna be tagging A LOT of people but mainly people who've interacted with me recently. Free to reblog if you see this on your dash, even if you're not tagged. I find this shit HILARIOUS and I would love to see what everyone manages to come up with! No pressure at all if you don't wanna participate, this is all just for fun. ❤️😊

@in-heavens-trenches @revenantlore @cupandquillcafe @fattybattysblog @eames-with-a-rose

@gailynovelry @kestalsblog @dru-reads-writeblr @druidx @indigowriting

@diabolical-blue @writercoracain @tildeathiwillwrite @craig-h-stuart @illarian-rambling

@coarsely @rjcopeseethemald @jackiezenauthor @squarebracket-trickster @kaylinalexanderbooks

@pen-of-roses @flock-from-the-void @sarandipitywrites @buffythevampirelover @imsaanvikhanna

@songsofsomnia @shadow-of-tea-and-tea @owlsandwich @faeriecinna @hauntedluminarybbq

@sarahlizziewrites @ayzrules @rickie-the-storyteller @janec23

If you want some extra help you can also look up character stereotypes/archetypes like I did. There's hundreds of blog posts about this topic but here's some helpful links so you can judge/roast your OC's to your heart's content:

[bri-cheeses]

Barty and Evan are extremely codependent (and I love that for them, honestly). But basically, this means that you don’t see one without the other, with two exceptions. One is that Barty’s at a party or some type of social gathering, because it’s a fifty fifty chance that Evan will join him. The other is when Evan and Pandora are having a “twin day” in which Panda drags Evan off to go make flower crowns and gossip with her. It’s in these sessions that she hears about Evan’s horribly pathetic crush on Barty, and that she is the first to be told that they’re dating.

[iris-drawing-stuff]

Whenever I get a new, interest I look at my favorite characters and go "Put their ass in prison," so here's Dmitry in Milgram.

Also, just for funsies, let's judge him. Imagine that Comfort Zone is his first trial song.

Some thoughts about this AU under the cut.

"Focus, channel and then discard

Now, sympathy has no place in a righteous heart"

The facility used Dmitry for experiments, and it's implied that part of that was killing other mutants. They would be his murder/s

Voting-wise, I think this could lead to an Amane-like situation where people vote him guilty to try to teach him that he was in the wrong. I'd like to think it would backfire just as badly.

I think the environment of Milgram would remind Dmitry of the facility. Milgram is basically one big weird experiment. The only upside for him would be the fact that Anya is there (IDK what her murder would be, but I am not seperating them).

Full body

Also, here's the other 2 ideas for his victim that I came up with:

1. Yura

"Keep barking all you want, cutting to the bone

You are like a cornered dog, cut the microphone"

In Convergence, he really wanted to kill Yura, and the only thing stopping him was his threat to make things worse for Olya. What if he was just a bit more impulsive and straight up killed him? I like this idea the least because we can't make Yura another prisoner if he's dead.

2. Katya

"Hey don't you realize...

That this life's not fit for the likes of you and I"

Okay... this is my most out there choice. Basically, when Katya gets captured and brought back to the facility, they kill her instead of whatever they do in canon, and Milgram considers it Dmitry's fault because he abandoned her after they escaped. It's kind of similar to that theory that Kotoko's victim is Lucky because she abandoned her at the end of Deep Cover.

[henwilsonmd]

post 6x18: some out-of-order vignettes | ao3

4251 words

“Buck,” said Eddie, trying to school his face into something less fond and amused. “That’s my couch.”

Buck turned from where he’d been happily showing off the new piece of furniture he’d gotten with Natalia the day prior. “What?”

“The couch,” Eddie repeated, with a quirk of his eyebrow. “You bought my exact couch.”

“No,” Buck replied with a shake of his head. “No, it’s definitely different.”

read on ao3

Eddie looked at it—a three-seater in dark blue, velvet-y fabric with square corners and deep seats to accommodate his long legs. They’d picked out some nice white decorative pillows for it, and it’s certainly brand-new looking, but—

“It’s totally the same.” Eddie gave up on hiding his smile.

Buck looked back to the couch, tilting his head to scrutinize it. After a moment, he sighed, planting his hands on his hips. “Ah, fuck. It’s totally the same.”

Eddie groaned, letting his head thump back onto the edge of the cot behind him. “The pain meds are definitely kicking in.”

“Well, good,” snarked Buck from a chair next to him, attention half-focused on his phone in his hands. “That’s what they’re supposed to do.”

Eddie sighed, long-suffering. “You too?”

“Yes, Eddie, me too.” Buck replied, thumbs flying as he tapped out something on the screen in his hands. Probably to Maddie. Probably about Chim. Who was probably okay. “Your ribs are fucking broken.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, staring at the ceiling. “And I know what they feel like. I’m fine, there was—other stuff going on.” He thought about that paramedic from the 133 shining a penlight into Hen’s eyes, frowning like he didn’t like the results and going back in to do it again. He thought about the constant jitter of Buck’s leg next to him, the constant worry for Bobby and Chimney who’d taken the other two ambulances before the three of them had managed to squeeze into another cab. “Besides,” Eddie pulled himself back on track. “Did you even get checked out?” He leveled Buck with a look that he hoped had more energy behind it than he had left.

Buck shrugged, powering off his phone with a click. “I’m fine.”

“There’s blood all over your face,” Eddie pointed out.

“Hen cleaned most of it up already.”

“There was more?”

“That’s—Eddie, I’m fine,” Buck said, turning towards him. “I scraped up my cheek and bit my tongue when I fell, and, sure, I’ll be a little bruised, but I’m fine.”

“You lost consciousness,” Eddie pointed out, and he swallowed around a dry throat.

“How… how did you know that?” Buck stuttered in reply.

Eddie gave his own shrug, picking at the edge of the right kneepad on his turnout pants. “I didn’t pass out. I radioed right after I’d gotten my bearings, but no one answered. Then, like, thirty seconds later you must have woken up.”

Buck, for a moment, held Eddie’s gaze with something so unbelievably devastated, and guilty—like the thought of not being able to answer Eddie’s call was the worst possible thing that had happened that day. Then he flicked his eyes down to the floor. “Okay, s-so, like, thirty seconds. I’m fine, Eddie. Really.”

Eddie frowned, thinking about those thirty seconds—an unbearable weight on his back, a growing pain in his chest, and the clawing panic as he listened to the silence stretching out on the other side of the radio and fought the mounting urge to plead, I’m still alive, please, I’m still alive down here.

And then how he’d breathed a hugely painful sigh of relief when Buck finally asked for a headcount, how he’d fumbled into his pocket for his St. Christopher medal and prayed—something he hadn’t done since that awful week of the coma. Prayed that he’d come home safe to his son, but also that Buck would be careful—that he wouldn’t do something stupid and destructive and reckless to save any of them.

That heady rush of gratitude when Buck had sawed the doors open, taking off his safety goggles and assessing Eddie’s situation with a calculating, heavy gaze.

Next to him, Buck cleared his throat, shifting in the chair. “Anyway, you broke three ribs, man. Let the meds do their job.”

Eddie huffed a laugh, leaning back into the pillows behind him. “Trust me, they are.”

Eddie sipped his Diet Coke, beer off-limits because he was still taking the Tylenol threes. “So, you finally got a new couch.”

“I had a couch before,” Buck pointed out, a matching soda in his hand for solidarity. “Kameron just—y’know, gave birth all over it.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, snorting a soft laugh. “That must have been wild.”

Buck chuckled. “The baby didn’t want to wait, I guess.”

“Impatient little guy,” Eddie said. “Must be those Buckley genes.”

“Hey,” Buck protested, pointing a finger. “I can be plenty patient.”

“Sure,” Eddie agreed placatingly, but be noticed how there seemed to be something more behind the mirth in Buck’s eyes—the plastic pieces at the edges of his smile. He fought the urge to say I told you so—mostly because it would have been childish, but also because Buck hadn’t asked for his opinion at any step of the way, and Eddie hadn’t offered.

Eddie decided to wait him out—usually the best course of action when it came to Buck. Eddie understood intimately how much time it could take to parse through a mess of feelings in your brain and formulate them into words that would make sense to another person. Usually, Eddie would sit quietly and sip his beer while watching Buck’s feelings play out on his unguarded face, and after a minute or two Buck would haltingly begin to explain what had been going on with him.

Eddie had tried to explain that to Maddie when they’d both been nearly sick with worry over Buck’s post-coma mental state. “He’ll come to you when he’s ready,” Eddie had said over the phone. “You can’t force him to talk about it.”

“Eddie, you don’t know him like I do,” Maddie had protested. “He shouldn’t be alone right now.”

And Eddie had opened his mouth to say no, actually, I know him better than you, I know him better than anyone, but—that’s not true, is it? Why would Eddie know Buck better than his own sister, who’s spent the entire thirty years of his life caring for him, when Eddie’s only had him for—what, five years? Then subtract all the things they didn’t talk to each other about and all the issues they’ve had, and—yeah, who is Eddie to say what’s best for Buck?

And then Buck had knocked on his door and passed out on his couch and Eddie had felt righteously vindicated in a way that he almost wanted to rub in Maddie’s face, which was kind of bitchy of him to think.

So, Buck sipped his soda next to Eddie on his new couch, a storm of emotions clear on his face, and Eddie waited him out because that’s what he does.

Buck let out a sigh, and Eddie thought, here it is, he’ll let me in, and then— “Want to watch the Dodgers game?”

Eddie blinked. “Um, sure.”

And Buck turned on the TV.

Doubt roiled in Eddie’s gut.

“What about Hen?” Eddie asked, Buck’s hand tight on his arm as he helped him into the passenger seat of the Jeep.

“Karen already took her home, she’s fine,” Buck replied easily, before he shut the door and rounded the front of the car.

He’d left when Eddie had been taken back for x-rays, taking an Uber back to the station to pick up his car so he could come back to get Eddie and drive them both home. Eddie absently wondered when he would get a chance to get his truck from the station parking lot.

Buck hopped into the driver’s seat, fitting his keys in the ignition but pausing before turning the engine. He fixed Eddie with a gentle, reassuring look. “Seriously, man, everyone’s fine. Athena’s with Bobby, Maddie’s with Chim, let’s go home.”

Eddie swallowed, biting the inside of his cheek as he thought about just how close literally every single one of them except Ravi had come to something far more serious than some hospital bills and time off work.

His gaze slid to Buck, who flashed him that small, soft, close-mouthed smile that Eddie rarely saw—the one that made his chest feel warm and gooey.

“Okay. Let’s go home.”

The Dodgers were losing, and Buck wasn’t talking about it. Eddie tried not to either of those things get to him.

During a commercial break, Buck got up to throw their empty pizza boxes away, waving Eddie off as he moved to help.

When he came back into the living room, he paused under the overhang of the loft, just staring at Eddie.

“What?” he asked, a bit self-conscious.

Buck huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I bought your couch.”

Eddie snorted. “Don’t worry about it, man. It’s flattering. You think I have good taste.”

Buck raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know if that’s it. Half the furniture in your house is from Target.”

Eddie sputtered. “I—what’s wrong with Target furniture?”

Buck, lowering himself back onto the cushions next to Eddie, raised his hands in a show of innocence. “Nothing, man. I just—I don’t know if I would call it good taste.”

Having no comeback, Eddie just whacked him in the shoulder.

Buck laughed, playfully pushing his hand away. “Hey, c’mon, don’t start shit when I can’t retaliate.”

Eddie smirked. “Why? ‘Cause you know you can’t take me?”

“No,” Buck denied. “’Cause your ribs are still fucking broken.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, Buck.”

“Well.” Buck crossed his arms, turning back to the TV as the next inning started. “Forgive me for wanting to be careful.”

For a moment, Eddie considered saying hey, maybe we should talk about how I could’ve almost died again? But Buck clearly wasn’t in the mood to talk about the big things, and Eddie didn’t really want to think about that yet either, so he settled for bumping their shoulders together.

Buck leaned right back into him, and neither of them moved apart—the comforting warmth of the contact buzzing in Eddie’s brain like the alcohol he wasn’t drinking.

Eddie smiled down at his hands. “You like my couch,” he teased.

“Yeah, yeah,” Buck groused, slouching into the cushions as they watched a batter swing and miss yet again. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Are you sure you’re both alright?” Carla asked, a worried hand hovering over his elbow. “I caught some of the collapse on the news.”

Eddie flashed her a smile before turning to pour two glasses of water—one for him and one for Buck, who was off in Christopher’s room. “We’re okay,” he said. “A little banged up, but the doctors said I should be back to work in six weeks or less.”

Carla narrowed her eyes. “You better take that full six weeks.”

Eddie set the Brita down and met her gaze. “I’m fine, Carla. Really.”

She sighed, crossing her arms. “I just—I worry about you, Eddie. Okay? I know you’d rather I didn’t, but I can’t help it.”

Eddie ducked his head and smiled, a bit, filled with that familiar half-disbelief that people really do care about him. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but—I was lucky today. That nothing worse happened, that—that Buck was there to pull me out.”

Carla scoffed. “Of course he was. I don’t think luck had anything to do with that one.”

Eddie tried to fight the blush off his cheeks—he didn’t know what to do with that. Carla’s surety that Buck would save him come hell or high water. His own surety that Buck would be ripping open the doors of that camper van any second now.

When she realized he wasn’t going to say anything, Carla cleared her throat. “I should go. You up for a hug?”

“From you?” Eddie responded easily. “Always.”

Carla pulled him into a gentle-but-still-desperate embrace. “Okay, I’ll get out of your hair.” With a frown, she brought a hand up to ruffle the wilting mess on Eddie’s head. “Your dusty-ass hair. Take a shower, alright?”

Eddie laughed. “Alright, alright.”

“It’s a little early for a welcome back party, don’t you think?” Eddie said as Athena hugged him in greeting, Christopher heading off in search of the other kids.

“You and Bobby are headed back tomorrow,” Athena pointed out.

“Yeah, and Chimney’s not back for another two weeks.”

“And you best believe I’ll throw another party for him.”

Eddie laughed, before venturing further into the house to greet everyone else. His ribs had healed perfectly, barely a twinge when he’d thrown himself onto the couch in triumph yesterday. Which—speaking of, Eddie’s phone was burning a hole in his pocket and he was doing a very good job of ignoring that.

Or, he was, until a lull in conversation found him standing alone in the kitchen and pulling it out of his jeans. No texts. Which—of course, they’d agreed to go for coffee after his shift on Friday, why would she text him before that—but, still. Eddie was nervous. Sue him.

His thumbs hover over the keyboard for a moment while he debates if it’s too much of a desperate move to text Marisol before they even go on a date. Christopher would know.

“Who are you texting?” asked a voice, and Eddie fumbled to turn off his phone and shove it in his pocket before someone could see… what?

He looked up to see Buck smiling at his antics, a beer in hand.

“Oh, it’s you,” Eddie sighed, leaning against the counter.

Buck sidled over to join him, staring out the windows at the backyard where the party was in full swing. “Just me. Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine,” Eddie replied, for some reason hoping desperately that Buck wouldn’t ask him about—

“So,” Buck nudged an elbow into his arm. “Who were you texting?”

—fuck. Eddie wasn’t sure why this felt like something he didn’t want to tell Buck, to whom he tells everything, but… they don’t really talk about their girlfriends? It was always, always awkward, and it always left him with a sour taste in his mouth.

But, Eddie’s excited about this. Marisol probably won’t be the one, or whatever, but—still. Eddie was excited that his brain was finally in a place where he could think about opening up his life to someone and it wouldn’t send him into a panic attack that landed him in the ER.

And Buck asked.

And Eddie’s not in the habit of saying no to him.

“Um,” he started. “Do you remember Marisol? From the—”

“—yeah, yeah!” Buck cut him off. “So, you were texting her?” He raised his eyebrows, a knowing glint in his gaze.

Eddie blushed. “Yeah, uh… we’re going on a date?” he said quietly, a pit of dread or something similar opening in his gut.

Buck was quiet for a moment, and Eddie risked a glance at his face. He just caught the edge of something shocked and maybe fearful in his expression before it cleared and was replaced by one of those huge, sunny smiles.

“Eddie!” Buck exclaimed. “That’s great! Oh my god, man, this is awesome,” he enthused, slinging an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and squeezing him close.

“Yeah,” Eddie chuckled, still unsure why part of him felt sick with guilt.

“Hey, ever notice how we always start dating at the same time?”

“No, do we?” Eddie lied, thinking about how he’d agonized over making the call and kept telling himself Buck’s with Natalia now, you should do this.

Buck laughed again, before he jolted with surprise and turned to Eddie, excitedly slapping him on the arm. “Dude! We can go on double dates now!”

Eddie frowned. “We didn’t last time.”

Buck shrugged. “Well, you didn’t like Taylor, so I figured—”

“I liked Taylor,” Eddie protested.

Buck snorted. “Uh, no, you didn’t.”

Eddie tilted his head in a you-got-me face. “I kind of didn’t. I thought you didn’t notice.”

Buck dropped his arm around Eddie’s shoulders again, making Eddie huff out a breath. “Oh, Edmundo, I always notice.”

No you don’t, Eddie thought, and then he ignored that.

“But,” Buck continued, a hesitation in his voice. “You—you like Natalia, right?”

Eddie didn’t really know her at all, except for how excited she’d been about Buck’s death-that-didn’t-stick and how angry that had made him. “Yeah,” Eddie lied again. “She’s good for you. And she has good taste in couches.”

Buck laughed, relieved. “Good. So—we’ll do a double date, yeah? Me, you, Natalia, Marisol.”

Fuck, no. Eddie thought. That sounds awful.

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie said instead. “That sounds great.”

Eddie was in the kitchen, pre-heating the oven to heat up some frozen chicken tenders because he didn’t have the energy to cook anything else when he felt little arms wrap gently around his midsection. It hurt his ribs, but Eddie didn’t have the heart to dislodge his son—not when these hugs were becoming rarer and rarer each day.

“Hey, kid,” Eddie said, turning in the hold and dropping a hand onto Christopher’s head. “What’s up?”

Eddie had already seen him, when he popped his head into Christopher’s room to find him sitting with Buck, a careful hand brushing the wounds on the man’s cheek. The sight had made something massive and unknowable bloom inside Eddie’s broken chest, threatening to choke him. He’d tamped it down and hugged Chris hello before heading off to shower, but apparently that hadn’t been enough.

Chris looked up, propping his chin on Eddie’s sternum. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, a tightness in his voice betraying him.

Eddie smiled. “Me too.” Even though it sparked the ache in his side into a bona-fide pain, Eddie leaned over to drop a kiss onto Christopher’s head—something he barely tolerates anymore. “Hey, the doctors said I’d be good as new in six weeks. Think you can deal with having me around all the time for that long?”

Chris laughed, bright and happy, and Eddie’s heart sang. “I’ll try,” he joked, and then something clouded passed over his face. “Buck’s okay, too, right? His face is bloody.”

“Oh, buddy,” Eddie sighed. Usually, he would kneel down to meet Christopher’s gaze, but he settled for easing himself into a chair and ignoring the concerned look Chris was giving him. “Buck’s totally fine, he just got scraped up a little bit. And today was pretty—pretty scary. For both of us.” He swallowed down the urge to berate himself for telling his kid he was scared, and it seemed to be the right move, because Chris nodded along with wide, careful eyes.

Eddie sighed again, settling his hands on his son’s shoulders. “But—tell you what. Buck’s gonna stay with us tonight, and he’s pretty bad at taking care of himself, right?” Chris giggled at that, and Eddie smiled in response. “So you and I are gonna have to be sneaky about taking care of him tonight, okay?”

Eddie expected Chris to give another sweet smile, and maybe to offer some comfort so earnest and childlike in its innocence that it made everything in the world feel right again, so he wasn’t quite sure to do when Chris burst out into loud, raucous laughter.

“Okay, what’s so funny?” he said, playing at being annoyed.

“It’s just,” Chris managed through his massive smile. “That’s exactly what Buck said. About you!”

Eddie just blinked in response, and Chris fell into peals of laughter again. “Okay,” Eddie said with mock-offense. “Okay, I see how it is. Gang up on the injured guy, why don’t you.”

“Da-ad,” Chris whined, fixing him with a very grown-up look. “We just care about you.”

Eddie pursed his lips, that unknown emotion threatening to drown him again. “Yeah,” he said, more choked-up than he would like. “I know.”

A small hand covered his, and Eddie flipped his own over to give it a squeeze. “Why don’t you go put on the next episode of María, okay? We’ll translate for Buck.”

Chris smirked. “You mean you’ll translate for Buck.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short, kid,” Eddie offered as Chris disappeared into the living room.

And later, when they were all piled on the couch, Christopher giggling at Eddie’s half-assed translations and Buck protesting that he understands more Spanish than you think, guys, the newest dose of pain meds forced upon him by Buck making his head more than a bit fuzzy, Eddie thought to himself: I wish it could be like this forever.

Buck shouted in exaggerated outrage to make Chris laugh, gesturing at some ridiculous plot point playing out on the screen, and Eddie let that huge wave of feeling bowl him over—that world-ending, all-consuming love.

Just this. Forever.

“Hold on, let me get this straight,” Hen said, a hand raised to keep Eddie quiet. “He has this whole thing about his girlfriends being couches, and the couch he finally bought is your couch?”

Feeling somehow embarrassed, Eddie just nodded. Hen shared a smirk with Chimney, sitting on the lawn chair that Maddie hadn’t let him move from for the entire party.

“That’s like—almost romantic,” Chimney snorted.

“What?” Eddie said.

“He’s been looking for the perfect couch, but it was yours all along!” Chim crowed, and Hen dissolved into giggles. She was definitely more than a little drunk.

“It’s so sweet, Eddie, come on,” she needled.

“Well, sure, but—” Eddie sputtered. “—romantic? Come on, guys.”

“No, you—you come on.” Hen said around a hiccup. ���You guys are—Buck and Eddie! Eddie and Buck!”

“Yeah,” Eddie replied with a frown. “And you guys are Hen and Chim.”

“Nah, no, no, no,” Chim said with a wagging finger. “It’s not the same.”

“How is it not the same?” Eddie threw his hands in the air, one hampered by the half-full bottle in his hand. “You guys are partners, just like us.”

“Yeah, but,” Hen said. “You guys are partners,” she explained, trying for some hand gesture that must have gotten lost in the all the alcohol and rush of the party because she just ended up clasping her hands together awkwardly.

“You guys are crazy,” Eddie said with a long-suffering shake of his head.

“And you’re crazy about Buck,” Hen said in an it’s-so-obvious whisper.

Eddie drew back. “What?”

“Hen—” Chimney started, a hand on her arm.

She shook him off. “No, I gotta—Eddie, you and Buck are like, perfect for each other. You love him, right?” Her eyes were wide and earnest behind her glasses.

“Of course I do,” Eddie said automatically.

Hen gestured emphatically, whacking Chim on the shoulder like this proved her point.

“Hen,” Eddie said gently. “Did you forget that I’m straight?”

Hen scowled, like she did not want to be reminded of this fact. “Okay, but like—if Buck was a girl, you would have asked him out by now. You’d be like—fucking married by now.”

Eddie opened his mouth to respond, but found his mind stuck on Hen’s words. If Buck was a girl. Him and Buck, married. Eddie felt far drunker than he should be off just one and a half beers.

“Eddie, ignore her,” Chim cut in.

Hen frowned. “I’m going to find Karen,” she declared.

Eddie watched her retreating form, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “He’s my best friend,” he said belatedly.

“Eddie.” Chimney kicked his leg. “Ignore her, okay? She’s drunk.”

“Yeah, but—” Eddie started.

“Look,” Chim sighed. “We joke about you and Buck sometimes, okay?”

“You do?” Eddie asked.

“Little stuff,” Chimney assured. “Just, like, you’re each other’s favorite person and you’re missing what’s right in front of you, or whatever.”

Eddie opened his mouth to respond, to refute—what?—but Chim continued.

“But they’re just jokes, okay? We know you’re both straight. I mean, it’d be great if you weren’t, or whatever, but that’s not the world we live in.”

Eddie’s jaw closed with a click. He sipped his beer.

“He’s your best friend.” Eddie looked back to Chimney. “And that’s—” He seemed to search Eddie’s face for a moment. “That’s enough, right?”

Eddie swallows. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Exactly,” Chim agreed with an easy smile. “So, don’t worry about it, okay? She’s just drunk and forgot that we don’t make those jokes in front of you guys.”

Eddie nodded. “Right. Besides, Buck has a girlfriend, and—I have a date on Friday, so…”

“You have a date on Friday?” Chimney exclaimed. “That’s great!”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, voice flat.

Chimney clapped him on the forearm, unable to reach his shoulder from his sitting position. “Look, man, you’ll find that perfect girl-version of Buck out there, okay? I believe.”

Eddie chuckled. “Sure.”

He looked out to the party—his eyes immediately found Buck, head thrown back in laughter at something Athena had said. The string lights of the backyard made his styled curls shine with a honey-colored fire, his fingers curled carelessly around the neck of a beer bottle made Eddie’s mouth feel suddenly dry.

Just this. Just you, Eddie thought.

“You’re right,” he said to Chimney with a hollow smile. “I’ll find someone.”