#when Eddie was young he thought that death only comes to people on these cold dark winter nights | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

penny00dreadful · 11 months ago

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The Parting Glass

Hey I've been through some shit the last few weeks so let's do Christmas the Irish way. By making it ✨miserable✨ and putting Eddie through situations. But with a hopeful ending.

Just as a note of warning, this fic contains death, funerals and Eddie working through his grief. It was originally devised as a part of this fun little challenge and then... welp, I used it to process. 😅

The prompts I got were: Eddie arrives to town recently single to inherit something, Steve lives in the town and is a famous musician (but not here). Eddie falls in love with the holidays, the town and some guy. I'll be honest these prompts got away from me so they're not followed exactly.

AO3

For my granddad.

It was nearly Christmas and Eddie was driving back to Hawkins for the second time in two weeks.

He was alone.

Again.

And for good this time.

The last time, when he had come back when Wayne was sick and not getting any better, he wasn’t supposed to be on his own.

In the days leading up to it, Jack had been in his ear the entire time.

“I’ll be there for you.”

“I won’t let you go through this alone.”

“You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I’ll support you the whole way.”

All over the phone. It couldn’t be helped. Eddie was a writer, he could work from literally anywhere. Or at least anywhere that had an internet connection. Even then, he might not need that. Just a post box.

Jack was back home in their apartment that Eddie had bought them with his first big paycheck.

Eddie had called to tell him that Wayne had passed, numb and monotone and not really fully registering just what that meant. That he was gone. Like gone-gone.

Forever.

He wasn’t just gonna�� open his eyes again and start talking. He wasn’t gonna go back home, or sit in his armchair or shout at the tv or lie in his own bed one last time… And… What about his mugs? He… Wayne had so many mugs, what was gonna happen to them? He loved those mugs.

And Jack had said he’d be there. He’d promised.

And then he wasn’t.

Because something had come up at work or he thought he was coming down with something or he hadn’t got enough sleep the night before and didn’t feel safe making the drive and he felt really bad about it, just a steady stream of excuses but also- that was it.

I feel really bad about it. Full stop. No attempt to say, I’ll make it up to you. Or even just the bare minimum of I’ll try my best to be there no matter what.

And like a flash in the pan Eddie went from devastated to angry to just cold acceptance.

“Fine.” He’d grit out over the phone, feeling simultaneously broken hearted and fucking indignant. Because, yes, it was a little selfish to feel like Jack should have thrown all that to the side to be here with him. But his fucking family had just died. He was allowed to be a little selfish.

Eddie needed him there.

Didn’t just want him there, he needed him there.

But instead he had to go through it all, alone.

He was on his own just before Christmas, trying to organise a funeral for the only family he had.

He didn’t have much time to think straight. He resolved to put it all out of his mind until this was all over because Wayne deserved his attention right now.

Eddie had expected it to be small and quiet if he was being honest with himself. Wayne had been a man who kept to himself and all he had was Eddie.

He was just thankful the local funeral home wasn’t completely decked out in tinsel and lights and trees. It was going to be hard enough as it was without a constant reminder of the time of year.

Quiet and subdued, with just a few stragglers, as depressing as that was. He could handle that right?

But then the people started turning up at the funeral home and they just didn’t stop.

The entire trailer park came out to see him, even Mrs. Cartwright, who was stone deaf and half blind with a bad hip, shuffled into the room on the arm of another of the neighbours, a red headed young woman, to offer her condolences. Then there were Wayne’s coworkers from the plant, the farmers he’d talk to in the pub, his fantasy football league, childhood friends that he hadn’t spoken to in years but still wanted to pay their respects, teachers from the school, store workers, the nurses who looked after him. Eddie’s own friends, the Corroded Coffin boys, the Hellfire kids, Rick, even some of his most loyal customers from back in his dealing days.

It kept going, just floods and floods of people young and old passing through the room to pay their respects, offer their condolences and shake Eddie’s hand.

He was completely overwhelmed. By the end of it, his hand was fucking sore, his throat was raw and if he lingered on the thought any longer, of how many people had shown up for his uncle, had loved him, he’d start crying all over again, even though he was pretty sure he’d run dry.

Jeff, Gareth and Grant hung around for hours after they’d been through the procession once, waiting for a moment to talk to him and ask if he wanted them to stay with him for the rest of the funeral and after. For as long as he was back in Hawkins.

It went unspoken that Eddie had been in that room alone and they were trying to save him from that, so he took them up on the offer. Stood with his oldest friends that he really should have spoken to more over the years while Wayne was lowered into the ground.

They took him out for a few drinks afterwards but Eddie didn’t have it in him to make it a whole night thing. He was exhausted, but he promised to stay in better contact.

When it all was said and done, Eddie found it incredibly difficult to get into the car and drive back.

He didn’t want to leave Wayne here alone.

He didn’t want to be states away anymore.

He wanted to be home. In this shitty little small town that he had hated growing up in but was such an important part of his life, that was familiar and sedentary and fucking quaint and most importantly had a memory of Wayne in every single corner.

Jack would never go for it.

But now that Eddie was on his own, in the car, it gave him a lot of time to stew on just how long he’d been on his own already.

Eddie loved fast and Eddie loved hard. If someone gained his trust or his loyalty, he would do anything for them. It would be a very, very hard thing for someone to lose. But it also made him incredibly blind to their flaws.

This wasn’t the first time Jack had pulled out of something at the last second. And most of the time it was just because he didn’t want to do whatever it was, regardless of if he had made promises about it.

And Eddie had let it go each and every time before because, well, it was fine. He got over it and it wasn’t that big of a deal.

But he had needed Jack there this time. And he’d done it all alone.

If the situations were reversed, Eddie would have crawled on his belly through broken fucking glass to be where Jack needed him and nothing less than an explicit “I don’t want you there” would have deterred him.

And when he got back to their apartment and Jack had turned to him with a sympathetic, “How was it?” Eddie fucking lost it.

He’d screamed so loud and with so much anger and devastation, the neighbours called the cops and again Eddie was on his own trying to explain what had happened while Jack just shuffled around in the background looking vaguely guilty and shell shocked, muttering “You never told me you wanted me there” when the cops finally left.

And Eddie was just fucking done. He was broken. It was finished.

“I didn’t think I had to. My family died. And you had been telling me the entire time that you’d be there. You told me you’d be there for me. And then you just weren’t.”

So that was it.

Eddie couldn’t stand to be in that city anymore. Anonymous and lonely and fucking claustrophobic. Couldn’t stand to be in the apartment with its white Christmas lights and expensive baubles and store bought charm without an inch of personality because it “looks prettier this way.”

The fucking cushions that couldn’t be used to prop up his back because he’d squish the filling and the throws that were there for decoration, placed perfectly, giving the apartment the impression of lived in warmth without any actual emotion in it.

He sold the apartment to Jack, waiting for the heartbreak of the end of a years long relationship to finally hit him. But it never did.

Maybe his emotions were all worn out and it would hit him properly later.

The same way he knew he still hadn’t fully registered that Wayne was gone yet.

So.

Now he was here.

Standing in the cold of the trailer park, his breath fogging up in front of him, snow crushed underneath his boots and night blanketing him. He had a box of stuff in his arms, rooted to the ground between his still warm car and the dark and shadowed front door, thinking hysterically for a moment that he hadn’t asked Wayne if he could move back in.

But he couldn’t, of course he couldn’t, Wayne was gone and he wasn’t coming back and Eddie had no way of contacting him in the fucking afterlife if there even was one to ask if he could turn up on his doorstep again in almost the exact same way he had nearly fifteen years ago.

Wayne would have probably given him a light smack over the back of the head and told him he was always welcome, no matter the circumstances.

Still.

It felt wrong to just assume he could be here without checking in with him first.

He could hear his voice in his head, could almost see him standing silhouetted in the warm glow of the doorway, looking soft and worn in. “Get your ass in here son, before you freeze to death.”

Eddie blinked and the door was closed and dark and empty again. There was no noise coming from inside the trailer, no sound of the tv going, no smells of cooking, no heat, no light.

It was an empty shell.

The glow of the other trailers surrounded him, the small muffled noises of life going on inside each and every one, warm yellows spilling out of their windows or multicoloured lights lining their roofs or their porches, Mariah Carey singing her heart out somewhere in the distance.

“No one ever tells you the front door is one of the hardest parts.”

Eddie jumped, whipping his head around to find the same redheaded woman standing off to the side, bundled up in a thick homemade scarf and puffer jacket, her hands in her pockets and winter boots unlaced, like she'd just thrown them on, the grooves in the snow behind her telling him she’d walked to him from somewhere across the park.

Eddie squeezed the box a little tighter to himself, finally feeling the biting cold through his fingers.

“Yeah. I-” he swallowed, looking up at the door again. “How long have I been standing here?”

He could hear the snow crunching under her boots as she came closer. “I don’t know.” Fabric rustled somewhere beside him as she shrugged. “Mrs. Cartwright only told me you were out here a few minutes ago. I dunno how she even noticed, she can barely see five foot in front of her face.”

Eddie turned to the trailer he remembered the old lady living in to see her sitting by the window, squinting out into the snow. She offered him a toothless smile and a little wave when she saw the two of them looking back.

He was just about able to unstick his hand from the box to wave back.

“And you’re her-?”

“Neighbour. But I check in on her as often as I can. She’s good company.”

“Oh.”

The two of them stood there, in the cold, in the snow, just looking at each other and Eddie could feel the spectre of the dark and empty trailer looming over him. Before this redhead turned up, he could have conceivably turned back, gotten into the car and found a motel room or something for the night. This might have all been easier to face in the daytime.

But now he’d been seen, he was trapped and he couldn’t escape. He wasn’t sure if he could do it.

“When my mom died,” the woman said, coming around to face him, “I just kinda switched off. I was on autopilot for a lot of the time but my first day back at the trailer after the burial, I couldn’t go inside. She wasn’t in there anymore. Same as you, I don’t know how long I was out there before Steve came and found me.”

“You’re Max.” Eddie said, his brain finally putting the pieces together. “Wayne talked about you.”

Max’s face broke out into a wide delighted grin. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Eddie smiled back. “He said you never wore your helmet when you were skateboarding.”

She snorted. “Yeah. And the one time he finally convinced me to, I took a hell of a tumble. Broke my-”

“Leg, I think it was?”

“Nah, man.” Max shook her head. “Not just my leg, I broke my damn femur. Strongest bone in the body and snap.” She clapped her gloved hands together, muffling what should have surely been a hard impact. “With six months of therapy to go along with it. Got me into the job I’m in today, though.”

“He said you’re a physical therapist?”

“Yup. And he said you’re a writer.”

Eddie nodded.

“Well then, Writer Eddie Munson. How do you feel about the front door now?”

He looked back up, finding that it wasn’t quite as intimidating as it had been before.

“A little better.”

“Good. I’m glad. Can I give you a hand?”

“Oh, uh-” he looked back down at the box in his hand, flexing his fingers around the keychain he still had hanging off his thumb. “Yeah, actually. If you don’t mind.”

Max nodded, stepping forward and taking the box from him. Eddie gave her a small smile before squaring his shoulders and facing the door once more and stepping up towards the porch before he could stop himself.

Amongst his set of similar shaped keys, he easily found the one to the trailer, the same one he had cut out of a black blank when he was younger and so edgy.

With a deep breath he slipped it into the lock and turned, feeling it catch like it always did halfway through and jostling it in a way that was so familiar from years of doing the same thing, it hit him like a truck.

He swallowed down hard as he gestured Max in, switching the lights on.

It didn’t smell like Wayne anymore. Not really. It had been weeks since anyone had been inside. But the memory of the smell was there.

It was freezing, an empty shell of a building that had been left to hold its ghosts. The pipes were probably frozen through too, but he and Wayne had handled that plenty of times before, this would be nothing new.

Everything of Waynes was still here. His boots were by the door, his jackets were hung up, his mugs lined the walls. The remote was on the floor next to his recliner, like it had been accidentally nudged off of the arm and hadn’t been picked up yet.

It was like Wayne had just stepped out, or was hiding in another room.

Eddie could feel his heart start to crumble just a little more.

The two of them got his boxes and bags unpacked from his car and into the trailer in silence. He was pretty sure Max knew that he was just waiting for her to leave so he could break down in peace but even so, she turned to face him after placing the last box down.

“You can say no.” She said, hands back in her pockets. “But a few friends are flying in on Thursday and we’re going to meet up at Cathy’s. You’re welcome to come if you’re feeling up for it.”

Cathy’s pub, Wayne used to go there all the time. The actual name of the place was The Attic, but no one called it that, everyone called it Cathy’s. As much of an Irish pub as one could get out in Hawkins without actually being an Irish Pub. It just happened to be run by an Irish woman who refused to entertain four leaf clovers and green pints and had kicked people out in the past for calling it ‘Patty’s Day’ instead of ‘Paddy’s Day.’

Eddie nodded at her, his eyes already starting to mist up from everything settling around his shoulders.

“Thanks.” He sniffled. “I’ll think about it.”

She offered him a gentle smile and said her goodbyes, not lingering around when he so clearly wanted to be on his own.

He watched through the window as Max carved a path through the snow back to Mrs. Cartwright’s trailer, before closing his eyes, taking a deep breath and starting to unpack.

Last night had been one of the roughest nights of Eddie’s entire life.

He’d only managed to switch the electric heater on and open one box before the silence got to him.

He’d switched on the tv and had to flip channels for far too long before he found what he was looking for because he didn’t know where the sports channels were hidden away, he’d never wanted or needed to look for them before.

But having the trailer filled with the sound of sports commentators and the crowds in the stadium and an obscene amount of advertisements was enough to make him crack.

He’d ended up in a ball on the floor, crying so much he felt like he’d never stop, breathing so hard he felt himself getting lightheaded.

Every time the tears subsided and he had started to get a handle on himself, he saw something that would start the cycle all over again. The Garfield mug, Wayne’s favourite winter hat, the stash of red vines he kept hidden beside his armchair, a habit he got into and never got out of when they were living together to keep them away from Eddie’s sweet-tooth.

By the time Eddie had pulled himself up to curl into the couch, he had a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a nest of Wayne’s clothes surrounding him, the smell just barely lingering.

He drank himself into a stupor.

The morning after was equally rough but in an entirely different way. When he was woken up by the sound of daytime life outside the trailer door, bleary and foggy, he recognised his surroundings before anything else.

“Wayne?” He’d called, half expecting to turn to find him in his armchair, the sounds of the sports channel still filling in the space of the room.

But then he remembered.

All over again he remembered.

He was barely able to do anything for himself that day. Most of it was spent staring off into space, waiting for things to get better, like everyone always said it would. Waiting for the pain to dull and to be able to function again.

He stood in the doorway of what had been Wayne’s bedroom and then his own and became Wayne’s again once he moved out.

He never thought he’d be back here, moving back into this exact same bedroom all over again.

He didn’t sleep in the bed that night. Or the night after.

He couldn’t. Not yet.

He had managed to get the water running, so that was a plus and by the time he had some of his stuff unpacked the trailer no longer looked like a warehouse full of boxes, but instead looked like a cluttered and messy home.

He didn’t have the strength to move any of Wayne’s things, so his own stuff just kind of existed in corners or on countertops and it was fine.

Everything was fine.

This was his life now.

This was what he wanted.

It was fine.

Snow was starting to swirl around him as he stood outside Cathy’s, slowly accumulating in his hair and building up around his boots as the warm light and laughter inside seeped out of the building.

There were twinkling multi-colored lights lining the outside and glittering through the fogged up windows and Eddie could see inside was decorated with green garlands draped from every available surface, red, gold and silver baubles woven in throughout and topped off with a healthy smattering of tinsel.

It was the most inviting thing he had seen recently and he ached to go inside. It was just so full of memories.

But he was stuck.

Rooted to the spot like he had been outside the trailer door a few days ago.

Wayne would have loved all of this.

He loved Christmas.

He loved Christmas late nights at Cathy’s.

And it was only really then, when he’d been so painfully aware of it in the back of his mind for the last few weeks, that this was going to be the first Christmas he had to endure without Wayne.

“Eddie?”

Well, no running now.

But it wasn’t Max this time.

“Eddie Munson, my god. Is that really you?”

Eddie turned and was met by the sight of someone he hadn’t seen in the longest time.

“Chris?”

Chrissy Cunningham was standing in front of him in all her short and bright glory with a blinding smile on her face. Something deep in him warmed under her gaze. They hadn’t been friends for very long before they both skipped town in opposite directions, not to mention the ill-fated crushes they had both quietly harboured for each other once upon a time, but that was never gonna work out.

Even so, a friendly face he recognised was just what he needed right now. Someone to help him brace everything in front of him through those doors. The Wayne of it all. And the terror of potentially being introduced to a whole group of people as a new outsider, in mourning, no less.

A loud burst of laughter rang out from inside as they looked at each other and Eddie felt something fizzle and settle gently in his chest.

In a tiny little moment, they clicked again, still friends after all this time, no matter the distance.

Chrissy looked at him, a thousand emotions passing through her eyes as she worked through what she was going to say. She had definitely heard about Wayne’s death. Wayne had taken her in on more than one occasion when her mother had gotten to be too much.

Eddie had to get his ability to collect strays from somewhere, after all.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. By the time I heard I couldn’t get a flight in time and I should have been here for you.”

“It’s okay.” he smiled at her. And it was okay, really.

She wormed her hand in between his elbow and his side where they were clenched tight from the cold, looping her arm through. “I’ll stick with you the whole night if you want me to.”

Eddie��s whole body sagged in relief, not knowing he needed to hear it until he did.

“Please.”

Chrissy nodded, a steely look of determination on her face and their arms held tight together as they pushed their way inside.

The warm glow and homely smells hit him immediately and he felt his shoulders loosen even more. It was loud inside but not unbearable, the sounds of conversation mingling in with the speakers softly playing out a mix of traditional Irish music and what had to be some Christmas best hits album.

Eddie dragged his eyes across the bar, while Chrissy looked around at the people sitting at various tables and booths.

“Are you looking for anyone in particular?” He asked.

“I only just flew in today. I’m supposed to be meeting up with a number of- oh! There they are.”

She pointed towards the back by the fire that Cathy had put in, claiming it couldn’t be a proper pub without a fire. The series of tables were all pushed a little closer to each other, overflowing with people and Eddie had to blink at them a few times, realising there were definitely a few familiar faces grinning back at him and waving the two of them over.

The first person he recognised was Max, her bright red hair standing out amongst the sea of browns and chestnuts and blacks. It was then that his eye was drawn around the table and saw his Corroded Coffin boys and the Hellfire kids looking back at him.

Damn, he’d forgotten to tell the boys about his impulsive move back here. He hadn’t really told anyone about it apart from Jack. But they didn’t seem to hold it against him. It was plain as day on their faces that they knew he might not exactly be doing things logically right about now.

And then there were the Hellfire kids.

Or he supposed he could hardly call them kids anymore.

They would all be somewhere in their mid-twenties at this stage and wasn’t that just a mind trip?

They all stood to greet Chrissy and himself, hugs and pats on the back all around, the Hellfire kids and Max introducing one of the few truly unfamiliar faces amongst the bunch, El. Another woman he vaguely recognised gave him a small wave but eventually he realised who she was, because this was a small town and everyone at least knew of everyone in one way or the other.

Robin Buckley, from band.

What a strange mix of people.

She and Chrissy shared a long look with each other, eventually revealing that Robin was her long term girlfriend.

Eddie nodded along, told her it was nice to meet her but couldn’t help the taste of bitterness that rose up in his throat when he looked at the two of them, not being able to remember the last time he had been out with Jack and feeling like his company was enjoyed and Jack wasn’t just waiting to go home with or without him.

It had barely been a week since they had broken up but the loneliness had been there for a while.

He had only just managed to get his coat and scarf off before Cathy appeared at their table, a drink in each hand.

“Eddie, darling.” She said, placing the two drinks down in front of him and scooping him up into a hug. “It’s so good to see you back home, love.”

She was an older woman, warm and wrinkled and soft, smelling vaguely of cigarette smoke and perfume in a mix that shouldn’t have been as comforting as it was.

“Thanks, Cathy.” He muttered into her neck, pulling back away only to find his face in her hands.

“If you need anything at all, you know where to find me, right?”

He gave her a shaky smile, not really sure what to do with himself, he could feel everyone else at the table watching them.

“Yeah.”

“Good boy.” She grinned back at him, petting his cheek before gesturing down at the drinks she dropped off at the table.

“This is for you, love. On the house.” She pointed at the beer bottle. “And this one,” she rested her hand next to the glass of whiskey, neat. Wayne’s drink. “It’s tradition. One last tipple for your dear uncle. And none of you,” she whipped around, pointing an accusing finger at everyone in the booth, “are to touch it.”

They all stared up at her wide eyed and nodded while she turned her smile back on Eddie. “You take care of yourself, now. You hear me?”

“I’ll do my best.” He gave her a short salute and she rolled her eyes at him in a good natured way before turning and heading back to the bar.

Eddie swept his eyes over the pub, hoping to get an idea of how much of a scene had been made, as quiet as they had been tucked away in their corner. But before he could take a proper inventory, the doors were pushed open and even from the back of the pub Eddie could feel the cold following in the figure's wake.

The newcomer brushed the snow out of his hair and stomped his shoes out before flashing a smile at Cathy and weaving his way through the tables towards them.

He was almost offensively pretty, his cheeks, nose and lips rosy from the cold, unwinding a scarf from around his neck, giving Eddie a glance at a spattering of moles across his skin. He ran a hand through his hair again, trying to get out the last of the snow.

He looked so familiar.

It had been a long ten or so years since they'd seen each other, but it couldn’t be.

Could it?

“Hi, sorry I’m late, I-”

“Harrington?”

Steve Harrington stopped short, standing in front of him, staring at him with cheeks getting slightly redder.

“Eddie.” He said, a little breathlessly, running his hand through his hair again, but it seemed to be more from nerves this time. “Hi.”

Oh, so they were on first name terms? Okay, he could deal with that.

Except that maybe he couldn’t deal with it, because his childhood Big Gay Crush was standing in front of him, smiling at him and looking like he’d just been beamed out of the campest Christmas movie in existence, the warm glow of the Christmas lights and the fire dancing across his skin, bundled up in a dark red sweater and his hair was somehow still perfect.

But he was saved from having to respond as the group started shuffling around to greet him, Robin reaching out to pull him into a tight hug, like they hadn’t seen each other in ages.

Eddie moved back, sitting down at a stool at the edge of the tables, next to Chrissy and across from Robin and Steve who were whispering fiercely to each other, Robin explaining the whiskey on the table wasn’t to be touched and sending what they must have thought were subtle nods in his direction and well, he wasn’t sure what else he expected from tonight.

Apparently he was a local spectacle now.

But still, his boys were here, the Hellfire kids were here, Chrissy was here, he had plenty of people available to him to distract himself from Steve sitting directly across from him.

He had only managed to get halfway through the drink Cathy had brought him before he was approached again, this time by an older man who he recognised as one of the guys on Wayne’s shift.

He placed a fresh drink down in front of Eddie and told him Wayne was a good man, that the world was a little dimmer for his passing and he was a hell of a baseball player back in the day, could throw a ball at speed like no one he had ever seen since.

Eddie smiled and listened as the guy spoke, the clear affection and joy he had for his uncle warming his heart.

It was barely ten minutes after that guy had gone back to his own group that Eddie was approached again, another drink placed down in front of him and more sympathies and stories of Wayne’s past gifted to him from people who had known him.

It went on like that throughout the whole night, a steadily revolving door of people coming to talk to him about his uncle.

Stories of the stupid and dangerous shit they had gotten up to in their childhoods, stories of cow tipping (which Eddie had heard from Wayne’s own mouth was a bold faced lie but a fun one to tell), tractor racing (which he had not heard about) and one time Wayne had been chased out of Farmer Dan’s barn by the man himself wielding a shotgun, convinced he’d been corrupting his daughter.

Stories of nights playing poker, learning to never ever trust his poker face, his abysmal luck when it came to his fantasy football teams and how much he loved to get a bit of drink in him and sing at the top of his lungs, which Cathy always humoured, often joining in.

Almost as if she had been summoned, Cathy appeared at his other side.

“Will we have a little sing-song for your uncle, love?”

Eddie looked up at her and thought about it. To hear the accented and cracking old voices singing along to the songs that just seemed to live in pubs like these would probably hurt, but it would be like lancing a wound.

It would sting but it would be healing.

“Yeah.” He said. “I don’t see why not.”

“Would you do us the honours, then?”

Eddie felt his eyes go wide. He was never really much of a singer. “Oh. No,” he blushed, shaking his head, “I don’t think so, I’ll leave that up to the professionals.” He gestured around to the group of older men he had managed to collect as the night wore on. “If it’s one thing Wayne didn’t hand down to me, it was his singing voice.”

Cathy waved him off. “Oh nonsense, you have a lovely voice.”

He really didn’t.

“I really don’t.”

“We’ll be singing along with you anyway-”

“No, I’d rather not-”

“I could do it for you.”

Eddie turned to face Steve who was looking the least nervous that he had for the entire night, his gaze steady and confident, clearly comfortable in his singing ability. Robin was staring hard at the side of his head, like she was trying to beam thoughts directly into his brain. Eddie’s heart was thumping in his chest and he could feel his cheeks start to heat up, something he was pretty sure had little to do with the drink.

“You sing, Steve?”

Robin’s mouth ticked up at Eddie’s question though she tried to hide it, like she was harbouring a little secret.

“I’ve been known to.” Steve’s own lips curled up, shooting that tiny little smile Eddie’s way and-

Oh.

Oh shit.

Childhood Big Gay Crush, you’ve been upgraded to Current Big Gay Crush.

“Any requests?”

Eddie thought back.

There was only one song that came to mind to kick them off.

Wayne had always loved a certain type of song to sing in the pubs and when Metallica came out with a cover of one of them, a cover of the Thin Lizzy version? It was solidified.

It was their song, regardless of which version was being sung.

Now he just had to try to get through it without bursting into tears.

“Whiskey In The Jar.”

Steve smiled at him bright and blinding. “Thank god you didn’t say The Rattlin’ Bog.”

Eddie grinned back. “I couldn’t dump you in the deep-end like that, sweetheart.”

Cathay was practically bouncing with excitement and when Steve opened his mouth and started to sing, not a hint of bashfulness or embarrassment to be seen, it didn’t take long for Wayne’s friends to join in, singing and clapping along, stomping their feet and whooping.

Eddie just sat and listened. Just for that one song. He could feel it settle around his heart and clog up his throat but he could handle it. Steve’s voice was smooth and clear, like it all came to him with zero effort, like he was born to it, the bastard.

Eddie was able to keep it together through that song and while the applause surrounded him and Steve was starting to field suggestions for more songs, the rest of their table started to join in, the energy of the pub becoming electric.

As the night wore on and Eddie was handed drink after drink, he found himself drifting right into the group, until he was in the middle, Steve’s arm stretched over the back of the booth behind them, squished in together as they were. They didn’t strictly need to be as pressed up against each other as they were, but neither of them were moving and Eddie would take his comforts where he could, listening to the voice vibrating from the body next to him.

Eddie was able to hold it together until they decided they’d do one last song and he knew he wasn’t going to survive it dry eyed.

Of all the money that ever I had,

I spent it in good company.

Steve had barely gotten through the first verse before the tears started, just a slow and quiet trickle but noticed immediately regardless.

Steve’s hand dropped from where it was at the back of the booth to land around Eddie’s shoulders, giving him a little squeeze while Chrissy took his hand, resting her head on his shoulder.

Steve sang slow and unaccompanied, his voice ringing out clear and steady while Cathy and Wayne’s friends listened with heads hung low. He let the last notes fade out, keeping Eddie tucked in tight to his side as the applause rang out and everyone started making their moves to head home.

Even as Eddie had to go through the rigmarole of shaking hands and kissing cheeks, much drunker than he thought he was, Steve held onto him. He heard more than one of Wayne’s friends mutter “You take care of him, you hear?” or “Get him home safe” and each time Steve smiled and nodded, assuring them he would.

He didn’t know exactly when he had become Steve’s problem but he was too drunk to care, it was nice to be looked after for once.

Sunlight was spearing straight through his head. Someone hadn’t closed the blinds properly last night and now he was being assaulted by this world's version of Pelor in what had to be some kind of revenge for something terrible he must have done in a past life.

Dragging his eyes around the trailer, he was thankful that he was on the couch. He hadn’t slept in Wayne’s bed since moving back here. He didn’t think he would be able to for a while yet. At least not until he started moving some of his stuff out and who knew how long that might take.

It didn’t feel right, taking Wayne out of his own bedroom for the second time in his life.

But even so, he wondered which poor misfortune from the pub last night had been the one to deal with him and take him home, probably seeing the state things had been left in and the fact that he was clearly using the couch as a bed.

Maybe it had been Max. He kind of hoped it had been Max, he felt like she could probably relate the best, though Chrissy would have been kind about it too.

Eddie was able to drag himself up to sitting, still clad in his t-shirt and boxers, so at the very least, whoever had spilled him onto the couch last night didn’t get an accidental show.

There was something sticking in the back of his head that it could have been Steve who brought him home but that would be the most embarrassing eventuality of all so he just straight up ignored it, making his coffee as strong as humanly possible and dragging himself and the coffee into the shower.

Today was gonna be… today was gonna be an inside day. He didn’t think he could stomach the outside world, all the brightness and snow and Christmas lights and festive cheer in mourning and hungover.

His trailer was the only one left in the park undecorated. He couldn’t…

He just couldn’t.

Not right now, anyway.

Maybe next year.

He and Wayne had always done it together. Even when Eddie had moved away from home, he’d make the drive back down at the start of December every year to help, staying the night and then going back to Jack for a couple of weeks then coming back again for the week of Christmas.

He-

Oh.

He was going to be completely alone this year.

He didn’t just not have Wayne.

He didn’t have Jack either.

And no doubt, everyone who was back in town was back in town for their own reasons, to see their own friends and family, not to bring in a stray mourner who would undoubtedly bring the mood down.

Well, that was fucking depressing.

But it was fine.

He’d make himself a mountain of waffles and eat nothing but those all day and watch stupid horror movies and smoke himself into oblivion to avoid the destructive hangover and it would be fine.

It would hardly be a Christmas but it would be fine.

A knock at the door made him blink and woke him up from his daily routine of staring off into space. He had finally found himself feeling somewhat human, at least physically. Dressed and dried and on his second round of coffee and first round of painkillers, standing in the doorway to Wayne’s bedroom again when the knock came.

He glanced between the front door and the bedroom, wondering if it was even worth it to see what salesperson or caroler was on the other end. They didn’t deserve his moody ambivalence, but whoever it was knocked again and maybe just the sight of him would be enough to scare them away.

He swung the door open and nearly closed it immediately when Steve looked up at him with a shy smile.

He didn’t know if he could handle this right now.

“Hi.” Steve said, his cheeks pink either from the cold or from embarrassment, Eddie wasn’t sure which.

He was like… fifty percent sure that Steve might be, maybe, giving him some signals but also he got very, very drunk last night and he was pretty sure he remembered crying on someone’s shoulder after he got home too so, he was probably not the best judge of these things.

“Hi.” Eddie clutched his coffee cup tighter in his hand. “I’d invite you in, but I would rather you not see how I’m living right now.”

Steve furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “I’ve already- nevermind.” He shook his head. “I can’t stay long anyway, I just wanted to check if you were okay after last night.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows and blew a breath out through his lips. “I’m… I’m. Well. I’m… coping, I suppose.”

Steve nodded, eyes cast down to glance around the porch. There was a flake of snow clinging to one of his eyelashes, Eddie didn’t know how it got there. It hadn’t been snowing that morning, not from what he’d seen anyway, cooped up inside. Steve looked up towards the roof of the trailer and then around the edges, no doubt taking in its depressing and undecorated exterior.

“Listen, I-”

Steve hesitated, his cheeks burning a little brighter, hands shoved in his pockets and arms curled in tight towards himself. Eddie felt a little bad about leaving him out here in the cold, not even inviting him in regardless of how it was inside, it felt unnecessarily mean but he didn’t know if he could handle having Steve in his space right now. He felt like he was at either a knife’s edge or unbearably dull this morning.

“I wanted to offer you- or, I don’t know. If you didn’t have any plans, that- well, I’m hosting everyone at my place on Christmas day and you would be more than welcome if you wanted to come. Y’know… if you weren’t… if you didn’t-”

“If I’m gonna be alone?”

Steve turned his big sad eyes on him, mouth gone slack from shock.

“No! No, that’s not what I meant. I never meant to suggest-”

Eddie shrugged, taking a sip from his mug.

“It’s an unfortunate fact, right now, Stevie. I am alone. It’s depressing but it’s the truth.”

“Well.” Steve took a big breath in. “It doesn’t have to be.”

Eddie hummed, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Who’s everyone? I don’t know if I would be able to handle your parents. No offence.”

Steve scoffed. “None taken. They haven’t set foot in that house in nearly ten years. It’s not theirs anymore, it’s mine.”

“Oh. They dead too?”

To Steve’s credit, he didn’t flinch at the words that were maybe a little harsher than they needed to be, he met Eddie’s eye, determined and unwavering.

“No, they’re not. They left Hawkins, left me the house, called it my inheritance and drove off. They’re in New York now. We exchange Christmas cards but that’s about it.”

Eddie was a little bewildered.

“You don’t talk to them at all?”

Steve shrugged. “We know who we are to each other.”

So Steve still had parents out there in the world and they just… didn’t talk to each other? And from the sounds of it, all three of them seemed fine with that? Now that sounded depressing.

“Steve, I’m… I’m sorry.”

Steve tilted his head, their eyes never once wavering. “It’s a different kind of mourning, I suppose.” He shuffled a little bit in the cold and fuck, Eddie really should have invited him inside, but it looked like he was getting ready to leave anyway. “So, on the day it’ll be me, Rob and Chris. The kids will come over later on in the evening. And I think Dustin has invited those three guys from your band too, so they might show up. Like I said, no pressure, you do whatever it is you’re comfortable with but I think they’d all like to see you, I’d-”

Steve swallowed, his face getting pinker.

“I’d like to see you.”

Eddie could feel a grin tugging at his lips, something giddy and hopeful blooming in his belly despite everything. “Oh, would you now?”

Steve flashed him a charming grin, his shoulders relaxing almost imperceptibly while he dragged his eyes down towards Eddie’s lips and then back up. “I would.”

“Well then, I’ll have to see what I can do.”

Despite the things he said to Steve, he wasn’t sure he was going to turn up until he did.

He’d gotten into his car Christmas morning with a thermos of hot chocolate and an insulated blanket and visited Wayne.

He’d placed Wayne’s old fashioned chipped and battered mug that he only ever drank hot chocolate out of at Christmas time, a painted wreath and ‘Merry Christmas’ decorating the front, down next to the wooden cross dug into the head of his grave.

The headstone wouldn’t be finished for another few weeks.

He spread the blanket down over the snow, wishing he’d thought to bring a cushion but powering through regardless.

He poured out some hot chocolate for himself and Wayne, sat back, drank and just… talked.

He told Wayne about his breakup with Jack, about selling the apartment, about moving back into the trailer, apologised for not checking in with him first before he did. He talked about everyone who came to the funeral and the night at the pub, the songs, the people he spoke to, the friends he found there.

Steve.

He might have spent a little longer talking about Steve. It was nothing Wayne hadn’t heard before, though. Eddie had talked about him a lot during school.

He rambled and tripped over his words and laughed and cried.

He was alone in the graveyard. No one else was visiting at this cold hour of the morning, they would all probably stop by after mass or after dinner but Eddie hated the idea of not seeing him first thing.

Going back home after that was hard.

His hands were stiff and creaking, his ass was so numb from the cold it had come back around to hurting again and he didn’t know if it would ever thaw, but sitting in his van outside the trailer, looking at it cold and empty and undecorated he knew he couldn’t spend the whole damn day here.

He wasn’t sure what time he was supposed to show up to Steve’s but it seemed like an informal enough invite so he tried to distract himself as best as he could before he could make his appearance at an appropriate time.

He called it tidying but it was really just moving things around from corner to corner, trying to find spaces for his stuff to live, but at the very least the trailer no longer looked like Eddie had just dumped his entire life out onto the living room floor.

Which… he had but it didn’t really look like it anymore.

By the time the evening started to close in around him, he figured now was as good a time as any to go, it was certainly a better idea than sitting around with his blank word document, bouncing his knee or chewing on his fingers or staring off into space.

He did try to at least pull himself together to look presentable enough. Or as presentable his ripped jeans would allow him to be.

At the last second he reached for one of Wayne’s flannels, a buffalo check in red and black that felt Christmassy enough, slipping it on over his t-shirt and under his jacket.

Steve’s house was completely decked out. Even from the outside Eddie could tell he’d gone all out, every edge of the roof was crawling with twinkling warm white lights, there were LED candle arches lighting up every window and a large wreath surrounding the door knocker. Through the windows he could see that the inside was much the same.

Steve’s whole face lit up into a bright smile when he opened the door to Eddie standing there with his hands in his pockets.

“You came.” He breathed.

“I did.” Eddie smiled back. “I hope you don’t mind, I'm a little empty handed. By the time I remembered it was polite to bring something to these things it was already too late and I’ve been a little scatter-brained recently-”

“No, no. That’s fine, Eds.” Steve waved him in and Eddie tried not to let his stomach completely fly away with him at the nickname. “Come in. I’m just happy you're here, empty handed or not.”

Just like Steve had that night at the pub in his red sweater and perfectly tousled hair, the entire house looked like it had been transported out of a Christmas movie. The space was warmly lit by various lights strung around the bannister, fresh green garlands swagged over doorways and the fireplace, which was roaring and warm.

Red and green stockings were lined up over the mantle, almost too many to fit, and a large regal Christmas tree was decked out to the nines with a mishmash of different coloured decorations.

The tree and the garlands gave the whole place an inviting smell, complemented by the scent of cooking and baking that was wafting in from the kitchen.

Steve helped him slip his jacket off his shoulders, hanging it up over the coat rack.

“Can I get you something to drink? You’re just in time, dinner should be coming out of the oven any second now.”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

Steve shot him a blinding smile, turning and disappearing through an entryway while Eddie wandered to stand in front of the fire.

He stared down at it, letting the warmth spread over him wondering if he really should be feeling… more? Less?

He still felt sad that Wayne was gone and excited at the idea that something might be brewing with Steve, but was that right? Was that normal? Should there be other things? He didn’t know.

He was distracted from those thoughts by the sound of bickering coming from the kitchen.

“Rob, let me just-”

“No, get out!”

Steve stumbled through the doorway with a little pout on his face, managing to keep the two wine glasses in his hands from spilling over.

“Did you just get kicked out of your own kitchen?”

“Yeah.” He grumbled, handing one of the glasses to Eddie and Eddie did not blush when their fingers light grazed one another. He was an adult fucking man who’d done many filthy, dirty things in his life. He did not blush at a finger graze. “She won’t let me do anything else. Said I’ve cooked enough already which, I don’t know how that could possibly be true considering it isn’t even finished yet but-”

Steve cut himself off with a bite to his lip.

“Sorry, that’s- nevermind. I’m rambling.”

“It’s okay, Stevie. I don’t mind.”

Steve smiled, a little more to himself than to Eddie and said softly, “I like it when you call me that.”

Eddie had to drag his eyes away, the sweetness of Steve’s grin was too much to handle right now.

“I like it when you call me Eds.”

They were just standing there smiling at each other and slowly rocking on their feet, like they wanted to inch forwards but neither was brave enough to take the leap.

“Are you in the food industry? Is that why Robin gave you the boot?”

“No.” Steve shook his head. “I think I probably would have liked it, but no. I sing. Singer-songwriter, really but- I mean- I’m in music.”

“Really?” Eddie’s mouth was maybe hanging open a little wider than it needed to be, but Steve didn’t seem to mind. He hadn’t torn his eyes away. “I mean you have the voice for it, but shit, that’s not an easy industry to be in.”

Steve shrugged. “It could be worse. I work independently so I don’t have anyone breathing down my neck about it.”

“Anything I would have heard?”

“I dunno.” Steve blushed, hiding behind his wine glass as he took a sip. “Don’t really think it’s your type of music.”

“I’ll give anything a try once.”

Steve grinned a little and Eddie could tell there was a joke hidden in there somewhere that Steve graciously didn’t voice aloud. “It’s a mix of everything I suppose. But if you were to put a genre on it I’d call it indie rock.”

“I’m just letting you know right now, little eighteen year old Eddie is green with jealousy. I’ll have to look you up.”

“Please don’t.” Steve grimaced, his whole face bright red. “I don’t think I would be able to live with the embarrassment. And what about you, anyway? How’s the new book going?”

“Uh,” Eddie cast around for an answer before gulping back a mouthful of wine. “It’s going… it’s going. I’ve been kinda stuck at a wall for a few months now, but hopefully something will come to me soon.” He frowned to himself before looking back up at Steve. “How did you hear I was writing a new book? I wouldn’t have even thought you’d remember who I was, like in general.”

“How could I not remember you? You’re hard to forget.”

It was Eddie’s turn to hide behind his wine glass now. He wasn’t exactly sure how true that was, considering everything about his past relationship.

“But… uh. As for how I knew,” Steve rubbed that back of his neck, “I’ve read them. Your books, I mean.”

Eddie’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“You have? And you read them knowing it was me who wrote them?” He laughed to himself. “Didn’t think you’d be into queer vampire action romance.”

“You have no idea what I’m into Eds.” Steve answered, his eyes low and lidded, a smirk pulling up at the side of his mouth.

Eddie was saved from making a further fool of himself when Robin and Chrissy appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Feast’s served!”

The girls each said their hello’s, an arm squeeze from Robin and a hug and a kiss on the cheek from Chrissy before he was practically pushed down into his seat.

The dining table was large enough to have everything on the table, turkey, ham and all the trimmings, bowls with spoons sticking out of them and plates with tongs, even enough space left over for candles and decor in the middle of it all.

As bowls were passed around and both Steve and Robin made the first move on the food, tipping servings out to Eddie and Chrissy before themselves, Eddie found himself getting lost in conversation from all three directions.

He gossiped with Chrissy while Steve and Robin bickered over the best cut of the turkey.

Throughout the dinner, Robin tried to sneakily get rid of her sprouts by dropping them one by one onto Steve’s plate when he wasn’t looking, but he noticed every time, savouring them with a satisfaction that could only come from someone who actually liked them.

He got into his own good natured argument with Robin about marching band while Steve and Chrissy talked sports.

And he flirted.

Brazenly.

Probably far more brazenly than he should have but Steve always rose to meet the challenge with a curl of his lip and a glint in his eye.

By the time dessert was making the rounds he was pretty sure he could have fallen asleep sitting at the dining table, but finding room for the cakes and pies and trifles, as always.

Steve had stopped drinking after that first glass and while Eddie didn’t exactly want to get completely plastered, he still allowed himself to get to a polite level of tipsy.

The girls had no such worries, already rosy cheeked and a little sloppy by the time the kids and Eddie’s band arrived.

The rest of the night was full of Christmas music, the most ridiculous games of charades which Eddie won every time, pulling on his old DM skills and after a passionate argument on what the worst Christmas movie was, the winning candidate was turned on, everyone laughing and jeering along with it like it was a Rocky Horror showing, Eddie pressed into Steve’s side on the couch.

It was during a particularly loud moment, all of them booing the screen when he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket.

Pulling it out he saw the screen light up with a name he hadn’t really thought of for most of the night.

Jack.

He stared down at the name for longer than he really needed to before sighing to himself.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

Steve glanced between the phone and his face before settling into a gentle smile.

“Okay.” He gave his shoulder a small squeeze and Eddie got up, bringing the phone to his ear and stepping out of the room.

“Hello?”

There was a momentary pause on the other line before a quiet voice spoke. “Hi, Eddie.”

Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what to say back to him. Why are you calling? Why are you suddenly interested? Has the guilt finally gotten to you? Is it because it’s Christmas and you thought I’d be alone?

In the end he didn’t have to say anything.

“I’m just- I guess I just wanted to see how you’re doing.” Jack sounded resigned and a little sad. If they had still been together, Eddie would have been trying to drag him out to the Christmas market or trivia nights or Christmas parties for the last few weeks and they would have been heading out in a day or two to spend the rest of the holidays with Jack’s family in Ohio. Jack had only come back with him for a Christmas with Wayne once before.

But it sounded like Jack was already with his family. Eddie could hear his mothers Michael Bublé Christmas album playing softly in another room.

“I’m doing…” Eddie sighed, leaning back against the wall. “I’m doing okay.”

A loud chorus of laughter burst through the sitting room, shouting and jeering following quickly behind.

“You’re out somewhere?”

Eddie glanced back through the door, watching everyone gathered either talking to each other, pointing in indignation at the tv, tucking into another serving of dessert or knocking back the last of their drink, all backlit by the Christmas lights and the fire.

“I’m with friends.”

“Good.” He could hear Jack nodding, wondering how he was handling his mothers questions or his fathers awkwardness that Eddie usually deflected for him. “That’s good. I’m glad you- I’m glad you’re not alone.”

No thanks to you, Eddie wanted to snap but kept it down. He didn’t have the energy for an argument right now. Didn’t want one. It was Christmas and he wanted to keep the comfortable, fuzzy feeling around for as long as he could.

Steve lifted his eyes, looking right at him and grinning, something soft, something warm and easy, just for him.

Eddie smiled back. “Yeah, me too.”

Steve drove him home that night. It was nearly two in the morning by the time he was bundled up in the car with a lap full of tupperware and his heart feeling lighter than it had for weeks now.

He’d been offered a room to stay in, but had refused. He didn’t want to impose any more than he already had and if he was honest with himself, he wanted to be at home.

Plus he hadn’t brought anything for an overnight.

When they pulled up, Eddie tried to shuffle his way out of the car without dropping anything but eventually had to huff and hand some of the containers over when Steve offered to help him carry them all.

They were inside before Eddie remembered his previous refusal to let Steve in through the door, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Steve gave a cursory glance around but his eyes always seemed to be drawn back to Eddie, placing the containers down on the kitchen counter and assuring him he’d be back in the morning to drive Eddie back to his car.

“I hope you had a good time.” Steve looked at him, all warm and gooey and too good to be true.

“I had a great time, I think I needed it.” Eddie fidgeted with his rings, nervous all of a sudden. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“Of course. It was great to see you, I’m glad you came.”

They stood, staring at each other and Eddie had the urge to hide his face behind his hair, but he resisted.

Steve reached out, brushing a curl behind his ear and then leant in, placing a sweet and chaste kiss against his cheek and Eddie was left completely dazed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Eddie breathed, nodding. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

He watched Steve step out onto the porch and slide into his car, driving away with a little waggle of his fingers. Eddie unconsciously brought his hand up to brush over his cheek where he could still feel the tingle of Steve’s lips against his skin.

When the headlights of Steve’s car turned the corner, Eddie closed the door, staring at it in silence for a few moments before a hysterical little giggle burst out of his throat.

His whole body was wracked through with momentary excitement, forcing him to spin in a silly little circle. He stifled another giggle, sighing it out before his eyes landed on the couch.

He looked back up at a photo from a few years ago, of him and Wayne on a road trip that they had taken, sitting on a wooden fence surrounding a national park. Wayne always said it was just “One step at a time, boy. You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t take that first step.”

“Yeah, I hear you, Wayne.” Eddie responded out into the empty trailer. “First step.”

He looked up towards the bedroom.

He felt like, maybe tonight, maybe he could be comfortable with that first step.

Pulling a fresh set of bedsheets out of storage and turning back to the bed with them bundled up in his arms, he figured he’d just have to take it one step at a time.

I made a short playlist to go along with this fic containing the songs sung and the different versions mentioned along with one or two others I think they may have sung and my own favourites.

Some of you may have read I lost a family member a couple of weeks ago and I suppose this is my way of working through my feelings about it. It hit a little harder than I had intended but was healing to write nonetheless.

AO3

As always, my biggest thanks and much love to @hbyrde36 for the beta work with this and to the Stranger Things Writers Guild Discord for their motivation!

Christmas lights divider by @silkholland

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #penny00dreadful #eddie x steve #steddie fanfic #steddie fic #fanfic #tw character death #tw funeral #tw grief #tw mourning #christmas fic

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phaedraismyusername · 1 year ago

Text

It's September and we're in a heatwave so instead of choosing violence here's some oppressive summer gothics to match the abysmal autumn vibes

The criteria - they have to be hot and humid, they have to be gothic in nature, dark in content, and they have to at least flirt with the paranormal

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

This follows Andrew as he moves to a college across the country to step into his dead best friend Eddie's old life as he desperately tries to prove that he must've been murdered. Haunted, both figuratively and literally, angry and grieving, Andrew sets off on a path that leads him to question everything he ever thought he knew about himself and their history together as he fights to accept who he is, who Eddie was, and maybe tries to learn how to live without him. Fast-paced, dark, and super gay.

Water Shall Refuse Them by Lucie McKnight Hardy

After the death of her little sister, teenager Nif and her family move to rural Wales for the summer in an attempt to escape their grief. Set in the 1970s during a heatwave the isolation and oppressive weather quickly start to take their toll. With an emotionally absent mother, a father with a wandering eye and a needy younger brother, Nif becomes convinced she's stumbled across her own kind of magic, before catching the attention of the strange boy across the street. Think Shirley Jackson, definitely not YA.

Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain

Now, this is YA. We follow 17 year old Grey as she returns back to her tiny hometown in the Louisiana Bayou for the summer 6 months after her best friends mysterious disappearance. In a town that claims to be the 'psychic capitol of the world', someone must know something, right? Full of secrets, lies, and a boy who steps out of the forest with storm-bright eyes, this was a quick and twisty atmospheric read.

The Hacienda by Isabel Canas

When political upheaval gets her father executed and his family is left in shame and destitution, Beatriz decides she'll do whatever it takes to find security in her life again. When a handsome Don proposes, Beatriz jumps at the chance to accept and move out to his countryside estate with big plans for the future, but it doesn't take long before she's spending her nights terrorised by a mysterious entity inside her new home, forcing her to seek help from the strangest of places. The imagery is creepy, the tone is tense, there's a hot priest, what more do you want?

Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell

Probably the darkest book on this list, and definitely the oldest. When a young girl is brutally murdered within sight of her home, it starts a chain of events that will see a family destroyed, secrets and lies exposed, and a vengeful creature that looks almost human to rise from the river as the town that surrounds it starts to crumble. The people are unlikeable, the book is old, the content is Dark - you've been warned.

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

Also YA but this time for the bisexuals. Shady Grove can call ghosts from the grave with her music, just like her daddy could, but everyone knows that only trouble comes from playing for the dead. When her brother is accused of murder, Shady decides to embrace her birthright and use any power she can to clear his name. It's sweet, it's sad, it's lyrical, and there's a little bi love triangle sprinkled in to sweeten the sorrows. It's also a debut!

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renecdote · 2 years ago

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'it's their anniversary on sunday' + buddie 💗 ily

It’s their anniversary on Sunday. Two more days and they will have been married for a year—a whole 366 days—and it has gone by so quickly that it feels like no time at all.

In the grand scheme of things, it is no time at all. Not enough, certainly, although Eddie isn’t sure that’s much of a quantifier since forever wouldn’t feel like enough time with Buck. Which is... It’s funny, really, because forever was a concept he didn’t really believe in before Buck, but now it feels like the bare minimum, anything else impossible to imagine.

He’s trying not to do that now: imagine. Where he went wrong, what he could have done better, the conversation he’s going to need to have with their kids when he goes home.

“Eddie,” Bobby says quietly from behind him.

Eddie shakes his head. He knows what Bobby is going to say. He knows what the look on his captain’s face is going to be if he turns around.

Bobby comes closer, hand finding Eddie’s shoulder, his voice sure when he says, “It’s not your fault.”

Except—

”She’s going to fall.”

“And what if you fall?” snappy with adrenaline, with fear, the building trembling around them.

Buck’s gaze steady, steady, always trusting. “You’ll catch me.”

And Eddie didn’t.

He was meant to catch Buck—was meant to have Buck’s back, always and forever, til death do them part and then some—and he failed. So it doesn’t matter what Bobby says, doesn’t matter how sure he sounds, it doesn’t even matter if Buck wakes up from surgery and doesn’t blame him either. Eddie will always blame himself.

“It’s our anniversary on Sunday,” he says, and his voice sounds numb and distant to his own ears.

“I know,” Bobby says, squeezing his shoulder. “Have you already got Buck a gift?”

“Socks,” Eddie replies, which sounds stupid and insignificant when he says it out loud, but. “His feet are always cold, he complains about it all the time, and they’ve got little fire emojis on them.”

They also say “hot stuff” on the soles, but Bobby doesn’t need to know that.

“He’ll love them,” Bobby says, smiling.

Buck will love them, Eddie knows that. He’s just not sure he’ll get the chance to see that familiar, delighted grin light up his husband’s face.

Eddie presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. He’s vaguely aware that he’s shaking, but he can’t work out whether it’s cold, or shock, or something else.

“Okay,” Bobby murmurs, and then he’s sitting sideways on the bench and pulling Eddie against his chest, arms wrapping around him in a tight hug. “Okay, I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.”

Is it?

What if it isn’t?

“I can’t—” Eddie starts, but he can’t even bear to finish the thought.

The thing about grief is that it doesn’t get easier with practice. Eddie has lost more people than he can count, but none of it has come close to preparing him for the possibility of losing Buck.

“You can,” Bobby says, his voice steady.

Eddie knows he isn’t the only one who has been beaten down by grief before. He’s not the only one who has shied away from helping hands even as they dragged him out of the darkness. He’s not the only one whose heart will crumble, maybe fall apart completely, if Buck doesn’t make it through this.

He brings a hand up, holding tight to the arm Bobby has wrapped around his chest. He feels so old and unbelievably young when he whispers, “He’s going to be okay, right? Tell me he’s going to be okay, Bobby.”

“Eddie, you know I can’t tell you that.”

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. He does know that, but. “Please.”

Bobby squeezes him, his voice rumbling through his chest and into Eddie’s bones when he answers: “Buck is going to be okay. I promise.”

#coming back to finish this so many months later akdkkd #hi meg ily angst as requested <3 #asked and answered #Meg 🐸#fic

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medusapelagia · 1 year ago

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Eddie's month day 11 + Whumptober Day 5

written for @eddiemonth and @whumptober-archive

Prompts: Eddie’s month day 11: Pirate | The Last in Line - Dio | Adventurous Whumptober day 5: “It comes and goes like the strength in your bones.”

Cold Compress | Infection | “I don’t feel so good.”

Rating: Mature Relationship: Eddie Munson/Steve Harrington WT: injuries, sickfic WC: 2265

Being a pirate wasn't exactly Eddie's dream.

He wanted to be an artist and travel the world while playing his lute, but his father thought that it would have been easier selling him to the pirates than trying to raise him after his mother’s death, so Eddie lived all his childhood on a boat, learning how to make a sailor knot and avoid a noose around his neck.

But even being one of the most famous pirates in the world couldn't help him when the royal guards found him in a brothel and sentenced him to death.

Hazard of the job.

He has had a nice life after all, he has traveled all over the world, met people of every color, and even found himself a lovely second in command.

Yes, because after the big storm that almost destroyed the Black Fire, they found a lifeboat with a young boy an inch from his own death.

That's how Steve Harrington, the only heir of the Harrington dynasty, quickly became Eddie's second in command.

Eddie looks at the sun that is rising, it's probably the last time that he can see the dawn, so he tries to enjoy it.

There is a moment when the blue of the night shifts into red and then pink, and Eddie thinks about the color of Steve's lips.

He laughs a dry laugh. He should have said to his second in command that he was deeply attracted to him instead of going to a brothel to take off the steam.

Well, he will have time to think about that in hell.

The telltale sounds of footsteps and keys clanging one against the other catch his attention.

He asks himself if they are going to send a priest or not, he is not the religious type but he would gladly exchange a couple of words with someone before leaving this life.

The metal around his wrist is cold and harsh, but he doesn’t complain. He always knew that sooner or later he would have ended like that.

At least Henry Creel will not have his treasure. He hid him too well to let someone as stupid as him find it. The only one who has a possibility is Steve, and Eddie is very pleased with that. Maybe he will think about him when he will spend all the doubloons that he will find.

Sweet Steve, never killed anyone but managed to terrify the Black Fire’s men enough to make them obey his orders.

He will fucking miss waking up and seeing him still asleep a few feet away from him.

“Are you having a nap in there, Munson? Maybe I should come later.”

Eddie turns toward the door, seeing the familiar face of his second in command.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Freeing you? Or do you have other plans? The boys are ready to sail as soon as we get there, so step back and move your stupid ass from the door.”

Steve takes the keys and opens his cell.

“How?”

“Later. Now move. It will not take long for Creel to find out that his men are having a rest!”

Eddie nods and follows him, running toward the exit of the prison.

Steve stops, pushing Eddie behind him “Fuck.”

“What?”

“They are waiting for us. I have seen at least three archers. There is another exit?” he asks.

“How the fuck would I know! They didn’t exactly give me a tour, Steve.”

“Fine.” Steve kisses the golden necklace with the crucifix that he has worn since the day they met each other. The one that became so hot under the sun that left a burning scar on Steve’s neck “Here goes nothing.” he wraps Eddie into his arm and then starts to run, shooting at the leg of the archers.

“Kill them! Kill them!” Eddie yells, but Steve keeps moving, dragging Eddie with him until they get to a little boat hidden in the dark of a tunnel.

“Give me your gun.”

“Eds…”

“Give me the fucking gun!”

Steve sighs but gives him the gun and starts to paddle toward the secret cove where the others are waiting for them.

A couple of arches point at them and Eddie shoots them in the head, feeling almost merciful.

“Muson!” a familiar voice screams and he sees Henry Creel’s blue eyes pointed at him.

He is holding a quiver and Eddie has no more bullets.

“Shit.”

Someone pulls him from his jacket and Eddie falls in the water.

When he reemerges he notices that Steve has flipped the boat, using it as a shield.

"Genius idea, Harrington!” he praises him, while they keep swimming toward the cove.

When they get there the crew cheers them and they quickly leave the bay.

“You know what? Almost dying made me want to live even more adventures! What do you say? Are we going to have some fun?” he asks the crew, Steve is a few feet behind him, smiling at him.

Everything is fucking perfect.

***

The next few days everyone on the ship is excited about the new plan for assaulting a boat that is transporting species from the Indias. The only one who doesn’t seem enthusiastic is Steve.

Even if they sleep in the same room they almost don’t see each other.

Eddie is worried. Did he say something wrong?

He tries to give space to the boy but on the third day that he is ignoring him he goes to him, locking them in the hold.

“So what? Did something happen, Harrington? Is your conscience giving you shit? I did what I had to do. I kept us alive!”

Steve nods, without turning.

“Come one, Steve. Look at me! Tell me what the fuck is wrong!” he yells, turning the boy harshly.

“I… I don’t feel so good.” the boy replies before falling to the ground.

“Steve?! Steve?! Help! Someone! Help!” he yells, but he is the one who closed the door, so the crew has to break in.

“What happened?” Henderson asks, getting closer.

“I don’t know. He told me that he didn’t feel good and fell to the ground.”

Will Byers gets closer to them “He is burning up.” he states and in that moment Eddie notices that the golden skin is covered in sweat.

“What the fuck?”

“Bring him to his bed.” Will says, while running to his cabin and gets back with many potions.

“Hey, Steve? Stevie? Can you hear me?” Eddie calls him while washing his face with a wet towel.

Will strip him and they see it, a red angry wound on his left arm with a dirty bandage around it.

“When did this happen?” Eddie asks, looking at the crew.

“He was ok when he came to rescue you!” Dustin protests, and when Will removes the bandages they see the point of an arrow stuck in his flesh.

“Creel.” Eddie growls, looking at the injury.

“We have to take out the arrow. It’s causing an infection.” Will states, taking a little knife and sanitizing it with a burning candle.

“Hold him.”

As soon as the hot blade touches Steve’s skin his eyes open wide and he starts to trash around, but they are holding him tight.

“Bite this.” Eddie says, giving him his own belt to bite.

He sees tears in the eyes of the boy while Will opens the wounds and finally removes the point of the arrow, and then he loses consciousness.

“Steve?”

“He passed out. It’s for the best because I have to clean the wound.” Will says without stopping his work until he feels satisfied, then he stitches the wound and puts another bandage on.

“What now?” Eddie asks, looking at the feverish boy.

“Now we pray.” Will replies, washing his hand in a bowl “We have done all we could. Now it’s his body that has to fight the infection.”

Fuck.

“Try to make him drink something and keep his temperature down with some cold compresses. How far is the nearest island?”

“At least two days.” Lucas replies, looking quickly at the maps.

“Make it one.” Eddie orders.

“But…”

“I don’t give a fuck Sinclair. I want Steve to see a doctor as soon as we can and I don’t give a fuck if you will have to blow on the sails.”

“As you say, captain!” he replies, running back to the helm “Have you heard fleabags?! We have to run! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

When Eddie is left alone with Steve he takes his hands into his, kissing the knuckles and feeling the sweat on his skin.

“Steve, you can’t leave me. Do you hear me? You can’t fucking leave me! Not like this! Please. Come back to me. Come back…” he whispers, changing the cold compress on his forehead and winching at the warmth that the boy irradiates.

***

Will comes a few times during the day to address his condition, the wound seems better but the boy has never gained consciousness. They manage to make him drink some drops of water and keep his lips wet, but the fever is still high.

“He needs medicine stronger than the one I have.” Will explains to him “I can’t do miracles Eddie!” he complains when the black-haired man starts to yell at him that he has to do something.

Eddie is not a religious person, but that night he prays to every single god that he knows, he even takes Steve’s necklace with the crucifix and hides it under his shirt, he doesn’t want to risk that anyone would steal it.

When they finally get to the closest island Will and Dustin go to find a doctor and bring him on the boat.

“This will cost you. It will cost you a lot.”

“I’m Eddie Munson, Captain of the Black Hell. It’s your own life enough of a payment?” he asks, holding his knife at the man’s throat.

“You don’t do my kind of job on this island without meeting some pirates. I want the money.” The man replies unamused.

Eddie growls but takes some doubloons and throws them at him.

“Half now and half if he survives.”

The man smirks, taking the money and then looking at the injury.

“Your boy did well, the wound is well cleaned, his body just needs some help to fight the battle.”

He takes some liquids and starts to mix them, but when he tries to make Steve swallow the medicine it just falls from his lips.

“Shit. Do you have something that could help? We have to push the medicine in his mouth. It’s not like you can kiss him, right?”

He absolutely can.

“How much?”

“All the vial, if you can.”

Eddie takes it in his mouth and then pushes the bitter liquid into Steve’s mouth, trying not to lose even a drop of the precious medicine.

“What now?”

“He will need another dose in a few hours. And after that, he is on his own.”

Eddie stays with him, cleaning the sweat from his face, doing his best to keep him hydrated, while he keeps staring at the vials on the table.

He will give the second vial to Steve and if it will not work… he will follow him.

He writes a few notes for the crew, holding Steve’s hand all the time.

When it’s time he takes the vials in his mouth and pushes it in Steve’s mouth, licking his tongue for a moment.

If this is going to be their only kiss he wants to enjoy it as much as he can.

Steve’s tongue twitches under him.

“Steve?” he calls, astonished.

The chestnut boy opens his eyes “Eds?”

“I’m here. I’m here.” he replies holding him tight “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t feel so good…”

“I know, baby. You gave me quite a scare, but now you are better. Aren’t you? Come on, drink some water.” he pushes a cup of water against Steve’s lips.

“I had the strangest dream…” he tells him, his bright-for-fever eyes staring at him “I dreamt that you kissed me.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah…”

“And did you like it?”

Steve blushes and nods “I did. I’m sorry if it’s not appropriate or…”

“I kissed you. And I’d love to kiss you again. It’s that alright?”

Steve nods and they kiss. It’s just a peck, a simple touch of lips but it’s the best kiss ever.

“Now sleep a little. I’ll be here with you.”

When Steve falls asleep Eddie takes the doubloons and gives them to Dustin “Bring this to Murray and go have some fun, As soon as Steve is feeling better we are leaving.”

The boy nods, smiling.

Eddie looks at him running through the crowd.

Garreth, his oldest friend, gets closer to him “Did something happen?”

“Something did happen, Gar. Something did happen.” Eddie replies with a smirk.

The other sailor nods “The two of you will be ok if I go have some fun too?”

“We will.” he answers “I think that we are going to be more than ok.”

When he comes back to his cabin Steve is still asleep, but his breath is calm and regular and he is not burning up anymore.

Eddie gives him back his necklace with the crucifix and then takes a doubloon.

“You are going to be a nice addition to my collection.” he says to the golden token.

A few months later Eddie has the same necklace with the crucifix Steve has and they share not only the cabin but also the bed.

#whumptober2023 #no. 5 #Cold Compress #infection #I don’t feel so good #stranger things #fic #injuries #stranger things fanfic #my fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #eddiemonth #eddiemonth day 11 #medusapelagia

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dc-said-bi-robin-rights · 1 year ago

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When the clock struck midnight, Eddie Bloomberg knew he was a dead man.

He rises from his bed with a deep sigh, rubbing at his eyes to dispel his bleariness—he hasn’t slept in almost three days, and tonight was no exception. How could it be? He can almost see his impending doom hanging over him like the Sword of Damocles, even now, for today is finally the day he turns twenty one.

For most people, such an occasion would be a happy day. Twenty one was an age that carried a lot of meaning—he was now old enough to drink, for one thing, although that had always been more Rose’s thing.

For most Americans, twenty one was the age when they would truly become an adult, when their life would truly begin. For Eddie Bloomberg, the Kid Devil, twenty one was the age in which his life would end, and his soul would be consigned to hell for all eternity.

He wonders how long it’ll take for Zachary to realize what day it is… if he hasn’t already done it. He grabs for his phone, expecting to find its screen covered by a flood of panic-stricken texts from the young magician, but the screen is empty, the only notification on it a reminder from his calendar app.

Right, Eddie realizes, swallowing thickly. Zachary was still missing after the crisis. And probably dead, he adds silently, sighing again and standing up. God, they had lost so many….

He almost knocks on Rose’s door when he passes her room in the hallway, but she decides against it. He doesn’t want her to try fighting for him the way he knows she would’ve, knows she is fully capable of picking a fight with a demon even knowing she has no chance in, well, hell. Bart told him she once stood up to Big Barda when she thought the Fury meant the former Titans harm, and from what he understood Rose hadn’t even been that enamored of their predecessors. He shudders to think what she would do for him if he asked, and knows full well that is the reason he could never tell her. She can’t know. None of them can’t know.

He descends the stairs towards the basement with a heavy heart. He is terrified—how could he not be?—but he won’t let that stop him from at least trying to face his death with some dignity. Like Rose would.

He can hear the chanting now, getting louder and louder the lower he descends. Doomed, doomed, doomed. And he is.

He knows what’s waiting for him at the bottom.

Be like Rose, he tells himself, stopping for a moment to calm his furiously beating heart before continuing his doomed descent. Be brave like her—you can do it, I promise.

Neron gave him one year more than what had been agreed. He should be grateful for that, if nothing else. Demons aren’t typically the flexible sort.

The chanting is louder now, so loud it’s piercing his head.

“The big bad wolf howls his hunger,” a voice says in his ear, rich and cold and very amused. “And still the lamb does come.”

He doesn’t reply, because he doesn’t have to. Indulging his little quips wasn’t part of the deal. He just continues his descent, his mind swimming with the panicked thoughts of a doomed man.

Was this really it? Am I really going to die like this?

The basement at first seems normal from afar, but that changes the moment Eddie steps foot beyond it’s threshold.

As he watches, the lights go out, one by one, until he is left standing alone in the darkness. From beneath the walls, a thick gloom filters into the room, slowly at first, but then flooding, until the entire room is covered by a shadow so dark it swallows even the darkness… but Eddie doesn’t run, not when the ceiling starts pouring sizzling rivulets of blood down upon him, not when the chanting swells to an impossible volume, not even when the infernal screeching of the hell-sent pierce the air, announcing the coming of a Greater Demon.

Doomed, doomed, doomed boy! The chanters scream in utter ecstasy, their voices echoing strangely in the dark basement. Doomed, doomed, doomed doomed!

The noise is too much, too much. He’s not like Rose, he’s not half as brave or as strong and he’s just a kid and he doesn’t wanna DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

“Eddie Bloomberg,” the voice says again, and all the noises suddenly stop. “You surprise me.”

A swelling inferno suddenly blazes to life in front of him, banishing the darkness, embers spinning and spinning into a tornado of fire, and in its center he can see the black outline of the demon who has come to claim his soul, it’s baleful green eyes glinting with cold mirth.

Eddie steps forward, licking his lip, hot sweat coating his forehead. “Just get it over with. I won’t beg.”

He meant it to sound like Rose would say it—strong, unafraid, challenging, but what comes out is more like a shaky squeak than the defiant challenge he meant it to be if he’s honest with himself. The figure in the fire only laughs before his eyes turn cold.

“I no longer desire your soul, Edward Bloomberg,” Nerón whispers, his voice like the echoing screech of a million pleading souls, causing Eddie’s breath to hitch, before his next words throughly dash his sudden hopes. “It is your body I want.”

Eddie blinks. The chanting swells. Doomed, doomed, doomed.

“But… that’s not what we agreed.”

“No, it isn’t,” Neron agrees, stepping out of the fire to stand before Eddie in all his infernal glory, his skin pulsing like a living thing, as if there were maggots crawling around underneath it. “But there is something much more interesting than your soul happening up here… and besides, these are better terms than what I offered you. You should be grateful.”

Eddie takes a step back, then two, but Neron follows him, his grin like the streak of a comet across a red sky.

“Afraid, mortal?” the demon screeches at him, his face transforming into that of his father, mother, aunt, before it finally settled on that of Blue Devil. “You shouldn’t be… this is mercy!”

DOOMED, DOOMED, DOOMED! The chanters scream, delighted, excited, cackling. DOOMED, DOOMED, DOOMED BOY!

He trips, and when he looks up, Eddie Bloomberg sees the face of the Endless staring back at him. He screams, and the fire swallows him, and Eddie Bloomberg knows no more.

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mawofmeraxes · 2 years ago

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Breaking Point

request: Omg loved your fic Sneaking Out! Could you please write something for Eddie x fem!reader having an argument (angst, with fluff at the end)? Like maybe they're adults & married and it's more serious?

summary: Over five years after you had escaped from the upside down once and for all, you and Eddie discuss moving out of Hawkins, Indiana and going somewhere where Eddie wouldn't have to be scared for his life every day.

characters: eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: 3.1k

warnings: fighting, angst, fluff, happy ending, married life, marital fighting, arguments, mean eddie, angry Eddie, sad Eddie, yelling, angry reader, crying, cursing

masterlist

Eddie had been out all day.

The job he had taken over at Jimmy's Mechanic Shop seemed to take up so much more of his time recently, not that you were opposed or anything.

Living with your fiancé meant that you got to spend much more time together than when you were young high schoolers running around town causing a ruckus everywhere.

So having some more free time just to yourself wasn't something you were entirely upset about, although you were starting to miss seeing him for such a large part of your day.

It was just something that you would have to grow used to.

Something you didn't want to get used to, however, was the amount of times you had to scrub off spray paint from your front door.

It had been five years. Five years since the deaths of Chrissy and many others.

Five fucking years and people still tried to blame Eddie even though he had been proclaimed innocent for all to hear, with the good ol' chief of police Jim Hopper (who had surprised everyone with his return after his so called death) backing him up as much as he could.

Hopper had even arrested a few of the previous vandals when you had called him upon arriving home and catching them in the middle of the act.

Yet there still seemed to be some people in this close-minded god-forsaken town who still thought that Eddie, your sweet goofball Eddie, was capable of cold blooded murder.

It made you sick to your stomach.

You had spent some hours today running your usual errands before coming home, which meant that your house was empty with no cars in front.

Meaning that the usual assholes who would spray-paint "freak", "murderer" and "killer's whore" (among many others) had the perfect opportunity to do their usual crime, just like usual.

When you got home and saw the words sprayed onto your door again, you just couldn't take it anymore.

You were like a tornado as you rushed through the house, gathering all of the correct cleaning materials that had you learned worked best after much trial and error.

You had to get it off before Eddie came home.

Luckily he had only known about it happening a few times. But other times that it had happened you had managed to clean it up before he came home, where you proceeded to act like nothing had happened and all was well.

All while you festered in your anger and your desperation to leave this town.

This town which had done nothing good for either of you. Branding him a freak and a killer when he was anything but. And calling you a slut and a whore for being with him.

Eddie was the most generous and caring man you had ever met. He was like a golden retriever with curly dark hair. Happy all the time, ready to cuddle and always licking your face. The man wasn’t capable of even harming a fly.

He was the epitome of a gentleman. Always ensuring that you were okay, cooking dinner for you when you felt unwell, massaging you when you were achy and sore.

He was perfect. Yet the people in this town hated him.

Treated him like shit all because he dressed differently, acted differently, and wasn't a sporty jock.

In the end you would usually cheer each other up by saying that they were all just stuck up assholes who were jealous of him. They were jealous that they weren't able to act as freely as him. That they had secluded themselves in a bubble of conformity that they were too scared to leave.

You quickly pulled the front door back open and slammed it before setting all of your cleaning supplies down. You sprayed the door with the one spray that you had found that worked and began scrubbing.

Eddie could be home at any second and you needed this stupid paint to be gone before he pulled in.

He had been having a little bit of a rough week due to the 5 year anniversary of Chrissy's death coming up. The five year anniversary of when you almost lost him forever.

It was hard on both of you, considering you were there with him for almost all of it. But you knew he struggled with it much more than you; both his body and his mind had been littered with scars ever since.

When he had sent you and Dustin back into the rightside up and cut the sheets before he could follow, you had felt your heart shatter in two. You had watched as he told you he loved you before sprinting outside of the trailer and into the cacophony of bats.

You had almost broken down then and there, had it not been for Dustin grabbing you by the arms and dragging your ass back in with him.

When you had managed to get back in through the portal and found Eddie, you knew that the chances of him surviving were slim.

But he was your Eds. And that boy would pull through if it meant that you would be there with him the entire time.

And after all of that. After all of the suffering that you and he had endured, these assholes just had to vandalize your home as a reminder again and again and again.

You were scrubbing like a madman now, watching as the paint smudged off and the color further smeared on the door.

You didn't even hear the car pull up, but you did hear when the car door slammed.

You turned and there he was. Eds. Greasy from the cars he had worked on throughout the day, staring at you and the paint stained door with an unreadable look in his eyes.

Your shoulder slumped, disappointed that you had been unable to get it off in time. Disappointed that he had to see it when he had been having a terrible week already.

He walked up the driveway and to the door, simply grabbing your shoulder and giving it a squeeze before passing you, opening the vandalized front door and going inside, leaving it open.

You sighed, feeling guilty for something that you hadn't even done. Feeling like you were the one that had brought that look into his eyes.

You knew you weren't, you really did, but that didn't stop you from feeling like shit about it.

You looked at the door again, wide open and showing the interior of your home and sighed once more before grabbing the door and pulling it closed so you could finish scrubbing the paint from it.

It didn't take long before all of the evidence of the vandalism was removed. The door was as clean as it had been when you left earlier, and now it was like the incident had never happened.

Now you had to face the turmoil that was sure to be raging in your home.

The house was quiet inside, no sounds that would allude to anyone being home to be heard.

You set the supplies down in the kitchen before taking your shoes off and making your way upstairs to your bedroom where you knew he would be taking his usual after-work shower.

When you entered the room, the ensuite door was closed and you could hear the faint sound of the shower running.

You assumed he was almost done, so you sat on the side of your bed and decided to wait until he was done.

You had to talk about it.

The look on his face when he came home broke your heart.

Neither of you deserved this.

Neither of you deserved to face the wrath of a town that didn't want to face the facts. A town that didn't want to accept that Eddie had done no wrong and is an innocent man.

You wanted to leave.

You had been thinking about it for a while now.

Contemplating the both of you moving out somewhere that would be welcoming. Somewhere where there would be no worry about dirty looks, vandalized doors or death threats.

Somewhere where all you had to worry about was what you were having for dinner and when the two of you could go out safely again, like you used to.

As you sat on the bed and let your thoughts run rampant, the shower in the bathroom turned off and not long later Eddie walked out. Hair dripping down his shirtless torso as he toweled it dry.

Your focus turned outward towards him, and he stopped at the look you gave him.

"I don't want to talk about it today, baby." He muttered, turning back to the bathroom to hang his towel as you stood up and crossed your arms.

You sighed, "I know, Eds, but I don't want to do this anymore." He turned to look at you, a scared look on his face. "I can't stand seeing the look on your face every time someone gives us a dirty look. It breaks my heart knowing that this town will always hate you for something you didn't even do." You breathe in before continuing, "and I try so hard to get the words off our door every time it happens because I know seeing them makes it worse but I can't keep doing it. They keep getting away with it Eddie!"

He stands there as you say this to him. A blank but sad look on his face. When you stop talking he walks over to where you stand by the bed and takes a seat, rubbing his hands across his face and releasing a sigh of his own. He looks up to you, his soft doe eyes full of sadness.

"What happens when their threats aren't just threats anymore Eddie?" You whisper, dropping to your knees grasping his hands in yours. "I'm in this home alone for hours after I'm done working baby, what if they come to hurt you and I'm the only one here? What happens when you're not here and we can't protect each other?" You begin to gasp for breath, tears welling up in your eyes as your breathing becomes more and more erratic. "What happens if I'm here one day and you're out there and they hurt you? I can't stop them, Eds." The tears start falling, and Eddie's hands grip yours tightly as they start to stream down your cheeks.

"I know, baby. But there's nothing we can do about it." He says, eyes looking into yours while his hands move to wipe away your tears.

But there is something you could do about it. You could leave.

Your eyes widen in earnest, and you sit up straighter on your knees. "But there is something," you say, "Eddie, baby we don't have to stay here. We can leave." He freezes completely, but you don't notice. "We can find a nice little town or a city! We can get jobs anywhere, and we can find a nice little home or even an apartment to move into!" A smile starts to widen on your face at the idea, but Eddie is anything but happy. There is a frown starting to mar his face, and in his eyes there is complete devastation.

"Baby, we can't just leave."

And then it's your turn to freeze. You can feel your heart breaking into two and your blood turning ice cold.

"Why not?" And the tears are back, pooling in your eyes as Eddie stares at you. Your hands start to loosen their grip on his own. "Why stay here? There's nothing for us here but pain." You give his hands a squeeze, but it's him who loosens his grip now until your hands fall from his. He continues to stare at you and starts shaking his head.

"You know why we have to stay here!" His voice is louder than before, and it makes you jump a little bit. "Everyone is here!" You lean back on your heels before starting to stand up so you can back away from him as he continues to break your heart. "All of our friends are here! My uncle is here!"

Now you stand a few feet away, backed up from the bed as he continues to sit on it, tears streaming down your face as your lips tremble and your hands shake. "I know that! Obviously I know that!" You say, and you have to look away from his face as he stares at you, a disbelieving look on his face. As though your suggestion is simply something crazy. "But Eds they'd understand!" You say, raising your voice a little. "They would understand because they know what we're going through. And it's not like we'd have to go far! We can go somewhere else in Indiana, or maybe Ohio! That way we wouldn't be that far and we can visit them and they can visit us!"

He just sits there and stares at you. His head begins shaking, and he stands up to start walking towards you.

You stand still, allowing him to come up to you where he puts his hands on your shoulders. "We have to stay here." He mutters, bending down slightly so his face is directly in front of yours. His own eyes are tearing up now. "After everything with the upside down we have to stay here. What if something happens again? We have to be here to help everyone!”

Your eyes widen in disbelief, "Eddie, it's been years!" You can't help but yell at this point. He flinches back in shock at the sudden raise in your voice.

It feels like he can't hear what you're saying. Why does the upside down matter right now? El finally closed the last gate years ago! And everyone was keeping a close eye on things now that they were all adults and Hopper was back. There was nothing to worry about.

“Just because it’s been years doesn’t mean that something couldn’t happen again!” He says, “Everytime they thought they closed the gates for good he came back stronger than before! What if he comes back again and this time we can’t do anything?” He’s looking at you with disbelief again. Like you have no idea exactly what happened and exactly how strong Vecna was.

"Eds, the gates aren’t going to just open up again! Vecna is dead!" You pull yourself away from him. Your hands going up to your head where you run them through your hair, slightly pulling in stress. "I just want to be able to go through our days with no stress! Nobody on our backs, looking at us like we've done something wrong, thinking the worst of us. One day they might kill you Eddie, just because they can!" You turn back to face him. "What happens when they decide that enough is enough?"

He goes to say something but you cut him off, "The gates don't matter! Hawkins doesn't matter! None of that matters if these god damn fucking people kill you first!" You finish your sentence with a hoarse yell.

At this point Eddie is standing directly in front of you, his eyes wide in shock from the loudness of your voice, the tears streaming down your blotchy red face while you heave in air. His own eyes start to well with tears. Your voice croaks out a whisper, "We could be happier somewhere else..." You let out a sob. “Safer somewhere else…”

The tears that have been forming in his eyes are now falling down his face, matching yours. "Baby..." He murmurs. “I know. I know, trust me I really do.”

You collapse onto your knees as a sob wracks through your whole body, Eddie quickly walking towards you and falling onto his own knees as you both start crying together.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, "I'm so sorry, baby." And he murmurs it over and over and over again. “I just feel like we can’t leave. We need to stay here to help keep everyone safe.” He has you cradled into his chest now, his hands wrapped around your head and holding you to him. You pull back a little and look at his face. It’s red now, to match your own. His eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks covered in tears. He gives you a sad smile. “But I know that if we stay here it’ll only make us more miserable than we already are.” You continue to watch him. He moves one of his hands to the back of your head to cup your cheek, wiping the tears that lie there away with his thumb. “I’m sorry, baby.”

The slam of the car's trunk signifies that the last box has been loaded up. You stand there, hands on your hips, breathing in large lungfuls of air as the sweat drips down your forehead.

It was so hot that day. Sun blistering down onto you, skin sweaty.

Of course this just had to be the day that you and Eddie were moving to your new home.

The two of you had decided that enough was enough. After seeing your reaction to everything and talking to all of your friends about how he felt, Eddie had realized that the both of you moving out of Hawkins was for the best.

You had both contacted real-estate agents, checking out homes for sale and apartments in cities, and had found a quaint little place in another town more north of Indiana. It was a few hours away, but it was enough that no one in town recognized either of you, and the stories of what occurred in Hawkins had been swept away as much as possible.

Your eyes glanced over to the house as Eddie walked out with the last of your bags, keys in his hands as he locked it up for the final time.

A smile spread across your face, eyes filled with love as he walked towards you and the car.

He had his own smile on his face, his eyes squinted in happiness while he looked at you.

He opened up the backseat door, throwing both bags in before leaning over it, his arms coming to rest atop of it with his head following. He makes a pouty face up at you and purses his lips so you'll give him a kiss.

You laugh at him before leaning forward to meet his lips with yours.

You have never been happier. And you were so excited to start your new lives together.

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pricescigar · 2 years ago

Text

Edward Allen Evans

Born: 4th September 1954

Age: 27 (As of 1981)

Nationality: British

Gender: Male

Parent(s): Redacted

Hair colour: Brown

Eye colour: Brown

Height: 177.8 cm (5ft10)

Nicknames: Ed, Eddie (Only if you know him well enough) _____________________________________

Personality: Hardworking, strict and a fair man. Edward takes the impossible and turns it to the possible. His careless, cold hearted nature is what protected him from his darkest past, and what shadowed over him. But all who knows him deep down, he's a sensitive and caring man.

Likes: Spicy food, tea, coffee, working hard, helping his colleagues, studying, working out, boxing, punishing criminals

Dislikes: letting criminals go freely, lairs and cheaters, Adler, MK-ULTRA

_____________________________________

Backstory:

The wareabouts of his parents are unknown, well to him at least. MI6 say that they both died in a horrific accident when Edward was just a young boy. But he already knew it wasn't the case, Edward was raised by his aunt and uncle. Both of them were wealthy owning a grand estate, he grew up in Crystal Palace, London and went to a private school.

At the age of sixteen he went to Oxford University, where he had the honours to meet Helen Park. Both of them became good friends, at the time of them being in university. During his time in University, Edward persued to learn Law in order to become a Lawyer.

After haring the news that Helen's brother had died in a IRA bombing, knowing her determination to avenge her brother and to focus on something else, Edward was supportive of her.

Edward and Helen's relationship had always been complicated— Some colleagues always thought they had dated at one point, but Edward strictly said he sees Helen as a sister and family. Just as Helen sees Edward as a brother.

When Edward was 19 years old Edward graduated with his law degree in 1973, for six whole months he struggled to find a job to fit his interests with law. With him not having enough experience, he always thought his degree meant nothing to him.

Edward was an intelligent man, but always hated when nothing went his way. Or what he always thought would go his way, and didn't as a result. It was until one day Helen visited him one day, giving him an opportunity to join MI6 thanks to his degree in Law. He would give the choice from right and wrong, staying in the shadows. From there, Edward took the opportunity and joined MI6.

He also studied German to assist Helen Park track down Dietrich & Ulrich Wolff along with Anton Volkov. But luck wasn't on their side, and they wasn't able to catch them.

By the time Edward was 23 years old in 1977, he proved himself to become one of the most intellgoents strategists, and the fate of all the threats they come across. When he was in charge of putting the threats in custody, there had been many times where he almost killed them by beating them to death. And leaving them to lot in high security prisons.

Though not a lot of people were fond of Edward, especially the older members that had been around MI6 for all of their life. There was this... Dislike towards him, Edward however didn't seem to notice, or even care for that matter.

One day in 1979 when Edward was around 25 years old and in the Records rooms, sorting out old MI6 files that needed to be disposed of. While looking through the old archive files, he found two names that seemed familiar. Both surnames with the name "Evan." His parents.

It was said in the files that his parents became double agents for the rouge Soviet Agent Perseus, while still serving under MI6 and they were terminated by MI6 when they learnt of his parents betrayal, he understood why people didn't like him. But he proved perfectly that he didn't end up like his parents.

In 1981 he was recruited by Russell Adler along side with Helen Park to take down the Soviet Agent Perseus, along side with; Russell Adler, Lawrence Sims, Alex Mason, Frank Woods and Elvira Wolff.

After 1981, the wareabouts of Eddie remain unknown

#call of duty #cod #black ops cold war #cod cold war #black ops #call of duty cold war #oc #ocs #edward evans

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sock-ness-monster · 3 years ago

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Excuse is granted. Please. I beg of you. Infodump away

Thank you so much I love telling people about this guy

So, to preface this, I'll be telling this story exactly how it was told to me by our camp counselor at a Caveing camp I went to, so it's very much an oral history that maybe can't be fact checked but the broad strokes are genuinely 100% true

TRIGGER WARNINGS: DEATH, DARKNESS, CLAUSTROPHOBIA, GRAVE DESECRATION, CRICKETS

Now that that's out of the way (and please mention if there's any other TW's I should add) the story of

Floyd Collins, The Man Who Was Buried Six Times

This story begins in Kentucky in 19very early, a young Floyd was plowing his family's field when he suddenly dropped through the ground and discovered an unknown cave system. Super cool! Now, people back then did not have television, keep in mind, so caves were really big deals and they were a brand new and lucrative tourist escapade. Floyd's family seized the idea and quickly made a little tourist attraction out of it and started raking in the dough. But they weren't the only ones who had a cave you could tour, Kentucky's geology is super unique in that it has tons of limestone and sandstone which is perfect for underground rivers to carve cool caves out of. They are everywhere in Kentucky and the surrounding area, there was a lot of competition for who had the best, the biggest, the longest cave. And Floyd and his brothers were seized by cave fever and were exploring all around looking for new tunnels and chambers. A large part of this business, unfortunately, was not just walking people through the caves but was letting them take home souvenirs. People could carve their names in the wall, take a stalagmite or stalactite or whatever cool rock they found. Destroying the sensitive ecosystem of the caves. Floyd, the cool dude that he was, was one of the only people who was against this at the time. Good for him! Salamanders are important!

Anyway, Floyd and his brothers are always on the lookout for new opportunities, and there were tons in that area. But, not all of them would pan out. Floyd had heard rumblings about a new cave system called Sand Cave that wasn't far from his family's original cave, which by now had been dubbed Crystal Cave. It didn't seem that promising to most, but Floyd was hoping it actually connected to Crystal cave, and they could tack on so many feet to how big their cave was. So he set off to see if he could find a connection.

He had been surveying the cave for a few hours, and decided to call it quits. He was crawling through a tight tunnel upwards toward the opening of the cave when a rock slide pinned his ankle down tight. He was laying flat with his hands reaching upwards, and there was no way for him to reach back behind him to free his ankle.

He had gone on this expedition without telling anyone.

This was the first time he got buried.

Three days pass, and his brother Homer finally finds him. He tries everything he can think of to free floyd, to no effect. Realizing that this may be a bigger endeavor than he can pull off, he crawls back out to go and find help. It is January of 1925, what else is there to do but go to the newspaper? They publish the story of the man trapped in a crawl way, and it's a huge hit!? People are fascinated by Floyds predicament. They want to help, they want to see, they want to know more. It even makes it on the radio! The three biggest news stories of the time were

1) the war (oof)

2)Charles Lindbergh (will come up again later)

And 3) Floyd in the hole

Everyone in America is anxious to find out how they rescue Floyd. "They" being everyone from the local cave experts to the military corps of engineers to the freakin freemasons, they're all trying to figure out how to free Floyd. Who, ya know, is just chillin in the cave, because caves stay at a constant temperature of ~54° , not too bad for January. His brothers and a reporter take turns crawling down to deliver him the three essentials; food, whiskey, and news. The reporter, "Skeets" Miller, would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his correspondence with floyd in the shaft. Now, as mentioned before, it is a cold and snowy January, but people (nearly 10,000 according to some reports) are so fascinated by the goings on at Sand Cave that they travel from far and wide to be there at the triumphant moment when Floyd emerges. Weeks have gone by at this point. Radio stations are reporting every day, Charles Lindbergh is hired to take photographs of the terrain from above. It's like a big party up top.

They camp out around the cave mouth.

They build fires for food and warmth.

The snow melts.

The cold water trickles down into the cave.

Floyd....... starts to cough.

The cave's already sketchy structure is further compromised.

There's another rock slide.

Floyd is now cut off from contact with the up side world, and the engineers panic and go with a last ditch effort they had been debating beforehand. They can't go around they can't go behind, the only path left was straight down. They drill a hole that reaches the 150 feet from daylight to Floyd's prison. They are too late. He was estimated to have died three to four days before they reached him. His leg is still stuck, and half his face has been consumed by cave crickets. And they just.....leave him there. Whatreyagonnado they shrug, he's already gone we can stop now. They fill in the shaft again.

This is the second time Floyd is buried.

Homer, his closest brother, can't accept this as his final resting place. A few weeks later, they un block the hole and carry Floyd to their family's funeral plot and have a small service with just his closest friends and family present.

This is the third time Floyd Collins is buried.

A few years go by, and the Collins family sells their farm and cave. Unfortunately, they did not see the part of the deed that entitled the new owners to everything in and under the property. Floyd's body is now legally theirs. He is exhumed and placed on display in a glass coffin in Crystal Cave (which years and years later would eventually be proven to connect to Sand Cave).

This is the fourth time Floyd is buried.

If you haven't pieced it together yet, caves were a pretty big deal. We now enter a time in Kentucky history known as the Cave Wars, and they are brutal. How brutal, you ask? Well, to answer with one scenario that happens to be related to this story, the owners of nearby cave were jealous of the attention Crystal Cave was getting from their cool exhibit of Floyd's body, against his family's wishes. Why, the only logical thing to do is steal the man's body and throw it off a cliff. Crystal Cave's new owners would recover it, though minus the left leg. And the next logical thing of course is to put him back on display but this time with a bunch more chains.

This is the fifth time Floyd Collins is buried.

Then, the 60s roll around and Crystal Cave and Floyd are purchased by the National Parks Service on the grounds of being connected to the Mammoth Cave System (the longest cave system in the entire world now). Floyds family is still fighting for his body, and in the 80s they finally get their wish. Floyd is removed from the cave in a 15 day trip and buried at a real cemetery again.

This, is the sixth time he is buried.

A pillar is constructed in honor and perhaps in reparations to all he's gone through, but it is struck by a semi truck and demolished less than a week after its unveiling.

Floyd.......went through a lot. All he ever wanted to do was see some cool rocks and support his family. And to this day, cavers do their best to do right by him. When entering Mammoth Cave, they often ask the darkness to look after them. They aren't talking to the darkness, of course, that darkness that can never be described properly. They are talking to Floyd. Asking him to watch over them as they wish he had someone to watch over him. In the caves everyone is above you, but that's not what they mean. And when they hear a whistle through the tunnels, they like to imagine it's Floyd. Floyd, who was right. The cave was so much more than people thought, in so many different ways. To this day, there's a saying in the caveing community.

"Floyd Lives"

It's like the geology version of "Eddie Would Go". As long as we carry on his legacy of exploring bravely, daring to go where noone has gone before, and do our best to preserve the natural beauty and habitat of the caves, floyd will live on. Floyd lives in our memories and hearts and the drips of water that will one day be pillars.

I don't really know how to end this. Here's a picture of the man himself;

(the picture above is not the tunnel he was trapped in, to be clear)

#cave camp had just such a peofimf impact on me omg #the best week of my whole life #and to think i almost chickened out the night before leaving #i still keep in contact with those guys #we all have tshirts with you guessed it floyd on them #floyd collins #caves #geology #stories #humanity #infodump #*profound i meant #claustrophobia tw #buried alive tw #darkness tw #longish post

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madamewriterofwrongs · 4 years ago

Note

Soft Eddie thought: the first time he mentions Buck in passing as 'my husband' and then all of a sudden it hits him for the first time that, holy shit, he has a *husband*! And either tears up a little or can't stop smiling.

Hey Nonny, I hope you see this, I know it’s been awhile.

Subconsciously Drawn Together

911/Buddie

Eddie would never call what he feels a crush – after all, he’s a grown adult who hasn’t had a crush on anyone since Jenny Rodriguez broke his heart in eighth grade by picking Eugene as her lab partner instead of him. (Coincidentally, they are both married to someone named Makayla and neither of them lived outside of Texas for more than a few months).

He always thought that would be him. Not, married to Jenny or Eugene (or either Makayla for that matter), but there was a part of him that knew he was destined to live a quiet life. Marriage, children, maybe a dog and a white picket fence if they wanted to be really cliched. And he was okay with that – he really was. For Eddie, there was no other life than the one laid out for him.

Going to war didn’t change that. A poor country boy joining the military to provide for his pregnant wife back home? Even pulp fiction novelists thought it was too obvious. But, again, he never minded living an uninteresting life. Not everyone was destined for adventure and drama. Most people were made to get through the day.

Even when the nightmares came and he struggled to keep his family together, it just seemed like the next chapter in his boring novelization of a life. Everyone had marital troubles after coming home, everyone had bad dreams and phantom pains. Everyone worried where the money would come from to support their family. Everyone snuck into their son’s room to watch him sleep because they were afraid to admit that they’d forgotten what he looked like while he was away. Everyone felt guilt and shame and fear and regret. It was a part of life.

And then his wife left and his parents offered to take Christopher and for one moment, the thought crossed his mind. Could he let his son go (be with people who could stay at home and give him the care he needed)? Could he forget about Shannon and move somewhere else? Could he start over (relive his 20s in the carefree manner he’d seen others struggling to find)? Could he run away again and make it stick this time?

By the end of the week, he and Christopher were packed into his truck and headed to Los Angeles.

It didn’t feel like running away when he was mumbling his way through the Frozen soundtrack or listening to his son talk about his old school’s pet turtle that he’ll miss (and wonder what kind of pets the kids in Los Angeles got to have). It didn’t feel like running away then. It felt like they were running towards something.

Running towards a new life, of sorts, as it turned out. Sure, he still dealt with his parents’ criticism, and Shannon came back into their lives and for a moment, it felt like she’d never left him. But in LA, he had a purpose, he had freedom. For the first time in a long time, Eddie looked forward to opening his door in the mornings; for the first time in a long time, he never knew exactly what to expect, and LA was full of surprises.

The biggest surprise of all was named Evan Buckley.

Buck was a lot of things: a friend, a skilled firefighter, endearingly enthusiastic, subtle as a brick, and the first person outside of his real family that he called ‘family’ and truly meant it. He loved the men and women he served with in Afghanistan, but the moment they departed at the airport, he lost that connection. Joining the 118 had been a way to get that back and it had worked out fantastically. He had sports fanatics to cheer with, parents of blended families to vent with, people who knew his past and loved him despite it all.

Eddie never told anyone (except his therapist who never commented on it, but made a face that said they’d circle back to it at a later date), but he felt as though he’d known Buck for years. Once the man opened up to him, the trust he felt was strong, and the way he took an instant affection to Christopher made it easy to let this man into his life.

Within less than a year of joining the LA Fire Department however, his world imploded.

Or exploded, actually. First Shannon died, then Buck was injured, then his son was nearly taken by a natural disaster and he didn’t even know it. He spent so much time after that trying to put the pieces back together. For all the things he’d assumed his life would be – a wife and kid and a white picket fence – the only thing he had left was a son now dealing with immense trauma for such a young child to handle. And he had Buck (who was so bright and eager to please that one might describe him as a puppy at times). Nothing of his life had turned out the way it was meant to.

Suddenly, a year had passed since Shannon’s death and his life was still an unrecognizable sort of decagon shape instead of the standard cookie cutter circle. But none of that mattered because he was staring into bright brown eyes and a luminescent smile that was telling him that he was doing a wonderful job of raising Christopher on his own.

Others had been trying to tell him that for years (never the ones whose opinion meant to world to him, but he was learning to let that go) but that beautiful face was so sincere that he forgot himself. He forgot that he was a widow with a grieving son. He forgot the fear and regret that went along with the phantom pains when the weather turned cold. He forgot that he had failed in his ambition to live an entirely ordinary life. For a moment he thought: ‘when she smiles at me, I feel happy’.

He wanted to feel that way again.

There were several reasons that things just wouldn’t work out with Ana. For one: she was Christopher’s teacher, and even if it wasn’t against the rules, it still felt wrong. Two: he’d seen the moment she thought differently about him after he yelled at her at school. She was too professional and kind to say anything but even if it was possible, she was definitely no longer interested. The third reason was that he was a firefighter who worked insane hours and when he wasn’t at work, he was home with his son. There wasn’t exactly a lot of time for dating. Fourth: she wasn’t Buck.

That thought had been the one that kept him up at night. It had come to him while he stood in the shower, recounting his day, wondering how long he had until it would be time to pick up Christopher from school. He wasn’t feeling overly ambitious so he figured spaghetti and meatballs would be perfect for supper. He wondered what it would be like to cook for someone who wasn’t ten years old. Someone he could cook beside without having to keep a constant eye. There were times (in the early days with Shannon) where the two of them would cook together, do laundry, clean, do all the domestic things side by side. She had been insistent that they both learn to care for the house that they shared and he was happy to stand beside her in all things.

Remember to throw Buck’s gym clothes in the laundry next time he comes over. He keeps forgetting to throw them in his basket.

A simple little thought, really. He’d thought it before. His friend would leave his gym bag by the door for work and forget to empty it out when he went to do laundry. It was unlikely that anyone other than Eddie noticed the state of Buck’s clothes, but he’d been paying closer attention to him lately. Like how after the train derailment, his smile seemed easier; his shoulders relaxed more often – especially when he was with the 118 or Christopher. Buck seemed happy now that he’d gotten his closure from Abby.

He deserves to be happy. He makes me feel happy.

Buck did make him feel happy. The way he interacted with Christopher, the way he entrusted his son to this man without a second thought. But even when Christopher wasn’t around, Eddie enjoyed Buck’s company. Going to baseball games (dragging him, more like), sitting together when the crew went out for drinks after work. With Buck, he felt…

Safe.

Which wasn’t surprising, really. Buck was a kind man. Sweet and thoughtful. He put other’s first – just like Eddie does, he could hear Frank’s voice in his mind – and cared deeply about the people in his life. Not to mention, he was physically a very strong figure. In some other life, he and Buck met on the wrestling circuit but never fought. Him: with his MMA, and Buck: with his Greco-Roman Wrestling. With those broad shoulders and firm arms, he wouldn’t mind being pulled into a stronghold once or twice.

He knew Buck was conventionally attractive from the day they met. There was no hiding the sharp blue eyes or curly blond hair and rounded jaw.

Nothing like Ana.

Another correct statement that still seemed ominous in context. Why was he comparing Buck to Ana – or Shannon, for that matter? It wasn’t fair to compare friends to lovers. Although, Buck did fit into several categories on both sides.

Buck was a loyal friend, caring and trustworthy. He made Eddie and Christopher feel safe and loved. He wanted to do Buck’s laundry. He thought he was attractive. Slowly, one side of the column began to build in size.

Perhaps Buck was a bigger part of Eddie’s life than he realized. He hadn’t thought seriously about dating anyone until Ana and that never felt right but Buck…

Buck always felt right. Like he belonged with them. Like he’d known them all his life.

Could it be that Eddie wanted something other than friendship? Had he been climbing the wrong ladder all this time only to find himself at the top with no way across? After all: Buck had never given any indication that he was romantically interested in Eddie.

Though, to be fair, Eddie had given no indication either.

But that was because he’d just figured it out. Surely Buck had some idea that best friends didn’t act the way they did. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t interested, in any way, with Eddie. Could he forget it and go back to the way things were? Now that his fingers seemed to tingle with the new realization, could he take it back? Could he put those feelings in a box until someone else came along?

Would there be anyone else?

What did he want to happen with Buck?

Kissing him, for starters, might be interesting. Those plump, pink lips exploring his entire body. Having someone in his bed every night would be nice – and not just anyone, but someone who understood his work and the stressors of the day. If anyone was going to stand by his side while he freaked out about Christopher going on his first date, it should be Buck. Next to Eddie, that man was the most protective when it came to that little boy. He’d only seen it once or twice but Eddie knew that Buck looked good in a suit. Would he look even better in a tux? Years from now, when he retired from the LAFD, it would be nice to feel the weight of a ring on his finger, knowing he had someone he loved waiting at home.

Oh.

Oh damn.

Eddie’s shower ran a little bit longer than expected that day.

That simple thought had sent him on a spiral two weeks ago and every night that he struggled to fall asleep, he found himself rolling to the empty side of the bed, wondering what it would be like to wake up next to his best friend.

The conclusion he inevitably came to: it would be wonderful.

If the worlds aligned, of course. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about his sudden, escalating realization (not even Frank). There was no way to know if Buck reciprocated his feelings in any way. Though he knew with uncanny certainty that he would be safe to confess his feelings without fear of losing his relationship entirely, it still seemed safer to gather more information before making any sort of move.

I’m safe with Buck no matter what.

So, no. Eddie would not describe what he felt for Buck as a simple ‘crush’.

It was everything.

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

The accident scene was a mess. It always was. They so rarely rolled up on an event that was neatly organized – not that it would make him any less stressed or worried for the safety of his patients. It was his job to worry, to be surrounded by chaos. Perhaps that was his new normal now, and his idea of an ordinary life had shifted to one that involved heavier boots.

There was still a sense of satisfaction and ease, knowing that he got to go home to his son every night, that he was helping people, and there were people in his life who loved and supported him. Unlike his old army mates (as strong as those relationships were), he also knew that if he woke up and decided to be a baker instead of a firefighter, the 118 would still treat him as one of their own.

Perhaps ‘baker’ wasn’t the best example, baking had never been one of his favourite activities. A florist, or a construction worker, maybe. Firefighting meant a lot to him but it wasn’t his calling – the way it was for his… for Buck. How would the man react if one day, Eddie told him that they would no longer be partners in work? There was no doubt in his mind that Buck would still be over on Thursday nights with pizza and video games. And perhaps if Eddie was working more regular hours, he could go over to Buck’s on occasion and make dinner for the three of them. That would be a nice surprise. Buck would smile that impossibly bright smile and open his arms to Christopher, swinging the boy around gently because he was overly cautious about roughhousing with him – something that only made Eddie’s heart beat faster. Then, Buck would make his way over to Eddie and kiss him with a sort of reverence; like he can’t quite believe that Eddie’s real. He could rest assured that the feeling was mutual.

What a ridiculously outdated fantasy. He’d clearly grown up watching too much ‘I Love Lucy’.

The firefighter shook his head as he hopped out of the truck, turning his thoughts towards the work at hand.

That was something he’d always been good at: focus and calm under pressure. It was what had made becoming a firefighter so appealing. Sure, being a combat medic meant he was more than qualified for field rescues, but all that stoic strength he possessed was better used at work rather than at home. At home, he could be Christopher’s dad. At work, he was Firefighter Diaz.

There was no room for fantasies in Firefighter Diaz’s mind.

The chaos of the accident mostly consisted of cries of pain from passengers trapped in their vehicles as they tried in vain to free themselves before the qualified company could arrive. It wasn’t uncommon to come across a major pile up in the middle of the day, when Angelenos weren’t kept at a complete standstill, and impatient drivers were a staple of life in the LAFD.

Eddie took his orders from Bobby, clearing a path of bystanders for the heavy equipment, and assisting those who were stuck somewhere between freeing themselves and receiving a particularly crude hemicorporectomy. For all the noise, it was a relatively calm affair. Sure, some were screaming and crying – and one woman definitely threw a fit when told to climb out the passenger-side window of her shattered vehicle. But those in need of help received the assistance they required, and the worst injury they encountered was a broken rib and neck bruise from a young man who remained conscious throughout his entire extraction.

It was messy, it was chaotic, it was loud, but it was all right. There were still a few people with minor concussions and bloody wounds that could hopefully be tended to at the scene (most of them unwilling to take the ambulance ride if it wasn’t strictly necessary). He was admittedly a little hyper-focused today, his mind fighting the urge to wander away from its regular duties. Eddie chided himself for feeling so lovesick at work. He’d gone all this time loving Buck, he could handle a few more hours. It was that hyper focus which would be his undoing.

“All right, I think you’re going to be just fine. Head on over to my husband over there and he’ll get you some gauze for your arm.”

An innocent enough sentence – one that didn’t register in his mind through the haze of moving from one patient to the next – but one that only fed into that dangerous fantasy of his.

“What did you call Buck?”

And one that Chimney had apparently heard loud and clear.

Eddie blinked, as he kept his eyes trained on the man before him (some poor bystander who’d bumped his head when he’d stumbled backwards to avoid the oncoming collisions), determined to remain professional in the face of his own idiocy.

Clicking his penlight on with a little too much enthusiasm, he shook the device over his patient’s face. “Can you look up, sir?” Eddie felt his coworker’s eyes trained on him but he kept his focus on his work. As he continued his examination, Chimney crept closer, eyebrows furrowed in confusion and amusement but still, the ex-soldier remained stoic as ever. Some part of Eddie knew that ignoring his friend now would only lead to a confrontation later but right now, he had work to do. And dividing his attention between his duty and his teasing friends was not how he wanted to spend his afternoon. So, he stayed focused. After a few moments, he saw Chimney shake his head and move away, letting Eddie take a much-needed breath of relief.

He was safe from his own stupid brain. For now.

Eddie knew it was coming when Chimney let him be during the rest of their scene cleanup. It was inevitable; but knowing and experiencing were two entirely separate matters.

“So.” Chimney wore what could only be described as a ‘shit-eating grin’ as he began his sentence, pulling all eyes in the back of the truck to him. “Is there something that Buck and Eddie would like to tell us?”

Buck, innocent as ever, turned to Eddie for guidance. “No…?” Eddie could only stare out the window, sorely tempted to remove his headphones if only to prolong the inevitable conversation. Was he blushing or was his face simply burning from the inside out?

“Are you sure?” The man was unrelenting, his voice growing higher with his escalating amusement. As if giving them a chance to confess would be easier than Chimney spilling the truth.

Not that there was any truth to confess. There was just one, very, very, idiotic man who got one simple crush and couldn’t keep it in his pants.

“Chim, what’s going on?”

There were two options Eddie faced in this moment where his head filled with warning sirens (not dissimilar to the ones that normally filled the truck). He could come clean and confess his sins to the team, facing the consequences with what meager amount of dignity he had left. Or, he could lie and pretend Chimney had misheard him, and they could all go about their day. That seemed the safer option. Of course, he hated lying to his team – to his friends – but what was the alternative?

“I called Buck my husband at the scene.”

Apparently, the alternative was exclaiming his idiocy in front of his teammates and denying the flash of a smile on his partner’s face. It was a simple upturn twitch of his lip, hardly noticeable, but the only opinion that mattered to Eddie as he gave his confession was from the man sitting across from him – and he was decidedly attuned to Buck’s ever-changing expressions. On a normal day, he enjoyed the way their knees bumped as the truck bounced through the streets of Los Angeles; it was just another reminder of how connected they were. Now, it made the space between them feel too close – yet still not close enough.

Buck’s face, upon hearing the news that Eddie had tied them together in the mind of some random stranger, flickered once before falling to something neutral and curious (almost amused). As if he was studying something.

“Oh, I don’t mind.” His partner shrugged and Eddie’s heart stopped. “Were they hitting on you?”

Again, Eddie appeared at a crossroads. “No.” And chose the more embarrassingly honest answer.

“Were they hitting on me?”

“No.” So many forks in his path but he continued to veer in one direction, as Buck furrowed his brows in confusion.

“Then why did you”

“I don’t know.” Eddie tried to sound casual as he grumblingly cut him off before he could continue his innocent interrogation. Through the headset, he could hear Chimney snort in disbelief but his eyes remained solely locked on his partner.

He knew why Chimney might scoff at his dismissal – those type of slipups didn’t ‘just happen’, after all – but it was as close to the truth as he could muster. He didn’t know why he’d said what he said. His mind was still frazzled from long hours contemplating what he wanted and what he felt.

Apparently, his subconscious had taken over and now he had his answer.

An answer which was decidedly too large to attempt to unpack while he was still on duty.

He wanted Buck to be his husband. He was ready to get married again – and to his best friend, no less. All wonderful information to process at another time.

The rest of the trip back to the station was filled with noise: the roar of the engine, the shout of the horn when someone inevitably cut them off, the clank of metal against metal. Eddie’s head was silent. He stared out the window at the passing world, feeling the eyes of his partner drilling into his cheek for a time, and then return to his phone. No one spoke, but the absence of voice was deafening. Teasing or pestering would have been better than the juxtaposing silence that told him everyone knew what he’d meant.

Buck had given him every out for his little mistake and, instead, Eddie had barreled straight into his own demise. There was no other explanation as to why he’d said what he said: he’d meant it. Or wanted to mean it, rather. Sure, his dirty little secret had been outed, but Buck had yet to make a comment one way or the other.

I don’t mind.

One friend helping out another: that was what it meant to Buck. And he loved that. But there was no mistaking now what Eddie felt in his heart.

He wanted it to mean something else.

Climbing out of the truck at the end of their journey was harder than usual. The silent stares wouldn’t stop because they were back at the station, it would only be worsened by the fact that there was nothing else to focus on. Eddie never prayed for a call – and he still wouldn’t now – but if there was any mercy in the world, he could avoid all of his friends and co-workers for the rest of their shift.

Simple enough.

“Hey.” Eddie cursed at the familiar voice following him towards the cubbies. Naturally, they were alone, naturally, there was no real excuse to leave – and apparently, he’d decided to suppress his ability to tell white lies for the sake of his pride today – naturally, his heart pounded behind his eyelids as Buck stopped jogging in front of him.

“I just want to say…” and here came the inevitable turndown Eddie dreaded and secretly hoped would never come. “It’s okay, I get it.” Buck’s smile was small but sincere. That man couldn’t be anything less than sincere.

It’s one of the reasons why I lo-

“It was just a slip of the tongue,” Eddie cut off his own thoughts before they betrayed him the way his subconscious had. He needed at least some of his faculties to survive the day. “Don’t worry about it.”

He stepped to the side, intending to escape his own personal hell – was it always this hot in the station? Did they always stand so close to one another? How had he never realized his feelings before now? – but Buck blocked his path.

“No, really, it’s fine.” Was Buck blushing now? “I kind of think of you as my work-husband, too.”

Another perfect opportunity for an out. He could flounder excuses about being tired and meaning it in a work-related setting the way Buck implied.

“Right.” His words sounded weak to his own ears. Who knew what they sounded like to Buck, as the man finally let him pass. Freedom secured, Eddie quickened his pace so as to escape the curious eyes of his fellow crewmates as quickly as possible.

Or at least, that was the plan, until Buck called out: “But you know, I’m free tonight if you wanted to talk about it.”

It felt as though the world stopped spinning – but the distant sound of clanking cutlery from the loft reminded him that it had not. His stomach dropped into his shoes, and his skin burst into flames from the buzzing in his ears. Eddie pivoted on his heel slowly to face his partner, uncertain he’d even heard the words he’d said. But there was Buck, blushing as brightly as he felt, but smiling a much more lopsided grin.

“Talk about what?” He cautiously asked.

Buck moved first, filling the minimal space Eddie had put between them with his broad chest and bright, eager eyes. He smelled of smoke and pine (despite interacting with neither today) and a thin sheen of sweat made him appear more disheveled than perhaps he was. Had he always been so intoxicating? What were they talking about?

“About being husbands… outside of work.”

“What?” Now Eddie was certain that he’d misheard his friend.

Buck simply smirked in response to his question, eyes moving slowly over Eddie’s face. He was always examining, questioning, confident. He had been doomed from the start.

“Christopher’s in bed at eight, right?”

“We’re pushing it to eight-thirty.” His mouth moved on autopilot, too stunned to comprehend the sudden shift in subject.

Again, Buck’s blue eyes circled his face slowly, absorbing all Eddie’s focus as he felt himself physically affected from the mere sight of his partner with his knowing grin and wandering eye. So entranced was he, that he didn’t notice how closely the other man had leaned into his space until he felt his hot breath against his skin. Eddie swallowed the lump in his throat.

He was absolutely doomed.

When Buck spoke, his tongue danced along his teeth, an enticing show of some unfulfilled fantasy that had never occurred to Eddie in the first place.

“Then I’ll be there at eight-thirty-one.”

Buck’s flirtatious demeanor melted into a giddy smile that snapped through the tension he’d pulled between them. “I was a little- a lot worried you didn’t feel the same.” He confessed, still filling Eddie’s space with his infectious energy. One word from him, and Eddie melted.

“You…were…” No more words filled his mind beyond a string of victorious swears and the sound of panicked cheering, but Buck seemed to understand him nonetheless. Buck had always understood him.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with using the truck to keep his legs underneath him, he would have turned to see Buck walk away, pumping his fist in excitement. As it was, several crewmembers looked on from the balcony, shaking their heads at the pair of idiots acting like lovesick teenagers over a single date.

Chimney shooed them all away before taking the opportunity to shout: “Buck, tell your husband that lunch is ready.” Which earned him more than a few chuckles from the firefighters upstairs, and two overexaggerated groans from the men below.

They were definitely not going to be living this down for a while.

For once, Eddie didn’t mind – and if the grin plastered on Buck’s face for the rest of the shift was any indication, neither did he.

#cj writes things #911 fox #911 on fox #911 fic #911 fan fic #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie #buddie fic #friends to fiances #introspection #pining

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buckleyirondad · 4 years ago

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we stick together (and see it through)

After a bad call, Buck shuts down, but luckily, Christopher is there to pick him back up.

Christopher Diaz Week, Day 4: Buck & Chris + “I’ve got you.”

Read on AO3

TW: OG Character Death (Implied Drowning; child) & Panic Attack (Buck)

Bobby had rules.

Like the ‘Q’ word, Bobby was planning to ban the term ‘simple call’ because more often than not, when those words were uttered, the call seemed to take a nasty turn.

They were called to a house where a teenager collapsed in her bedroom.

While her mother was distracted, knelt on the carpet as the team were handling her daughter, she suddenly realized that her young son was unaccounted for.

The boy was only five, and among the chaos, he’d ventured outside, falling into the outdoor swimming pool, hitting his head.

Buck, who'd headed downstairs to grab the backboard, was the first to find him; he sprinted across the grass and leaped into the pool, locking an arm around the child’s front as he screamed for help.

It was too late.

Trying to hide the tears filling her eyes, Hen called it.

With a gut-wrenching scream, the mother collapsed to her knees, comforted by a shaken Eddie, who knelt in front of her, uncertain of what he could but say, he didn’t flinch when her face collapsed against his shoulder. Tears filled his eyes, thoughts obviously locked onto Christopher as he pressed a hand to the woman’s back.

When Buck stood, he wavered on unstable legs, held up by Bobby’s firm grip on his shoulder.

It wasn’t anybody’s fault.

Although Bobby could count seven people who would blame themselves. Including himself.

Buck slipped away before Bobby could say anything to help Chimney who’d remained upstairs to care for the daughter.

***

Parking the truck, Bobby was the first to notice that they had visitors.

An excited Christopher was hanging beside the main entranceway with Carla.

Buck muttered to Eddie, his voice hoarse, “Go and get him.”

“See you out there,” Eddie pressed a kiss against Buck’s temple before spinning to unbuckle himself.

With morbid curiosity, Bobby watched as Eddie shook off what he’d witnessed, plastered on a grin, wiped his eyes, and hopped out of the engine.

“Christopher!” Eddie sang, holding out his arms, kneeling to pull his son into a needed hug; Bobby knew that he’d seen Christopher in that little boy, which is probably why Eddie didn’t let go, lifting Christopher clean off his feet.

Another station has transported the daughter on Bobby’s order, his team needed time to breathe.

He was going to play counselor soon enough; Hen, Chimney, and Eddie insisting that they should have noticed that another child lived in that house, or Buck believing that he should have run faster.

When the truth was simple, a scared mother was spread too thin, and it led to the most unfortunate of accidents.

That boy died; long before Buck even reached the backyard.

Bobby unbuckled himself, gazing up into the mirror.

Chimney raised his hand, patting Buck’s shoulder, his brow furrowed in concern as he reached for the door, jumping out.

Running her hands over her face, Hen made her way out of the engine as she scrunched her nose with a defined sniff.

When Buck’s eyes found Christopher, he titled his head to his shoulder, hiding a muffled cry behind his closed hand.

Bobby’s heart jumped into his throat, he went to speak but realized he wasn’t sure what he could say.

Buck scrambled to undo his belt before sliding to the opposite side of the engine, jumping out and taking long unconfident strides towards the locker room, actively avoiding Christopher.

Bobby leaned his hands against the dashboard, cursing himself inwardly.

Swimming pool. Tsunami.

The boy. Christopher.

“Oh—” Bobby couldn’t believe it taken him that long to put two and two together, “Crap.” He jumped out, closed the door, and sprinted towards the locker room, “Buck!”

Buck was sitting on the floor, back pressed up against the lockers, and arms wrapped firmly around his locked knees.

Bobby slowed his breathing, gripping the doorframe a little too hard, “Hey, kid.” He said, using the softest tone that he could muster.

Buck’s eyes widened startled, and the gaps between each breath grew shorter, the action itself more labored.

Buck hadn’t dried off since diving into the pool, his forever growing hair was wet-through, dripping onto his pale face. On the scene, Hen had wrapped a foil blanket around him, but he must have brushed it off while they were driving back.

“Okay.” Bobby got onto his knees, in front of Buck, giving him enough space to escape if he needed to, “I need you to look at me, kid.”

Buck locked eyes with him as he panted through a strangled breath.

“Copy my breathing, all right?”

Buck shook his head, frantic in motion, only exalting his panic, “Bobby—”

“Buck.” Bobby remained gentle but spoke strictly, “I’m gonna need you to listen to me.”

“Can’t—”

“I know you don’t usually want to,” Bobby mused, “But I’m gonna need to you, this time around.” He held up his hands, raising them as he took a deep breath in, “Just like me, okay?”

It doesn’t take long for Buck to fall into rhythm with Bobby, but as the panic attack slowed, the delayed reaction to the cold kicked in, Buck’s teeth chattered as he spread his fingers across his knees.

It didn’t help that the station had the air conditioning at full belt to beat the California heat.

Bobby pulled off his turnout coat, “Come here, kid,” He beckoned softly, with careful hands he pulled against Buck’s shoulders, coaxing him forward, making room for Bobby to wrap the turncoat around him, “That better?”

Buck nodded, darting his eyes around, “Yeah.”

Bobby combed his hand through Buck’s hair, allowing formalities to slip away as he gave his pseudo-son the hug he needed.

Christopher’s worried tone filled the room, “Buck?”

Bobby moved, perching on the edge of the bench as he spun his head.

Christopher hung in the door with a concerned Eddie lingering behind, their eyes locked onto Buck.

Christopher didn’t waver as he tossed his crutches aside and moved around the bench, throwing himself into Buck’s arms, tangling his legs across his lap as he muttered, “I’ve got you.”

Buck froze, not moving as he scanned Christopher with his teary blue eyes. Studying him like he would disappear if he dared blink.

Christopher noticed this, reaching up to grab Buck’s cheek with his small hand as he instructed, “Don’t be sad, Buck.”

Buck’s lower lip trembled as he cried out a lie, “I’m not sad.”

“Yeah, you are,” Christopher told him with a frown, “But that’s okay!” He ducked his head, laying it against Buck’s shoulder, curling himself around him.

Buck crumbled, his forehead falling against Christopher’s side as he released a sob, “Sorry.”

Christopher breathed, looping his arm behind Buck’s neck, “You’re gonna be okay, kid.”

Buck gazed up at him, “You promise?”

Christopher nodded, “I promise.”

Buck melted, folding his arms behind Christopher’s back, closing his eyes as he held him. Relishing in his safety, knowing that he was alive and that he was okay; at least, one kid he fought hard to save, was safe, well within his reach.

“Proud of you,” Christopher muttered, earning a slight sad chuckle from Buck.

Christopher was, hands down, one of the cleverest people that Bobby had ever met, he learned from his surroundings, and the world was better off with him doing so.

Bobby blinked away tears, his eyes finding Eddie, who was leaning against the doorframe, tears running down his cheeks as he crossed his arms. He wanted nothing more than to gather his son and husband into his arms, but this was once of those times where he couldn’t.

Nobody would ever understand what Buck and Christopher went through during the tsunami, that was an experience the pair went through together, which meant at times, such as these, they relied on one another for support.

Christopher probably didn’t even realize that the help that he was providing, but Buck relaxed, the tension rolling off his shoulders as he melted into his stepson’s embrace, the grief of the day dissipating, even if it didn’t last, it would have been worth it.

Remembering the loneliness behind Buck’s eyes when Bobby first met him, and now seeing the family that surrounded him, Bobby couldn’t help but smile.

Even following a bad call, Bobby was proud that Buck was no longer finding comfort in self-destructive activities but with a support network that would never let him fall.

Christopher Diaz-Buckley would always be around to catch Evan Diaz-Buckley.

#911 fanfiction #911 #chrisdiazweek2021 #christopher diaz #evan buck buckely #evan buckley #bobby nash #eddie diaz #buddie #liberty writes

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ad1thi · 4 years ago

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2020 fic recs!! [Part 1]

this idea was stolen from @iam93percentstardust cuz i just,,,thought that this year was absolute shit and it would be nice to make a fic rec list of fics from this year that helped me through it. this will be over a range of fandoms and ships, but all fics were written this year.

fics are ordered by the month they were published. ive tried to keep to five fics per month, but this is not obviously all the fics ive read that month - i just didn’t want to make this insanely long.

im releasing the first half of this on the 1st of December, and the second half on the 1st of January 2021 - because otherwise it would just get so long (and also so i will actually have fics for December)

happy reading!! hopefully you find fics on this you haven’t read yet

***

January

The cat is mighty dignified (until the dog comes by): @five-wow

Steve and Danny find them on the pillow in the corner of the dining area, where Eddie is on his side, ass half on the floor because the pillow is more cat-sized than lab-sized, and Pickles is nestled between Eddie’s front legs, essentially being spooned and looking very I-got-the-cream about it. Pickles’ head is tucked into the crook of Eddie’s neck and Eddie’s head slots perfectly on top of Mr. Pickles’, like a furry jigsaw puzzle.

“They’re cuddling,” Steve points out, unnecessarily.

Or: There is a love story unfolding under the McGarrett roof.

Captain ‘Socialist Rage Muffin’ America: @baffledkingcomposinghallelujah

It takes three months of dating Steve Rogers for Tony to understand why Aunt Peggy once shot at him in sheer frustration.

Alternately titled, Honey, I committed treason again.

The Best Laid Plans (Of Mice and Men): @arboreal-elm-ash-oak

His Dark Materials AU

It was Annalise who noticed their small visitor first.

“Tony,” the spider daemon said softly, skittering up the collar of his dress shirt, two of her eight legs resting delicately against his cheek, “Don’t startle them, but I believe we have a guest. Look, by the coffee table.”

Fourteen Million to One: @tunastorks

Six months after Thanos, six months after Tony’s death, six months after Steve returns to his own timeline, Tony Stark turns up on their doorstep.

Brewed Awakening: @iam93percentstardust

Two years after he comes out of the ice, Steve is drifting through life. On his teammate's recommendation, he decides to go back to school where he meets the grandson of an old friend. He finds happiness with Tony but Steve won't be in Boston forever and someone is out to hurt the Starks. Will Steve and Tony be able to reach their happily ever after?

February

the young, the reckless and the foolish: @bruciewayne

In most universes, they don't know each other, not in the slightest, or they hate each other, in a way that's perfectly logical for anyone who were to find themselves in a similar situation.

In this one, they've known each other since they were four years old and naively idealistic.

This is them over the years, against the odds.

a giant sign: @areiton

“Think you can get him to open the weapons division up again?” his CO asks, his voice hungry and Rhodey laughs because this--

“No. Tony hung up his weapons.”

“That’s not what the suit says,” his CO objects, and Rhodey shrugs.

Tony has always had rules, rules he expects the entire world to live by.

And then there was Rhodey, slipping under them.

my heart is driftwood, floating down your coast: @nethandrake

Tonight, there’s a stranger in his backseat. That’s not unusual.

He’s also sad. That’s not unusual either.

What is unusual is that the stranger is silent.

(One night, a stranger enters Steve's taxi. Nothing is the same again.)

Just A Cold: @/delighted

There’s a new text waiting for him. It’s from Steve of course, and it’s vaguely threatening as most messages from Steve are these days. Still Danny ignores it, and now he’s really playing with fire. Maybe it’ll burn the cold out of him.

Or, Danny’s sick, and Steve can’t stay away. The usual comfort fluff. With a little cameo from a gently meddling Grace.

An Unexpected Guide: @/Rachel500

Danny Williams has hidden his Guide status to keep being a detective, but his time of hiding is up when he unexpectedly finds his Sentinel, Steve McGarrett in the midst of a tragedy.

March

Why don’t we (Collide the spaces that divide us): @five-wow

When they finally catch sight of each other again through the milling crowds, they’re both a little worse for wear. Danny’s left side is covered in glitter and every time he brushes a hand over his hair, more blue and purple confetti rains down. Steve is- Well, Steve is randomly shirtless, which is all things considered not excessively remarkable, but he’s also covered in smudges of colorful paint and has a very nicely printed bloodred lipstick kiss mark on his cheek.

“What did you do?” Danny asks, because it looks like Steve had a lot more fun than he did.

Or: Steve and Danny accidentally end up in the middle of something entirely new.

A Little Unsteady: @finduilasclln

Written for the Tumblr prompt meme : "Hey! I was gonna eat that!"

Tony lashes out at Bucky for eating his dessert. Only, it really isn't about the dessert.

a national treasure: @starklysteve

Steve isn't looking for an apple and Tony decides his passion is to inspire young souls. -x- OR: the AU where Tony is a Youtuber and Steve is Captain America and somehow they still save the world together.

April

cycle through: @ambivalentmarvel

Twenty-five years ago, Tony Stark disappeared from his family home a month after the tragic deaths of his parents, Howard and Maria Stark, leaving a billion-dollar tech conglomerate without an heir and the world wondering what happened.

Twenty-three years ago, HYDRA gained another super soldier.

Ten years ago, Peter Parker’s parents died in what is ruled as a home invasion gone wrong but he knows was murder, plain and simple, because he spoke to the killer.

And in the present, Project Insight fails, and the Iron Soldier pays the price.

FOREVER-LOVE YOU-I: @/Eudoxia

Tony Stark is twenty-one when he loses his voice. It shouldn't matter, but in a world where the first words your Soulmate says to you are marked on your skin, it can be pretty damn annoying.

Especially for Tony's soulmate.

Companion piece to my fic Thumb, Index, and Pinky Extended. This is Steve's POV, with a few extra scenes, as a treat.

(Edit: Sorry if you guys get multiple notifications for this. I just realized (about two hours after posting it) that I fucked up the grammar in the title and I HAD to fix it. YOLO, I guess.)

come build a home out of me: @maguna-stxrk

Steve clears his throat.

“What if I went with you?” he asks nonchalantly, like his heart isn’t threatening to beat out of his ribcage.

Tony blinks a few times, looking at Steve, his mouth ajar. “As a— As my date?”

“Yeah.” Steve nods, feeling a little breathless.

“You don’t mind?” Tony furrows his eyebrows.

“I don’t. In fact, you can just tell them I’m your boyfriend. I’m sure they’ll back off, wouldn’t they?”

What.

“I— Huh?” Tony stares at him, brown eyes blown wide open.

What. What. What.

“Huh? Uh, I mean— You know, that way people will see that you have definitely moved on. Monica will see that you have moved on. Right?” Steve smiles, hoping that it masks his inner panic, because what?

Steve Rogers, what have you done?

i don’t have a choice (but i’d still choose you): @nethandrake

There’s a name inked onto his chest, a name written in an all-too familiar scrawl. And it’s— It’s—

Steve doesn’t realize his body is quaking until he’s tracing the tattoo with a shaky finger.

Because of course that is the name etched into the skin. Like a brand, a reminder for everything he has done. An appropriate retribution.

Anthony Edward Stark.

(When Thanos snaps half of the universe away, he unknowingly leaves the other half with soulmarks.)

ua haʻalele ʻoe iaʻu (a ua hoʻomālamalama ʻoe iaʻu): @just-fandomthings

"The truth is, I was shot in the chest and nearly died, and not even three days after I was released from the hospital, you up and left-- and of those two, I'm not sure which one hurt me worse!"

(Coda to 10x22 because come on, we all need a better ending than the one given to us.)

Title loosely translates to: "You left me in the dark (you lit me up)" -- inspired by the brilliant song "Say You Won't Let Go" by James Arthur

May

A Piece Of The Past: @hddnone

It had been so many years since Bucky had gone undercover in the Stark family's mob, he thought he'd gotten away clean.

Then Tony Stark slid into the seat across from him at his breakfast diner, and Bucky's boss has a new case for him.

the privilege of loving you: @starklysteve

“Why won’t you let me touch you?”

It’s a desperate plea, half-shouted and half-whispered, Steve’s voice cracking at the end. Tony stops in his tracks, halfway to the stairs. He doesn’t dare to turn back, and he really doesn’t want to fight, or to leave, to spend the last month of his life away from his husband and their son. But Steve can’t know, can he?

-x-

Or: Tony has palladium poisoning, but he doesn't tell Steve and Peter

your pillow feels so soft now (but still you must advance): @firebrands

When Bruce is 13, he decides to go to boarding school. It's an opportunity for him to learn about other people, and how to interact with them.

Bruce has the misfortune of meeting Tony Stark upon his arrival in Roxbury. Bruce is moving into his room, and Tony opens the door of his room to watch. He looks a bit younger than Bruce, hair wild and eyes bright. Bruce has never seen a boy like him before—handsome and confident.

Bruce doesn’t like it.

IMPORTANT: This fic has them meeting at 14, then progresses slowly until they’re 17. Includes underage drinking and kissing.

This is set before Bruce becomes Batman and Tony becomes Iron Man and I have no explanation as to how or why they just DO Canonically, Bruce is 17 when he finishes school and goes around the world to train, so we're sticking with that

The Real MVP: @sword-and-stars (part of a series)

[“I have saved this Tuesday!” Sokka announces, rattling the bag upon reentry.

Zuko doesn’t even look up from his phone as he deadpans, “It’s Thursday.”

Okay, so Sokka is still having trouble getting his days right without checking. At least he’s gone back to sleeping at night! Going to bed at night is way easier when you have a cute, cuddly boyfriend who starts falling asleep around eleven o’clock. It also helps that he and Zuko are on solid gold butt-touching terms.

It’s been a while since Sokka has been on butt-touching terms with someone and it’s amazing.]

Or,

Sokka knows a guy, gets laid, and introduces Zuko to the merits of an afternoon delight.

When is a bed not a bed? (When you’re not in it): @riotwritesthings

There’s a tiny safe house, with one tiny window and one tiny couch.

And one tiny little bed.

June

Nice Fingers: @anthonyed

A single compliment given by Tony stirs Bucky restless until he caves in and asks him out on a date.

With Steve’s help of course (whether he likes it or not).

The Darkest Touch: @starkrogerrs

This is the story of how Steve finds that it has been ordained that he is to marry a monster he cannot resist aka the God of Love himself, Tony.

It's Cupid x Psyche retold, but with thrice the amount of porn.

The Night Shift: @weethreequarter

Welcome to the Emergency Department of San Antonio General where Dr. Tony Stark joins the team fresh from his most recent tour in Afghanistan and - much to the consternation of the other staff - strikes up an instant rapport with Nurse Steve Rogers. Meanwhile, new resident Bruce Banner refuses to give up on his patient, and Dr. Sharon Carter learns something from her own patients. Throw in a pissed off hospital administrator, Clint using the coffee pot as a mug again, and a major car crash and you have, well, just another night shift.

Wind Beneath My Wings: @iam93percentstardust

Sam first meets Tony Stark in 2005 when he joins the EXO-7 Falcon program.

In jest: @/apathyinreverie

“No, babe,” Danny shakes his head with a grin. “If the apocalypse were to go down while I’m elsewhere for some godforsaken reason, then you stay put and I’m coming to wherever you are.” His grin widens. “And I expect you to have cleared any aliens or zombies or whatever else might be messing with us off the island and to have set up a nice, comfortable military dictatorship for us to rule over by the time I get back.”

It’s a joke.

Of course it’s a joke.

Until it isn’t.

(A the-day-after-tomorrow-style apocalypse AU, where the world decides to end right when Danny is visiting one of the other islands with Grace. Because, of course, it does.)

#adi's rec list #mcdanno #stevetony #buckytony #brucetony #rhodeytony #zukka #samtony #january - june #there's so many different ships on this #and different authors #and it spans three fandoms #so hopefully you guys enjoy this!!

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gazelonger · 4 years ago

Text

the volume of the universe

As much as Buck loves his job, some days are better than others. And this one—this one was plain bad.

Call after call, no food in his stomach, a literal drop of coffee that had scorched his tongue and didn’t give him even the slightest burst of energy he had hoped it would—Buck couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Even though Eddie has been unbearably righteous, Buck would have to agree with him; the last call was superbly boring compared to everything else.

And as much of a reprieve it had been, something about it left Buck thinking it was a bad sign. It didn’t help him feel any more settled than he was before—if anything the complete opposite—and he can’t sit still when they all clamber back into the cabin.

The jinx definitely had not gone away.

The universe does not scream, Eddie says, and there is a sudden, raw dryness in Buck’s throat and a deep chill in his bones. He doesn’t have long to think much about it beyond vaguely wondering if he’s developing a cold before the wind blows sparks from the live power pole leaning against the ladder truck, and Buck’s attention is drawn elsewhere.

It isn’t until later, until his eyes are scanning, unseeing, over some page in the book in his lap that his therapist assigned to him, that he’s replaying the conversation in his head and reminded of what Eddie said. Of how his body had reacted to it.

Out of everything that had been said in the cabin, that one bit of it affected Buck more than anything else, even more than the potentiality of almost being electrocuted to death. But it’d been hours since then and Buck can’t shake it.

It makes sense that it would elicit a reaction from him, he supposes.

For as long as Buck could remember, he had been keenly aware of the universe and its workings.

(Keep reading here or on AO3)

His mother’s shrill voice and his father’s misleadingly paternal one had reminded him time and again that the world is an uncertain place. He’d been told since he was young that he needed to look after himself because no other person could do it for him, let alone the universe.

Early on, the warning accompanied some form of coddling as the stern reminder that Buck probably could have stood to listen to. And it did work the trick for a little while; or it certainly used to scare the hell out of him, at least. Used to make him look both ways before crossing empty streets, made him scan people up and down in the halls at school for some imperceptible threat that was never there.

Eventually, though, Buck forced himself to swallow that fear. More than he needed to look after himself, he needed his parents to give him some kind of attention. Some kind of recognition that he existed. He needed it like he needed air to breathe, and all regard for his personal safety could come later.

Maddie was gone and there was no one to talk to, no one to get him out of his head when he got stuck there for too long, no one to even look at him. The house was too quiet without her. It was too empty. It was almost like he could feel himself disappearing.

And his parents were too occupied with themselves to appreciate Buck’s efforts to heed their advice, anyway, so there wasn’t really a point in continuing to do so.

Buck missed the attention that getting into trouble would guarantee him, missed the fond exasperation and the headshakes paired with tight-lipped smiles.

And so he started acting out again, and the warning came back as he expected it would. But the resigned expressions of worry and love didn’t. In their place was a convoluted, angry, wild type of hurt directed towards Buck that he could never wrap his head around.

The world is an uncertain place, they would yell. What used to be a reminder that he should be more careful steadily became a furious, desperate plea for Buck to stop putting himself in death’s way.

But Buck didn’t care. Or he pretended not to—it was hard to tell sometimes. Regardless, he continued to tempt the universe.

He was messing with things that were bigger than him, that could have gotten him killed, and he was adamantly reckless about it.

It got to him every once in a while, how dangerous he was being. He was just a kid, after all; and he didn’t like getting hurt, he didn’t like almost dying. It left him rattled each time, left him shaking for hours and hours like he was freezing. Left him wishing he’d listen to his parents because maybe this time they’d be proud of him for it.

Even if he actively sought out the trouble—like the time he couldn’t get over his parents missing another football game and he taunted the biggest looking guy on the opposing team who then tackled Buck so hard that he had to be carried off the field—he would still feel unsettled and frustrated with himself afterwards. And it wasn’t because of the grade two concussion or whatever injuries he’d sustained.

He knew he was on a messy path.

So he tried to be okay with the hand he was dealt, tried to be okay with the fact that there was something about him that must repel his parents—that must have repelled Maddie. He decided to just keep his head low.

But no matter how actively he tried to stop seeking out trouble, it seemed to follow him anyway. Like a shadow.

Buck would be in class taking a test and his eyes would wander for a moment before he would get in trouble for cheating.

Or he would be riding his motorbike and would crash hard into a car that had run a red light—or maybe that he was too angry to see—and end up needing stitches.

Or he would spot a few guys from his lecture hall the money for a couple kegs and get blamed for the whole party.

(Or he would be sitting shotgun in the ladder truck before there was an audible BOOM , and he would come to pinned beneath it.)

Despite the fairly harmless ways he still acted out, even years after he reached adulthood, it was like the universe was finally getting its payback for Buck’s lifelong insolence.

Buck’s parents were only partially correct, he’d figured out. The world was an uncertain place. But it could be a certain place—if you learned to pay attention to it. And at some point, paying attention to the ways of the universe was necessary to survive.

Learning to respect it came naturally.

Even when he wasn’t actively seeking out trouble, when he wasn’t toying with fate, anything that happened to him was just what he had coming to him for almost three decades of unruly, disobedient behavior. Every heart-stopping, bone-crushing blow he faced was inarguably the universe’s way of saying this much is squared away between us, but we are far from even.

So after the day the one-eighteen had had, when they were sitting in the cabin and avoiding electrocution, Buck was practically thrumming with how much attention he was giving to everything the universe was saying to them. To him.

He knew that he tripped while he was booking it up the ladder on the first call because he was the one who had asked the probie the question which had triggered the whole day. It was the same way that, three years ago, the fire suppression system had been triggered on him because he was the one who had said the q-word.

It was, exactly as Hen called it, divine retribution.

The universe had a sense of humor, and Buck wasn’t deaf to it.

Eddie was, though. Much to Buck’s dismay.

Buck couldn’t stand it. It left him frustrated, his hackles raising and his words coming quicker and more clipped each time he spoke. Without realizing it, he was leaning forward in his seat, his hands gesturing as widely as they could without accidentally bumping against the window or the metal of the cabin or Hen sitting pressed next to him.

It was rare that he was the one to take something seriously while Eddie was the one to make a joke out of it, and Buck didn’t like the change of pace. Especially when it came to the universe.

The same universe which had crushed his leg, which had caused his blood to clot, which had put him and Christopher in the middle of a tsunami, was the same one that was not letting up on this day.

Why couldn’t Eddie see that, too?

That was hours ago, and the loft was quiet now as he, Hen, and Chimney read while Bobby tinkered around in the kitchen. But Buck is still thinking about it.

Buck knows that the universe can scream, knows that it is capable of doing far worse than screaming; he knows it like he knows the back of his hand.

But he tries to think about it from Eddie’s perspective.

Buck knows that Eddie is at least a little superstitious. All the remotes in his house still being in a basket on top of the refrigerator are proof enough of that.

But aside from that, Eddie has that medallion on him at all times like it’s a lifeline. And even if it really is just the reminder of Christopher being what comforts Eddie, Buck remembers the frenzied way he had scoured the floor of the locker room that one time it fell out of his pocket and he couldn’t find it right away. Remembers the blind panic in his eyes when he realized it was missing. Remembers the way Eddie’s body had sagged in relief and he brought the medallion to his lips and held it there after he found it underneath his duffle.

Buck also knows that Eddie likes maintaining control over his surroundings. He is proud of the choices he makes, he stands by them—like his choice to move himself and Christopher to LA.

He even claimed today not to worry about those things that he just doesn’t have direct control over.

Those things, Buck knows—even though Eddie didn’t say it—include Shannon’s death. Which, almost two years later, Buck knows Eddie is still struggling to come to terms with. Probably exactly because he had no control over it and couldn’t stop it from happening no matter how much he wishes he could have been able to.

So maybe the idea that some things are out of his reach, that some things are beyond his own will and happen for a reason, is too hard to comprehend.

Maybe, to Eddie, the idea that the universe is an active entity is too overwhelming a thought.

Overwhelming in the same way that it was to Buck when he was ten years old and couldn’t meet anyone’s gaze because he didn’t know what the world would do to him if he tested it.

So maybe Buck could be a little more empathetic.

But it just—it bothers him.

Underestimating the universe never ends well, and there is a tight feeling in Buck’s chest when he thinks that Eddie might be forced to realize that at some point.

The universe does not scream, Eddie had said. He had outright refused to believe that Buck was right.

The dryness in Buck’s throat is back, catching him off guard. A shiver runs down his spine and his fingers twitch against the page he still hasn’t read.

For the second time that day, Buck worries that he might be catching a cold. It was autumn, sure, but Buck just didn’t get colds. Irrationally he thinks it might be the virus, but he knows it’s not that, knows that a sore throat isn’t one of the symptoms and he can breathe just fine and he tested negative yesterday .

(He’ll take another one tomorrow, anyway. Just to be safe.)

Buck doesn’t understand what it is about the statement that leaves him feeling this way, leaves him feeling like he’s caught in the rain—

The rain. Screaming.

Oh.

Buck is stricken with a sudden memory of a cold shift from the year before. Of when they’d almost lost Eddie.

The storm came from nowhere and was gone just as quick. Buck usually liked the rain since it was so rare in LA—he didn’t like how it made his clothes damp and how it made his hair stick to his skin, although there is something different and less bothersome about it while he’s working—but on this day he hated it.

Or, well—no—he didn’t hate the rain, even then. He hated what it did to the earth. It soaked the ground through with water and turned it into thick and gooey mud. It had slipped through his hands like squishable sand, and had become packed deep beneath the surface, closing in on the well that Eddie was suddenly, horrifyingly, utterly trapped in.

The panic Buck felt in that moment nearly swallowed him whole.

And—as awful as it sounds—Buck isn’t a stranger to thinking the people he loves are dying.

He remembers the plane crash from his fifth month on the job. His SEAL training was the only reason he managed to avoid drowning in the unruly waves of the Pacific as he watched the remainder of the plane sink with Bobby still inside of it.

He remembers the silence over the radio when Hen didn’t respond during the earthquake. His jaw had locked into place and he was wobbly on his feet in a way that had nothing to do with the unnatural angle of the building.

He remembers finding Chimney lying on the ground outside of Maddie’s apartment. Chimney’s blood had pooled beneath Buck’s knees, the warmth of it seeping through Buck’s pants and his fingers where he held his hands over Chim’s stomach, staining his skin and his clothes.

He remembers miles of white landscape stretching out in front of him. The snow soaked his clothes and the soles of his shoes as he sprinted, his lungs burning, searching for any sign of Maddie. The sight of her stumbling hundreds of yards away with wet, raggedy hair and dark red all over.

He remembers the dread in his gut at the sound of a loud splash, turning around to see Christopher gone, having fallen into the water when the second wave came. Buck never saw Christopher come above the surface.

This, though. This was different.

Buck might have reacted the same as he did in some of those other situations, his instincts taking hold immediately and controlling everything he did. But he barely remembers the split second where he realized Eddie was trapped. All he knew was that he needed to get to him and then his bare hands were in the mud and someone was screaming.

Eddie! Eddie! Eddie! Eddie! No! E-Eddie! Eddie, no! Eddie, no!

He didn’t realize it was him at first. Didn’t realize it until Bobby was pulling him back and he fell into his lap and started hyperventilating—sobbing, really—unable to breathe and the screaming had stopped.

(He wouldn’t have been able to stand if Bobby hadn’t grabbed him under his arms and hauled him up, all but dragging him towards the house to get his hands washed to give him something to do.)

But Buck had actually screamed himself hoarse. Woke up the next morning with a sore throat and everything.

Eddie never knew what happened after the well collapsed. Never watched the broadcast of it, not wanting to remember more than he had to. Buck couldn’t blame him; he never filled Eddie in on the details, either. It was too touchy a subject to broach, and, besides, Buck wasn’t too keen on wanting to relive the moment himself.

What happened to Eddie wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t have been him. The universe had no right to take him that day—and thankfully it knew as much, because Eddie had come back and was alive and made it home to Christopher and had spent the whole day today being a softcore bully.

The universe knew it wasn’t Eddie’s time. And while it might have been the one to send that lightning bolt down, triggering everything, it was just as responsible for spitting Eddie out of that lake.

Buck was sure of that.

So while Eddie might argue that the universe does not scream, he wouldn't know that Buck had screamed for it.

It’s at that point that Buck remembers that he is not, in fact, in the freezing rain. That Eddie is not buried thirty feet below him.

He is sitting in the loft in the firehouse. Eddie is in the bunks, probably sound asleep by now.

Buck swallows thickly, his throat still dry as his body recovers from getting lost in the memory. He shifts in the chair he’s sitting in and blinks rapidly, trying to clear the fog that has settled over his brain.

The loft is quiet. The only sounds to be heard are the occasional scrape of paper against skin as Chimney or Hen turn a page in the books they are reading, and the light tapping of metal as Bobby puts some leftovers from a dinner they finally had been given time to eat into tupperware.

It’s familiar, this, and it’s grounding in a way that Buck feels himself being steadily brought back to the present. Tension releases from his shoulders when he rolls them.

“You okay, Buck?” Bobby asks from where he’s busying himself behind the island.

Buck’s eyebrows lift, and he looks over to see Bobby watching him with mild curiosity.

“Yeah,” Buck says. He lifts his book off his lap slightly as if to say I’m just reading, and offers what he hopes looks like a reassuring smile.

Satisfied, Bobby nods, too, and then resumes whatever he was doing.

Buck takes a deep breath. He needs to actually read the book if he doesn’t want to be reprimanded by his therapist—which he doesn’t. He looks down at the page he was on, slightly regretting having zoned out. But he’ll be able to focus now, he figures.

The loft is quiet. Eddie is sleeping downstairs.

It’s almost a jarring juxtaposition from the rest of the day, where the universe hadn’t given any of them a single moment to catch their breaths. But maybe the jinx has worn off now—Buck can admit that he isn’t totally sure how it works.

Either way, something in his chest has been settled now.

The universe can be quiet, too.

#911 on fox #evan buckley #buck buckley #evan buck buckely #oneshot #buddie #(if u squint)#i posted this on ao3 last week-ish #but i wanted to post it here too #i just havent gotten around to it yet #but this is just an exploration of buck & his relationship w the universe #character analysis

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jess-rewatches-prodigalson · 4 years ago

Text

Ouroboros (S2, E8)

The hiatus almost killed me. So glad we have new content <3

As usual, my time-stamped thoughts for this episode are below. As always I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:04 - That scarf is so extra.

0:26 - OH LOOK THE FIRST SUNSHINE SIGHTING OF SEASON TWO!!! It only took 8 episodes. *insert eyeroll*

0:40 - Ugh. This montage makes me hate Hoxley. He embodies the type of human I abhor: self-important, egotistic, obsessed with appearance.

1:19 - “No I didn’t.” LMAO. Mr. David is so done with Martin’s bullshit.

1:36 - That makeshift shiv in the dude’s arm.....that’s Daryl’s shiv from a few episodes ago right? Am I going crazy?

2:25 - Sooooo Birdie hasn’t left New York? She’s moved into the Milton’s “Murrayville Building”. Huh. Wait. Was Birdie in the house when Malcolm and Ainsley fought? Do you think she heard?!? Birdie might become a problem for the Whitly’s later this season....I hope?

2:43 - Jessica doesn’t know about the contents of the fight. Interesting. How long has it been since the end of 2x7?

2:58 - “I’ll be there at 8.” hahaha OMG. I swear Malcolm was a terror during his ‘rebellious teenager’ phase.

3:38 - Yep. This fog horn reinforces the fact that I believe Hoxley is a dick.

3:40 - Awww.... the way Malcolm jumps/flinches at the fog horn is both hilarious and adorable.

3:58 - “And who the hell are you?” YES GIL. YES. Don’t let him talk like that to Malcolm <3

4:04 - Duuuuude. Gil looks pissed and scared. He does not like Europol snooping around his crimes. ALSO I’m like 95% sure that Gil knows (or at least has a hunch) that Malcolm is somehow involved with Endicott’s murder. I’m pretty sure Gil is scared that this dude is going to try and arrest Malcolm.

4:07 - OMG. JT is adorable. “You’re that guy. The mind sleuth.” Personal headcanon: JT read Hoxley’s book to try and understand Malcolm better.

4:22 - DANI IS MY QUEEN. SHE IS MY ICON. I LOVE HER SO FREAKING MUCH. “No.” This girl is fierce. <3

4:23 - <3 <3 Malcolm’s heart eyes, head tilt, and visible pride is so so so precious. THIS is why he’s attracted to Dani. She’s not afraid to assert herself.

4:31 - “And then took in his son.” ....Okay, so this infuriated me. Nothing Hoxley is saying is untrue. BUT something about the way he’s saying it just gets under my skin.

4:45 - I think Hoxley is pissing me off so much because he’s psychoanalyzing Malcolm in front three of the people Malcolm trusts and loves most in the world (3 out of a very very short list of people). He’s trying to humiliate Malcolm and I hate it. I hate that Dani, JT, and Gil haven’t told Hoxley to shut up. I hate that Hoxley is trying to drive stakes of doubt into the three people whose opinion Malcolm treasures.

5:25 - “Aim a little lower, Whitly.” and and and.....then Hoxley looks to the team as though he wants them to laugh. I’m furious.

5:32 - THANK YOU GIL. STEER THE CONVERSATION AWAY FROM MALCOLM

6:04 - Malcolm is so obvious. There’s no way that the team doesn’t know that he was involved with Endicott’s murder. If they didn’t before this episode - they HAVE to know now. Right? They’re detectives. Malcolm is a terrible liar.

7:00 - Oh. So now Ainsley cares about the crime. Now it’s “how much trouble are we in”. And let’s be real. Ainsley doesn’t even seem very worried or scared. She’s concerned that the crime will get out - she’s not sorry she committed the crime. She’s not sorry that her big brother tried to take the fall for her.

7:15 - “We said no more secrets.” ...when. When did you two say that? Was there a ‘fight part 2 - the tentative truce’ that we didn’t get to see?

7:33 - A mention of Sophie Sanders. Finally. I still hope she comes out of the woodwork and takes the fall for this. I want more closure on her. Did the team ever find out that Malcolm found her? How did the Eddie murder finally get resolved (I’m not satisfied with the “not every case gets solved” line)?

7:42 - Yo. I don’t care about the time constraint of a 45 minute episode. I don’t care that it was required to move the plot along. The fact that Ainsley starts typing frantically into the computer at about 7:42, stops typing at 7:47ish and has found at least 4 different articles relating to murdered random people (who apparently helped hide Endicott’s body?) is SO UNREALISTIC. I just can’t. I can’t suspend my disbelief on this one. The article headlines say nothing about ‘couriers’. It’s stuff like ‘Local fisherman found dead’. HOW THE HELL WOULD AINSLEY KNOW THEY WERE HELPING MALCOLM IN LESS THAN 10 SECONDS OF GOOGLING?!? Nope. I can’t justify this one. Fedak - you dropped the ball.

8:40 - Poor Malcolm looks terrified. :(

9:04 - My first impression of Natalie was that she’s a beautiful young lady who seems really sweet and a little socially awkward. Kudos to the actress.

9:41 - Another mention of Sophie. God - I hope she becomes a twist in this season’s storyline. I’m not content with how her story arc ended.

10:21 - “I didn’t have anything to do with Endicott’s death and neither did Jessica.” Yep. Gil definitely knows (or at least suspects) that Ainsley and Malcolm are somehow involved with Endicott’s murder. It’s killing me that we’re not getting the big “team and/or Gil find out and/or confront Malcolm about it” moment.

10:31 - OMG. Alan Cumming’s eyebrow wag here. hahahahaha

10:35 - Look at how pissed off Gil is as soon as Hoxley suggests that he and Jessica have a romantic history. 1) Gil still has it bad for Jessica (and is hurt that she rejected him again 2) Gil’s a pretty private dude and probably doesn’t like his personal business being speculated upon by a total stranger with ill intent 3) Gil is also getting protective of the Whitly’s. Not just Jessica but Malcolm (and maybe Ainsley) too.

10:58 - Europol agents aren’t allowed to make arrests?!? THEN WTF IS THE POINT OF HOXLEY’S CHARACTER?!? TO DRIVE DOUBT INTO THE MINDS OF THE TEAM WITH REGARDS TO MALCOLM?!? FOR REAL. WHY?! TO FORCE GIL TO ARREST MALCOLM AND AINSLEY?!?!

11:08 - “To watch you put the cuffs on Mr.Endicott’s killer. Deal?” “Deal.” oooooooohhhhhh no. I do not like the foreshadowing here. If Gil has to arrest Ainsley and/or Malcolm.....idek. Part of me wants to watch it for the emotional whump (of all parties - including Jessica). Part of me wants to ugly cry at the thought of it though.

11:39 - “How do you know so much about yachts?” ....THANK YOU JT. DANI HAS A STRANGE AMOUNT OF NAVAL KNOWLEDGE IN THIS EPISODE AND WE ALL KNOW “I watch a lot of Below Deck” IS UTTER HORSE CRAP. Ugh. I want to know more about Dani and JT’s personal lives. So. Badly.

11:44 - <3 <3 <3 The look Malcolm and JT exchange when Dani claims that she watches a lot of Below Deck is absolutely precious. It’s like they’re best friends and/or brothers. They both knew Dani was lying. <3

11:54 - “At least he’s the real deal.” Ouch. I honestly can’t tell if JT is just teasing Malcolm here or if JT genuinely believes this. ....Is this JT’s way to letting Malcolm know that he has suspicions about his involvement with Endicott’s death?

12:06 - “Says the guy who bought his book.” HA. Dani is on fire this episode. The snark queen. Look at how pleased Malcolm is that Dani is defending him. <3 Warms my cold dead heart.

12:09 - annnnndd now JT is definitely teasing Malcolm. “What our boy Bright needs is a moniker.” hahaha watching Dani and JT come up with stupid profiler monikers was so cute. I love it when the team gangs up to (lovingly) tease Malcolm.

12:30 - “No. Nothing yet.” Again - Malcolm is a terrible liar. The team must know that he’s involved with this thing. They’re detectives.

12:59 - Martin’s physical reaction to Malcolm saying, “No. That woman does not deserve to die.” Is HILARIOUS. Martin is so freaking desperate for Malcolm to become a serial killer that he doesn’t even care the Ainsley has already murdered someone.

13:19 - “He has a perfect track record.”.....what? So does that mean he’s solved every case he’s ever worked on? Taken credit for solving every case he’s ever work on? Hand picked the cases he works on so he knows he can solve them? Probably a combination of the above. Sometime about Hoxley reminds me of Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter. You feel me?

13:23 - The fact that Tom Payne (a Brit) is being told that Hoxley has “perfect teeth. For a Brit” by a Welsh man is hilarious.

13:34 - Does this fish packing joint have no security?!? Like Malcolm didn’t have to pick a lock or anything. He just walked right in (and he’s not being quiet).

13:51 - “I can think ruthless. I don’t know if I can be ruthless.” THIS. THIS is Malcolm in a nutshell. Think about Nicky Covington. Malcolm wanted to act ruthless but he couldn’t. He ended up saving Nicky because he couldn’t go through with his ruthless plan. That’s the difference between Malcolm and (quite frankly) the rest of his family. Jessica, Martin, and Ainsley can all be ruthless. All of them. Jessica on a lesser degree but Martin and Ainsley are confidently ruthless. Often.

13:57 - Ok. For real though. HOW HAS NO ONE OVERHEARD THESE PHONE CALLS BETWEEN MARTIN AND MALCOLM. THE PHONES HAVE TO BE TAPPED RIGHT?!? IN A SECURE MENTAL INSTITUTION FOR MURDERERS?!? and I stg that Mr. David knows things. That man is not a moron and he’s pieced stuff together (not from this scene obviously, but still).

14:13. - “Why don’t I break out.” The fact that Malcolm hasn’t mentioned that Martin wants to escape to anyone (since 2x4) is really stressing me out. I know Martin’s going to break out - the promos have made that very obvious but I’m still anxious about it. Mostly I’m worried for the health and safety of Malcolm (and Gil, Jessica, Dani, JT, Edrisa...).

14:17 - “We all go on the run together.” Martin is delusional. He thinks that the whole family will go on the run with him?!?!? He might be able to convince Ainsley. He might be able to blackmail or threaten Malcolm. BUT Jessica? She’s not going willingly. Hell - she might kill him herself if Martin escapes and tries to come near her (which.....I would actually kind of like to see).

14:48 - The fact that Malcolm apologizes to a corps is so precious. Really reinforces the fact that Malcolm is not a killer.

15:00 - Oh look. Another scene for Malcolm’s nightmares. “The time I cut off a dead guy’s thumb to protect my sister”

15:24 - annnndd Malcolm is really close to having a panic attack. Look at that face. :( Someone give this guy a hug. Please.

15:34 - Where the HELL is Edrisa!?!?!?

15:42 - Malcolm, you utter moron. What possessed your stupid ass to show up at a crime scene with a soaking wet arm and draw attention to your arm by shaking it?!?! WHEN THE BODY WAS JUST DRAGGED OUT OF A VAT OF WATER. AND YOU TAMPERED WITH THE BODY?!!? YOU DUMBASS.

15:52 - This is Gil - terrified. He’s scared because 1) he knows Malcolm is lying , 2) he’s concerned for Malcolm’s mental health and 3) he’s starting to think that either a) Malcolm killed this guy, b) Malcolm knows who killed this guy and is obstructing justice, or c) Hoxley is going to pin this on Malcolm and Gil won’t be able to save him.

16:14 - “I’m never buying frozen fish again.” hahaha Dani is killing it this episode. <3

16:23 - Check out how Gil is staring at Malcolm. Gil totally thinks Malcolm has the thumb.

16:50 - “Older model” Shit. Seriously? Are finger print scanners on phones old?!? My phone isn’t that old......I got it 6 years ago?

17:16 - MALCOLM IS A TERRIBLE LIAR. Honestly, the pure terror on his face throughout most of this episode screams “I KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT THE MURDER.” If the team hasn’t pieced this together yet they’re not worthy of being detectives.

17:29 - I’m not going to lie. I had to fast forward through the Martin/Capshaw scenes for the rewatch. I find them so upsetting to watch. I just can’t do it more than once. Their whole dynamic is gross, creepy, and just ugh.

20:00 - Jessica and Hoxley talking about Endicott’s death is so satisfying.

20:35 - “Jessica Whitly. Played for a fool. Yet. Again.” Ok Hoxley. You are not allowed to disrespect my girl Jessica like that.

21:10 - The biggest problem with Jessica and Gil’s “mock interrogations” by Hoxley is that neither of them mention Ainsley or Malcolm. It’s super suspicious. They mention other people by name. People who should be connected to Ainsley and/or Malcolm given the context of the sentence. Hoxley is a moron for not nailing Ainsley and Malcolm for the crime during this episode. It’s so so so obvious.

21:19 - hahahahahahahaha Jessica grabbing the martini out of Hoxley’s hands. hahahahaha I stan.

21:35 - annnnnd Jessica is a terrible liar as well. Seriously - why doesn’t she just say “ENDICOTT WAS KILLED OVER HERE!!”. Another parallel between her and Malcolm though. Malcolm + Jessica can’t lie well. Ainsley + Martin are expert liars.

22:54 - Again. Ainsley is intrigued at the fact that Malcolm has a thumb in his freezer. Much like Martin would be if he knew. Jessica on the other hand shares Malcolm’s fear and disgust about the situation.

23:00- “We”?!!?!? AINSLEY YOU HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING. MALCOLM HAS BEEN COVERING FOR YOUR ASS. YOU JUST HAVEN’T TURNED YOURSELF IN AFTER YOU REMEMBERED. THAT’S YOUR ONLY CONTRIBUTION TO THE “KEEPING ENDICOTT’S MURDER A SECRET” SITUATION.

23:07 - “Do you even see what you are doing to him.” This line both terrified and delighted me. On one hand - I’m grateful that Jessica can see how much emotional pain Malcolm is in because of this situation. One the other hand - Ainsley looks pissed that Jessica is blaming her for Malcolm’s general brokenness. If Ainsley goes full serial killer - Malcolm is going to be on her list. “The brother that overshadowed her.” “The favourite child” “The reason she had to be a perfect daughter” “The reason she was ignored”

23:32 - “Got it.” Damn. Ainsley is bitter. She wants to control this situation. She doesn’t like taking orders from Malcolm.

25:00 - MR.DAVID IS RIGHT THERE. IF HE DOESN’T BLOW THE WHISTLE ON THIS I’M GOING TO BE SO DISAPPOINTED.

25:12 -”The Brain Fart” hahahahaha OMG.

25:53 - “You’re being rude Hoxley.” ......Martin being the nice guy? I’m genuinely disgusted.

26:26 - “Your son Malcolm.” THIS. THIS is why Ainsley is so pissed off. Everyone has always thought Malcolm would turn out like Martin. Ever since they were kids. She’s pissed off that no one considers her to be a threat. They’re all concerned for and scared of Malcolm. Not her. She’s invisible. Why do you think she became a TV reporter? To force people to see her.

26:50 - I’ve never wanted to Martin to kill anyone more than I have in this moment. I do find Martin’s protective love for Malcolm interesting though.

27:37 - How long was that phone in water before Malcolm grabbed it?!? Anyone ever drop a phone in water? I don’t care how much rice you have. It’s toast 90% of the time.

27:44 - Malcolm explaining murder to Sunshine is so cute.

28:22 - And my heart rate has skyrocketed.

29:10 - “To protect your sister.” Huh. I find it interesting that Hoxley has considered that Malcolm may have killed Endicott to protect Ainsley. It suggests that he thinks Endicott was a threat to Ainsley alive. Makes me wonder about what happened to Ainsley before Malcolm got back to the house in 1x20.

29:16 - “You all had something to gain.” Did they though? Martin had something to gain - keeping his cushy Claremont cell. Ainsley had something to gain - “A news story.” Jessica had something to gain - “safety”. But Malcolm? He didn’t personally have anything to gain. He wanted his Mom and sister safe but he never thought about himself.

30:11 - “Perhaps the murder weapon is still among your mother’s silver.” I find it interesting Hoxley has pieced that together. I also find it highly unbelievable but that’s just me.

30:15 - Hoxely, rich people don’t carve their own Christmas roasts. The Whitly’s have staff for that.

30:24 - “You’re still just a scared little boy. Hungry for daddy’s love.” Ouch. It’s true but it still hurts. This is not helping Malcolm’s mental state. At all. Istg if we don’t get a Malcolm mental health crisis soon I’m going to have my own mental health crisis. Seriously. I want to see this boy lose it. I’m a monster. I know. I want ugly crying. I want panic attacks. I want him to go catatonic. I want someone to comfort him.

32:35 - Nat’s a good liar. Very convincing. Too bad Malcolm’s a good profiler.

33:53 - Check out Spider Monkey Malcolm. <3

34:14 - Earlier this episode when Malcolm said he can think ruthless but not be ruthless? This is the proof. He could’ve sat back and let Natalie kill Hoxley. In some ways - it would be good for Malcolm. But Malcolm’s not ruthless. He values human life. He’s an A+ dude. For better or for worse he tries to help people.

34:26 - Really Hoxley? Do you plan on stabbing Malcolm?!? (FYI - this scene is very reminiscent of Lockhart pulling his wand on Harry and Ron in the Chamber of Secrets #justsaying).

34:45 - “I’m going to be killed by a millennial. What a twist.” hahahhahahahahhaa

35:22 - “I’m British.” hahaha I love this scene so much.

37:14 - FINALLY THE PAPA!GIL CONTENT WE”VE BEEN WAITING FOR. (it’s weak but I’ll take it)

37:39 - AHHHH the fact that Gil and Malcolm are both non-verbally communicating that Natalie didn’t kill Endicott is killing me. Does Malcolm think that Gil hates him? Does Gil really think Malcolm killed Endicott? Or just that Malcolm covered it up? I NEED TO KNOW.

37:46 - Concerned!Gil and a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder. <3 <3 <3 My icy heart has melted.

37:54 - annnnnd Hoxley ruins the moment.

39:39 - I’m not content with this ending. It’s all too convenient. Hoxley still thinks Ainsley and Malcolm did it. Mark my words. This isn’t over.

39:53 - Ainsley is so smug here. I want to slap her. She’s elated that she’s getting away with murder. She doesn’t care about how it’s hurting her family.

40:00 - Did they really do the interview inside Jessica’s house?!?! Gross.

40:17- I might be the only one but I love that polo on Malcolm. Something about it is adorable.

40:22 - ......is Ainsley really trying to take credit for “putting this Endicott mess behind us”?!?! Because - she didn’t. OMG. She absolutely didn’t. Even if she did - she’s the reason they’re in the mess to being with!!!!!!! I can’t. I just....can’t.

40:45 - The episode ends right here for me. I know Capshaw and Martin kiss. It makes me want to hurl and I refuse to watch it again. I also know that Capshaw takes the scissors away from Martin. I think their whole dynamic is upsetting and creepy. I’m like 95% sure that Capshaw is a serial killer on the DL. Or at least some sort of psychopath. Martin and Capshaw are both manipulating each other and it’s too stressful to watch.

I didn’t love this episode. It was a bit all over the place. If you stuck around this long - thank you. I’ll see you guys next week. <3

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