#man he really needs to start hyping himself up!! start calling himself a cool and skilled and interesting and handsome person!!!

[oceandiagonale]

recently re-read the comic with gene and noodle at the fry stand and i have to wonder how much of gene's whole interaction with the stand owner was genuine. was giving the number back really actual obliviousness to the romantic implications, or was it just meant to look that way? we all know gene's a nice guy and doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings if he can help it, and flirting does go over his head sometimes (or he assumes they don't really mean it), but he ain't stupid. and seeing that after gene being so evasive about his job (definitely on purpose), makes me wonder if the whole thing was just him shutting the possibility of any romantic interaction down in the most conflict-avoidant way possible. hell, he might even be doing it all subconsciously, because we KNOW this man has some bottled up feelings he has yet to sort out

tldr get this man to his therapy appointments

OH yeah. like he's always been SUPER oblivious but there's ALSO the very conscious rejection of like "oh what, no way this nice thing is for me lol"

[onceonafullmoon]

could i pleaseee request some sendou x reader hcs?

Okay, just to be clear about this and get it out of the way, you do not need to be a hollywood actress to bag Sendou 

He is actually such a pathetic man and he would literally have his knees go weak if any attractive person looked at him (which you, dear reader, are)

So rest assured, do not worry about that

You’d probably meet him by chance actually, like a romance novel cliche where you accidentally bump into each other and he goes to help you gather your things

Only when he finally looks up at you and you make eye contact, both of you freeze

Him because as I mentioned before, attractive person, and you because, well, you’re a pretty big football fan

You excitedly tell him about what a big fan you are while he stares at you dumb struck, and it's only after he’s given you his autograph and you’ve walked away that he realizes that he probably should have asked for your number

Well damn, he’ll probably never see you again

At least that’s what he thinks before he sees your familiar face in a cafe and a spark of hope shoots through him 

In his head, he’s really suave about walking over to you and easily seducing you.

He’s actually a complete fucking mess when he talks to you, stuttering slightly over his words and his body language awkward, but you either choose to ignore it or simply don’t notice and chat with him excitedly about how hyped you are for the upcoming season

But eventually, somehow, someway, he manages to get himself to ask for your number

And of course, flattered, you give him it and he leaves that cafe almost floating from how light he feels (though he’d never admit that to anyone)

You start texting each other pretty regularly after that, and he finds that it’s much easier to hit on you through text when he doesn’t see your face and get flustered

At least that’s what he thinks before you start flirting back, and then he’s back to square one

(The first time you flirted back he stopped responding for a solid 10 minutes because he was so flustered.)

Anyways as time goes on he gets a little more relaxed around you, even managing a few meetings with you before the season starts

And you’ll find that after you get through his faux arrogance, and after that his nervousness, that he’s actually a pretty determined person working hard for his goals. And you can’t help but find that admirable.

Then the season starts and you find that you guys don’t have as much time to talk, but you still manage to stay in touch

He texts you after practice and on breaks most definitely, earning some teasing from Aiku who pokes fun at him for being “whipped”

The whole team joins in actually, praising their star Ace for finding someone, Sendou wants to die

It’s after the season ends where he finally asks you out, and his whole team ends up helping in his endeavor

To clarify, he did not want them to help, they came to help anyways

And after a series of very close calls and near fuck ups on your outing, he eventually just blurts out that he’s interested in being your boyfriend

And that’s how you start dating

As a lover, he can be incredibly sweet with how he watches you with stars in his eyes when you do almost anything

Don’t ever ask this man for fashion advice though, because he’ll literally drop to his knees if you wear anything (or nothing)

You also learn that he can be a bit of a whiny brat at times too

ex. Whenever you have to leave to do something, he’ll whine about it, he always needs to be the little spoon, and complains loudly when you ignore him after an argument

He’s also a sucker for praise, so if you compliment him he’ll try to play it all cool but he visibly lights up

Don’t praise him too much though, he’s got a bad habit of getting cocky

He’s also super clingy and has a thing for laying his head in your lap and letting you run your fingers through his hair

All in all, he’s a very pathetic man (endearingly so!) and he’d do anything for your attention and praise despite putting on the front of being an arrogant ass

[h4neypot]

risk – isaacwhy

pairing: isaacwhy x reader  summary: meeting isaac (first date!isaac prequel) genre: fluff song inspo: risk by gracie abrams

Moving to Texas from your hometown had been a tough adjustment. Everything was unfamiliar—new home, new roommates, new friends, new routines. You decided to join a nearby gym, hoping it would distract you from the constant spirals and feelings of dread.

From your first few visits, you noticed the tall, muscular man who always wore a black mask and sunglasses. You were curious, sure, but you chose to focus on your workouts rather than wonder why someone would cover their face in a gym.

Isaac, on the other hand, could not stop staring. He thought you were gorgeous. Even in loose gym clothes, sweating through your sets, you were a sight he couldn’t look away from.

“Heading to the gym,” Isaac called out, grabbing his water bottle from the fridge.

“To see your lady friend?” Tanner teased, glancing up from his phone. Nick chuckled beside him, fully aware of Isaac’s (very obvious) crush.

“Whatever,” Isaac muttered, feeling heat rush to his face.

“A normal guy would just ask her out,” Nick pointed out. “You’ve been creeping on this girl for weeks now.”

“What am I, a weirdo?” Isaac groaned.

“No, but you’re making it weird.” Tanner sighed. “Just be polite and normal, man.”

“Easier said than done for our boy Isaac,” Nick teased, throwing an arm around his taller friend. “He’s too shy and awkward around girls.”

“You know what?” Tanner put his phone down. “I’m coming with you. I’ll be your wingman.”

“Oh god, please no.”

“Oh god, please yes!”

Isaac sighed, knowing there was no winning this. “Whatever. I’m leaving now.”

“Give me five minutes!”

And exactly five minutes later, Tanner joined Isaac in the car, hyping him up during the entire ride. Isaac rolled his eyes the whole time.

At the gym, after checking in and putting their bags in the locker room, Tanner scanned the room. “So, where’s your lover girl?”

“She’s not my anything,” Isaac muttered, already regretting bringing him along.

“And that’s exactly your problem, and why I’m here!”

“Let’s just work out,” Isaac grumbled.

It wasn’t long before Isaac spotted you again. You were using one of the arm machines, your eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He tried to keep his eyes on his treadmill, but Tanner caught him staring.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” Tanner smirked.

“Don’t,” Isaac warned.

But Tanner was already scheming.

After an hour of working out, Isaac headed straight for the locker room. Tanner claimed he needed a water refill, but made his way over to you.

“Hi,” he greeted casually.

Startled, you pulled out one AirPod and glanced at him warily. “Hey.”

“My friend thinks you’re really pretty, but is too much of a pussy to say it himself,” Tanner said, grinning. “So, here I am, playing Cupid.”

“Oh?” You laughed at his bluntness. “And who’s this mysterious friend?”

“You might’ve noticed him,” Tanner said, gesturing exaggeratedly. “Tall, buff, wears a mask and sunglasses indoors like a weirdo.”

You burst out laughing. “Oh my god, I do know him! It’s a shame I don’t know what he looks like since he covers his face.”

"Yeah, long story, but-” Tanner started before being interrupted.

“Tanner, I’m going to kill you.”

You turned to see the masked man himself, Tanner giving him a sheepish grin.

“Heyyyy, Isaac,” Tanner said in a higher octave. “Funny running into you here!”

“Hi, Isaac,” you said warmly, introducing yourself to him.

“Oh, uh, hey,” Isaac stammered, his awkwardness somehow endearing. “Nice to meet you.”

“Tanner was just trying to set you up; don’t be too mean to him now.” You teased. “We were just talking about you actually.”

“Were you now?” Isaac side-eyed Tanner. 

“Yeah! I was just going to tell her how cool and handsome and rich you are.” He gave a big, goofy grin to Isaac.

“Actually,” You sighed, “I was telling Tanner how I’ve seen you around but have never actually seen your face. What’s up with that?”

“Long story.”

Tanner leaned over to Isaac, loudly whispering, “This is where you ask for her number.”

Isaac playfully shoved him away but pulled out his phone. “Can I get your number? Maybe then I’ll actually explain the whole mask thing.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Only if you promise to text. It’s cruel to get a girl’s hopes up.”

“Oh, I promise,” Tanner said your name, “He will text.”

Smiling, you entered your number into Isaac’s phone, adding a little heart emoji next to your name.

“We gotta go,” Tanner said, clearly pleased with himself and his successful plan. “Nice meeting you!”

“Bye!” you said, hoping Isaac would follow through with the text.

Back at the house, Tanner burst through the door. “Mission successful!” he declared. ““I am opening my wingman services up to everyone in this house! $500 fee, payment first before I do my services. Thank you!”

Isaac, meanwhile, fled to his room, ignoring the cheers from Tanner and Nick.

Sitting at his desk, Isaac stared at the blank text box with your contact. What should he say?

hi hey

He sighed as he joined the Group voice chat on Discord. Grunk and Larry were both online, speaking in VC already. Isaac felt relief as he realized the two himbos downstairs weren't going to harass him online either. 

“What up,” Larry greeted him as he joined.

“Heyo.” Grunk welcomed him as well.

“Hey.” 

The dreaded Discord sound effect echoed in Isaac’s headphones. Fuck.

“You thought you could escape us?!” Tanner shouted.

“Fuck you!” Isaac groaned as the others erupted into laughter.

“You guys are not going to believe this.” Tanner started retelling the entire story of what happened earlier at the gym, Isaac noting that he was exaggerating on several parts . “So to summarize, I am Cupid, and Isaac needs to not fumble the bag I got for him. The end.”

“Wow.” Larry laughed, “Standing ovation.” 

Grunk played his audience clapping sound effect, making everyone laugh harder. 

“Enough making fun of me. What do I text her?” Isaac decided to ask for advice, the horror. 

“Isaac, I don’t know if I can do more heavy lifting for you,” Tanner dramatically sighed into the mic, “I’m not getting paid for this.”

“Shut up Tanner. Isaac, just say hi and introduce yourself over text again.” Nick said, trying to calm the VC down.

“Okay. Okay, let me cook.” Isaac stared at his phone, again. He settled with a simple:

hey! it’s isaac from the gym, finally texting you haha :3

He showed the boys the text once he sent it, only to hear exclamations of disgust from them.

“Bro. Busting out the uwu face? This early on? You’re cooked. Absolutely done for. Get out.” Larry laughed. Tanner started crying of laughter. Grunk kept yelling “EW.”

Isaac never felt more done in his life. He left the server and then the app itself, hearing his boys continue to laugh through the walls. 

He heard his phone vibrate next to his keyboard. His heart sped up just a little bit.

(Y/N) 💗: and so he finally does text… it was nice to meet you today isaac :3

He grinned wide at the emoticon, but also the emoji you put next to your name.

You and him stayed up all night texting. And he couldn't wait until he saw you again.

in celebration of them recording ltlvc.... (i promise i will write other stuff than just this little universe)

[x0x0josephinex0x0]

svt gym rat bf things

I am re-starting my fitness journey, and what better to motivate me than being a casual (worrying) level of obsessed with svt. So yeah once again no one asked for this but here we are, writing it anyway

Warnings: some slightly suggestive material, going to the gym/fitness/working out is the topic, meals and eating mentioned

seungcheol

-he is 100% using any gym time with you to show off/impress you/remind you he's ya man, the most overtly sexy of the gym bfs

-likes to hold eye contact while he does hip thrusts. if he's really feeling it he'll get the weights as close to your actual weight as possible, looking at you while he stacks them all up.

-the BELT FLICKS.......the belt flicks. he does it on purpose. and by god you’re grateful.

-shamelessly ogles you the whole time

-he will slap your butt after spotting you for squats and call it his boyfriend tax

-knows you think he's sexy when he works his arms or chest so he always calls you over to spot and then smirks when you get flustered

-but he doesn’t anticipate how desperately whipped he becomes watching you work out (the post lift cardio session is always of a very specific genre if u know what I mean)

-also is a sucker for you in gym clothes and buys you new gym fits every other week

jeonghan

-only wants to go if you're going (poor boy is tired)

-really good at spotting though, always there to help if you need

-easily impressed when you do anything even remotely cool or beat your pr

-spends most of the time talking to you while you work out

-gets flustered when you do something he finds attractive but will NEVER admit it and tries to play it cool

-when he does finally get to the workout you are disgusted by how much bigger his arms are than yours

-i just know he got a fire gym playlist with barbiecore songs bc they get him hyped

joshua

-subtle flirting in the gym is this man's love language

-meets eyes with you and winks across the squat rack, "accidentally" grabs the same weight and your hands touch and he looks up at you all dramatically, leans against the mirror to chat you up

-all smiles even when he's lifting something really heavy if you're there

-makes a plan beforehand for what you're both working that day and checks in with you periodically to see how you're doing

-does silly dances to his gym playlist to make you laugh

-gives you hugs no matter how sweaty you are

-makes sure you push yourself just enough but never too hard

-the gym selfie king -- and he knows all your best angles

jun

-working out with him is a hazard because he always makes you laugh mid lift and you nearly drop what you're holding

-big proponent of stretching but mostly because he likes to see how flexible you are because he is a heaux

-he is also pretty dedicated to his workouts and knows how to keep on task at the gym, but thinks it's cute if you're bouncing off the walls a little

-switches earbuds with you while working out and then judges you when half of it is music he's a featured artist in

-he will challenge you to fake dance battles

-sneaks lil kisses between sets

hoshi

-cannot contain himself because YOU CAME TO THE GYM WITH HIM, goes way too hard, and complains for the next four days about how sore he is

-"races" you on the treadmill

-takes his shirt off because "he got too sweaty" but then gets suspiciously excited when you stare at him or compliment him

-you catch him staring at you all the time

-does his squats RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE and then looks over his shoulder at u like "what r u looking at? perv"

-will do every single gym couples challenge with you, sends you videos throughout the week being like "we should try this"

wonwoo:

-another tired boy, but he does plan what he's going to work out at the gym every time and appreciates you following his schedule with him to keep each other on track

-workouts are usually not aerobic heavy so there's a lot of eye contact with him too

-cannot keep a smile off his face when you hype him up while he lifts, which is almost reason enough for him to do it

-is also super encouraging -- when you're challenging yourself to do something you've never done or trying to break a pr he's always so supportive and sweet

-lets you pick out matching gym fits to wear and always loves how happy you get when he comes out in his

jihoon:

-this man is the ultimate gym buddy and personal trainer

-if u express even a vague interest in working out he will sit you down to discuss goals and expectations and then come to your first gym session with a written, illustrated schedule targeting your specific body type & goals

-meal preps for u :(:(:(:(

-THE BEST spotter and also why do i feel like he has weird amounts of chiropractic knowledge and will be able to help you stretch SO well

-you can ask him any question about any workout and he knows the answer

-for some reason being in the gym with jihoon is so romantic to me like??? i feel like he'd be spotting you while you lift and he'd just lightly touch your arms to steady you and you'd be a blushing mess and so would he and then you'd go make out after

-worried you’re gonna get hurt so it’s sometimes hard for him to complete his workouts bc he’s watching your form

seokmin:

-going to the gym with seokmin would be a disaster in the best way

-will you work out? yes

-will it mostly be your abs, from laughing at him the entire time? also yes

-he will do bicep curls at you AGGRESSIVELY while he blasts careless whisper over the gym speakers

-his squats are all excuses to throw it back/twerk into you

-is also down for a couples challenge or two

-would be very complimentary of your muscles even if you don't feel like they're that good

-counts down your reps in a silly voice

-he ALSO has really good belt flicks but kind of by accident, and when he catches you blushing he'll tease you about it

mingyu:

-another elite-level gym buddy bf

-does love shots with your preworkout & makes the BEST post-gym meals

-he would also totally be that guy who has you kneel on his feet when he does sit-ups or lay beneath him while he does pushups so he can kiss you every time

-he is also an ogler. he will stare shamelessly at your butt as you walk by

-you might try to do a couples challenge once, but he's clumsy af and it didn't end well so you vowed never to do it again

-he's just a big baby so every time you exclaim over how nice his body is he'll get all shy

-also of course this man is posting up in a backwards baseball cap, a black skintight shirt, and gray sweatpants ON PURPOSE but he'll pretend he doesn't know he's committing literal crimes

-enthusiastically encourages you “one more rep babe one more you got this YEAHHHHH”

minghao:

-i see him more as a yoga/barre guy than a lifting guy

-also very good at stretching you out

-gets embarrassed when you watch him push through a difficult workout bc you're practically drooling at how attractive it is

-but he's also surprisingly goofy in the gym with you and makes sure you’re both having a good time

-loves to do those couple yoga poses and couple stretches

-also is down to help you with boxing or jiu jitsu moves

-post-gym glow is real on minghao

-hard to keep ur hands off each other after you get home hehehehehehehe

seungkwan:

-leg day is every day. so many squats are being done

-he also makes you laugh a lot

-for any aerobic workouts you are either getting in the pool with the grannies for water aerobics or ur doing Zumba there is no in between

-takes you on runs to beautiful spots in the city

-gets competitive about working out with you so if you do more reps than him or run a lil faster he pushes himself too hard

-is always prepared: the night before, he’ll set out your gym clothes, fill your water bottle and put it in the fridge, portion out the preworkout, etc

vernon:

-wants to share gym playlists, so he has one earbud of yours in the gym at all times

-surprises himself with how much he’s staring at you because wow he likes you in that tight shirt and leggings

-I can see him being really methodical about working out, so he kinda gets lost in it and forgets you’re alive, until you do your little dances around him

-he loves it when you show off for him so he can compliment you bc he’s kind of shy to do it without a reason bc then he’d have to admit how much he’s forgetting to work out because he’s paying attention to you

-gives you kisses to congratulate you when you reach milestones

chan

-he would also be elite level gym buddy bf

-uses gentle hands to correct your form if he’s worried you’re gonna hurt yourself 🫠

-he is also goofy in the gym but he also knows exactly when to be serious

-almost more committed to your goals than you are and goes buck wild when you reach a goal of any sort bc he is AN ADORABLE CUTIEPIE

-it’s the little things for him — like when you hum along to the song in your ears when you’re re-racking the smaller weights, he’s just so smitten with you

-idk why but I feel that he would be so good to you when you’re feeling that post gym soreness. he’s on that draw you an epsom salt bath, give you a massage, bring you Gatorade type beat

[lightsoutletsgo]

P L A Y L I S T (cl16 x singer!reader series) vol.4 - monaco

warnings: none

word count: 2.6k

hi everyone! here's the next part! they finally meet in person! I'm really vibing with writing this rn so I have a couple of chapters already drafted so I'm hoping to upload the next few pretty regularly! happy reading love, mimi taglist currently: open! @whatsupstark

previous | series masterlist | masterlist

Monaco

Y/N didn’t know much about F1. But as she wandered through the ‘paddock’, as Charles had called it, she found herself being swept up in the hype and excitement. Celebrities mingled amongst team investors and sponsors and mechanics. Already she’d seen a few friends and acquaintances. Y/N stopped suddenly at a call of her name, turning round she saw Charles and a man who she was pretty sure was called Carlos. He was dressed the same as Charles so that seemed like a good indicator. “Y/N!” She couldn’t help the grin that overtook her features and she felt Carlos stare at her knowingly from opposite her. “Charles, hi!” Her answer was breathy as he got closer, stopping just in front of her. Neither of them spoke for a second but both of them could have sworn it was longer than that. ‘God his pictures didn’t do him justice’ she thought as, ‘she’s even prettier up close’, ran through Charles’ mind, 

“So are you going to introduce us or…?” Carlos chimed in from next to his friend. Charles cleared his throat as Y/N took a step back,  “Uh yes! Carlos this is Y/N.” Y/N smiled at Carlos warmly as he extended a hand for her to shake,  “It’s lovely to meet you.” His accent was warm and his face was very handsome. Y/N mused to herself if good looks were also a necessary qualifying trait for F1 too. 

“Your concert in Rome was incredible!” Y/N was dragged back to the current conversation by Carlos’ compliments, “Thank you so much! We loved every second of it.” “I know Lily will be so excited to know you’re here today. This way, I’ll introduce you to everyone.” Carlos continued as he held his hand out to guide Y/N towards a larger group of people and Charles had to bite back a frown. She was his guest today, he had invited her here so he could get to know her and maybe spend a little time with her. Why did he need to share her with everyone else too? “Are you not coming with us Charles?” Y/N’s sweet voice and concerned look made his tummy flip and he nodded dumbly at her before trudging along behind the pair, ‘there’ll be other opportunities’ he told himself firmly. 

“Guys, this is Y/N.” Greetings were exchanged and fangirling was done (though Lando refused to admit he had squealed when Y/N shook his hand) and before Charles knew it, he was being called to the garage to prepare for the start of the race. “I’m sure Lily will be more than happy to let you hang around with her!” Charles nodded towards Lily who was almost vibrating where she stood. Your face fell ever so slightly, “Oh… Yes of course, thank you.” “Is that okay? I’m sorry I can’t stay longer.” “No no it’s okay! I uhhh…” She trailed off, “I guess I’d just hoped that I’d be able to watch it from the Ferrari garage?” Charles felt himself turning as red as his Ferrari team uniform at her confession and he nodded, his tongue feeling heavy, “That’s more than okay, yeah that’s cool... dude,” He gave her a thumbs up and immediately facepalmed mentally. He cringed as he heard Lando snort from behind him and saw Max cover his mouth to hide a laugh out of the corner of his eye. “I-I’ll walk you there.” Charles strolled with her through the paddock, doing his best to pretend that Carlos was not tagging along behind them. She asked him questions as they walked; how long was the race? Was he nervous about today? Did he think it was going to rain? How fast would he be going? Charles answered each one with careful thought and consideration and he felt his heart swell a little at the way she took such genuine interest in him and his job.

“Well, here we are!” Charles led her into the Ferrari garage, greeting each team member he passed and wishing them good luck for the race. Y/N smiled at the interactions, clearly Charles was a kind person. Something fluttered in her tummy as she saw his dimples appear again and again. He handed her a pair of headphones and helped her find a place in front of several large screens. “Have a good race!” She said enthusiastically before cringing internally, “sorry I don’t know what you usually say before a race… I'm guessing I shouldn't really tell you to break a leg…” Charles’ head tipped back as a full laugh came from deep in his tummy. God she was adorable, “Just good luck is enough!” As he turned to leave for the grid, he suddenly stopped at the feeling of her hand gently taking his wrist. “Charles!” His eyes flitted down to look for a second before he looked up at her, she hesitated for a second and he watched as a look of realisation flashed across her eyes before she was dropping his wrist and stuttering out her next words, “I-I just wanted to say… umm…” He took a step towards her, “Yes?” “Drive safely? Please?” A soft smile spread across his face and those damn butterflies were taking flight in her tummy once more. “Always.” He gave her hand a squeeze for reassurance before he was swallowed up by the bustling garage and out of sight. 

Y/N’s lack of F1 knowledge was showing as she did her best to follow along with the race. Part of her wondered if she should have gone with Lily after all. It may have been easier to follow along with her experienced commentary, but Y/N was glad she’d chosen to support Charles a bit more closely. After all, she was his guest. As she watched the cars lap the track again and again she thought back to their conversations. How he’d, albeit quite awkwardly, flirted with her. He’d made her smile that was for sure. Even through the exhaustion of the tour, she’d found herself staying awake a little later just to reply to him. So naturally when he’d invited her to be his guest at Monaco this weekend, how could she say no? 

She watched the screen intently, eyes searching for a red car with each new camera angle. Once or twice she sensed the TV cameras on her, ready to catch her reactions and so she did her best to appear smiley and calm, despite feeling nervous at her surroundings but also nervous for Charles. 

78 laps later and the race was finished. Y/N didn’t know much about F1 but she knew that 6th wasn’t a bad place to be… it just wasn’t the result Charles wanted. She felt bad for him, having sensed through their conversations that week that he added extra pressure onto himself when he raced at Monaco. She understood, she alwasy felt more pressure when performing at home too. Nevertheless she was waiting there for him with a smile when he reached the garage. “Congratulations!” Charles gave a small smile but she could tell he wasn’t feeling as good as he had before the race. “Thank you.” “Well you didn’t crash so I’d say you did a good job! I doubt I could even manage the simplest corner!” Another smile pulled at his lips this time, more genuine. She could tell even after a short while of talking to him when his smiles were genuine or not. His dimples were always deeper and his eyes a lot brighter. “So what happens now?” Charles inhaled before letting out a heavy sigh, “I have a few interviews and then debrief before we pack up and do it all again somewhere new next week!” She giggled, “Sounds just like tour!” Y/N joked before Charles bit his lip, suddenly turning nervous “Hey uhhh, I have to go and do these interviews but if you want, we could… maybe go and get dinner later? I can take you to Lily so you don’t have to hang out alone!” Y/N was silent, Charles felt himself growing embarrassed, “But if you’re busy it’s fine I totally get it and-” “No no! I would like that…” Y/N nodded as she bit her lip shyly, her head dropping to look at her feet as Charles nervously brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck. 

Acorss from them at the entrance of the garage, Lando and Max stood in conversation with Carlos, all three of them watching the pair intently, “I bet you 50 they’re together by the time we get to Silverstone.” Max nodded completely convinced he was right, “Silverstone? Nahh mate, more like Canada…” Lando said assuredly, “You’re both wrong!” Carlos shook his head, crossing his arms as he leant against the wall, “End of the season.” He said confidently. “End of the season?” Lando raised an eyebrow as Max scoffed, “They’re both two blind idiots with feelings.” Carlos justified, “You have a point…” Max conceded. 

Y/N shifted uncomfortably as she felt someone’s eyes on her, looking around she spotted Carlos, Lando and Max and she felt her cheeks get warm as she realised they’d been staring at her and Charles. Charles followed her gaze and rolled his eyes, “Just ignore them, I think they’re still a little starstruck. Shall we go? I’ll drop you off at Williams on my way.” The pair made their way out of the garage and down the pitlane to the Williams garage. Lily smiled warmly at Y/N as she made her way through the circus of mechanics and engineers and higher ups, “I’ll look after her, don’t worry” Lily sent her a wink which made her giggle, feeling less nervous about not having Charles around. She turned and he smiled at her reassuringly, “I’ll be back in a little bit - I’ll come and find you outside hospitality!” Y/N nodded before turning back to Lily who still seemed a little dazed that she was standing next to her. “I’m so glad you managed to come to the concert!” Lily smiled widely, “It was incredible! I think a few of us are going to go to a few more concerts before the season is over!” Y/N laughed as Lily led her out of the garage and towards hospitality, “You know, I was pretty surprised that Charles decided to join us.” “Oh really?” Y/N said taking a seat with her at one of the tables outside, “Yeah, he’s probably admitted this himself but he had no idea who you were when you guys first met…” Y/N giggled as Lily shook her head good-naturedly, “it’s crazy how you guys bumped into each other like that twice!” “I know!” Y/N’s eyes widened “Did you talk about it with him at all?” Lily asked curiously before Y/N nodded, 

“We did actually! He apologised for not recognising me and assured me he wasn’t trying to kidnap me!” She said with a fond smile, “And I apologised that I’d scared him so much - twice!” The two girls collapsed into fits of giggles before Y’N’s voice dropped to a whisper, “Can I ask you something?” Lily nodded, “Is it true he kept googling all the lyrics through the concert?” Lily let out a loud laugh as Alex and Logan approached the table, “What’s so funny?” Alex asked, taking a seat, “Y/N was just asking me about Charles googling the lyrics at the concert, “How did you hear about that?” asked Logan, “Oh I see everything on twitter,” Y/N said with a smirk, “my fans keep me very well informed!” Lily gasped, “Does that mean you’ve seen the videos of me crying and dancing along?” Alex snorted as Logan coughed to cover up a laugh, both of them remembering how the sight had looked in-person right in front of their eyes. Y/N nodded, her face turning solemn as she placed a hand on Lily’s shoulder seriously, “I’m so sorry Lily but… I don’t think we have a space for you as a backup dancer on this tour.” Lily played along, looking down and clasping her hands together as her eyebrows furrowed, “It’s a brutal industry…” The table fell into laughter before Y/N saw Charles approaching.

“What are we all laughing about, hmm?” Charles was curious as he reached the table, “Oh we were just discussing the outcome of Lily’s audition.” You nodded, face becoming serious once again, “It wasn’t the outcome she wanted…” “I just can’t believe my dancing wasn’t good enough.” “Dancing? Is that what you’d call it?” Alex gave Lily a playful nudge as she gasped dramatically, “Y/N you see how mean he’s being?!” Charles gently placed a hand on her shoulder before leaning down to stage whisper dramatically, “We should leave before this gets nasty!” With a stifled giggle, YN stood up from her chair, making sure to give Lily a hug and exchange her number before following Charles away from the business of the paddock and down a small quiet side street.  

“Where are we going?” Y/N asked, looking around as she took in her surroundings, “There’s a great spot I know a little out of town. It’s kind of a hole-in-the-wall place but they make some of the best pasta I’ve ever had.” 

“Pasta? Sign me up!” Y/N gave an enthusiastic reply as Charles unlocked his car, taking her bag from her shoulder and holding it as he opened her door for her. She slid into the passenger seat and took her bag back, placing it on her lap as he closed the door and jogged round to the driver's seat. As he turned on the engine and the car roared into life, the sound system came on automatically. A familiar voice drifted out through the speakers and a rhythm that her body knew by heart filled the car. “I-is this my song?” Charles found his cheeks matching the colour of his team brand once more as he scrabbled to mute the volume but just turned it up louder in the process Y/N clapped a hand over her mouth, looking at him, as she began giggling harder than she had all day. “I was just… it was… research?” Charles scrambled for an excuse as Y/N continued giggling, hand falling away from her mouth as her head tipped back in laughter. And as they sat there in his car, her song still quietly playing in the background, Charles realised he didn’t mind embarrassing himself and would happily make a fool of himself over and over again if it meant he got to see her laughing like that once more.  “No no no, don’t be embarrassed.” Y/N sighed, her stomach sore from laughter, “I think it’s cute you were researching.” Charles’ cheeks heated up again, ‘she called me cute?’ he screamed at himself in his head. “Okay, honestly? I haven’t been able to get that song out of my head since I heard it at the concert, it’s really catchy!” Y/N nodded, “It gets stuck in my head too sometimes - and it’s my song!” “It’s definitely one of my favourites.” Charles admitted and Y/N found herself having to look out of the window to hide how big her smile was. Charles cleared his throat, “So! Shall we go?” He began to drive, fighting to contain his excitement that you were in the passenger seat, “Don’t go driving as fast as you did earlier!” Y/N joked, Charles smiled, eyes darting to look at her for a second before fixing his gaze back on the road once more, “Never. Not when I have such precious cargo in the passenger seat.” Y/N bit her lip and looked out of the window once more, but Charles could tell she was smiling to herself, he caught it in her reflection in the window.

It suddenly dawned on him as they drove that he didn’t feel as down as he expected to after the race. In fact, he rather felt like he’d won.

₊˚❀.ೃ࿔*:･

next | series masterlist | masterlist

[schrijverr]

What Do You Mean You’re Not Really Together?

Divergence from chapter 7 to chapter 17, where Buck tells Hen – and only Hen – about Eddie and Chris. Hen takes it to mean he is married for real and not ready to be out at work, so covers for him, as well as lend a listening ear. It’s only when Eddie joins the 118 that she figures out that they’re not married-married. Against her will, she gets caught up in the dumbassery that is Buck and Eddie’s marriage, causing them to confess early.

On AO3.

Ships: Buddie, Henren

Warnings: implied/referenced homophobia, internalized homophobia, referenced ableism, referenced emotionally abusive parents, near death experience, minor character death mentioned.

~~~

Buck has been with the 118 for a few weeks already when he approaches Hen in the locker room. She was taking a short break after a noisy call, but was about to rejoin everyone when Buck comes to sit next to her.

She gives him a surprised look, not expecting the presence. Buck looks a little nervous too and she wonders what this is about. Hen has grown to like Buck, he’s not what she expected when he first came in, in a good way, so she’s a little worried what he could be nervous about.

“Uh, so, how long have you and Karen been together? Were you guys already dating when you started working here?” Buck opens with a curve ball.

“…No, I met Karen through Chim, but I was dating my ex, Eva, when I started here,” Hen answers cautiously, unsure where this will go. In her experience, it’s rarely a good thing when her random guy coworkers want to talk about her relationships and she’d hate for Buck to disappoint like that.

“Oh, that’s cool, that’s cool,” Buck nods, more to himself. He’s quiet for a second, seemingly hyping himself up to say the next thing as Hen waits with dread, please, don’t offer a threesome. She’s about to graciously extract herself, when Buck says with faux-nonchalance: “So you were already out when you started? Or did you keep it to yourself?”

Tentatively Hen unclenches her butt muscles, halting her move to leave. This is taking another yet interesting turn. “I didn’t go back into the closet for my job here. Everyone has always known I’m a lesbian. Why the sudden interest?”

It’s a gentle prompt, which Buck is grateful for. He feels horridly awkward and he knows this conversation is going terribly. He just doesn’t know how to talk about it all. He’s never been good at keeping things to himself and ever since he let himself feel how much he loves Eddie, he’s been dying to share it with someone. However, the only person he shares things with is Eddie himself, which means that won’t work.

His solution has been to share it at work, but he knows his whole situation is a little weird with them not being together like that and him flirting and sleeping around. He doesn’t know if he wants to answer all the questions about it. It feels weirdly vulnerable to actually talk about his feelings for Eddie.

So, he picked Hen to open up to. Out of everyone there, she’s the person who is probably the most open minded about all this and, unlike Chimney, she can actually keep a secret.

Still, he flounders a little at how to answer her question, glancing around and hunching in on himself, before he blurts out: “Uhm, I’m kind of very much in love with my husband and I don’t want to get all the questions, but I also need to be able to talk to someone about it, but we just moved here and I don’t have any friends outside work to talk to about this sort of stuff, unless you want to count Chris, but he’s six.”

Hen blinks a few times as she processes Buck’s word vomit. Firstly, husband, that’s a surprise on both the man and married front. Hen is embarrassed to admit that she let her own preconceptions get the better of her and didn’t peg Buck as a fellow queer. Nor as a married man. Her bad.

Secondly, Chris, who is six. Unless Buck is friends with a random six year old, Chris likely is their kid, making Buck a father. The way he is with kids on call and the ability to be mature suddenly make a lot more sense to her.

As for the rest, they have all long since learned Buck is a horrible liar and not great at keeping things to himself. He likes to share. For him to not be comfortable with being out while bursting with love for his husband must be torture. Hen feels for him, she wouldn’t survive if she couldn’t brag about her amazing wife to anyone.

Having parsed through all the information dropped on her, she gives Buck a kind smile, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been holding that in, huh?”

“A little yeah,” Buck flushes with embarrassment.

“Well, I’m here for you, if you feel the need to talk to someone,” she says. “The others will be too, but you don’t have to share if you’re not comfortable.”

“Thank you,” Buck smiles, not knowing how much hearing that would be a relief, until he did. He’s never been too open about himself and his sexuality, remnants of growing up in a household where being gay was okay, as long as it was other people being gay.

“Of course, we stick together.” Hen nudges him playfully. “Now, tell me about this husband of yours. Like, what’s his name?”

Eddie getting referred to as his husband sends a thrill to him and a giddy smile comes on his face involuntary. “His name’s Eddie. Eddie Diaz. We got married so I could adopt Christopher. He’s our son.”

Now that the dam has been breached, he continues on easily: “Eddie is an army medic, only came back to us four months ago. He got injured, so he’s still recovering. He doesn’t want to go back, but he hasn’t said what he wants to do after, but he’s probably going to be great at whatever he picks. He’s really smart and very nice. Not the most social and a little grumpy, but he’s so cute when he’s grumpy. He’s also cute when he smiles. God, the way he smiles when he’s playing with Chris.”

Buck actually has to stop himself from squealing, burying his blushing face in his hands, before he says with a muffled voice: “One of these days I’m going to die of an Eddie Diaz induced heart attack.”

Hen giggles a little at that. Buck sounds like a middle schooler with a crush and it’s kind of adorable, if she’s honest. “He sounds like a catch.”

“He is, I don’t know what I did to end up married to him honestly,” Buck groans. “He’s so handsome and so oblivious to the fact that he’s handsome. And he’s such a bitch, but in the best way. Like the way he stands with his hands on his hips? Kill me.”

Of course Buck’s husband would be a little mean, Hen thinks to herself, though she doesn’t share that with Buck. Instead she phrases it a little differently. “Sounds like the two of you balance each other out.”

“We do,” Buck smiles automatically. “We have each other’s backs, you know.”

Hen coos at that, but before she can say more, Chimney calls out: “What are you two whispering about over there?” startling them both.

Buck gives her wide eyes, knowing that he can’t come up with a believable lie. So, Hen does it for them, calling back: “We’re trying to conspire to steal your dinner pick spot to convince Bobby to make the nice lasagna.”

“First of all, that is so rude, I can’t believe my own friends are turning against me like that. Second of all, neither of you have even had the decency to try to convince me to pick the nice lasagna,” Chimney starts an offended rant, effectively ending the conversation the two of them were just having and shelving the topic.

Hen keeps quiet about it for the whole rest of their shift, since they don’t get a moment alone again, but she doesn’t forget. That night, she sits on her own couch with a mug of tea and says: “You never guess what Buck told me today.”

“Buck? That’s the new probie guy, right?” Karen asks. “The frat boy, who was better than expected?”

“Yeah, him,” Hen says. “He asked about how long we’d been dating and if we’d already been dating when I started working there.”

“Oh no,” Karen grimaces.

“That’s what I thought,” Hen exclaims. “But, as it turns out, married. Super married. And so in love with his husband he nearly burst apart with it.”

“Husband?” Karen gasps. “Really?”

“Uh-huh,” Hen nods. “Apparently he’s not comfortable being out, so you can’t tell Chimney, but he needed to tell someone. He’s a bit of an over-sharer, so I don’t know how he kept it to himself. They just moved here, so he doesn’t have anyone other than Eddie – that’s the husband’s name – to talk to it about it. He probably figured I’d be safe.”

“Ahw that’s adorable,” Karen coos. “A baby gay on the force.”

“I doubt he’s a baby gay, seeing as they have a six year old together,” Hen snorts.

“Wow, he’s a dad?” Karen says, a little shocked. “Isn’t he still a kid himself, you said he was twenty-five, right? That’s a teen parent. That must be rough.”

“Yeah, I suppose he is,” Hen says thoughtfully, she hadn’t even done that math yet. “But he said he adopted Chris and I don’t know how long they’ve been married or how old Eddie is, might be a bit of an age gap.”

“You didn’t ask!?” Karen exclaims. She loves office gossip and speculating right alongside Hen about their colleagues, it’s a way they bond.

“Chimney interrupted before I could,” Hen defends herself. “Besides, I’m not sure if I should push or let him come to me with information. I mean, he clearly didn’t want to be out at work, he just didn’t have another place to go. And you know how annoying it is when people feel entitled to information about how you got your child, since he’s not biologically yours.”

Karen groans, collapsing against the couch cushions petulantly. “Ugh, I hate it when you’re right. But you’ll tell me if he says something, right?”

“Of course, this is the best thing that happened to the 118 since Bobby became Captain,” Hen says.

In the end, it doesn’t come up again until a few shifts later when Buck is pocketing the number of a cute looking blonde with a smile, giving her a little wave as she leaves.

“What do you do with all those numbers? Do you just throw them away?” Hen is suddenly next to him asking that. She can get flirting with girls to cover the gay, but the amount Buck does seems a little excessive, not to mention that she’s seen him give out his own number too.

“No?” Buck frowns. “Sometimes I use them. That’s usually why you ask and give out your number.”

Hen looks around to see if anyone is listening in, but no one is close. So the answer can’t have been about that. Confused, she frowns back: “What happened to being too in love with Eddie Diaz to function?”

“Oh,” a realization appears on Buck’s face and he flushes with embarrassment and shame. “Uhm, Eddie’s not into that,” not into me, he swallows painfully. “We have an open marriage. It’s not like I’m sneaking around behind his back,” just maybe flirting more when he can’t see so I seem like an option, he adds again mentally.

Ah, that makes sense, Hen thinks. Eddie is probably asexual and being polyamerous would add another layer to not wanting to share. The 118 is open minded and Hen has found a lot of acceptance in her current coworkers, but there are limits to what some straight, and even other queer, people can comprehend. She understands not wanting to push those limits as the new probie.

So, she nods and says: “Makes sense. Maybe keep it off the clock, though. I think Bobby is side eyeing you about it. It’s a little unprofessional.”

Buck turns to where Bobby is. Indeed he is watching the two of them with a calculating look, eyes also flicking to where the blonde disappeared. Buck blushes a little under the scrutiny. “Noted.”

Hen doubts he noted it, when he gets fired for fucking on the job a few weeks later.

Still, just because she thinks he’s a dumbass, doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel for him. It’s rough, to get fired like that and she wishes she could do something, but he did that to himself. And she knows that expression on Bobby’s face, he’s serious and set on taking this course of action, no matter how much they all hate to see it happen.

When she sees Buck sit all alone in the locker room, she can’t help but come over. In a mirror of that conversation a few weeks ago, Buck opens, this time more defeated than awkward. “I guess you heard?”

“Yeah,” Hen says with a sympathetic look. “For what it’s worth, everyone thinks it sucks.”

“It’s my own fault.”

Hen grimaces, though she does it with kindness. “Yeah, everyone thinks that too.” She pauses for a moment, then goes on: “I’ll be honest. When Bobby first brought you on board, I told him he should just get a Dalmatian instead. But you surprised me and I’m legit sorry to see you go. I can’t imagine this will be easy to explain at home.”

“No, Eddie’s going to kill me,” Buck sighs, before groaning and burying his face in his hands. “I’m such an idiot. I can’t lose this job. Eddie doesn’t have an income and Chris can’t go without insurance, he needs medical help.”

“Is he ill?” Hen asks, suddenly concerned.

“No, CP – cerebral palsy – he needs PT, crutches, glasses, support,” Buck explains. “We can’t afford all that without insurance. How am I going to explain to Eddie that I lost our kid his insurance?”

“And Bobby wasn’t sympathetic to that at all?” Hen can’t rhyme that with the Captain she knows.

“Bobby didn’t let me explain, didn’t even let me talk,” Buck says. “And even if he did, I doubt he’d believe me. I mean, you know what everyone here thinks of me. In a moment of desperation pulling out a whole family that no one knew about with a husband, who just happens to be okay with me sleeping with someone else? Yeah, right.”

He sounds so bitter yet also so anguished and sad. Hen has never heard him like that and it makes her gut churn.

Buck sighs again and rubs his face, before he turns to her, suddenly hopeful. “Hey, maybe- maybe you can talk to him for me. Tell him I need this job. He might listen to you. You can-”

Hen doesn’t have to come up with an answer, because the alarm starts blaring, interrupting Buck before he can even finish asking.

She’s grateful for that, because she isn’t sure what to say to that. She doesn’t know how to make his case for him. They all agree he fucked up, including Buck. Unless he can show that he is an asset, Bobby can’t justify giving him another chance and, like Buck said, Hen doesn’t know if he’ll go for the surprise family story.

Bobby comes to call her away. Though she sees him give Buck an almost apologetic helpless look. He also didn’t want Buck’s career to end like this.

She knows Bobby has taken Buck under his wing. He instated him as his sous chef, worked to get him into the fold, mentors him. Bobby likes Buck. They all do, but Bobby acts pretty paternal when it comes to their probie.

However, as stated before, Bobby can’t justify giving Buck another chance. Hen can make his case, but it won’t matter. Not unless Buck can prove himself, but he can’t prove himself without a second chance. A second chance he won’t get.

It makes her stomach turn sour and it tugs at her chest.

Yeah, Buck fucked up by sleeping with yet another woman on the clock, however, he doesn’t get to defend himself and plead his case, because his relationship makes him susceptible for discrimination and misunderstanding. He doesn’t get to ask for that extra chance he doesn’t necessarily deserve, but definitely needs.

Hen knows – she just knows – that if Bobby heard about Eddie and Chris, who rely on Buck’s income, that would be enough to justify that second chance to himself.

But she also knows why Buck didn’t try harder to fight for that chance to explain himself, why he took the shut down and rolled over. Why even now, Hen isn’t sure if he would like her to out him for that small chance at keeping his job.

She herself experienced that risk every goddamn day, when she chose to be out and paid the price under Gerrard. And even though Bobby is miles better, they can never know where his limits are and Buck’s relationship is harder to rhyme with Catholicism than Hen’s, no matter how stupid infighting and respectability politics are.

So, she twists and she turns, trying to figure out if she should say something when Bobby asks her what she and Buck were talking about. Keeping it vague, while also pressing home that he needs this job and sounded serious.

In the end, she gets her solution when her phone rings and Athena asks: “I need a favor. Think you can loan me a fire truck?”

As expected, Bobby doesn’t want to fire Buck and the second Athena can vouch for him, that is enough to justify it to himself again. Hen saw that relief in his eyes when she told him what she did.

The two of them watch Bobby walk away, Buck looking as if the tension has been sucked out of him in a good way. Still, he gets a bit of his nerves back when he asks Hen: “Do you think he put in the paperwork yet and I need to be rehired, because that could mess with admin stuff, right?”

“Don’t ask me, only Cap knows that, but I don’t think he filed it yet if he managed to fill it all out,” Hen answers, unsure if Bobby can still hear them and not seeing the need to risk it. “By the way, what were you going to say, before we got called away?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter anymore now, just wanted to make my case, so you could make it to Bobby, but guess I did that for myself,” Buck replies, also sending a glance to Bobby’s back

Hen lets him have it, though she playfully threatens: “Shove off, probie. You’re still on thin ice. And you owe me for this. If I ever need a favor, I-”

“Yeah, of course, I got you,” Buck says immediately without hesitation. “Thank you so much, Hen, you’re the best.”

“I know,” Hen smirks, though a flush rises in her neck. She hip checks him and shoos him off: “Go on, get back in uniform.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Buck grins widely, skipping off.

The next day, she finds a box of homemade cookies in her locker. The icing on top of them is messily done and Hen can recognize the helping hands of a child quite clearly. She doesn’t have to think twice before she knows who put them there.

Indeed, when she looks up, she catches Buck’s eyes and he mouths: “Thank you.”

Hen gives him a smile in return, before hiding the cookies so she doesn’t have to share, or explain why she has them. As she does, she gives Buck a wink that makes him snicker softly.

When she comes home after her shift, she shares the cookies with Karen after they put Denny to bed. It is the right of a parent to hide the good snacks and Buck, as it turns out, is an incredible baker. While they munch on the cookies, she gives her the update on the whole situation.

Karen is still the only person next to Hen, who knows anything about Buck’s mysterious life outside of work.

She wants Hen to organize a play date between Denny and Chris, so she can meet Buck – or better yet – Eddie for herself. Hen can admit she’s curious too, but she’s been slowly easing her way in towards that. She doesn’t want to scare Buck off with how on the fence he’d been. Still, she thinks she’s getting closer and closer into his circle of trust.

Then Chimney gets a rebar stuck through his head and the world tilts. Chimney has been her friend for so long that she has almost forgotten what it was like to not know him. Without him, she doubts she would have made it through Gerrard’s reign of terror. He’s her rock. Her best friend and main person outside of Karen.

Her, Bobby and Buck hold vigil next to his bedside, while Hen slowly loses her patience and drives Karen up the wall with her worrying.

She’s sitting in the hospital next to Chimney’s unconscious form once more when Buck comes to sit next to her, nudging her as he says: “What a coincidence, running into you here.”

Hen gives him a tired smile, before confessing: “I’ve been driving Karen crazy with my worrying, she said I should just go here to calm me down a bit.”

“Ah,” Buck nods understandingly. “Same, kinda. Eddie kicked me out and told me to go, I’ve been driving him up the wall too. He offered to come with, but I don’t know, I’d feel awkward introducing him to an unconscious Chimney.”

“That’s fair enough,” Hen says. “Karen’s staying with Denny right now. But she’s been keeping him company while we’re all on shift, so he won’t be alone.”

Buck gets a little choked up at that, but he manages: “That’s really sweet. Thank her from me?”

“I will,” Hen assures him. “But it’s not a hardship for her. Chim is her friend too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned you knew her through him?” Buck prompts.

A sappy smile come onto Hen’s face as she says: “I did. He set us up on a blind date, though he didn’t tell me about it. I thought he’d stood me up for our drinks, but, hey, I wasn’t going to tell the beautiful woman who’d just sat down at my table that I wasn’t her blind date. I only told her at the end of the night and then she thought she got stood up by her blind date, which is when we put together that I was the blind date all along. Chim was her neighbor.”

“Really? Matchmaker Chimney? Who would have thought?” Buck laughs.

“I know right,” Hen smiles. “He caught me on my walk of shame out the door once and all he did was laugh knowingly, before asking if I wanted to carpool.” Her smile turns more melancholic and fond. “I never had anyone just accept me like that.”

Buck nods quietly, he probably understands very well. He puts a comforting arm around her and tells her: “He’s going to wake up. He’s gonna be okay. Chim’s too stubborn to let this be the thing that takes him down. He probably thinks he’s going down in a blaze of glory with explosions in the background and a movie score playing, but I have my money on old age.”

That makes Hen chuckle and she wipes her eyes. “Thanks, Buck.”

“Course,” he says, holding her a little tighter.

Talking to Buck made her feel better, but there is still so much anger at the world, so much tension as she anxiously waits for Chimney to recover.

It comes out when they’re on the call where some asshole locked a bunch of human beings, who probably paid him too much money to smuggle them across the border to have a chance to chase the American dream, in a truck. Calls like these piss her off and right now, she’s already on edge.

She and Buck work together to bring back a young boy and she is glad Buck is doing the talking to the parents. She doesn’t have the brain capacity to try and remember her high school Spanish. It doesn’t even surprise her that he talks easily to them, marrying into a family called Diaz probably means he’s surrounded by Spanish more than she is.

Before she can comment on it, however, she is distracted by the driver, who she recognizes from his driver’s license. Taking him down is satisfying, but not as satisfying as she’d hoped.

What is satisfying and exactly what she needs, is Chimney waking up that evening. They’re all relieved when he seems to understand them and is capable of reacting to their input. It can still go horribly, horribly wrong, but there are positive signs. They need positive signs.

However, they find out the hard way that positive signs doesn’t mean the positivity will last. A plane crashes and Bobby almost gets himself killed to rescue a mom. Buck too.

After nearly losing Chimney, she wants to smack Bobby and Buck for risking their lives like that. But she has a job to do and it gives her the perfect opportunity to give them the cold shoulder while she focuses on her patients until she has gotten over her fear enough to appreciate the two of them made it out alive in the first place.

She finds Buck shivering and completely soaked, still doing his job. No one told this idiot he should at least try not to develop hypothermia and she shoves a blanket into his hands with only minor frustration, before going to wrap up at the scene.

With mass casualty events like this, she always wants to hear Karen, Denny too if possible, so she calls them in the rig back to the firehouse. Some of the others are doing the same thing.

As she listens, her eye falls on Buck, who is tucked into himself in the corner, staring out of the window with a sad, wistful look in his eyes. In his lap, there is his phone, curled loosely into his hand unused. He probably wants to call Eddie and Chris, but unlike Hen, no one knows he has a family at home waiting, so he can’t.

Her heart aches a little for him and when she sees his phone start to buzz, his eyes lighting up at the contact, she ushers everyone along a little quicker. He deserves to have some peace of mind too after today.

She runs into him coming out of the shower, while he is obviously moving toward it. His shoulder seem more relaxed and his face has lost the little frown. Still, he’s shivering and his lips are a little pale. Should he drive? “Are you okay, Buck?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he smiles, looking to mean it. “Just got offered a ride, which is great. My arms feel like they’re gonna fall off.”

Hen can relate to the feeling, though she still feels up for driving. She guesses Buck doesn’t after nearly dying on a crashed plane, so Eddie is coming to get him. “I hear you, I’m gonna sleep so hard when I get home. Want me to wait on your ride with you?”

Buck’s smile brightens at her offer, however he shakes his head. “Nah, I’m gonna shower real quick, Eddie should be here by then. Besides, we had a long day. Go home to your wife, Hen.”

At that, Hen hesitates. Buck is a grown man who can make his own choices, but she still worries for him. That worry is made worse by Chimney recently nearly dying and then Buck and Bobby nearly dying. For fucks sake, he’s still in his wet, sea-logged clothes.

However, she doesn’t feel like dragging all that up and dealing with that now, like Buck said, they had a long day. So she just says: “Alright. Goodnight, Buck.”

“Goodnight.”

After that goodbye, she watches Buck retreat into the shower for a moment. He looks steady on his feet and he held a good conversation, plus he is shivering , which means he’s not too cold yet. And he’s going to shower, warm up a bit, then put on dry clothes. Buck is going to be fine.

She tells himself, he’ll be fine as she makes her way to her car, repeats it when she gets in. She truly believes it too. And she probably would have driven away, if not for the small bit of nosiness that makes her curious about how the pick up will go.

So, she sits in her car in the parking lot and waits. Karen will probably forgive her for being a little late about this. She is worried about her friend. And collecting intell.

After a while, an unfamiliar, slightly beat up truck pulls into the parking lot of the 118 firehouse. In it is a young man, around Buck’s age. The famed Eddie Diaz. He is very handsome and she doesn’t think that often of men. It seems Buck hadn’t been exaggerating too much in his dramatic little spiel about his husband.

Eddie parks, then pulls out his phone, checking it, before putting it away again. He turns to the passenger seat, swiping his hand over it, before shaking his head to himself, as if he finds what he’s doing silly. Then he appears to turn the heating up, giving himself a satisfied nod.

He looks over at the firehouse, studying it with mild interest as he waits for Buck. His eyes periodically flick over to the entrance and Hen knows Buck must have appeared when Eddie’s face lights up with a smile.

Indeed, Buck is tiredly trudging over, throwing open the door without much grace and tossing his bag on the backseat, before he collapsing in the passenger seat. The exhaustion must be catching up to him, because he appears to let out a long groan. Hen feels her own lips quirk up right alongside Eddie’s at the dramatics.

Hen doesn’t know what is being said, but Eddie says something smugly, getting a half hearted glare from Buck as he replies. Eddie then retorts, making a face as if he’s mocking someone – probably Buck – as he moves to drive off.

Despite the bickering that has obviously started up, Hen knows it’s the fond kind. She can still remember Eddie’s care in getting the car ready for Buck and the way Buck smiled when he mentioned his ride. He seems to be in safe hands with Eddie.

With her worries soothed and her curiosity satisfied, Hen also turns on the ignition and pulls out of the parking lot.

What Hen hadn’t counted on in worrying about Buck, is that she should have been worrying about Bobby instead. The man has been in this line of work for so long and has cemented himself in Hen’s mind as a reliable Captain, who knows his limits.

However, he isn’t in for shift next time. Bobby is always there for his shift. In all her years under him, Hen can’t remember a day he missed for any other reason than being sick. And he always, always called in.

Finding Bobby the way they do is absolutely heartbreaking. He is in clear need of help, of someone to be there for him.

So they’re there for him. They check up on him after rough calls, reign him in when he snaps and sit with him in the quiet hours – though none of them will ever dare to use the word quiet.

Still, they don’t know anything about him, about why he started drinking and why he stopped. Bobby has a tight grip on his personal life, but Hen now learns that might be because he doesn’t have a personal life. Just a job.

She can’t imagine what that is like, what not having people to come home to is like. She probably wouldn’t have survived some of the things she saw these past few years if she couldn’t come home and kiss Karen or watch Denny smile.

However, it is incredibly frustrating to have him remain so closed off after asking for help. They’re trying to help, they want to help. But Bobby has to let them and he’s not letting them.

Buck is seemingly unaware of the tension between her and Bobby after she had to physically pull him away from the owner of that wedding venue, who used bad material. But she is very aware and Bobby is too.

The two of them are equally stubborn, locked into this tension, seeing who is going to break first. In the end it’s Buck, that breaks them both.

He’s laughing at that damn security footage of the carwash guy. He looks so happy, so joyous, it’s infectious. Both her and Bobby have to laugh too, it’s probably the first time they’ve laughed like that since Chimney got some rebar stuck through his head and it all went to shit.

It’s the power Buck has. He probably doesn’t even know it, but he brings them all together. It’s that youthful innocence he has, the thing that made it so surprising to Hen to find out he has a kid and a husband. It’s the kind of thing most people lose after life throws shit at them time and time again, but Buck never did. It makes you want to stick by him, makes you want to make it work.

So, they all laugh at this poor guy spinning in circles and when they’re outside again, Hen tries again to break through to Bobby and this time, Bobby lets her. It’s a first step.

The second step is planning Chimney’s welcome back party, which she takes very seriously, enlisting Buck’s help. It’s a very serious operation and most give her a wide berth, but Buck matches her energy easily. Though she makes a mental note not to hand him a clipboard again.

On their shift, they find themselves brainstorming ideas. They have been banished from the upstairs table and have instead set up shop on the back of the open ambulance, sitting side by side as they bounce ideas off one another.

When a quiet moment falls, Buck looks around, before asking: “Uh, do you and Karen do children’s birthday parties for Denny? Like just his friends?”

“We do,” Hen answers, easily clicking together why Buck is asking. “Is Chris’s birthday coming up?”

“Yeah,” Buck says sheepishly at being perceived so quickly. “We, uh- we haven’t done that kind of party before and we really want this party to be a good one.”

“I get that,” Hen nods. “New city jitters about organizing or were the others a disaster?”

“Mix of both,” Buck says honestly. “I wasn’t there for his third birthday, but Eddie was still on tour on his fourth and Shannon – his mom – had walked out on him around his fifth and then during his sixth Eddie was on tour again. So, he has a bad luck streak about people missing it. And it’s the first time we’re doing this without Helena – Eddie’s mom – trying to take over the planning.”

Hen’s heart aches a little at that. It can’t have been easy for Chris, his parents missing so much. Plus, it’s news to her that Chris’s mom left. She knew Eddie was the biological father, but she had half assumed there was some sort of custody with the mom or that there was an agreement to let Eddie have full custody, but this makes it sound like she abandoned her son.

She also mentally files away that Buck had been in the picture for two years before that happened. She wonders if he got married to Eddie after Shannon left to fill the void she left, since he did mention getting married so he could adopt Chris. Or if that had been a natural par of the course. Being together for fours years isn’t nothing. He could have recently married Eddie.

However, she can’t focus on any of that right now. Buck started this conversation to ask for help getting Chris a good party and after hearing that, she can’t not help.

“Was Helena a welcome help?” she asks, because if she was, then Hen can ask what she did and offer to do it in her place.

Buck’s vehement shake of the head tells her enough, but he confirms by saying: “Oh definitely not. I don’t want to come across as that classic guy that hates his mother-in-law, but no. Her help was very much not welcome.”

Hen can feel her eyebrows rise up at the strong words. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Buck’s judgment, because he isn’t the kind of guy to talk behind people’s backs and not try to see the good in people, but she knows how in-laws can get on your nerves.

It’s just because you see all the little things that make the person you love shrink in on themselves, all the little habits that have grown between them that they don’t see, but you do. So she thinks Buck’s perspective might be warped, causing her to sound a little skeptical when she asks: “That bad?”

“She calls Chris ‘special,’ which is her upgrade from ‘fragile.’ It’s a battle to get her to treat him like a kid and not a baby and that’s not even mentioning her hatred for my existence and the way she talks about Eddie’s parenting. Or Eddie’s choices in general,” Buck grimaces.

Immediately she cringes when Buck mimics the tone his mother-in-law uses when she says special. It is something she hears here and there from parents when they go on medical calls and it always sets her teeth on edge.

Then it somehow gets worse when Buck explains how she views him and Eddie. With that start, she didn’t think it would get worse. “Oh, homophobic?”

“Very,” Buck replies. “But at least she was willing to get past the whole married to a man thing to help when Eddie was on tour, though I think that was because she thought she’d have a better chance at taking custody of Chris that way.”

He sounds so casual about it and it breaks Hen’s heart. The possibility of losing custody is a terrifying thing and the fact that it’s the grandmother trying, when Hen cannot imagine a world wherein Buck doesn’t love that kid to death – and probably wouldn’t marry anyone who didn’t feel the same – makes it so much worse.

And the fact that he tries to give her credit for the fact that she’s ‘willing to look past the whole married to a man thing’ makes her blood boil. It also makes her realize that she’s never heard Buck about his own family, he vaguely mentioned Eddie’s tía and abuela once, but never his own. The realization makes a her gut churn.

She goes for a more nonchalant tone than she feels when she asks: “Would your parents not be able to look past it?”

Buck blinks for a second, as if he hadn’t even thought about that before. Then his face shutters closed and he fails at acting like it doesn’t bother him as he says: “Oh, I don’t know, it was always okay for others to be gay, we just didn’t do that. But they’d probably think I’m making the biggest mistake of my life regardless, letting myself get dragged down by a teen parent, even though I was already twenty-three when I met Eddie and started helping out with Chris full time. I wouldn’t know though, haven’t spoken to them in years.”

It’s the kind of story she’s heard a million times before and she wishes they’d stop, but alas, the world isn’t like that yet. Her own mom thought she was making a mistake when she married Karen, they’re in a better place now, but she can still remember that hurt.

The fact that Buck hasn’t spoken to them since before meeting Eddie and that he seemingly never even considered of informing them or having them know, says a lot about their relationship.

Wanting to do something, but knowing she can’t just undo things like this, she slings her arm around his shoulder and pulls him into her side, saying: “If they did think that, they wouldn’t know what they’re talking about. You’re not making a mistake, Buck. It’s never a mistake to be gay.”

“I’m bi,” Buck tells her.

Hen isn’t even bothered by his clear lack of knowing how to reply to that, so she just snorts: “That’s okay too.”

He lights up at that and Hen squeezes him again before letting go. It became a heavier topic than expected and she clears her throat, before she says: “But kid’s birthday party.”

“Yes, uh-huh, birthday party,” Buck nods, looking glad for the way out. “Chris likes science and animals. I’m thinking something themed, but I don’t know how to go about it. We didn’t do kid’s birthday parties growing up.”

Hen imparts as much knowledge as she can to Buck from her own experience throwing kid’s birthday parties – even if Karen wields the spreadsheets when they’re planning like no other – and they even come up with a good idea for Chim’s welcome back party when talking about theme-ing and food; a custom cake of his head.

Chimney’s welcome back party goes well, the cake is done one time and everyone from the A and B shift is there. Athena shows up too. Everyone has a good time.

And Buck later reports, sneaking in a thankful hug, as does: “Chris’s party was a success. Thank you. Now just surviving the full moon tonight and then the family party with the in-laws this weekend, and then we’ll have made it through.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” Hen hugs him back. Before asking: “Is that why you have that weekend off while we’re on shift?”

“Yeah, I contemplated skipping out, but I’m not going to do that to Eddie,” Buck says.

“Well, if you need a place to hide out from the in-laws, you can always hide out at mine. Karen won’t mind the company,” Hen smiles.

“That’s very sweet, thanks. But they’re only here for the weekend, I can survive until Sunday afternoon,” Buck says.

“Okay, but good luck anyway,” Hen jokes, making Buck laugh.

When Eva calls, Hen decides she needs a bit of that luck for herself. Because she feels that urge to come when Eva calls and she doesn’t know why she wants to help her, even though she’s done nothing to deserve that help. Wonders why she allows herself to come close to getting caught up in Eva’s plan all over again.

It’s as if a part of her is still that stupid naive young woman she was with her, who didn’t see that her own girlfriend was dealing, until she was face down on her own floor, cops yelling at her. That desperate young woman, who just needed Eva to look at her. As if she still needs her to just look at her.

She feels that urge to go, gets into her car and puts the address into her navigation. She’s about to drive off when she spots Buck in the parking lot, making his way to his car. He catches her eye and gives her a big smile, waving at her, before giving her a thumbs up.

Without any conscious input, she smiles back and gives him a thumbs up back. He survived the full moon, now just the weekend with his in-laws.

Suddenly it hits her, that she is about to not survive the full moon, that she is about to allow someone like Eva back into her life, in her family’s life. Buck still has to make it through the weekend with awful people, but Hen doesn’t have to do that. She can go home and kiss her wife, maybe even be on time to tuck in Denny.

That small broken part that just needs to be acknowledge by Eva, feels so small when she realizes what she has.

Hen turns on the ignition and drives home.

At home, Karen is in the kitchen making herself a mug of tea. No, she’s making two mugs of tea. One is for Hen, because she knew she’d be home soon. She turns around and smiles at her. “Full moon as crazy as you’d feared?”

“Crazier,” Hen says, letting out a relieved breath, she hadn’t realized she was holding. Then she surges forward and kisses Karen as passionately as she can.

When they break apart, Karen lets out a confused giggle, asking: “What was that for?”

“Just happy that I have you,” Hen answers. She doesn’t know how to put into words the last few hours of feeling, just that she is happy that Karen is there.

“You’re sure nothing happened at work?” Karen asks.

“Yeah. I’m sure,” Hen says. “Eva called.”

Karen tenses in her arms and her voice gets an odd tone as she replies: “Oh. And- And what did she want?”

“She wanted me to meet her,” Hen looks at the clock on the oven, “right about now.” She looks back at Karen and smiles. “I personally thought, I had better places to be.”

“Well, I do agree with that.” Karen perks up with a blush and a happy uptick in her voice, before leaning in and kissing Hen again.

After they tucked Denny in, the two of them spend the rest of the evening on the couch, yelling at trashy reality TV shows as they wrap themselves around each other. The next day, Hen catches up on house work, before heading in for her shorter shift on Friday.

Buck is a little tense all day. Hen clearly picks up on it, but she supposes that is because she knows he has a reason to be worried. All the others appear not to notice, until they’re done with their shift and Buck’s civilian clothes are nicer than the ones he usually leaves the station in. Not to mention the way he’s messing with his hair in the mirror.

Hen wants to give him some encouraging words, but it’s not the time. A fact that is exemplified by Chim, who stops as he walks by and asks: “Who are you cleaning up nice for?”

“No one,” Buck lies. Like, very clearly lies. It must be hard, trying to keep a secret like that when you’re that bad at lying.

To throw him a lifeline, Hen asks: “You have a hot date or something? Called back one of those numbers?”

“Ahhh,” Chimney waggles his eyebrows. “Spill. Come on. You can tell us. It’s not like we haven’t heard about your sex life in great detail, don’t tell me you’re shy when it comes to the dates.”

Buck’s pale skin clearly shows his bright blush and Hen can’t help but tease a little. She coos: “Ahw, he is shy,” causing that blush to deepen.

His watch seems to give him the out he needs, because after checking it, he says: “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Now, I have a hottie to pick up and I don’t want to be late,” before hightailing out of there, so they can’t ask more questions.

Hen decides to send him a text of support before going home. There is nothing more for her to do and unlike Buck, she only gets enough hours off to get some sleep in before she has to be right back.

Next to her, Chimney comments: “Didn’t he take the weekend off too? Lucky bastard is probably going to get laid.”

“Probably,” Hen snorts, amused at Chimney’s perception of Buck. She doesn’t blame him too much, without him coming out to her, she likely would have thought the same.

They don’t hear from Buck all weekend. Hen hopes that’s a good sign, but she feels apprehensive as they wait for Buck to come in when he’s joining them for their shift again. A feeling that gets proven right when she sees his slumped shoulders as he throws himself onto a chair.

Everyone picks up on it. Chimney speaks before she does, taking one look at Buck, before he whistles: “Oef, bad date?”

“You can say that,” Buck groans as he takes the mug of coffee Bobby offers him and slumps down over the breakfast bar.

Oh, that doesn’t sound good at all. Hen grimaces in sympathy, unsure what to do. If she didn’t know, she’d be nosing about, but she knows that he doesn’t want to talk about it and that he’s a horrible liar, so won’t be able to come up with anything.

“What happened?” When Hen doesn’t ask, Bobby does, sounding more concerned and less invested than she would have been, though a little bit of investment is still there anyway.

Hen sees Buck freeze for a split second, uncertainty in his eyes, before he quickly settles on: “The parents came by. They hate me.”

“That sucks,” Hen says gently, hoping he catches on to the comfort it’s meant to be. Going off the small smile he sends her, that message is received.

Chimney however, just raises his brow in surprise and a little offense. “That sounds serious.”

“I didn’t know you were seeing someone like that, why didn’t you mention it?” Bobby asks.

“But that’s it, I’m not. We’re not even dating,” Buck mopes and Hen’s eyebrows rise, half impressed, half amused by the spin Buck is giving this. She supposes that technically it’s not a lie, she wouldn’t say she’s dating Karen, she married her.

Luckily, before Buck can be interrogated further and pushed to a place where he can’t deflect anymore, the alarm goes and they all have to rush into their turn out gear, all of them complaining about not getting to eat breakfast instead of focusing on Buck’s problems.

She doesn’t get a chance to talk to him on the call itself, but all can see his mind is elsewhere. Chim at one point slides up next to her and nods at Buck, joking: “His marathon sex probably got interrupted, so the post-nut clarity never came.”

“Shut up,” Hen giggles, feeling a little bad for laughing when she knows it isn’t true.

Before she can try and stop him, while the others go up in the crowd upstairs when they get back, Buck is already gone too.

When she gets upstairs, he’s standing next to Bobby, taking over half the chopping work. Hen can’t blame him, she gets needing to do something with your hands to get your mind off things. So, Hen lets him have that and instead focuses on beating Chimney at cards.

A little while later, she looks up and Buck and Bobby are talking. Unable to help her nosy nature and wanting to be a good friend, she goes and grabs some coffee, listening in.

She clearly missed the start, because when she gets close, Bobby is just saying: “Hey, come on, kid. Look at me.”

His tone indicates that there is about to be some sort of fatherly advice or heart to heart. He’s clearly taken a shine to Buck and she suddenly wonders if she should be listening in on this. She chances a glance over and Buck is tentatively looking at Bobby. He looks scared and she knows she can’t let him face this alone. What if the part she missed was him coming out?

Bobby looks back kindly and says: “You’ve come a long way from the punk that walked in here. If you want things, like closeness, intimacy, trust, those things don’t come for free. Any woman you’ll meet has lived a life and she’s gonna come with some baggage. You’re ready for that, if you want that. But it sounds like you’re hoping to pull her out of this trap she’s in with her family. That’s not going to happen. What she needs is for you to step inside with her, keep her company in there. You can do it.”

Okay, so Buck didn’t come out. She cringes slightly at the words because of it, however, it’s clear Buck needed some sort of affirmation. She’s slightly glad Bobby did it for her. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be there for her friends, she does, but she doesn’t want to parent Buck. He’s her adult friend, not her son.

And it’s clear the words are something Buck needed to hear, because he says: “Thanks, Bobby.”

Bobby seems to sense that this is the end of the conversation and just gives him a paternal nod, before holding out a hand for the vegetables Buck cut. Buck smiles as he hands them over, Hen decides that they’re fine and retreats with her coffee.

She doesn’t manage to catch him all shift and he’s out of there like the wind once it ends. Probably desperate to go home and spend time with his family without his in-laws there, Hen thinks. She’ll ask about it all later.

Later, as it turns out, is next shift, where she has to watch Buck desperately fail to defend himself on giving dating advice and failing because he’s not ready to tell them all he’s married. Hen tries to back him up a little, but can’t too explicitly. Fortunately, they’re all saved from the train wreck of a conversation by the alarm going off.

When they get back, Chimney is eager to continue to offer his help to Bobby, following him out of the rig as Bobby tries to flee from him.

It gives Hen an opportunity. She starts out by saying: “That was an odd call. I mean, dead guy at a psychic’s place, who isn’t dead. Karen will love that.”

“Yeah, Eddie and Chris will get a kick out of it too,” Buck nods as he smiles, before it drops. “Though, it’s gonna be a while until I can tell them about it.”

“What do you mean?” Hen asks confused. They’re going to be home just after dinner and they’ll have time for breakfast before their 24 hour on Thursday, he’d find the time, right? Maybe Eddie is healed up enough to pick up a job again, but she’s sure she would have heard about that. She knows a lot about Eddie for a man she’s never met before. Buck likes talking about him.

“We thought they were staying for a weekend, but they were staying for the week,” Buck tells her with a grimace. “Since we’re so adamant to take their grandbaby so far away from them and all that.”

Hen’s eyes widen at that and she chokes: “For real?”

“Uh-huh, it’s been horrible,” Buck nods. “Eddie slept on the couch until Monday because his father made a stupid comment about Eddie becoming a kept man, I half expected to come home to divorce papers. Which honestly, wasn’t too far fetched, because apparently they were pushing Eddie to divorce me and he left them in a restaurant to Uber back, which is what finally made him want to out stubborn them and come to bed.”

“What?” Hen chokes.

“Yeah, it’s a whole thing. Hopefully they’ll behave at dinner tonight,” Buck sighs, before trying to find the silver lining. “But Chris is excited about his grandparents being in town and he hasn’t been too thrown off about how they’re treating them, though he said he’ll be happy to be eating popcorn again when they’re gone. They probably made a comment about that when they were watching a movie with him on Sunday. I kinda let that one be.”

“That’s sure something,” Hen says, voice a little high with wtf-ness. She can’t imagine her mom pushing her to divorce Karen or getting so much under her skin that she’d sleep on the couch about it. Unable to help herself, she asks: “Is Eddie that insecure about himself? That he’d sleep on the couch?”

“He usually isn’t and he’s actively trying to do better for Chris, but Ramon just gets to him. Helena too,” Buck assures her. “They’ve been practicing getting under his skin since he was a kid and by god, they’re good at it. One of these days they’re gonna go too far and I’m gonna have to do something, but we kind of agree that when it comes to family, you have the last call when it’s yours.”

“Still, that sucks,” Hen sympathizes.

“It does,” Buck agrees. “Can’t wait for it to be Friday, so I can stuff them on a plane.”

Before the conversation can continue, Chimney calls down from the loft: “What are you two gossiping about? Doesn’t matter. Help me convince Bobby to set him up.”

“We should probably go rescue Bobby, shouldn’t we?” Hen says.

“Yeahhh.” Buck starts doing a little jog towards the stairs and Hen follows after.

The rest of their shift goes mercifully well. As Hen leaves the locker room to go home, she squeezes Buck’s shoulder and pats him on the back. The two exchange a silent nod.

She gets home, late enough that Denny’s already asleep, but she knows there will be an extra plate left for her. As she makes her way to the kitchen, she already starts talking: “Babe, I love you so much and I need to tell you how much I appreciate your parents, because you will never guess what Buck- Karen?”

Karen is sitting at the kitchen table, looking shaken as she holds a letter. Hen cautiously steps into the room, frowning: “Did something happen?”

“Eva- uhm, she’s- she’s suing for custody. Of Denny,” Karen says after clearing her throat.

“What? How?” Hen exclaims, quickly walking forward to snatch up the letter to see for herself. She isn’t truly reading the words, though, just staring at the page. “She gave up that right.”

“She claims she was forced to do it. That she was in a bad place and wanted what was best for Denny, but now that she’s in a better place, she wants him back,” Karen explains.

“That’s bullshit!” Hen rages. “She can’t just do that.”

“We have the papers, she’s at least trying,” Karen sighs. “As happy as I am, you didn’t go meet with her, I’m now wondering if we could avoided this. If she wanted something else we could have provided and this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Hey, don’t. Trust me, don’t do that to yourself,” Hen says gently, sitting down next to her and hugging her into her side. “This is what she wants. How she works. She pushes, makes you question herself, makes you want to do things for her. Don’t fall for it. I did too many times, never turned out well for me.”

“I know, it’s just scary.”

“It is,” Hen agrees, squeezing Karen again. “But we’ll get through it. We always have. If all else fails, we fake our deaths, take Denny and run.”

That makes Karen chuckle. “I don’t know if being wanted criminals would help our case, but I’d become a fugitive with you.” She nudges Hen and when Hen looks into her eyes, she’s smiling again, a hopeful sparkle in there.

Hen smiles back, overtaken with how much she loves the woman she has in her arms.

After a moment, Karen breaks the moment, clearing her throat and asking: “But this is a thing to worry about in the morning. What did you want to tell me about Buck that made you appreciate my mother of all people. I know you’ve had your differences.”

“Yeah, but listen to this. Buck’s in-laws – I told you about how horrible they are, right? – they’re staying for the whole week. Not just the weekend,” Hen gossips. “And it’s so bad. I didn’t realize how bad it could get.”

Invested, Karen asks: “What happened?”

“Apparently they are pushing Eddie to divorce Buck, because they’re homophobic and they made a bunch of comments that got under Eddie’s skin, so he slept on the couch. The couch,” Hen says. “I can’t imagine what kind of relationship you have to have with your parents that they can get to you that badly. I can’t really come up with anything that would get me to that point.”

“Oh, that is bad. What did Buck say about all of that?”

“He seems to be staying positive about it. Probably helps that Eddie slept in the bed again after the divorce conversation with his parents. And he says Chris likes that his grandparents are in town. I would grit my teeth through a lot too if it made Denny happy…” Hen says, trailing off at then end when she mentions Denny.

Karen sighs, eyes falling back on the letter. “Me too.”

Hen recognizes the look she gets on her face the longer she looks at that letter. “Alright.” Hen pats her leg. “I’m gonna warm up my left overs and then we’re devising a game plan while I eat. You’re not going to be able to sleep otherwise.”

“I’m sorry,” Karen says, sending her a guilty look.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Hen pecks her on the lips. “Want me to get your laptop while I’m up so you can make a dedicated folder?”

“Yes, please.”

They stay up later than they should have and Hen sleeps badly with all the thoughts running through her head. She ends up coming into work early, just to get away from the way her mind is spinning. But she forgot that there was the possibility that no one would really be there, so she finds herself sitting morosely at the table alone.

She gets pulled from her thoughts by an equally exhausted looking Buck, who pours her a coffee, before he sits down too. She smiles gratefully at him. “Thanks.”

“So what kept you up tonight?” he asks after she has taken a few sips.

“Eva,” Hen sighs after a moment. “She’s suing me and Karen for custody of Denny. Is claiming we forced her to hand him over, as if she wasn’t itching to sign over custody from the moment she’d given birth.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.” Buck takes a seat next to her. “Does she have any basis for her case? How did you get custody of Denny?”

“I mean, she was able to file,” Hen says, slightly doubtful. “She just got out of prison, but she seems to be picking her life up. At the time she said she didn’t know who the father was, signed over full custody to me, so I could take care of him with Karen. She adopted him too. He’s ours, has been since birth. But who knows. It’s not as if court systems are in the favor of people like me and Karen.”

“Hey, don’t go there. Signing over custody – and straight away too – that means something. It’s hard for parents to get that back when they give it up. You and Karen are his parents, Denny knows that as well as you do. Any person who meets you will know that too,” Buck tells her with conviction.

“I hope so,” Hen sighs. “Is that something you think about? Chris’s mom coming back?” She can guess why he knows why signing over custody means something.

“It’s different,” Buck answers. “She raised Chris for four years mostly by herself, since Eddie was off in the service. He remembers her. He cried his whole fifth birthday because she didn’t come home to celebrate with us. Asked about her when he had to get surgery. If she’d want to have a place in his life again, I’d be cautious before letting her, but if Eddie was okay with it, I’d let her come back.”

“I can’t image leaving Denny behind when he was four. Not now either,” Hen says.

“And you’re not going to have to,” Buck assures her. “And Shannon had her reasons. I’ll never forgive her for leaving Chris the ways she did, I mean, he was four and she didn’t even say goodbye. He woke up and mommy was gone. Forever. But she’d been raising him all by herself for the most part, no family nearby, surrounded by a town who outwardly hated her. When Eddie was back and ready to take care of him, she left. Went to take care of her mom. Cancer. I get why she would.”

Even though he can never understand. He withstood those years of Helena’s hatred and Ramon’s disdain, a town full of rumors that didn’t want him there either. And those were still a few of his best years, but not everyone is the same, he guesses.

“Wow, that’s something,” Hen whistles. “I suppose that is a lot for one person. Still, I couldn’t do it, I love Denny too much.”

“And the court knows that. Eva doesn’t stand a chance. She no longer has a claim on him. And if she does genuinely want a role in his life again, it’ll be years before she’s proven herself, and even then, he will not just be taken from you two,” Buck says.

Hen she smiles and says: “Thank you, Buck. I needed to hear that.”

“It’s okay, having people in your corner makes it all easier to deal with. The people at this firehouse are in your corner,” Buck says honestly.

“You’re a sweet kid. I’m glad to have you at this house,” Hen tells him a rush of affection coming over her.

“Thanks,” he beams at her.

“So, how is the week with the in-laws going? You didn’t exactly look very happy yourself either,” Hen changes topics.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Buck groans. “I actually kicked them out of the house yesterday. Drove them to Abuela’s, so Ramon could explain to his mom how he overstayed his welcome.”

“Holy shit,” Hen exclaims. “What did they do?”

At the reminder, Buck puffs up with offense again. “Tried to convince us to give them custody, because our work hours are too inconsistent and we can’t provide a stable home for him. And then! Then she had the nerve to tell Eddie to, and I quote, ‘not drag Chris down with you,’ the fucking nerve of that. Eddie has devoted his life to Chris’s well being. He’s lifting him up. Who says that to their own kid?”

“What the hell,” Hen swears. Her opinion of these in-laws was already spectacularly low, but every time she hears of them, she gets disappointed more.

“I know,” Buck exclaims. “I couldn’t let them get away with that. Luckily Eddie wasn’t upset with me kicking them out while he was off putting Chris back in bed again – the yelling woke him up – and we’re going to be rid of them tomorrow. They’re doing breakfast with us so they can say goodbye to Chris, before we’re dropping them off at the airport.”

“You’re letting them back into your house after they said that?” Hen asks disbelievingly.

“If it were up to me, no, but Eddie wants them there. And I respect that. It’s for Chris’s sake. Goodbyes are important to him,” Buck says and Hen remembers what he just told her about Shannon. “And Eddie will always forgive them. They never deserve it, but he always does. I try to carry the grudge for both of us, because he can’t.”

“That’s very mature and kind of you, Buck. Eddie’s lucky to have you in his corner,” Hen says.

“I’m just happy that he lets me have his back,” Buck smiles back.

It melts Hen’s heart. It’s a sweet sentiment and she feels very privileged that Buck lets her peak into this part of his life. However, she doesn’t know how to verbalize that and the day is starting too. So, she just shoulder bumps him fondly, before draining her coffee and going to greet Chimney, who is just coming up the stairs.

The rest of their shift rolls by smoothly with some medical calls and a small fender bender. It’s a medium shift, not too quiet – though Hen would never use that word – nor too busy. A perfectly good shift all in all. Both her and Buck can use it after the night they’ve had.

At breakfast the Friday morning, Hen is the only one, who isn’t confused Buck is half standing as he shoves the final bites of breakfast in his mouth when he usually enjoys family meals the most, often hanging around for a bit after too.

Chimney even asks: “What? You got a breakfast date or something?”

“If you want to call it that,” Buck snorts, making Hen bite her lip in amusement as the other make their own assumptions about what he means, before she calls out a goodbye at his back, while he makes his way downstairs, then out of the firehouse.

Next shift, Buck comes in and seems lighter. It’s not as if his in-laws have disappeared, but it’s clear the direct stress is gone. However, they all notice he has gotten busier. He often flies out of the firehouse and has claimed a few personal emergencies in the middle of the day; often school pick up time, Hen notices.

After one of such personal emergencies, Hen happens to catch him as he’s coming in while she’s restocking the ambulance. She asks: “Hey, everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, all good,” he assures her, a little out of breath.

“You sure? That’s the third emergency. Is it something serious? You know you can talk to us right? We have each other’s backs here, remember?”

At that, he smiles brightly, perking up. “I know. Just pick up. I feel a little bad, but Eddie started the fire academy and tía Pepa works and Abuela doesn’t drive, so it’s a bit chaotic right now trying to get care for Chris organized.”

“Eddie’s becoming a fire fighter?” Hen asks, pleasantly surprised.

“Yeah, my stories won him over,” Buck grins. “And he has a lot of transferable skills, army medic and all that.”

“Wish him luck from me,” Hen says. “And if you ever need someone to watch Chris, he’s more than welcome in our home.”

“Thank you so much,” Buck says gratefully. “Need some help stocking that?”

“And hand you a clipboard? No thanks,” Hen jokes. “I’m pretty sure Bobby started on dinner, go bother him.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Buck salutes, before walking off and Hen watches him go with a fond smile.

A few weeks later and their probie Buck, is a probie no more. It’s oddly melancholic to be at his shield ceremony, as if he’s their kid, who is suddenly all grown up. Maybe it’s because they’ve seen him grow so much in his time here, maybe it’s because he’s good at getting into your heart and making himself at home there.

The only people that come to his ceremony are the tía and Abuela he mentioned. Both of them are Eddie’s family, though they don’t say they are. There is no one other family for Buck, no Eddie, no Chris, no parents. No one.

It reminds Hen partly of her own wedding, partly of her first office party all the way back when she first started out, which is a weird mix.

She knows his parents are homophobic and he doesn’t even talk to them, but it must still hurt anyway that they aren’t here to celebrate this big thing with him. That there are those empty chairs – however metaphoric in this case – where they’re supposed to be there, but aren’t

And she knows how painful it must be, to not be able to celebrate this with your child and your husband. The people you share your life with, but aren’t ready to share with the world.

Hen wants to say something, give him some sort of encouragement or understanding. Solidarity perhaps, or comfort. However, he’s continuously surrounded by others and she doesn’t get the words in.

That evening, she burrows her face into Karen’s stomach and hugs her tightly, just breathing in her scent and being grateful for what she has. For the fact that she has always been there. That she was able to work through all the things that made it feel impossible to share.

She would never push someone to out themselves if they weren’t comfortable and she doesn’t know the entirety of Buck’s situation. Still, in that moment, she sends a hope out into the universe, that one day, Buck can have that too.

A few shifts later, Hen’s perception of Buck, is turned inside out.

Buck seems a little nervous when he comes in, glancing around and seeming surprised when he spots them when they start talking to him. The conversation turns to body fat when they bring up that stupid calendar, something Buck has been getting really into and he seems like himself when he rambles, until that conversation devolves into something else.

Then Chimney cuts it all off, getting distracted by something as he comments: “Okay that, is a beautiful man.”

Hen follows his gaze, curious to see what sort of man could have evoked that comment, only to do a double take when she actually sees him. The man is, objectively, certainly beautiful, fitting the beauty standard to a T. However, that is not what makes her double take; what makes her double take, is that she is pretty sure she’s seen this man before, namely in the truck that came to pick Buck up after the plane crash.

Immediately, her eyes shoot to Buck, who is also looking back to see who Chimney pointed out. But his gaze doing a complicated something that makes him look longing, scared and pissed off? It settles on pissed off, as he says: “Who the hell is that?”

Now Hen is only more confused, but she tells herself that maybe she saw wrong. It was dark after all and she only saw Eddie briefly in the dim light of the car. No matter how sure she was. Maybe Buck is pissed off, because he saw the similarity too, but it’s not his husband?

All that gets thrown out the window, when Bobby says: “That’s Eddie Diaz, new recruit. Graduated top of his class just this week. Guys over at station 6 were dying to have him, but I convinced him to join us.”

He continues talking about Eddie’s accomplishments, but Hen tunes him out in favor of trying to catch Buck’s eyes. When she does, she sends him a ‘wtf’- look, trying to ask with her eyes, if she is seeing what she thinks she is seeing and why the hell Buck is acting this way towards his husband, and why he’s not saying anything.

Buck catches her eye and suddenly remembers that he forgot one, very crucial detail when he and Eddie came up with their scheme.

Fuck, this complicates things. He needs Hen to not blow this for them and he sends her a pleading look that hopefully conveys to her that she should play along. If she blows this scheme and reveals to Eddie that Buck is madly in love with him, he’ll have to change his name and move to a different continent again.

His urge to create as much distance between him and Eddie only grows and before he knows what he’s doing, he hears himself saying: “What do we need him for?”

Internally he cringes at both himself and the raised brow Hen is giving him. However, she doesn’t say anything about what she knows as the others laughs and keeps quiet when they all go to greet Eddie, Buck following after them all with apprehension tight in his chest.

Hen is pretty sure she weirds Eddie out slightly with how closely she’s studying him, even if her hello is totally normal.

She certainly catches the confused look he gives Buck when he appears behind him, having set himself on being strangely defensive. Is everything going okay at home? He did mention thinking he’d get divorced, so maybe something happened on that front? Or he just doesn’t want to work with Eddie? Which Hen doesn’t get. He seems like the guy that would love to work with his spouse. She would.

“Eddie, this is Buck,” Bobby says. “Buck this is Eddie. He’ll be your partner in the field from now on, I expect you to keep him in the loop.”

Hen doesn’t know what she’s expecting, maybe a crack in the facade, an ‘ahh, I’m just joking’ and an explanation. Or at least some sort of acknowledgment. However, instead Buck just nods curtly and says: “Yes, Cap.”

Her eyes swing to Eddie, curious to see what he will do. But it seems that he is either just going along with whatever Buck is doing or there actually is some tension between them, because he is way more polite with Buck as he greets him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Buck says, a word he has never said before.

This whole thing is weird and everyone is picking up on it, not just Hen. Sure, they all remember the cocky Buck from the early days, who could balk at authority from time to time and be a bit of a dick sometimes. This, though, is very unlike him. He loves talking to people and meeting them. He’s a godsend on most cases where they need to keep people calm or do crowd control.

Before, they can figure out what’s happening, the alarm goes and they have to abandon this mystery in favor of getting into their gear.

On the rig there, it’s clear Chimney has interpreted the tension as Buck being territorial and starting a pissing contest with the new guy. Hen doesn’t think that’s it. She is pretty sure now she hadn’t been making it up when she recognized Eddie and they’re in the rig with Buck’s husband. However, she’s not going to say anything until she knows more and instead chooses to help Chimney tease Buck while observing the reactions to try and gather more information.

When they get to the call, her focus is primarily on the patient, though she observes Eddie to be competent and easy to work with. Buck wasn’t just bragging, which is good. Hen likes working with competent people.

Though she’s not sure if she can hang out with Eddie on the clock in the long term without saying anything about the weird vibe between him and Buck and the knowledge she has.

At some point, Buck goes to puncture Hector’s chest cavity and then Eddie takes over. Watching it, Hen isn’t sure if they’re very well in tune with each other to the point they don’t mind the way they’re communicating – well, barely communicating – or if there is tension and they’re being curt. Buck might be a horrible liar, but he might just be a great actor.

They give Eddie their complements on a job well done and Hen looks back to see Buck doing the same, though he sounds a little condescending. However, when she glances at his face, there is a glint of humor in his eyes and the way Eddie gives him a deadpan look in return can only be described as fond. Definitely married and playing at something, she decides.

It takes everything in her to not explode and blurt something out on the way back. And she is so grateful to Chimney, who leads Eddie away under his arms to show him the magic of Bobby’s cooking, so she can yank Buck into a supply closet.

“I know that is your husband right there, don’t even try to lie to me. Eddie Diaz, Eddie Diaz. The names match. And I waited to see if you got picked up that one time, and he looks exactly like that guy that came for you,” Hen says, before Buck can even recover from the disorientation.

“Wait, you waited for Eddie to come pick me up?” is all Buck says in his confusion.

“Not the point, Buckley,” Hen hisses. “Why are you pretending you don’t know your own husband? In fact, why are you acting like you don’t even like the man? Love him, actually.”

“Okay, I can explain that.”

“Please do!”

“So-” Buck starts, then immediately stops. “You see-” he pauses again. “It seemed like a good idea when we came up with it.”

“You’re doing this on purpose?” Hen says, still confused. Though she supposes that’s good. It would be kind of weird if Buck had decided on the fly not to know Eddie and Eddie just went along with it without any questions.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s on purpose,” Buck chuckles awkwardly. “Eddie got the offer and we know we work well together and this house is a good one – I mean, you hear the horror stories about the hazing – but then we kind of realized, they would retract the offer if we tried to do the paperwork, since Eddie is a probie, not a full firefighter. Besides, I never told anyone about Eddie either – except for you, which I kind of forgot, until today – so it would invite a lot of questions. And it would get confusing and weird, since we are married, but we’re not really together-”

“What?”

“What what?” Buck repeats, seeming taken aback by her reaction, meanwhile Hen is still internally blue-screening and reeling.

“What do you mean you’re not really together? Are you two getting divorced?” Hen exclaims

“I mean, at some point, yeah, we’re getting divorced,” Buck says, frowning. “Me and Eddie aren’t dating, never have. He’s straight.”

“Straight?”

“Yeah, straight. We got married for convenience,” Buck confirms, in a tone that clearly conveys he doesn’t know why she keeps freaking out. “Did you not know that?”

“How was I supposed to know that!” Hen yells, before lowering her volume so no one comes to check up on them in the supply closet. “You just told me you were in love with your husband and rambled about him and your son, being all mushy. What about that screams, we’re friends and he’s straight?”

“Ah, uhm- well…” Buck turns a bright red and looks anywhere but her face as he admits: “I am kind of very much in love with him, he just doesn’t know that. He- he probably- maybe- kind of also thinks I’m straight?”

“Oh my god.” Hen is actually speechless for a moment trying to piece all she knows back together into this new picture, Buck just painted.

Instead of a married bi guy with a family, he loves, but wasn’t ready to be out at work. He is a married bi guy with a family that he loves, but his husband is straight and they got married as friends with the plans to divorce – now him saying they got married so he could adopt Chris is put in a different light too – but he is in love with him, but the guy doesn’t know.

“Please don’t tell him,” Buck says anxiously.

“Of course I’m not going to tell him,” Hen hisses. “I’m processing.”

“Okay,” Buck replies faintly.

Hen takes a moment, before saying: “Okay, so tell me if I got this right. You married Eddie, as friends, to adopt Chris and with the plan to get divorced?”

“Yes.”

“But you aren’t divorced yet.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And now you’re working together here and you did not tell anyone at HR or Bobby or anyone, that you two are married.”

Buck nods.

“Because you aren’t together like that anyway?”

Buck nods again.

“But you are in love with Eddie, he just doesn’t know and he’s straight.”

“Yup,” Buck squeaks.

“And you’re not going to tell him?”

“No!” Buck exclaims loudly, before quieter repeating: “No, no. He can’t know. It’ll make it all weird and he’ll realize I’ve been kind of making myself necessary, so he doesn’t divorce me, because I like being married to him, even if it’s not like that. And that is a little weird. And then he’ll know and he’ll leave me forever and I’ll never get to see Chris again.”

“Okay, okay, breathe, Buck, breathe,” Hen guides him when he starts spiraling. He follows her steady breaths until he calmed down a little and she soothes: “He’s not just going to leave you. I won’t tell him you’re in love with him.”

“Thank you,” Buck manages to get out.

They stand in the quiet supply closet for a moment, the feint cleaning supply smell permeating the air along with the slightly dampened noise from outside. Buck calming down, Hen sorting her thoughts.

After a few beats, Hen says: “So what is your plan with hating Eddie?”

“I panicked,” Buck grimaces. “I just saw him and Chimney was saying he is beautiful – and he is – but saying that felt like me proclaiming I’m in love with him, so I couldn’t, so I just kind of did the opposite of that and now I’m stuck.”

“God, you’re hopeless,” Hen mutters.

“You have to help me.”

“I’m not going to help you!”

“Why not? You’d be so good at it.”

“Buck, I’m not going to help you lie to Bobby, HR and basically everyone! You two can get in serious trouble for that.”

“So you’re gonna tell Bobby?” Buck asks, looking like a kicked puppy.

Hen inhales a sharp, annoyed breath, because fuck, this kid gets to her. Then she sighs: “No. I’m not going to tell Bobby.”

Immediately Buck perks up and hugs her. “Thank you so much.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t cheer yet. I’m not getting involved in this little act you and Eddie have going on either,” she says, jabbing her finger at him.

“Understood, ma’am,” Buck agrees without hesitation.

“Good. Just so we’re clear,” Hen nods.

“Good.” Buck nods back. He’s quiet for a moment, then he asks: “So then what are you going to do?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Hen tells him. “I need a moment to think. Just go.”

“Go?”

“Yes, go. Go out there and put on your little performance and give me a moment to think,” Hen says, waving him towards the door she yanked him through moments earlier.

“No, don’t make me go,” Buck pleads. “Then I have to figure out how to act around Eddie again.”

“You live with him, now shoo,” Hen retorts without remorse, before unceremoniously shoving him back out the supply closet and slamming the door close behind him.

Buck outside goes to do whatever he decides to do – which is working out and accidentally picking a fight with Eddie, but Hen doesn’t know that – so Hen can pull out her phone. She can’t deal with this bullshit by herself.

Before Karen can even say anything as a greeting, she blurts out: “They’re not together.”

To her credit doesn’t skip a beat. “What?”

“Eddie and Buck, they’re not together,” Hen says.

“But they’re married?”

“Yeah, platonically, as friends, because Eddie is straight,” Hen says her voice saying ‘can you believe this shit?’ “Which I found out today, because Eddie showed up to our work. He’s our new probie. And he and Buck are pretending they don’t know each other.”

“What?”

“That’s what I said!” Hen exclaims.

“What are you going to do now?” Karen also asks.

“I don’t know,” Hen answers again.

“Okay, just tell me everything, we’ll figure this out,” Karen says, which is exactly why Hen loves her so much. She’s a problem solver, a gossip, and always on Hen’s side.

Hen relays all the new information she’s gained in the last hour and combines it with what they already know. She ends with: “And I know I should tell Bobby, but you didn’t see Buck’s face. He isn’t even out to Eddie and who knows what an investigation will bring. I don’t want to do that to someone. What if he looses his kid? I don’t want to responsible for that.”

“Yeah, I totally get that,” Karen says and she can just picture her nodding intently. She pauses for a moment, then says: “We don’t have enough data.”

“We don’t?”

“No.” Karen says, in her ‘I’m talking science’-voice that Hen adores. “We know Buck’s feelings and perception of the situation, as well as his personality, but we know nothing of Eddie’s side. What if he’s under the same misunderstanding as you were?”

“You think he might think that he’s married to Buck for real and in love with him too?” Hen asks, kind of skeptical, but willing to buy it because Karen is selling it.

“I mean, I’m not saying that, but it could be true,” Karen says. “But it’s probably closer to maybe having the same misunderstanding Buck has. I mean, if you were married to your straight bestie and you were in love with them, you wouldn’t risk them finding out by coming out, right? Buck hasn’t. Who’s to say, Eddie isn’t doing the same? Did he seem gay to you?”

Hen shrugs. “I don’t know. You have the better gaydar, between the two of us.”

Karen gasps excitedly. “You should invite him over. So, I can investigate!”

“How do you expect me to subtly do that?” Hen exclaims.

Before Karen can explain what she thinks, the alarm starts ringing and Hen has to hang up so she can answer. Promising that she’ll update Karen when she gets home and telling her she loves her, before she does.

To ensure she is able to properly report back to her wife that evening, she observes Eddie closely for the rest of her shift.

This sadly does not result in much, except a few weird looks from Eddie, since he and Buck are mostly avoiding each other and Bobby puts them on different jobs on the few calls they do take, clearly trying to figure out how he’s going to deal with this odd tension between the two. He likely can’t place a finger on it like he usually does, since it’s staged.

She has to go home, before anything changes, which is a bummer, so she is anxiously waiting to see how they’ll interact the next shift they’re on. Chim feels much the same, though for that is because he apparently walked in on the two of them fighting. Hen hates that she missed that.

They’ve been standing in the loft, looking down over the rest of the firehouse since Buck came in that morning. Now, Eddie is coming in too and they’re finally going to see for themselves.

Buck spots him easily, turning around at the sound of his footsteps as if he knows them by heart, already smiling, before he can even see Eddie. He calls out: “Hey, Eddie, did you know that grenade launcher that guy shot himself with yesterday started in production in 1969 and has been in use since the 70s?”

“Oh really?” Eddie replies, almost sounding as if he is hearing new information, but Hen is paying such close attention, she thinks it sounds amused. Though she might be making that up.

No, she didn’t make it up. However, she should have definitely added fond to that, because Eddie’s face is definitely very fond along with amused. They start making their way up the stairs together, shoulders bumping into one another on every step as Buck rambles about all the information he found as they walk to the loft.

Chimney gives Hen a confused look, as if to ask ‘can you believe that got from how they were acting last shift to this?’ Hen decides to just give a confused look back, but hers is more ‘I have no clue what’s going on between those two anymore.’

Later on a call, they dive into a pool together to pull an idiotic kid with a microwave cemented on his head out. They’re perfectly in sync and there is no leftover anything from last shift. They’ve settled into a well oiled machine and it’s clear Bobby is very pleased with himself.

It takes Hen a week of observation before she cracks.

A week of watching Buck and Eddie share little glances, a week of watching Buck stare at Eddie when he thinks no one notices, a week of watching professional Eddie cracking up and lighting up whenever Buck makes a joke, a week of Eddie referencing fun facts Buck told him as if he has them all memorized, a week of Buck bashfully ducking his head whenever he talks with Eddie. It’s too much, she can’t take it anymore.

Coming up to the locker room, she hears Eddie say: “Hey, can you pick up Chris today? I know it’s my turn, but I can’t find my keys anywhere.”

“Ohoho, what is this, Mr. Neat, lost his stuff?” Buck replies, sounding a little too gleeful.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, like you wouldn’t lose everything if you didn’t have me to remind you that you probably left your phone on the toilet and your wallet in your pocket. I found one of our coffee mugs in your closet when I put away the laundry last time. The closet, Buck,” Eddie rolls his eyes.

“I plead the fifth.” Buck grins

“Sure. Fine,” Eddie doesn’t mind or care much for the bickering, accepting Buck’s reply and returning back to his previous question. “So, you good too pick up Chris?”

Buck doesn’t even seem fazed, grin only broadening at the bitchy response. “Yeah, ‘course I can pick up Chris. No problem.”

“Cool, see you at home when I find my goddamn keys,” Eddie curses.

“Alright. Text me if you can’t and need me to come pick you up,” Buck says.

“I’ll find them,” Eddie pouts stubbornly, making Buck laugh.

He leaves the locker room nearly running into Hen, but avoiding her with a little noise, before wishing her a good afternoon. Eddie whips his head around, eyeing her suspiciously, but since Buck doesn’t react to her presence, he likely assumes she just walked in and didn’t overhear.

Wrong.

Hen waits until Buck is in his car, before pulling Eddie’s keys out of her pocket and jingling them. When Eddie looks back, she holds them up and asks: “Looking for these?”

“Yeah, where did you find them?”

She took them out of his locker, a kid’s birthday is an easy choice and because of Buck, she knows exactly when Chris’s birthday is. “Unimportant,” is what she says. “I know.”

“What?”

“I know,” she repeats, this time more intently, eyes flicking over to Buck’s sweater that ended up in Eddie’s locker at some point and is now lying on the bench, because Eddie put it there when emptying out his locker in the hope of finding his keys.

Eddie’s eyes grow wide and he gets a little pale. Hen feels a little bad when he swallows thickly and nervously asks: “What are you going to do now?”

“Get to the bottom of it,” Hen answers. “Get in my car. We’re going to have a drink together and you’ll get these,” she jingles the keys, “back when you have satisfied my curiosity.”

He hesitates – which is pretty valid, since Hen is basically kidnapping him – then cautiously asks: “Can I text Buck you’re doing that?”

“Sure,” Hen says easily. He doesn’t know where she lives, much like she doesn’t know where he lives. It’s not like telling him will change anything.

Eddie side eyes her as he texts, probably expecting her to retract the allowance, but Hen waits patiently until he’s done then ushers him into her car. To his credit, Eddie doesn’t ask too many questions and just lets her. She makes a mental note to tell him not to do that when this is over.

They spend the first few minutes of the drive in awkward silence, until Eddie finally breaks, asking: “So how did you find out anyway?”

“Buck told me,” Hen answers honestly.

“What?” Eddie exclaims with bulging eyes.

“To be fair to Buck, he forgot he did until I asked him what the fuck he was doing,” Hen says.

“Fucking scatterbrain,” Eddie mutters, though it’s sounds too fond to truly be an insult. He shakes his head to himself, then turns back to Hen and asks: “But if you already know, then why are you abducting me for an interrogation?”

“Because I only know Buck’s side of the story, duh. Didn’t you ever watch a detective show?” Hen tells him. “And Karen wants to meet you.”

“Your wife wants to meet me?” a confused Eddie asks.

“Yeah, she’s curious,” Hen replies, electing not to tell him, it is also because Karen has the better gaydar and they’re trying to figure out if he’s as straight as he claims he is. That’s not a thing to truly push on a person. They need to get there themselves. Though… they might, well… nudge.

“So you’re kidnapping me because your wife is curious about me and you find nothing weird about that?” Eddie asks slightly judgmental.

“Oh, I find it plenty odd, but I mostly find it weird you went along with it,” Hen says bluntly.

“Did I not have to?” Eddie frowns.

“No, it’s not like I would have forced you if you didn’t want to come,” Hen says, getting a little concerned. “Did you not realize that?”

Eddie shrugs, looking a little sheepish as he does. He shrugs: “You sounded pretty authoritative. I’ve always kind of followed orders.”

“Maybe stop doing that?” Hen tells him worriedly.

“Uh, I will,” Eddie promises.

“Good.”

They spend the rest of the drive in silence until they get to the Wilson house. She told Karen she was planning on doing this, so she knows she’ll be waiting inside. Denny is off at a sleep over, they have a biweekly rotation with some of the other parents, which made today a great day for this.

Indeed, Karen is waiting on their front porch, excitedly waving when Hen pulls up into the driveway. Next to her, Eddie takes one look at Karen, then looks back at Hen, apprehension written all over his face. Hen snorts: “She doesn’t bite.”

“I know that,” Eddie says bitchily, defiantly throwing his door open, though his gait slows slightly after two steps.

Karen either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, coming to meet Eddie with a big smile. She shakes his hand and says: “I’m Karen, it’s so nice to meet you.”

“Uh, Eddie, nice to meet you too,” Eddie replies, shaking her hand on autopilot.

He follows her inside on autopilot too, letting her hit him with a barrage of words. “I can make coffee, but it’s already afternoon, so I don’t know if you still drink coffee. Or tea. We also have soda. But maybe this is more of an alcohol conversation for you?”

“Definitely that last one.” Eddie clears his throat. “You have beer?”

“Yeah, but I’m more partial to wine. Are you not a wine drinker?” Karen asks.

“Uhm, I don’t know?”

“Would you be open to trying?” Karen inquires curiously. To Hen, this is her scientist face, but she doesn’t know what data she could be gathering. However, she lets her happily with a smitten look on her own face.

“I suppose,” Eddie says, which is how he finds himself awkwardly sitting next to Karen on the couch with a glass of wine in his hands moments later.

“Take a sip, tell me what you think,” Karen encourages him with a smile. “It is supposed to have a bit of a woody taste, but Hen never tastes it. I’m starting to think I’m crazy.”

Still very much confused about how he ended up here, Eddie does as told and takes a sip, sending Hen a ‘wtf’-look that she responds to with a shrug.

It’s kind of funny how Eddie then turns his focus on the wine, clearly trying to taste what Karen told him about the wine. After a moment, he cautiously says: “I think I can taste it? But it’s a little more saw dust in a shed than, like, a barrel or something.”

“Hm,” Karen hums taking another sip of her own and tasting it closely. Her eyes widen and she exclaims: “You’re good, Diaz. Totally saw dust-y. Wait.” She gets up and starts rummaging around somewhere else in the house.

On the couch, Eddie sips more of his wine, quietly asking Hen: “Is she always like that?”

“If she likes you,” Hen smiles.

“Oh, okay,” Eddie nods. Taking another sip and finishing the saw dust wine.

Karen comes back with another bottle and glass, pouring Eddie a second glass. “Try this one, tell me what you think.”

Eddie puts down the now empty glass one, before grabbing the second one and tasting it with as much intent as he did the first time around. Two sips later, he says: “It’s smokey? I think.”

“Yes, I know right!” Karen says happily. “It’s aged in old tobacco barrels.”

Suddenly self conscious, Eddie asks: “Aren’t these expensive?”

“They’re not very high up there, but not cheap frat boy liquor,” Karen shrugs. “But it’s a hobby and Hen is bad at it.”

“Hey!” Hen interjects for the first time.

“Come on, babe, you know it’s true,” Karen tells her gently.

“I try,” Hen pouts.

“I know.” Karen leans over and pats her arm. Then she turns back to Eddie and asks: “What else do you taste?”

A few glasses and a conversation about wine later, Eddie is looking a lot more relaxed and the two of them have decided that the second wine is the better one. Which means, they now all have a glass of the second one.

When there’s a lull in conversation, Karen pounces. She asks: “So, how did the whole being married as friends thing even happen?”

“Because Buck is too nice for his own good,” Eddie groans, falling back against the couch cushions.

Karen raises a brow and gives Hen a significant look, before focusing back on Eddie: “Too nice? What does that even mean?”

Eddie gestures vaguely and says: “You know, too nice. He should have never been doing this with me, but he’s too nice and now he’s still here, years later. Like,” Eddie blinks a few times and takes a sip from his wine as he tries to do the math, “like, three years later.”

“You’ve been married for three years?” Karen prompts, trying to keep Eddie talking.

“No, two,” Eddie corrects. “But Shannon left three years ago. She was sleeping with Buck, but she didn’t say she was going, she just left. And Buck should have left too. But he didn’t. He stayed. And he helped, because he’s too nice.”

That is new information. Hen never knew Buck was seeing Shannon. That makes this a whole new layer of complicated. She gets why they wanted to avoid the questions.

“Okay, so he’s too nice,” Karen nods, deciding to focus on the more important bit. “Why did you two get married when you were doing the co-parenting together before that already.”

“Cause Chris had to get surgery,” Eddie says. Explaining: “He’s our son, he has CP,” just in case they didn’t know that already. “Surgery is expensive.”

“That’s why you re-enlisted,” Hen puts together, remembering Buck telling him about the injury that brought him home.

Eddie nods enthusiastically. He clearly isn’t used to wine and he’s already a little tipsy, nearly spilling his drink.

“Why does that require a marriage?” Karen wonders out loud.

“Buck needed to adopt Chris, so my mom wouldn’t take him,” Eddie says, before whispering: “She doesn’t like my parenting.” Sadly, he explains: “She probably wouldn’t have given him back. I couldn’t lose Chris like that. So I asked Buck, because he’s selfless and I’m selfish. And the fastest way to adopt someone is through stepparent adoption. So we got married.”

Both their hearts break at the confession and Karen pulls Eddie into her side, saving his glass when he flops over sideways.

She rubs her hand over his arm and says: “It’s not selfish to want to keep your son, Eddie. Your mom sounds like a bitch for thinking that. From what I hear from Hen, you’re a great father. You and Buck both.”

“That’s what Buck says too,” Eddie smiles sappily. Hen gets another significant look from Karen. “He is a great dad too. Chris loves him.”

“And that’s all that matter,” Karen says, squeezing Eddie again, before letting him untangle himself from her, while she refills his glass.

“I guess,” Eddie agrees thoughtfully.

Getting the conversation back on track, Hen asks: “So, you two got married so he could adopt Chris, then you went on tour and got injured.”

“Yeah, we were supposed to get divorced when I got back, you know, but Buck was too nice again and he became a firefighter so Chris would have insurance when I got discharged and so he could support us while I healed up,” Eddie says.

“So how did you two end up here in LA? Texas didn’t have enough fires?” Karen asks curiously.

“Buck’s great at his job,” Eddie says, seemingly not answering the question for a moment. “He got job offers all over. He wanted to take the one in Austin, so we would be closer to home, not uproot Chris and stuff. But… I wanted to go to LA. Get out of there. Buck just agreed and we got a house here.”

Hen is sure he was going to tell them again how that is because Buck is too nice, but Karen starts talking before he can. “Did you two buy a house? That’s quite the commitment.”

“Maybe, but you get tax benefits together and a higher mortgage with two possible incomes,” Eddie shrugs. “This way we’d have money in the house, so we’d have the money again when we sell. Maybe be able to put some to the side for a college fund for Chris.”

“Won’t that be difficult when you two divorce?” Karen asks and both see the way Eddie’s face sours at the thought.

“We’re not divorced yet,” he pouts. “And we have a prenup. I learned that lesson the first time around. It will be fine.”

“Why didn’t you divorce yet?” Hen asks, suddenly curious. She knows why Buck hasn’t, namely because he has a a huge fat crush on Eddie, but she wonders what Eddie’s rationale is for staying married to Buck and getting more involved with him by buying a house together for them and their kid.

Eddie’s face does something complicated and unreadable, before he shrugs: “We haven’t found anyone yet. We’re gonna get divorced if we get serious with someone. It’s not in the cards right now. Buck isn’t looking for anything serious, says he gets enough serious at work. He…” Eddie’s eyes get a hard glint in them, “He hooks up sometime.”

“And you?” Hen asks with a raised brow, clocking that shit as jealousy and curious that Eddie has only focused on why Buck might leave.

“Oh, I haven’t gotten around to it,” Eddie shrugs. “I want to get into a work rhythm first. And I am not really a going out to the club or a bar kind of person. I don’t really meet a lot of people.”

“Some girls have flirted on the calls we went on,” Hen points out.

“That’s unprofessional.” Eddie looks scandalized at the suggestion and says: “And it will just get complicated with Chris and everything. I’m fine where I am right now.”

Yeah, no, this man is not straight. Hen doesn’t know what label he might prefer, but she does know it includes being in love with Evan Buckley. God, this is a mess. Why did she get involved with it? Curiosity killed the cat and all that (a voice that sounds annoyingly like Buck sharing a fun fact adds ‘but satisfaction brought it back.’ He is right).

“Complicated with Chris and everything?” Karen repeats curiously, filling everyone’s glass again. She is starting to get a bit of a flush herself and Hen decides not to drink more, because someone needs to be somewhat sober at the end of this.

“Uh, yeah, he- he’s scared of people leaving, you know. I mean, I left twice to go fight and Shannon left forever,” Eddie says awkwardly. “If I start dating someone, I’ll have to introduce them to Chris at some point – and Buck of course – and then if it doesn’t work out… I don’t know, I don’t want to risk that right now.”

“And are you scared something like that will happen if Buck starts dating someone?” Hen feels comfortable pushing, because it’s not likely to happen with how down bad Buck is for Eddie.

Eddie’s face contorts at the mention of Buck dating someone, but a determined look comes over his face as he states: “Buck would never leave Chris. He loves him, he’s his father. It would break Chris’s heart and Buck is too good to do anything that would hurt Chris. Too nice.”

Hen smiles at the assertion, heart melting slightly at how confident Eddie is in Buck, how much faith he has in him.

Karen, however, is more keen than her, finally pressing on the one point he keeps bringing up again and again. Conversationally, she says: “You know, you keep saying Buck is too nice, but have you ever considered that he wants to be there and it’s not him being too nice for his own good, it’s just him doing what he wants to be doing?”

For a moment, Eddie looks as if a world of possibilities has opened up for him and he reached enlightenment. Then he shuts all those emotions on his face down and groans: “Don’t do that. I’d just won.”

“You just won?” Karen repeats, utterly confused and sharing a look with Hen to see if she knows what he’s talking about.

She doesn’t.

“Yeah, I won,” Eddie tells them, gesturing vaguely as he does. “You know, when you feel or want something you’re not supposed or are allowed to, and then you have to fight until you don’t anymore? I’d just won and now I’m feeling the things again.”

Oh.

Oh no.

No, no, no, no, no.

That’s just sad. That’s way too sad. Hen didn’t sign up for this. She signed up for an oblivious guy who was in love with his best friend, maybe a straight guy she’d reached early enough before he did something stupid and ruined the best friendship he had.

She did not sign up for a deeply repressed homosexual. Panicked, she looks over to Karen, hoping she knows how to take over.

Karen also looks kind of panicked for a moment, before pulling on her game face. She puts her glass down and gently takes Eddie’s hands in her own. Confused he looks at her, which was probably her plan, because she makes sure to keep eye contact as she says: “Nothing – and I mean nothing – you feel or want can be something that’s not allowed or you’re not supposed to. You’re allowed to want things, to feel the things you feel. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Eddie’s jaw clenches and it is clear he’s stubbornly holding back tears as he says: “Yes, there is. I’m the man of the house. There are expectations.”

Fucking hell, Hen already got where Buck was coming from with his ‘fuck Eddie’s parents’-attitude, but she just gained a deeper understanding for it. That’s super fucked up.

Karen, thankfully, has more to say than ‘that’s fucked up’ and instead says: “And what kind of expectations are that?”

“The man of the house protects his family, provides for them. I’ve been doing that for forever,” Eddie answers as if that’s obvious. “I’m a Diaz man, it’s what we do.”

Hen did not expect to be digging into her coworkers childhood trauma when she kidnapped him that afternoon. It feels a bit too personal to go digging herself, so she gladly lets Karen lead this bit. She rightfully points out: “Chris is a Diaz man, do you have those expectations for him?”

“No, of course not,” Eddie frowns. “He’s just a kid. And he’s a great kid, who can be whatever he wants to be. It’s unfair to expect things from him.”

“Then why was it okay for them to expect things from you?” Karen prods gently. “Why do you not deserve what Chris has?”

Eddie falls silent, looking almost stricken. He tears his gaze away from Karen’s eyes to stare emptily at the floor. After a few beats of silence, he softly says: “I- I don’t know.”

“It was unfair of them, to ask that of you,” Karen says. “It was unfair and deep down, you know that too, because you’re not doing the same to Chris. You’re allowed to want things, to feel things. You don’t have to be the man of the house. And you don’t have to win from your feelings.”

“She’s right,” Hen decides to pipe up to drive the point home. “Trust me. You can have the things you want. It’s okay.” She vaguely nods to her surroundings, the house she has, the life, with her wife and her son surrounding her.

The gesture might be vague, but the message is received clearly. Eddie looks around and an understanding look comes over his features. They’ve gotten through to him.

Just when Hen is about to take a relieved breath that they made it through this, a tear leaks out of the corner of one of Eddie’s eyes. It’s followed by another and another, until there are tears streaming down Eddie’s face.

It takes a moment for the rest of him to catch up with the fact that he’s crying, but soon he’s taking shuddering breaths as he weeps, gasping for air as he fails to get enough between each sob.

Karen can’t take it anymore and puts her arm around his shoulders again, opening up her side as an invitation. Eddie doesn’t decline, burying his face into her shoulder as he continues to cry for what feels like forever.

When he can’t seem to get the crying under control no matter how hard he tries, he makes a frustrated noise. Untangling himself from Karen’s hug and furiously wiping at his eyes, before blindly grabbing one of the bottles and emptying it into his glass.

As he starts drinking, Hen cautiously asks: “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. I’m in love with my friend and I’m drinking saw dust wine,” Eddie says in a voice that’s nasally from the tears.

Apologetically, Karen offers: “I can open another bottle, give you something better to drink?”

“Please, don’t. I still have to face Buck today,” Eddie says, then thinks for a moment and amends: “On second thought, maybe do, because I don’t know how I’m going to face Buck today.”

Karen gets up and comes back with another bottle, saying: “This one is a little fruity.”

Eddie looks up with her, still crying, but also shocked out for it for a moment. Both Karen and Hen are confused until he says: “That’s not funny.”

Hen and Karen process that for a second, before they realize, then burst out into laughter. They feel slightly sorry towards Eddie, but he joins in too after a few moments until they’re all giggling on the couch.

Once they’ve finally caught their breath and calmed down again. Karen clears her throat and holds up the bottle, asking: “You want me to open it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let me ask you this,” Hen says. “Do you want to talk about it more, or do you want me to text Buck to come pick you up?”

“Talk about it more,” Eddie replies a bit too fast. He explains: “I don’t think I can face him yet. What if I can’t keep my mouth shut when I see him?” He adds in a hushed voice: “I think I’m a little tipsy.”

“You’re definitely past tipsy,” Hen informs him with an amused look. “I’ll get everyone some water instead.”

“Nooo,” Eddie whines. “Then I’ll be sober enough to think about it.”

“You need to hydrate. Drink some water and we might open the bottle of wine,” Hen says, ignoring how Karen pouts at the conditions too.

“Fine,” Eddie sulks.

“Smart choice,” Hen laughs, before getting up.

When she comes back with the water, Karen has thankfully left the bottle unopened on the coffee table, though they have been drinking the already open wines.

Karen has sagged down on the couch. Eddie is beside her, leaning towards her as she leans back towards him. She asks: “So what do you even like about Buck?”

Eddie is red and Hen isn’t sure if it’s the wine or the crush. He ducks into himself and mutters: “He’s nice and funny and pretty, uh, handsome, pretty handsome. And he’s great with Chris. And it’s not hard to talk to him.”

Okay, the stuttering makes Hen decide it’s probably embarrassment, so she swoops in with the water, making sure they both start drinking, before plopping down on her chair again.

Karen has started Eddie up again and he’s now telling her all about how Buck always has his back and how he’s his partner in everything and how they’re best friends and it’s nice. So nice.

It’s a little adorable and Hen maybe films a little bit, so she’ll have something to play on the wedding… or well, the redo of the wedding, when it’s for real. Because that must happen at some point with the way they love each other.

They end up not opening bottle number three, which is a smart plan. Hen only drank one glass, maybe one and a half, so Eddie and Karen both basically drank a bottle a person. And Karen likes wine, it’s a hobby, so she has some sort of tolerance. Eddie? Not so much.

About an hour later and he’s still giggly, albeit a little soberer. He’s been waxing poetics about Buck, then slapping his hand over his mouth and saying he shouldn’t be saying those things, before Karen encourages him again and the cycle repeats.

When he starts up about Buck’s pretty blue eyes for the third time, Hen decides to change the topic. She has to work with Buck too and she doesn’t want to think about this every time she makes eye contact with her coworker. So she asks: “So, are you going to tell Buck about this revelation?”

Eddie’s smile drops immediately and he becomes pale as he violently shakes his head no. “No, no, never, he can never know,” he says without hesitation. “He’s already done so much and it’ll only make it weird and what if he hates me and wants to leave? Chris will be devastated.”

“What if he feels the same?” Hen suggests, though a little carefully.

“Pff, as if. He’s straight,” Eddie snorts in a manner that says ‘don’t be ridiculous.’

And look, a part of Hen wants to shake him and tell him that Buck is very much in love with him too and that’s not going to happen. She does, truly, because this stupidity makes her want to run her head into a wall multiple times.

However, she doesn’t know Eddie, only met him a week ago. And Eddie clearly only acknowledged two hours ago that he’s not straight and in love with his best friend. On top of that, the way he keeps saying he shouldn’t be saying that, means he has a way to go before he’s accepting it.

Hen can’t know how Eddie will react to Buck loving him too. Maybe he’ll be okay, maybe this revelation will get stuffed down again – ‘fought down’ as Eddie said – and that will be bad, very bad for Buck. She simply doesn’t feel comfortable outing anyone, but especially in a situation as precarious as this.

Because it is precarious.

While she doesn’t think it will happen, the possibility of this exploding is still very much open. And if that happens, they’ll have a child together, a house together, a job together and a marriage. That’s not something that can be easily split, take it from someone who needed a lawyer to break up with her girlfriend before they got back together again.

So, she just makes a calming gesture and says: “Okay, okay, that’s fine. You don’t have to tell him if you aren’t ready.”

“I’ll never be ready, I’m taking this to the grave,” Eddie vows.

“That’s fine too,” Hen says.

“A little dramatic, but yeah,” Karen adds.

Eddie pouts at Karen. “I’m not dramatic.”

Karen squeezes his cheek then pats it two times as she says: “Sure you aren’t. You’re just being pouty for no reason.”

“I’m not being pouty,” Eddie pouts harder.

Thankfully, he has forgotten about the scare Hen gave him about potentially telling Buck about his feeling and is distracted by Karen. The protest about pouting turned into kids behavior, which turned into them bitching about pick up line, especially the other parents at the pick up line and their nosiness. Hen just lets them.

Though soon after the fun is over. The shift they came off wasn’t too tiring or busy, but it was a long one and the exhaustion starts to catch up. Hen can feel it herself and she can see Eddie nodding off here and there too.

So, she steps into the hallway and calls Buck, who immediately picks up: “Hen, why did Eddie text me that you know and are taking him to meet your wife?”

“Because I do know and I did take him to meet my wife,” Hen tells him as if that’s not strange. “I need you to come pick him up.”

“What did you do to him?” Buck asks.

“Why are you so distrustful?” Hen shoots back.

“Because you have sensitive information,” Buck guffaws.

“That I promised not to tell,” Hen says. “And I didn’t. We just drank some wine – Eddie is apparently a great wine taster – and heard his side of the story. You never did tell us how you two met. Not as romantic as I envisaged.”

“Oh fuck off,” Buck says, though he sounds relieved. “And he’s okay?”

“On the wrong side of tipsy, but doing great. He has a lot of opinions about one Janet.”

“From pick up line?” Buck asks surprised, before – less surprised – he adds: “Of course he does, Janet is a bitch.”

“Okay, so you share opinions about Janet,” Hen replies with amusement. “Can you come pick him up? I want to get my post shift nap in, before me and Karen go out for dinner. It’s date night.”

“Yeah, sure, text me the address,” Buck says. “Is it going to be a quick in and out or like a long thing, because I’m just gonna buckle Chris in and take him with me, but I’ll leave him in the car if it’s quick.”

Hen glances over to Eddie, who is now fully sleeping on the couch, while Karen plays a game on her phone next to him. “It’ll probably be a quick in and out.”

“Alright, see you in a bit.”

“See you in a bit.”

Indeed Buck shows up a little while later. Hen opens the door for him, shooting a curious look at the jeep to see a young boy with brown curls and thick, red glasses reading a book in the backseat.

“He’s been really into this book series recently, so he’s practically shut off from the world,” Buck says when he follows her eyes for a second. Then he claps his hands and says: “Now, show me the patient.”

At this point, the patient in question is fully sleeping on the couch, a rosy flush still on his cheeks. The sight actually stops Buck in his tracks for a second and Hen mentally files that away to make fun of him for later.

He quickly shakes Karen’s hand introducing himself as she giggles. She’s probably connecting the things Eddie just said about Buck to Buck and can’t keep a straight face, or just plain laughing because of the same thing Hen just filed away, since the wine stripped her off the ability to keep it in. Buck is a little confused, but takes it in stride, before going to study Eddie, seemingly trying to make a decision.

Buck watches Eddie doze for a second, trying to decide whether he’s going to disturb his sleep or bruise his ego and just pick him up to tuck into bed at home. In the end, he decides on waking him up. He doesn’t know what kind of conversation he’s had with Hen and Karen and he doesn’t want to push more.

After a beat or two, he gently nudges Eddie’s shoulder, softly saying: “Hey, Eddie, it’s time to wake up, okay? We’re gonna go home.”

Eddie’s face screws up and he burrows his face further into the couch cushions as he wines: “I don’t want to go home. I wanna stay with my new friend, Karen. She’s really nice.”

“I’m glad you had fun,” Buck says, looking highly amused. “It’s good that you made a friend, but we’re gonna go home now.”

“You’re mean,” Eddie says, popping up to pout at Buck. Though whatever he wanted to say, seems to die on his lips when he spots Buck. Instead an awed, very in love expression coming onto his features.

Buck is oblivious to this, snorting and shaking his head, before he huffs: “Yeah, the meanest. Now, up you go, Chris is waiting in the car.”

“Chris!” Eddie lights up at the mention of his son. “He’s here?” he asks, looking around.

“He’s in the car outside, you gotta get up and say bye to Hen and Karen and then we’ll go see Chris, yeah?”

“Alright,” Eddie groans, before holding up both his hands.

Buck hesitates for a moment, then grabs them and pulls Eddie onto his feet. Immediately Eddie stumbles forward, half draping himself over Buck as he complains: “My legs are jello. Too much wine.”

“Sure, wine,” Karen snorts, then giggles.

Eddie half glares at her from his position on Buck’s shoulder and mutters: “Shut up.”

“Okay, that is enough hospitality from Hen and Karen for today,” Buck decides, bending forward slightly and picking Eddie up, who goes easily, though with a small yelp and a flush on his face.

This time Buck sees Hen take a picture of them and gives her the middle finger, before asking: “Will you help with the doors, I need to get this lightweight to the car.”

“I’m not a lightweight,” Eddie protests, even while making no move to get put down again, instead making himself comfortable.

“Sure you aren’t,” Buck says affectionately.

“I’m not,” Eddie frowns. “I just haven’t drank much in a while, I don’t know if you remembered, but I got shot. I wasn’t allowed to drink.” A beat. “And clubs are stupid.”

Hen sees Buck’s face become pinched when Eddie references his injury so casually, but you can’t hear it in his voice when he agrees: “Okay, you’re not a lightweight. Hen, the doors?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Hen quickly says, moving forward to open the front door and slipping out so she can get the car.

As Buck follows behind her, he calls out a greeting to Karen, who stays on the porch. From where he is half slung over Buck’s shoulder, Eddie waves cheerfully, any earlier grudge forgotten as he calls out a goodbye.

Karen waves back, yelling: “Come by again, we’ll try more wine.”

Hen can hear Buck mutter, “That sounds like a bad idea,” but it is mostly drowned out by Eddie yelling back: “Sounds fun. Text me?”

“I will,” Karen calls out, even though she doesn’t have his number. Hen will probably have to give it to her later.

Meanwhile, they’ve arrived at the car and Hen has opened the door. As Buck wrestles Eddie into the passenger seat, Hen focuses on Chris, who has rolled his window down and is curiously looking at his two dads.

“Hi, I’m Hen, I work with your dads,” she introduces herself.

Now Chris looks at her, smiling: “I’m Christopher, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Hen smiles. “You okay back there?”

“Yes, I’m reading,” Chris tells her in an unbothered cheerful manner. “Papi says daddy had a little party with his friends, are you and that lady his friends?”

“We are. That’s my wife, Karen,” Hen says. “Your daddy is acting a little silly right now because of our little party, hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s okay, we’re just glad he’s making friends,” Chris says in that candid way only a child can. Then he whispers: “Daddy doesn’t like people very much.”

Hen laughs at that and says: “Well, he seemed to have fun. So, he at least likes some people. Have a good day, alright?”

“I will, you too,” Chris smiles, then turns back to his book.

Buck is now done with getting Eddie into the car, closing the door with a slam. Eddie is leaning back in his seat to say hi to Chris and is distracted. After one last glance to make sure he’s okay, Buck turns to Hen and says: “I would say thank you for looking out for him, but I feel like you were also involved.”

“I was,” Hen doesn’t deny it. “But it was mostly them. Seems like Eddie made a friend.”

“I’m glad they got along,” Buck gives in after a moment. Then he’s quiet for a moment, before he says: “Did anything weird come up or something? What did you even talk about?”

“Not much,” Hen shrugs. “I just wanted to know his side of the story, fill in the blanks you know. He told us a little more about how the two of you ended up married and all that. But we also just talked about the wine and school pick up, that sort of stuff.”

“Okay,” Buck nods, more to himself. “And you’re not going to tell Bobby?”

“Nah,” Hen says. “Not unless you two make it a problem at work. Are you planning on behaving unprofessionally, Buckley?” she ends pointedly, giving a look over her glasses.

Unconsciously, Buck straightens up under her gaze and shakes his head: “No, ma’am.”

Hen smiles pleasantly: “Then I see no reason to tell. See you next shift.”

“Yeah, till next shift.”

She joins Karen on the porch, watching Buck back out of their driveway. Eddie has moved on from talking to Chris, who clearly has more interest in reading his book, to messing with the radio. Buck bats his hand away when he finds something Buck must like and he pouts at him.

However, Buck is too busy backing out at that point and doesn’t notice. Because of that, he also doesn’t notice the flushed, mushy look that comes onto Eddie’s face for a moment when he looks at the muscular arm resting on his seat, before he quickly looks away.

In doing so, he catches Karen looking and she wiggles her eyebrows at him, which only make him blush more as he pointedly looks away from her.

When the jeep has disappeared from view, Hen throws an arm around Karen and asks: “So, was meeting Eddie like you’d hoped?”

“Better,” Karen grins brightly. “I think he’s going to wake up with a headache and a passion for wine. It is going to be so fun to have more wine nights.”

“You’re a little manipulator, aren’t you,” Hen says fondly, kissing her forehead.

Karen leans into the kiss as she shrugs: “I don’t think he’s getting Pandora’s box closed again, he’s going to need a friend. Two birds in one stone if you ask me.”

Next shift is slightly weird, because now it’s not just Buck and Hen, and Buck and Eddie in on a secret, but Buck, Eddie and Hen that are in on the secret. And on top of that, Hen is now the holder of the ‘in love with my best friend’-secret for both Buck and Eddie.

Chimney picks up on the weird vibes and brings it up a few hours into their shift. “I feel like you’re all in on something and I wasn’t invited.”

They all freeze for a moment, before Buck clumsily says: “You’re right. We created the ‘our name is not an object’-club and we’ve been keeping it a secret.”

It’s very clearly a lie, but it’s so ridiculous that it kind of sounds like Buck making fun of Chimney for seeing something that’s not there. So it works in their favor.

“Oi, you’re name is also an object, dumbass,” Chimney decides to take offense with Buck’s lie anyway. “I mean, can I borrow a buck; ring any bells? Or Hen, hen is a thing, it’s a chicken.”

“Oh my god, my name is an object,” Buck mutters, having a crisis over that.

Eddie, however, protests part of Chimney’s statement: “Hey, a chicken is an animal, not an object. You think animals are just things? Chickens are great.”

That gets a smile out of Buck that Hen doesn’t get, before he joins in on it, while Chimney desperately tries to defend himself. The whole thing is so absurd that it breaks the tension between all of them and they settle back into their pre-wine drunk Eddie routine.

Some things do change, since Buck and Eddie emergency babysit Denny that one time when their usual babysitter fell through on date night, and Eddie and Karen have become actual friends, texting and even drinking more wine a few more times.

Hen can’t say for sure what happens all the time when they do, because she actually got kicked out of her own house for wine club last time – something the two of them probably came up with on the spot – so she and Buck ended up taking Chris and Denny to the movies that evening, since the two get along and it was better than sitting around doing nothing.

However, overall, it’s normal. They have a dynamic.

Two months into Eddie working there, that balance gets thrown off again when a new variable gets introduced; Maddie Buckley.

When she suddenly appears in the firehouse, Hen has to do a double take and reassess her view of Buck once more. She already knew he could keep secrets, but with how bad a liar he was and how many secrets she has already gotten out of him, she honestly thought there wouldn’t be any more. However, he is like a vault when it comes to secrets and it surprises her anyway.

Maddie seems like a nice person and Hen hates that what she thinks is implied happened to her. And she hopes Maddie settles in here okay with Buck and Eddie, especially since Buck looks so heartbreakingly hopeful when he asks her to hang around.

Hen can’t imagine what that must be like, to have a sibling you love so much be so far away and hurting and to have them here now and feel like they’ll slip away.

When Buck comes in next shift, they all ask about it of course. He smiles and says she’s doing good and taking the sharing with Buck well, from which Hen infers she must have gotten the whole marriage of convenience and son run down and is taking that well.

However, she doesn’t get any further information until their first weekend off when there is sudden knocking at the door. She opens it to find a frazzled looking Eddie asking: “Is Karen home?”

“Also hello to you,” Hen says, opening the door wider. “Karen is in the kitchen.”

“Ah, yeah, hello,” Eddie says, brushing past her. “It’s an emergency.”

“Emergency?” Hen repeats to herself. “We’re first responders, why does he need Karen for an emergency?” She stands by the open door in confusion for two seconds, before shaking herself out of it and going to see what this emergency is.

Apparently it’s serious, because when she gets there, Karen has made tea and is setting it down in front of Eddie, asking: “Alright, so tell me. What’s the problem?”

“Maddie,” Eddie groans.

“As in Buck’s sister? She seemed nice,” Hen comments as she sits down too.

“She is, she is,” Eddie assures them. “It’s just also horrible.”

“How so?” Karen asks.

“I-” Eddie stops for a second. “I’ve never had to impress in-laws before. I met Shannon’s mom once, but that was just after she’d given birth and that had been so stressful that I didn’t even think to be stressed about that. But with Maddie, I actually want her to like me, but I don’t want her to know that I want her to like me.”

“Okay, explain that one to me,” Karen requests.

“Well, if I want her to like me, that’s suspicious and she’s already suspicious of me, because I’ve basically trapped her baby brother in a marriage, so she keeps side eyeing me and Buck doesn’t notice, because he’s too happy to have his sister back and Chris is a kid, who is still excited about the novel tía he discovered so it’s just her and me, locked in this stand off,” Eddie explains. “And that’s not even touching on the bed situation.”

“We’re coming back to the bed situation,” Karen tells him, before moving on. “Why is she suspicious of you? You didn’t trap Buck into that marriage. Doesn’t she know that?”

“She does. We – well, Buck – did explain that after she yelled at me. A lot,” Eddie says, looking kind of scared at the memory. “But it’s not a good look, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at it from her perspective. Buck married me for my benefit and she knows he has that big heart of his and she’s definitely protective of it – which I understand with their childhood – so she doesn’t trust that at all. And we were meant to be divorced, but we aren’t, so it only looks like I’m trapping him more, because it’s easy. Taking advantage of him. And me being the one that came up with lying about it at work, that looks even worse!”

“Okay, yeah, I can understand how that might seem a little bad at first glance,” Karen winces sympathetically.

“But Buck talked to her about it, right? She knows that’s not what’s happening, right?” Hen asks, unable to believe Buck wouldn’t set the record straight when Maddie yelled at Eddie ‘a lot.’

“He did. I wasn’t there when he did, so I don’t know what he said and she now only seems to tolerate my presence, but there is something she hates about me and I can’t figure out what and it’s stressing me out,” Eddie exclaims.

Hen and Karen exchange a look at that. If Buck talked to Maddie without Eddie there, he might have told him he’s in love with him, which means Maddie probably thinks Eddie is playing with her little brother’s heart. That’s not an easy one to come back from.

Eddie misses the glance due to the despair and Karen pats his back as she says: “I’m sure she’ll come around. You’re a great guy. She’s only just got here, she’s probably waiting to see what kind of person you are, before committing to liking you.”

“I hope so,” Eddie says miserably.

“Don’t be like that, I liked you immediately. Maybe you should ask her to wine night, seeing you tipsy will warm her up to you,” Karen suggests.

Eddie sends her a deadpan look. “I don’t think me waxing poetry about her baby brother’s muscles is going to warm her up to me, Karen.”

“Maybe not the muscles, but your one about his eyes is pretty good,” Karen grins.

“I hate you,” Eddie blushes.

“I know,” Karen tells him unbothered. “So, tell me about this bed situation.”

Somehow, Eddie becomes pinker as he confesses: “Buck gave Maddie his room, so we’ve been sharing my bed again.”

“Again?” both Karen and Hen repeat quite loudly.

“Yeah, we shared back in Texas, since we only had one bedroom, but then we didn’t share-share often, because I worked nights and he worked days, so it was more that we both used the bed. Now, we’re sharing and-” Eddie swallows and doesn’t look either of them in the eye as he continues, “Buck is a hugger.”

Hen forces her face into something neutral, not wanting to do anything suggestive that would make Eddie uncomfortable. Karen, on the other hand, has no such issues, whistling and wiggling her eyebrows in that adorably dorky way of hers.

“Shut up,” Eddie hisses, more embarrassed than genuinely put off as he buries his face in his arms, slumping over the table.

Karen gives a quick side bar to Hen, explaining: “Eddie recently discovered what sexual attraction feels like.”

“Is that why I got kicked out last wine night?” Hen asks.

She nods and apologetically says: “Yeaaah, he had to talk it through with someone who doesn’t work with Buck. But for now, he’s… coping.”

“I’m not coping,” Eddie calls out, voice muffled by his arms. “This is the worst. I wake up every day with his warm body plastered to my back and his strong arm pinning me to the bed.”

“Oh, sounds terrible,” Karen says sarcastically.

“Just because you can lick your spouse’s muscles, doesn’t mean I can,” Eddie mutters spitefully.

Hen realizes that this is a two way street and she has also been a topic of conversation. Scandalized, she slaps Karen’s arm lightly as she gasps: “Karen.”

“What? It’s nothing bad, everyone knows I like your muscles. It’s nothing I wouldn’t mention to my mom,” Karen defends herself.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, Hen,” Eddie backs Karen up, having come out of the hiding spot in his arms to do so.

Suspiciously Hen looks between the two for a moment, before she believes them. “Okay, but don’t tell him anything too weird.”

“I’d never do that,” Karen promises solemnly.

Then the conversation is broken from a yell from deeper in the house. “Mama, can you help me with my biology homework?”

Happy to extract herself from the situation, Hen calls back: “Of course, sweetheart, I’m on my way,” already halfway out her chair, before she’s done.

By the time Denny understands his biology homework and has filled in all the sheets they were assigned, Eddie and Karen must have come up with some plan to tackle the Maddie and bed sharing situation, because when Hen joins them again, Karen is recounting the drama from the farmer’s market to Eddie, when Fred accused Hendrick of using a pesticide.

Eddie is properly engaged with the conversation, gasping and exclaiming at the right points and interjecting his own opinion, despite not being present or knowing any of the people involved. He looks comfortable, at home in his skin. Hen thinks he’s come a long way from the kind of uptight, nervous, professional man she met that first day.

They all continue chatting for a little more, until Eddie decides that he really must be heading home. So, they see him out.

At the door, Karen pep talks him a little more. “Just be yourself and show her how much you care. Give it some time and you’re gonna be just fine.”

“I’m gonna be fine,” Eddie repeats determinedly. Before adding, “I hope.”

“That’s the spirit,” Karen says cheerfully. “And if all else fails, you can always still tell her that you’re just madly in love with Buck and have no ill intentions towards him and would never hurt him, so she shouldn’t worry.”

Going off Eddie’s look, it is clear that this is not the first time Karen has suggested it. Mentally, Hen can’t help, but agree with the suggestion. Eddie not so much. He just glares: “I’m not going to do that.”

With that, they say their goodbyes.

Next shift, Hen is dying to ask how it’s going, maybe even prod a little. She watches Buck complain about the traffic after bringing Maddie to work and she is just about to tease by asking him, if he at least slept well, when the ground starts to shake. An earthquake.

Any thoughts of teasing Buck are thrown out the window as they all pull out and get to work. A natural disaster is bad for anyone, but it will prove especially busy for first responders.

Hen is right in that regard, she doesn’t get a moment of peace to catch her breath, until she herself has become trapped in the parking garage of a hotel that is about to collapse on top of her. It’s not the most ideal break, if she’s honest.

She’s sitting there. Dust in her lungs and her eyes. Her muscles ache and her throat is sore. And, most of all, she’s tired. Exhausted really.

Thoughts about anything from before this moment are wiped away and nothing exists in that moment, except her shaking breaths, stuttering heartbeat and ringing in her ears. Around her the dark space is pressing down on her.

In that moment, the only two things she can think are 1) I am going to die down here, and 2) I am never going to see my family again, never going to see Denny and Karen again.

It’s a terrifying thing.

Nothing like a natural disaster to make you realize how close you are to losing all you have. All you hold dear.

Tears push at her eyes and she’s very aware of the dead body not that far away from her. She tries to remember if she said a proper goodbye like she always tries to do before she left, or if she’d been in a hurry this morning. Tries to remember if she told Karen she loves her.

She wants to make sure Karen knows how much she loves her. How much she loves this family they have together. That Hen never wants to lose her. That she would do anything to come home to her, but the situation is just so hopeless.

Unable to just sit still and do nothing, Hen takes out her phone and records a message for Karen. She would call, but cell service is still down. She doesn’t get to hear Karen’s voice again and that thought breaks her heart.

Hen holds the phone up and records what will likely be her final words with a voice that is squeezed by a tightness in her throat and halted by her brain.

When she’s done. She nearly tosses it in frustration as very real tears start to fall down her face. She doesn’t want to die like this. Helpless. She doesn’t want to die at all. She wants to come home, see her wife and her kid. She wants to live, dammit. She wants to live!

With a loud yells she starts moving again, starts trying to find a way out again. Wilsons have always been stubborn and by god, is she not going to stop today.

It feels almost like a miracle when Paisley saves the day, showing her the way out and leading her to the little girl she’d been trying to find. So many tragedies happen on days like these and just a few moments before, Hen had almost resigned herself to becoming one of them. Instead, she is a rare instance of good fortune.

She is absolutely exhausted and just ready to go home. She has called Karen when Chimney was done checking her over, didn’t mention how close she got, just told her that she loved her very much and would be home soon, bringing a friend with her. Paisley deserves a good home.

Hen is so out of it, she doesn’t even think to act surprised when Bobby seems to know about Chris. She just nods at Eddie’s smile, she knows the feeling. The first earthquake always is the roughest, especially with loved ones out there, with a kid out there.

Buck also seems way more relaxed and there is something about him that lights up. Same goes for Eddie, Hen supposes they’re just excited to have survived such a big disaster. That their whole family did. Both of them are quite new to the game.

So, she doesn’t pay their weirdness any mind and doesn’t blink when Buck calls Eddie over so he can drive them both home, before they can even get out of the firehouse. His eyes swimming with delight as he says: “You pulled a woman up with your bare arms today. You shouldn’t be driving.”

It’s pretty daring for them with the secret they have, but Eddie doesn’t seem to bat an eye, instead thrilled to take Buck up on the offer.

At home, Hen takes a few seconds to introduce Paisley and explain why she had to bring her home, then she face plants onto her wife, hugging her tight and knocking out for about twelve hours. It’s a pretty normal routine for a big disaster aftermath.

In fact, everything is so normal that she didn’t pick up on anything and gets completely blind-sighted when coming into work next shift. Because Eddie and Buck come in together and they’re slightly late as well.

Together they make their way up the stairs, but they don’t join everyone like normal, instead stopping a few paces away and standing there awkwardly, until Bobby notices and asks: “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine, we just, uh…” Buck starts, before trailing off, unsure how to say whatever he needs to say.

Helplessly, he looks over at Eddie, who squares his shoulders and tilts his head defiantly. He grabs Buck’s hand and announces: “Me and Buck started dating.”

A shocked silence falls over the room. It last for about two beats, then:

“YOU DID WHAT? You- You! You! I can’t believe you two. Months. Months! I had to deal with your bullshit for months. And this is how I find out? You didn’t even tell me first?? I got to find out with everyone else? This is so rude. When the fuck did that even happen?”

The two of them blink a few times at her outburst, then start to explain at the same time. Buck starts: “It happened during the earthquake and you’d just been through a lot.” And Eddie adds: “It was spur of the moment with the elevator. Buck nearly died.” “Uh-huh, and then it was kind of new and we still had to talk.” “And over text was weird and we were going to see you anyway.”

Then suddenly, Buck pauses, before he can make his next excuse and says: “Wait, Eddie told you he liked me?”

Hen gives him an ‘are you for real?’-look and says: “What do you think happened at wine night?”

“Wait, you told her you liked me?” Eddie also realizes what Buck had moments before.

“How do you think I knew?” Hen exclaims, utterly done with these two idiots. She can’t believe she got invested and that is the thanks she gets.

Before the two can start squabbling, Bobby steps in: “Okay, okay, why don’t we all calm down for a bit, yeah? It’s clear there is more to this, but for now. Buck, Eddie, congratulations, but there will be paperwork and this might get you separated.” The two nod. They understand.

Then Chimney pipes up: “Hen, did you just say months? Was that what that first day was? A misfiring of horny Buck’s brain?”

“Don’t call it that,” Buck protests.

In the background, Bobby excuses himself to get the paperwork, which Hen respects, however, she wants to see whatever train wreck this turns out to be.

“What do you mean, don’t call it that? It’s what it is right? Your brain telling you ‘fuck that guy’ and you not realizing that was an instruction?” Chimney argues.

Buck jumps him, slapping his hand over Chimney’s mouth as he chants: “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” while in the background Eddie turns a bright pink. Hen isn’t going to save them, this is pay back for not telling her first.

However, she is going to ask: “So, how did it happen?” in a loud voice, which ends the fight, because Chimney is curious too and Buck gets stopped by the love struck look on his face.

“Uh, we were rescuing these two people by going down the elevator shaft. Halfway through it started creaking and coming down. It-” Eddie has to swallow thickly when reliving the moment. “It nearly killed Buck. I- I thought I was going to lose him.”

“You didn’t lose me,” Buck says, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder and looking him in the eye intently.

You can see how Eddie melts when he meets Buck’s eyes and Hen’s heart does a little ‘ahw’ at the sight, momentarily forgetting she’s annoyed with them.

“And so what? You just kissed him or some shit?” Chimney asks, ruining the moment.

Eddie snaps out of his getting lost in Buck’s eyes shtick and blushes brightly, not meeting anyone’s eyes as he does. Delighted, Chimney crows: “Oh wow, you totally just kissed him.”

“It was romantic!” Eddie protests.

“I liked it,” Buck pipes up.

Wildly, he gestures at Buck. “See, he liked it.”

“God, you two are made for each other,” Hen mutters to herself.

Before it can all spiral again, Bobby comes back carrying a stack of paper. He puts two piles down on the table and says: “You two need to fill these in, before you can continue answering questions. I’ll hand them over to the brass with my observations and we’ll see what they decide. Until then, we work this shift as usual. No funny business.”

Eddie is still pink, but Buck mostly looks sheepish. Both of them say: “Yes, sir,” before sitting down and filling in the paperwork.

Hen can tell Bobby and Chimney are itching to ask more as much as she is. However, they all wait until Buck and Eddie filled in all the paperwork before they do. The second they hand it over, Chimney starts asking something, but before he can even finish the first sound, Bobby cuts him off by stating: “You both wrote down that you’re married.”

Chimney chokes on whatever he was going to say, coughing a few times, before he squeezes out: “I thought only lesbians moved that fast,” which makes Hen snort.

Bobby sends Buck and Eddie a concerned look. “Is that true? Are you two married?”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Eddie says.

“We thought it’d be best to just be honest now that it’s real,” Buck adds.

And Hen remembers they didn’t say, because it wasn’t real anyway. She supposes that has changed, though she can’t believe this is the way they’re sharing that. They are so dumb, she thinks to herself.

“And how long has that been going on?”

“A few years, Cap,” Buck grins, only mildly apologetic.

Again all hell breaks lose and this time Hen exclaims, “Oh my god,” out loud, before needing to walk away, just be anywhere but there. She already knows the story anyway and she cannot deal with any of this right now.

She goes to the locker rooms and just sits down for a moment, needing to regroup. This is both the funniest thing that has ever happened to her and one of the more off the walls things, which is saying a lot given her line of work.

Without thinking, she pulls out her phone and dials the most familiar number. After a few rings, Karen picks up. Hen doesn’t greet her, just says: “You’re never going to guess what just happened.”

~~

A/N:

My toxic writer trait (joking) is that I will find a reason to insert Karen Wilson (and Henren in general) into any 9-1-1 fic if I can, I am a lesbian and I shall not be shamed xp

(I hate the cheater arc so goddamn much and I hate that it became relevant in the main fic and I am very happily cutting it here <3)

Also I really liked exploring Hen’s POV when she thought Buck just wasn’t out, because it’s not morally wrong to be closeted, to not want to share that, especially at work. It doesn’t make you a bad person to keep things private, no matter how accepting an environment will probably be. And it was so interesting – and a little cathartic (hi, semi-closeted bitch here) – to write those little moments where it was obvious to Hen, because she knew, but not to anyone else and how that can hurt sometimes.

I am not immune to Karen and Eddie becoming besties, it is a good fanon trope and I gladly incorporate it into my perception of the show

And I know, a little fade to black ending, but this already got too far out of hand and I thought it was a neat little ending :D

[thisnameisnotspokenfor]

SUPER ROUGH FINAL CHAPTER SNIPPET I SWEAR

disclaimer: this is not 50% done and there's still a lot of important details/actions missing but I was too hyped to not share- and there's a good chance the final product will look completely different

@firstdove15 and @aquamiun I HAVE TO tag you for this I'm sorry- but I need to see your reactions- this chapter is lore HEAVY.

“See and now if I kill you, people are gonna think I’m the wicked one!”

“If it makes you feel any better, you’re wicked for a lot of reasons, Asha. But if we had to make a list, I don’t think trying to kill me would be in the top ten.”

“Yeah right. So let me get this straight. I’m that wicked, yet here we have you, doing a hundred and one herculean tasks just to spend a day with me in order to be my friend. Right?”

“Yep. Pretty much.”

“So what does that say about you, Cepheus?”

“That I’m oddly persistent and determined?”

“Or that you’re a complete lunatic with a terrible taste in friends, but to each their own, I guess.”

“Lunactic? Ouch, Asha,” he feigned hurt as he drawled. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”

She felt her grip tighten around the helm.“Star boy, I’m in this situation because I lost a wager that I was super confident that I’d win. I’m doing the best I can, ok?”

“Actually, I believe the correct terminology for me would be star man.”

“Excuse me?”

“I believe the correct terminology for me is star man. I’ve been through  way too many rites of passages to be called a boy.”

She shook her head, trying to ignore him. “Rites of passages?”

“Yeah you know, certain coming of the age things you have to do per custom.”

“Really? And what does a star’s rites of passage look like?”

“Well, of course it varies per court, but there’s a few shared customs that they all have. They usually vary in difficulty.”

“How many have you done?”

“Honestly? More than I can remember. Any star you see that’s my age has at least completed a handful.”

“Did you have…any personal favorites?”

“The sea of monsters.”

“Sea of monsters?”

He nodded, “yep. It’s one of the hardest rites of passage, and one of the most dangerous ones as well but it’s very rewarding if you succeed.” He paused taking note of her and Valentino’s expression. “I suppose I should explain, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes please,” she muttered watching as some of the water from the river rose to form a droplet within his hands. 

“Like the name implies, it takes place at what we’d call a sea. But this ocean isn’t like yours,” he started as the water droplet darkened, turning pitch black.”Instead of being filled with water, it’s filled with what they call consternas, or constellation monsters that were imprisoned beneath the ocean’s torrents that eagerly try to rip apart any star that enters their territories.”

She shivered, watching as the darkened water began to move irregularly.

“So…how do you complete this rite of passage?”

“Oh it’s simple really. You see when a star undergoes this rite of passage, they enter the sea carrying a weapon with them. But this weapon isn’t for self-defense. Nope, it’s to bind the chosen consterna monster to your life force. But you have to be careful because once you enter that ocean, it’s going to do everything to make sure that you don’t make it out alive. Every drop eats away at your very being, as with every passing second the ocean tries to drag you down deeper and deeper.”

“So what happens if you fail? Do you drown?”

“Ha, drowning would be merciful. No. If you stay in there for too long, you end up turning into a Consterna yourself. A mindless monster, cursed to roam the sea until another star stronger than you comes along and binds you to it’s life force for all eternity.”

“That’s…awful…what’s the point of that?!”

“Well, it’s to lessen the number of raging Consternas for one, and two, if you do succeed not only do you get fantastic accolades, you also gain a cool weapon!”

A cool weapon, she mentally scoffed. What good was a cool weapon to a star who could barely defend himself?!

“You should see some of the children of the higher ups take it,” his laughter interrupted her thoughts. They tie a rope around them, to pull them back in case they go to deep.”

“And this is your favorite rites of passage?! Cepheus!!”

“What?” he frowned innocently. “You asked!”

[002yb]

I don't know, I just really like the idea of a reverse!robins au, you know??? Just little baby Dickie being an absolute menace to a slightly older Jason, and just being completely obvious with his little (huge, enormous, really) crush on Jason, and just Dick being a possessive and jealous little shit as a kid, before they started dating just cracks me up. And like everyone knows about his crush, but they all think its so cute and innocent, and it'll probably go away, right???? Right???? Something like this probably

https://www.tumblr.com/mlim8/691663407306440705/i-want-to-say-how-much-i-love-your-reverse-robins?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/mlim8/681971460563140608/jaydick-week-day-3-reverse-robins-soulmates?source=share

So I think I may have answered an ask with similar vibes here. (: Here's some thoughts inspired by the first link though! Super cute vibes, kudos to mlim8!

Dick emulating Kon because he genuinely believes Kon is the definition of c o o l g u y. Like, how else could Kon land Tim? The man is playing out of his league; he's a legend. Peak aspiration. Of course Dick is going to be smitten with his older brother's cool boyfriend; Dick needs to learn all the tricks of the trade. He's got his own babygirl to win over. C:

(The term 'babygirl' comes from an overheard conversation and while Kon laughs about it, Tim gets so embarrassed. Despite how he tells Dick to not say that, Dick refuses).

Anyway, Kon? Thriving. Some might call his moves cringe, but Dick is so earnest and hopeful and Kon feels like fucking superman no one can touch him. ;U;

Damian nagging both Tim and Jon about Kon's influence on Dick because Dick won't listen to him; he can't be deterred and Damian is losing his mind over how Dick keeps winking and finger gunning and throwing out these truly terrible, punny lines at Jason and ahhhhhhhh

Basically Damian not liking Kon because of the impact he's had in Dick's life. It's created a hassle for Damian, but more than that? Big brother might be a little jealous. ;3;

Extra detail: Damian didn't like Kon even before Dick came into the picture because he became a distraction for Tim. It's an ongoing argument between Damian and Tim, actually. Damian is convinced Tim keeps Kon around for the sole purpose of annoying him (this isn't the case, but Damian is convinced)

Tim scoffing about it and telling Damian that his envy is showing. Just get laid, damn.

Which Damian gets indignant because no )<

To which Tim smirks a bit and purposefully badgers, 'Alright, Brother Complex (affectionate nickname), if you're threatened by our baby brother stealing Jason from you, then—‘

And Damian hisses because shut up, Drake. Fuck forbid father hear such crass speak omfg Damian will bury Tim himself.

Jason does have a crush on Damian though. The brother complex goes both ways. Or rather, it's a transference sort of deal for Jason that lingers big time because in this verse, Damian chose to save Jason from Joker, consequences be damned. The point stands, Jason is very sweet on Damian.

When Dick realizes this, devastation. Betrayed by his own partner!? Because...maybe Damian would have a similar batman stint where Dick was his Robin?? Yes.

Anyway, Dick refusing to talk to anyone, even Jason. Which is how they all know Dick is distraught.

So despite how it pains Damian, they send in the b i g g u n s: Kon. (:

Who hypes Dick up so hard. Just a bro looking out for his little man, y'know? Kon might hype Dick up a bit too much though because when Dick finally leaves whatever high nook he's sequestered himself away in?

Dick walks right up to Damian and challenges him for Jason outright and the family is caught in a perpetual state of ∑(ﾟﾛﾟ〃) because omfg Bruce is right there watching this play out and Jason is his babygirl, first and foremost.

But Damian accepts the challenge if it means having his brother back. And Damian, the sap, kneeling and drawing Dick in for a hug because fuck, having Dick be mad at him? Someone so happy and hopeful and wonderful? It was like a stab to the heart ngl.

And yes. While Damian's brother complex persists, there's zero intent to act but he still plays into this challenge of Dick's because it's highly motivating for the little punkass twerp.

Meanwhile Jason is just...there. Dumbfounded after Dick winks and shoots finger guns his way with a declaration of: 'you're gonna fall for me some day, babygirl.' But don't worry, Dick will catch him.

And Tim groans because Dick, please.

[buffy-vanserra]

Okay ACOTAR fans who also like pop music — here's a list I put together of which main pop girls I think various characters would listen to!

Lucien  - Taylor Swift

I submit for your consideration: Lucien the Swiftie. This just makes sense to me; maybe it’s because he’s secure in his masculinity and knows how to devote himself to a woman? When it comes to Taylor lore he plays it casual, but we all know Lucien’s a gossip at heart. He. Knows. Everything. His favorite era is a toss-up between Red and Lover.

Elain - Lana Del Rey

A longtime fan who helped popularize the flower crown trend back in the day, Elain just really connects with moody ballads. Lana’s dark-fantasy-meets-old-Hollywood-glamour aesthetic syncs up so well with Elain’s post-cauldron image as the sweet, beautiful, and kind of creepy Archeron sister.

Cassian - Sabrina Carpenter

He’s working late…'cause he’s a general. Okay, this one is mostly because I just love the mental image of Cassian training to bubblegum pop. But it also feels true to character? Also, once you start listening to Please Please Please from the perspective of early-ACOSF-Cassian thinking about Nesta, you can't go back.

Nesta - Billie Eilish

When she’s not fangirling to K-pop with Gwyn and Emerie, Nesta is absolutely connecting with her inner sad girl by listening to Billie while she works through her trauma. With so many songs exploring themes of self-deprecation and existential angst, Billie’s music is giving Nesta the catharsis she needs.

Rhys - Dua Lipa

Because like Rhys, Dua always looks like she belongs on a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean. She’s cool, she’s detached, she’s drinking top shelf liquor that you can’t pronounce the name of. Rhys doesn’t listen to a lot of pop music, but he’ll go on about the production value and genre significance of Future Nostalgia.

Feyre - Lorde

Okay, I struggled with this one. Mostly because Feyre strikes me as someone who wouldn’t 1) listen to pop music or 2) have super current music tastes. If anything, she’s into Hozier and Noah Kahan. That said, back when she was human, she’d listen to Pure Heroine on repeat while hunting for dinner in the woods.

Tamlin - Olivia Rodrigo

Self-loathing and angry, Olivia’s lyrics really hit for Tamlin when he’s in his post-breakup feels and/or preparing for his next crash out. He definitely listened to Good 4 U to hype himself up before the High Lord meeting. (Also, he wishes he could go back in time to tell Rhys’s mom that her son sucks.)

Eris - Ariana Grande

Listen, Ariana is that diva, and so is Eris. Songs like Yes, And? and Thank U, Next really speak to Eris’s hyper-confident and dismissive persona, while lyrics like “I'll play the villain if you need me to” may as well be direct quotes of his. Plus, they both know a thing or two about dealing with bad press. Unapologetic and bold, Ari and Eris are cut from the same cloth.

Morrigan - Chappell Roan

I don’t care if this is too on the nose; high femme sapphic Mor is the one who taught the IC the HOT TO GO! dance. (Well, she successfully taught Cassian.) I just know she’s singing along to Good Luck, Babe thinking about her former mortal lover Andromache who left her for a man after the first war with Hybern. Meanwhile — I say this with love — given her messy track record, she's got exes all over Prythian thinking of her when they hear this song.

Azriel - Charli XCX

Azriel is brat. It doesn’t matter what season it is, he’s living that 365 party girl lifestyle. Who needs sleep anyway? Not Azriel. His shadows are everywhere — so Julia. Sympathy is a knife (called Truth Teller). I’m sure this one comes as no surprise; after that CC bonus chapter it's practically canon that Azriel would be very active on the hyperpop scene if it existed in Prythian.

[the-oracle-at-delphinitely-not]

UNRAVELED SPOILERS AHEAD.

Oh my god where do I start

• gay people mentioned!!!!

• The little heart cookies in Germany are called Lebkuchens. I’m going to post the translation of the sayings on them later

• fucking ALVAR?????

•speaking of alvar he’s so sassy in this book like wdym you think keefe would benefit from a sheet mask

•Alvar hardcore shipping Sokeefe

•so much vomit??

•ELEANOR???

•the Alvar thing for sure will be an issue in book ten, along with the Eleanor thing

•CHAPTER 42 FROM KEEFES POV

Edit: I thought of more so here they are

•CASS LORDEMAN?? cool reveal but Cassius needed to get himself a better fake name

• what is it with alvar and pancakes?

•istg Shannon stole the fits vacker ritz cracker thing from us. I bet she has a secret tumblr or Pinterest and just keeps up with what the fandoms doing

•the fox was hyped up too much for the little amount of page time it got. Guess Shannon can never give the gingers any page time (Dex) (nooo who said thattttt🤭)

•I really wanna draw that badass girl he met in Seattle. I also really wanna give her a name because I need a barely mentioned character to claim as mine

•keefe and Amy need to talk about having embarrassing initials. KIS and ARF???

•Cassius putting Keefe’s last name as FOSTER???? He ships it. • man I’m still freaking out about the gay people

• and also the lebkuchen

[polarnoid]

you have no right to stop me, and you're not going to try. (peterloki)

maybe in the list of things peter quill should definitely not do is stand in the way between the closest thing to a god he's seen recently and whatever it is they want. "look, man..." he starts, helmet dematerializing from his face, tries for the half a smile...because if he's good at anything it's stalling and making time for himself. "-if it was me calling the shots i would absolutely just let you waltz in and do your thing. but it's not up to me." what he isn't disclosing is that this is one of those paid gigs, the type they need to do right to keep their guardian shit going. so peter has more than just, the regular for the sake of the galaxy reason to attempt (and that is what is it is, truly.) and stop this really nice looking but definitely evil dude. "-so, a piece of advice? back off. you really don't want this heat." hyping himself up, he's done way worse for way less. this is fine. this is cool.

[llycaons]

rest of ch 81 - 83

I've never liked this bitch. why are you so weird about the priest

dante on the mind...I hope he can see him in the next arc. seeing at they're all in hell together

oh you motherfucker

correct, but not the way he conceptualizes problems

ahh his chronic inability to suspect the victim. which is genuinely more needed in the world, it's just. this is irrational, priest!

imuri frames this as a kindness she does for the priest, and I actually agree it's not a good time for it to come out. but it's true she's also fearful of what will happen when it does...

WHO CAN SAY....I do not believe the priest is secretly a demon lord orthat his name is lucifer I think that's stupid. but hmm!!!

they're splintering....but leah and barbara are right. mikhail, shut the fuck up I swear to GOD

she went to save the priest IDIOT

good thing this doesn't go much farther because the priest doubting all his companions seriously sounds like it's messing him up

LEAH...YOU KNOW BETTER!

he IS nuts!!! imuri he is so much more nuts than you!

he must be so tired...

it was not rational to take an attackthat would only workon a demon, but that's okay. it was a spur-of-the-moment decision motivated by emotion

this chapter is called Hell, btw

I think the fight with lucifer is definitely going to be unique. not like the one with mammon or asmodeus at all, more like the one with sloth

and that just leaves satan...man maybe he's satan's son. satan has a wife. what if Priest was the antichrist. or lucifer's son....

he literaly cannot comprehend it....

DARK HALO...have we seen this before on him? I just know it's a fallen angel halo. LUCIFER'S SON THEORY!!!

by the way he acts later...I wonder if it's an admission of guilt

what good panels...very much illustrating how alone he is

SO FAST....nice

oh this next bit was so good I was giggling

dante looks a little spooky there with his jaw blasted off but at least his head is still in one piece. verge meanwhile. in TEARS. dragging his corpse back to hell so you can save him. you do love him....

idk about the previous part of the quote but enduring is VERY relevant to priest's arc

'abandon all hope' with satan there... ha. yeah

REALLY COOL PANEL. I'M SO HYPED FOR PART 6

the grammar error confused me, but this is the full quote (from goodreads)

“Before me things created were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

so nothing exists in hell except things that endure for eternity. I really like the layout of the quote beside each of those scenes. this is absolutely the most interesting and compelling setup for an arc yet. literally IN HELL....two love interests dead. one is demonic and the other is human. are verge and the priest going to meet up? what's going to be the role of the demon lord? how will dante and imuri be saved? what about those relationships when they wake up? imuri and priest have to have a talk because something's broken there, but dante and verge might actually be closer when dante wakes up. if seeing him shoot himself in the head stirred verge to some kind of emotional vulnerability or honesty, and they're stuckin hell for a while, maybe they'd start talking....and I think dante would resent being saved by anyone except verge. there's nobody else he would live for, it sounds like. oh also what's up with lucifer. we wait with bated breath....

[ofgreyskies]

updated ash intro under the cut ! the real preamble will be added here later because my brain is dead rn. i tried to keep this short but that's really not my specialty. um... ash as a person has mostly stayed the same, i just wanted to make some parts of his background more concrete and give him more internal + external conflicts so it's easier for me to get in his head. if you read this and think anything we've plotted / written needs to change, please let me know and i'll be happy to work something else out !! if you would like to continue plotting or start plotting, please like this and you'll hear from me soon-ish 🤍

background

spent his earliest years in san francisco with his parents, then spent periods of time around ages 6 -13 traveling around the world a lot with his mom (places he lived for brief-ish periods of time include tokyo, london, vancouver, seoul, and queenstown new zealand)

he moved to los angeles shortly before high school and attended some fairly well-known performing arts high school

uploaded covers and original songs on youtube and soundcloud in high school, spent his fridays at open mics or actual gigs when he could get them, etc. he released three mixtapes (greed, esprit, and evergrey) and a few standalone original tracks that gained some amount of attention on soundcloud.

he got a publishing and artist deal with a multi-national label (think like warner / universal) post-graduation and worked as a songwriter and producer under the name greymatter (his soundcloud name) with credits for several korean and u.s. artists (possible plot for recording artist muses!)

made his debut in the us in 2015 with put my hands on you and love. promoted his ass off at small radio stations and shows but it didn't make a huge splash.

debuted in korea in 2016 with an ep to more success. became known as a rising star producer (won composer of the year at mama) and singer in the korean r&b scene. his label mediaplayed him a bit as an r&b pretty boy... the first real point of contention between him and his label.

more cracks started to form because of difference in vision with his label and he started to burn out a little. fought w/ his label to release instagram, cue the biggest hit of his career.

scene opens on a few months later... ash kwon, a man from california, might... smoke weed ????? nothing comes of a police investigation b/c he's not a korean citizen and there's no concrete proof he ever did it in korea but the headlines and some other controversies that are dug up in tandem are enough to turn public opinion against him.

contract with his agency is terminated, he disappears save for a couple song credits here and there (taylor swift vc: nobody physically saw me for a year). about a year later, he reappears under the radar playing super small shows in hongdae and itaewon as the lead vocalist of a new band called blacklight

eventually signs with culture creative and establishes a sub-label for him & his band. works primarily as a songwriter-producer/director/photographer/band member for about three years until he drops a new solo album after, like, half a decade

personality

invented being an emo boy actually. too emotional for his own good. believes his own tortured artist hype sometimes.

also too reckless for his own good and convinces himself it's just independence and it's a good thing!

one of his toxic traits is claiming to hate fame but craving the validation of an audience to kind of absurd levels

can be very flighty and hard to reach, but is incredibly loyal to those he values most

says he hates conflict but will start an argument just to feel something sometimes

lives in his head and not in a fun lil manic pixie dream boy way but a slightly self-obsessed anxiety spiral kinda way

you thinks he's so cool and different and then the law pulls up and he won't get in the car and you're like oh god damn not another rockstar 🙄

plot ideas

roommate / former roommate ? he's the kind of guy who needs his alone time and would rather live on his own, but he might have had roommates in his early days in seoul (2016ish) or briefly post-scandal or even now because one or both of them is in between places.

musical collaborators. fellow songwriters and/or producers he works with sometimes. singers whose voices he'll use on demos when his won't really work, recording artists he works with as a songwriter and/or producer a lot (or even has just worked with once tbh). people who have featured on his music

muses he's directed an mv of (or will in the future) or has photographed (or will in the future)! he has a sort of specific style that's kind of dark, horror-inspired but i'd love to try to work something out for anyone!!

here's a list of ways muses can be involved in his career items if anyone is interested !!!

people he knows from his childhood or adolescence? people from san francisco / the bay area or los angeles are easiest for this, but he did spend short times in other places with his mom like tokyo, london, vancouver, and new zealand, so they could have met there as well

people whose work he's a fan of! this is easiest with singers who do r&b or more indie rock type stuff or directors tbh, but muses adjacent to any kind of grungy / existential / artsy stuff are also an option lmao

alternatively people who are fans of his work ? could also be a never meet your heros, met him and it soured their opinion of him type thing. or they clicked and they got close despite his reservations about anyone being a fan of him lmao

younger or older people he has a sibling-like relationship with. as an only child, give him some chosen siblings.

exes, flings, hook-ups, fwbs, people he kisses on the mouth platonically, whatever. he infamously gets around but is also incredibly intense with all feelings, positive or negative

people who dropped him when public tide turned against him... or people who stood by his side... or people he became friends with during his time away from the public eye

people who won't put up with his shit, for better or for worse. people who he doesn't vibe with. people he doesn't understand but is lowkey dying to figure out how their brain works.

if you're thinking about making a new muse and think his band blacklight might be a good fit and we've plotted before, i'd be down to talking that out as a potential plot. the band needs a keyboardist, a bassist, a drummer, and potentially another guitarist. there are certain dynamics i'm looking for within the band and a certain vision i have for it, so i'd just want to talk about it a little in-depth first to make sure we're on the same page which is why the collective isn't technically "open"

+ very vague plot page to keep you on your toes

[skoulsons]

Still stuck on Joel saying “I have to leave her.”

Leaving insinuates it’s personal, that there’s something there. That these two people have bonded and grown together to a point where it’s not just a “drop-off” or a simple walk-away anymore. Leaving says there’s feelings there; a relationship. You don’t just walk away from someone you spent the last three months sleeping next to, surviving beside, protecting day in and day out, and caring for in the midst of hardship.

Leaving is a conscience choice. It’s weighing your options and looking at the pros and cons of your choice. Whether it be voluntarily leaving a location or leaving a type of relationship, there is still a conscience choice there. A weight to that choice. Maybe it’s an easy choice, like leaving a party early.

Or, maybe, it’s leaving your child some kid you swear you’re not attached to. But it’s not just leaving, it’s “I (EYE) have to leave her.” There is no room for any discussion or debate. He has to do this, for both their sakes. For Joel, he leaves. She’s no longer ‘physically’ a part of his life. I don’t know about you, but I think once you start having panic attacks over worrying about your this kids safety and dreaming of losing her, you’re past the point of no return. She would remain in his head even if they did go their separate ways. For Ellie, she’s left. Left without her person. Her safe space. Her home. The person who can make her laugh and cry in the same day. The person who beats her to the punchline of one of her puns because it’s a dad joke and he still remembers some. The person who’s tried with her. Who’s protected her at every turn. The person she finds comfort and solace in. And he tries to leave all because he thinks he’s not really all of that to her. Instead, he is a failure and he cannot give her the life that he wholeheartedly believes she so greatly deserves.

But it’s not about what she deserves. It’s about what she wants and what she needs. She wants Joel. She needs Joel. She wants this man who actively tries his best with her. She wants this guy who’s given her unexplainable comfort despite never having hugged him. She wants his presence and what he does and the lengths he goes to to protect her. She wants the person she finds much needed solace in. The man who is a caretaker for her, providing and caring for her, always before himself. The person who reassures her through every encounter. The person she trusts the most. The person she calls home. The person who wants to leave.

She doesn’t deserve him. He doesn’t deserve her. They don’t deserve the empty parts of each other that the other fills. And leaving also means regression. It means the parts of themselves, these empty cavities in their hearts that are oh so slowly getting stitched back together with each new morning, will be gone. And neither of them could take that.

also can i just say uh @ellie-licious and @scootkiddo being the two main people who hype me up and make me want to continue to dig this emotional barrel and find whatever scraps I could possibly write on <3 you guys are pretty cool

[watchmegetobsessed]

WILDEST FANTASIES (part 13)

⚫️A/N: okay OMG this!!! this is the part i've been waiting for to come since i started the story, the twist that started the whole thing and i really think this is the best thing i've ever come up with! okay, i might be hyping it up a bit too much but im so excited to see your reactions after all the conspiracies you had!! so im wrapping my rambling up here, can't wait for you guys to read it!!

⚫️PAIRING: Professor!Harry X Reader

⚫️WORD COUNT: 5k

SERIES MASTERPOST | SUPPORT ME!

THREE YEARS LATER

Niall’s spacious living room is now littered with cardboard boxes and suitcases, the stylish furniture he carefully chose out upon moving into his new home now almost get lost between the mountains of his best friend’s belongings.

“Dude, I know you’re like an academic and intellectual person, but do you really need to own a whole ass library?” Niall sighs, as the two of them walk into the apartment with two more boxes filled with Harry’s books.

“Shut up, it’s not even that much,” Harry rolls his eyes, dropping the box he’s been carrying on top of one that’s labeled to contain shoes.

“Man, this feels like first day of college all over again!” Niall enthuses, quickly dropping his interest in Harry’s book collection. “Only this time we’re not sharing a tiny dorm room but my fucking cool New York City apartment!”

“Thanks for letting me crash here while I find a place for myself, I really appreciate the help,” Harry sighs, taking a look around all of his stuff he is moving in with to his best friend’s home.

“Anytime. You’ve helped me so many times before, it’s the least I can do. You’ve been through a lot. How are you holding up?”

How is he holding up?

He wants to answer that truthfully and tell Niall that he is the lowest he has been probably in all his life. Having to move in with his best friend after his fiancé broke up with him after moving across the country just to start a life together. Harry sold his house and moved in with the woman he thought he would spend the rest of his life with, but turns out the feeling wasn’t mutual, because out of the blue, he found himself single and without a place he could call his home.

At least he has a job. It would definitely be his last straw if he was sent away from the publishing company he started working at after deciding to give up his career path of being a college professor. It was a hard but necessary choice, especially after everything that happened on campus. There was no way he could keep working there.

Moving to New York he dived right into finding a new but still fitting job for himself and he ended up being an editor at a decent size publishing company, so he now spends his days buried in manuscripts and possible best-selling novels.

With all the changes he went through the past years, his new job is the only thing that has truly brought him happiness and a sense of safety. Everything else crumbled around him, it seems.

“Um, I’m doing okay. Just taking it one day at a time,” he sighs, hoping to sound convincing. Niall has been such a big help to him, his biggest support system.

A year ago, Niall has decided to take over the States, leave his home country behind and bring his talent overseas. He already had several clients and projects going on with American artists and now that his base is permanently in the Big Apple, he is off the charts, doing better than ever in his career, working with the biggest names in the industry.

Being physically closer, Niall stood by Harry’s side in these trying times and now they are even sharing a home. He is determined to do everything he can to get his friend back on the tracks.

“Great. Let me know if I could do anything for you. I’m always here for you, you know that right?”

“Of course,” Harry nods with an appreciating smile. “Thank you.”

“Alright, are there any more boxes in the car?” Niall claps his hands together.

“No, these were the last ones. Thanks for the help, I’ll just start to unpack.”

“Cool. I’ll head out then, I have a few things to take care of. Make yourself home and I’ll see you later.”

As the front door closes behind his friend, Harry takes a moment to take in his new home for the upcoming weeks. It’s a pleasant place Niall has got for himself, definitely a bachelor’s home with the darker tones and stylish furniture. It’s not necessarily Harry’s taste, he always tried to make his place homey and welcoming, a warm hideaway from the outside world.

But for now, he’ll have to compromise until he gains control back over his life.

It wasn’t easy on Harry. The way he had to end things with you. It was never how he planned and he has been doubting himself ever since. The look on your face, the way you screamed at him and told him that once he was out the door he was dead to you…

It broke him. More than he ever imagined it could.

But he didn’t have a choice and he couldn’t let you give your future up for him, he would have never been able to live with himself knowing he was the reason you couldn’t finish your degree or had to push it longer than you originally planned and Nina made it clear that she would do anything in her power to set you back.

Harry thought about not doing what she asked and played with the thought that what if she can’t hurt you the way she wanted to, but he had to come to the realization that she had every power to go through with her plan. She was great friends with the biggest names not just in the department but in the school as a whole and he knew she had connections at different universities too, she could have easily kept her word.

So Harry had to do what she asked and make sure you were safe. But it was hard not telling you the truth. He knew you’d put up a fight and try to fight back, making sacrifices, so he decided to keep you in the dark, but it was almost even more painful this way.

His heart shattered when you questioned whether he loved you or if it was just all a lie. He couldn’t get himself to even answer, but his silence was enough of an answer for you. It hurt him to think about what he did to you, made you believe you were unlovable when in reality, he was doing all of it because he loved you more than anything and wanted the best for you.

Even though many would disagree that he did the right thing.

Niall couldn’t believe him when he filled him in on what happened, even though part of him knew Harry would do something stupid like this.

“You fucked up, Harry. I’m not gonna lie. You should have told her the truth,” he said on the phone when Harry called him a few days after the breakup. “I knew you’d fuck it up, man.”

“This does not help, thank you very much,” Harry growled under his nose.

Moving on wasn’t easy and Harry feels like he still hasn’t left you entirely in the past, but at least he has learned to live with the ghost of you that will always linger in the back of his mind and heart. There was a time he believed he would never recover, that he dig himself so deep that he would never be able to make it out.

But somehow he did, even though there are still nights when he dreams of you and wakes up with his chest tight and heaving, tears flooding his eyes as he stares up at the ceiling, still seeing your face so vividly.

He watched you graduate and get the degree Nina threatened to put into risk. You didn’t see him, but he was there, in the very back, clapping with teary eyes when they called your name and you shook hands with the dean. You looked as gorgeous as ever, your hair pinned up, a black dress hugging your body and that proud smile when you finally held your degree in your hands… He needed everything in him to walk away without trying to talk to you.

That was the last time he saw you.

By the time Niall gets back home most of Harry’s stuff is moved out of the living room and at least settled in Harry’s bedroom, part of it packed away. He has some light 80s music flowing from his laptop that’s set up on the desk in the corner of his room as he is trying to decide which books to put on the shelves. He won’t be able to fit all of them, he is planning to actually sell some, mostly things he only used while he was teaching, and the rest will be taken into his office.

“Hey man, how is it going?” Niall asks, standing at the door as he looks around the guest bedroom he let Harry take for the time being.

“’M doing fine. I definitely have more shit than what I need,” he sighs, scratching the back of his neck.

“We all have, believe me,” Niall chuckles. “Do you want to grab a drink? I’m meeting with a few friends, gonna be back early. You should get out of here too.”

“Uh, I’m not really in the mood.”

“You haven’t been in the mood since I fucking moved here! Come on, just a beer! It’s gonna be fun! You need the change.”

“I just moved into a new place, that’s quite the change,” Harry points out, but it earns him an eye-roll from Niall.

“Just shut up, take a shower and be ready in thirty,” he simply says before disappearing. Dropping the book in his hands Harry sinks down to the edge of his bed.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath and then starts to look for a towel and a clean pair of boxer briefs.

An hour later Harry is sitting at some bar with Niall and his friends, they are all nice and Harry would definitely enjoy his time socializing, but it hasn’t really been his thing lately. He can’t even tell when the last time was when he truly enjoyed an evening out.

Before his breakup with Jo, his ex-fiancé, they had been struggling for a few months already, all normal conversations turned into a screaming match and arguing became their normal. Before that, Harry was busy transitioning from being a college professor in a relatively small town to moving to one of the biggest cities in the world and working at a publishing company. He was putting in extra hours to secure his spot and thinking back at it, the amount of time he spent with working was one of the reasons things went downhill with Jo. All the nights he got home barely before she went to bed, leaving them no time to be together definitely distanced them from each other and lead to their parting.

“I promise, it’s not as bad as in the movies! Harry, maybe next time you should come too!” Hayden, one of the guys from the label Niall works with says and Harry realizes he has no idea what he is talking about, he completely zoned out of the conversation.

“Huh? Where?”

“These speed dating things! I’ve done a few lately and it’s actually fun.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s for me,” Harry chuckles shaking his head and gulping from his beer that he’s been nursing for the past hour. It has gone warm for sure, but he doesn’t want to have another one.

“That’s what I thought too, but it’s not that bad. If you click with the other person, you exchange numbers. If not, you can just simply move on when the time is up,” Hayden explains.

“Maybe we should both go,” Niall offers and Harry holds back a loud laugh, because that is for sure not Niall’s scene. He doesn’t need speed dating to get himself a woman.

“Oh, yeah! So you can steal all the women!” Ben roars with laughter next to Hayden.

“Can’t blame me for being a ladies’ favorite!” Niall grins satisfied. “But for real, we should put ourselves out there sometime. Honestly, I think I should look for something serious.”

“You? Serious? Great joke,” Harry huffs.

“What? I’m thirty-six, it might be time to settle down,” he shrugs and though he is talking lightly, Harry can notice that glint of sincerity behind his words.

Niall has always been the womanizer, hooked up with different girls every weekend in college and though he chooses more carefully now that he is older, Harry has been noticing the slight change in him. Not long after he moved to New York, he actually dated a girl for two months, that was the longest he was anchored down with the same person ever, so it’s not a surprise he is now open to more than just games and fun.

“We could be each other’s wingmen!” Niall continues, wrapping an arm around his best friend’s shoulders.

“I’m not sure if that’s what I need,” Harry frowns, but Niall just chuckles patting his chest.

“It’s alright, I know what you need.”

As the evening carries on Harry finally gives in to have another beer instead of keeping the last drops of his first one forever. The conversation flows smoothly and he is actually kind of glad he left the house tonight. That is until a woman walks into the bar.

Harry catches her walk up to the bar with two other women and he can only see her from the back, but he gets an eerie feeling that it’s you. Same height, same curves, same hair color, only it’s shorter than the last time he saw you, but it’s been long.

He freezes right away, his stomach and heart dropping in an instant as he stares at the woman who still hasn’t turned around. What if it’s really you? What are you doing in New York? Are you living here now too? Do you still look the same as he remembers? And what if you see him?

Part of him wants to find out what you’d do if you ran into him. If you’d simply ignore him, or cuss him out or maybe get a friendly little chat with him. He doubts the latter, but he likes to play with the thought that you don’t actually hate him that badly after all this time.

He sees the woman slip her coat off of her shoulders and Harry is watching her holding his breath, waiting for her to turn around so he can see if it’s really you. The rest of the bar has blurred, his tunnel vision is fixated on the woman as she looks for something in her purse, her hair falling forward, once again covering her face and Harry is on the edge, desperate to see her at this point.

And then she looks over her shoulder when someone enters the bar.

It’s not you.

She is pretty, looks a bit younger than Harry is, but she is definitely not you.

Harry’s cheeks heat up at the realization and he feels so stupid how worked up he got over a stranger just because she resembled you the slightest.

His upbeat mood vanishes instantly and for the rest of the evening he just sits in silence, finishing up the rest of his beer, thinking about you.

It’s not even midnight by the time he and Niall arrive back to his apartment. Niall has noticed the sudden change in him and he is not letting him lock himself up in his bedroom without talking.

“Hey, everything alright? You got so quiet all of a sudden halfway into the evening.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Harry mumbles as he grabs a bottle of water for himself from the fridge Niall always keeps stocked.

“I’m not your mother, Harry. I’m not buying this shit.”

“What makes you think my mother buys it?” he huffs.

“You’re right, not even sweet Anne would believe you’re fine. So, what happened?”

Harry sighs as he leans onto the kitchen island, Niall standing on the other side his hands in his pockets as he stares at his friend patiently. Harry hesitates whether he should share what he saw or thought he saw today.

“There was a woman in the bar tonight.”

“There were several women,” Niall comments and Harry shoots him a look that shuts him up.

“She… She looked like… I thought she was Y/N.” Niall breathes out at Harry’s confession, he wasn’t expecting this, but he is not surprised either.

“I thought you were over her.”

Harry doesn’t answer him, but Niall understands the message loud and clear: he’ll never be over you.

“Is there any chance your feelings had something to do with your breakup with Jo?”

“She thought I’m still in love with her,” Harry admits truthfully.

“Wow,” Niall breathes out.

“She said that she can’t live with a man who is in love with another woman. I never talked about Y/N, but… I guess she could feel it.”

“So you still love her? Y/N?” Harry hesitates before answering.

“The Y/N I knew? Yes. I don’t know her now. But… Fuck, I can’t escape the thought of her, not even years later! I thought that if I get myself out there and start again with someone else I’ll grow out of the place where I was with her, but I can’t! I keep comparing everyone to her, it’s so fucking annoying. Joanna and I dated her for two fucking years and I still… I kept telling myself it could work and that it’s enough but it wasn’t.”

Niall listens to Harry’s sudden rant patiently, allowing him to let it all out. He has a feeling it’s been bottling up for a while inside him and though Harry has opened up to him a few times before about the pain he had to deal with, Niall always suspected he didn’t let him in on everything.

“I was waiting and waiting that one day I would finally wake up and feel okay, but it never came. I still think about her, Niall. A lot. There were times when I was lying on the couch with Jo, I held her in my arms and I still found myself thinking about Y/N. I know it’s messed up and I shouldn’t have gotten into a relationship with her knowing I was still stuck on Y/N, but… Fuck, I feel so dumb and… I fucking hate it.”

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Niall sighs softly, bummed to see his friend this hurt.

“Why? I’m an idiot. I proposed to a woman when I was still in love with my ex. Joanna did nothing wrong and I still hurt her, I’m such a mess,” he sighs shaking his head.

“At least you admit to the mistakes you made. It’s better than denying it. I think Jo would be even more hurt if you tried to feed her lies.”

“Oh yeah, but she is so thankful that when she asked if I was still in love with Y/N I couldn’t even answer her or look her in the eyes. Must have been so much nicer for her.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t mess up, I don’t even know why you proposed to her when you were still thinking about Y/N.”

“Because I’m fucking stupid!” Harry groans, pushing himself away from the counter. “Because I thought that if I go through all these things I would eventually forget about her and love Jo the way she deserved to be loved. But it never happened and I just messed her up like I messed myself and Y/N up. I fucking ruin everything!”

“That’s not true. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“When was the last time you messed up this bad, Niall? Because I assume never,” Harry huffs, holding his arms on his chest.

“I have issues too! I’m fucking terrified of commitment! I’m so damn scared of being left and hurt that I just go ahead of it all and never give anyone the chance to do it! I broke up with Jamie because I was falling for her and I didn’t want to give her a chance to hurt me. I know it’s messed up, but it’s the way I am.”

“You never told me that,” Harry tells him softly. He feels bad, he’s been so wrapped up in his own life that he never really got around to get involved enough in Niall’s.

“It’s not a big deal. I’m working on it and my therapist says I’m not a lost cause,” he chuckles, bringing some humor into the conversation.

“Maybe I should go to therapy too, I’m clearly messed up,” Harry sighs.

“I can ask mine to recommend someone for you. It really helps.”

“Thanks, mate.”

Niall nods and licking his lips he opts to just say whatever is on his mind.

“Look. You have to decide where you stand with Y/N. If you want to reach out to her, do that. Have a chat with her, maybe moving on would be easier if you made up and apologized… told the truth. Or if you don’t want to do that, find a way to forget about her for once and for all.”

“Reaching out to her is not really an option. She made it clear when we broke up that she didn’t want to see me ever again.”

“She was angry and hurt, we all say shit we don’t mean. It’s been three years, maybe she sees the situation completely differently now.”

“I doubt that,” Harry mumbles under his breath.

“It’s gonna be fine, man. Just be patient with yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m heading to bed, I have a meeting in the morning. See you!” Niall nods at him before disappearing down the hallway.

Harry takes Niall’s advice and a week later he has his first ever therapy session with a doctor Niall’s therapist recommended. The one hour long session proves him that talking to a professional is actually useful in his state of mind. It feels nice to talk to someone who is not biased and takes no side in his life. He opens up to his issues about letting you go and he agrees with Dr. Jackson that it’s gonna be their main aim during their sessions in the future.

Arriving home he finds Niall in the kitchen, making a sandwich, his hair is damp and Harry can smell his shower gel right away as he walks in so he must be fresh out of the shower.

“Hey man, how was it?” he asks, cutting some pickles to add to his masterpiece.

“Actually, it was pretty nice.” Harry climbs onto one of the stools at the kitchen island and watches his friend pretending to be a chef. “I talked about myself and then we cleared up what exactly I want to work on.”

“Sounds good. How is the doc? I’m sorry you can’t go to mine but… you know, it’s not a good idea to share a therapist,” he chuckles softly, spreading some mayonnaise across the bread.

“Yeah, I know, don’t worry about it. She is great, very nice, I feel fine talking to her.”

“That’s great. So you told her about Y/N?”

“Yeah, filled her in on the story,” Harry sighs. “I was afraid she would be all judgy and stuff, but she either didn’t think it was weird at all or she just hid her thoughts well.”

“Why would it be weird?”

“Because aside from the whole story, she was still my student.”

“And you thought she would judge you because of that?” Niall laughs, finishing up his sandwich. “Please, these therapists have seen the worst of mankind. Your issue is definitely not the worst she has dealt with, you can bet on that.”

“I’m glad I’m not the worst then,” Harry chuckles. “I have some work to finish, I’ll see you later,” he nods at him before heading to his room. For the first time, he feels like he is on the right path.

“Good morning Harry!” Denise greets Harry as he walks out of the elevator, quickly matching her steps with his as they walk to his office. “I have forwarded a few emails to you from Brian. The manuscripts you asked me on Monday are on their way.”

“Amazing, thank you.”

“I’ll work on the chapters you gave me earlier, do you need help with anything today?”

Denise has been the biggest help for Harry, starting at the publisher a while ago. She was just starting out as a full time assistant after being a trainee. She works so fast on the editing tasks Harry hands her, it amuses him, but she always tells him it’s because reading was her only hobby growing up. Harry has been enjoying Denise’s company a lot, not just at work. Whenever he needs a break from Niall’s pestering he knows he can turn to the girl and he has even met her girlfriend of three years.

“Nothing that I know of, thank you,” he smiles at her shortly just as he walks into his little, but homey office. He drops his briefcase to his chair as he gets rid of his coat, mentally noting everything he needs to get done today but he forgets everything when he sees a package on his desk.

It’s definitely a book, he knows that just from the shape of it, it’s wrapped in simple, brown paper, his name written on it with a black sharpie.

“Denise? What’s this?” he calls out and the girl appears at the door a moment later as Harry holds up the package.

“Oh! A woman dropped it off this morning not long before you arrived. Maybe a gift?” she shrugs, holding a folder to her chest as she watches him inspect the package again before starting to unwrap it. “Wait, is it your birthday? Did I forget about it?” she asks with wide eyes.

“No, no it’s not,” he chuckles softly.

The paper comes undone under his fingers and it finally reveals the book inside. The cover is simple, it’s a painting of a pair of glasses on a desk filled with papers and books, looks awfully familiar, but he can’t really decide why. His eyes run up to the title in bold black letters at the top.

Our wildest fantasies.

And just above that, he sees the name of the author and he instantly drops the book.

Y/N Y/L/N.

“Harry? Everything alright?” Denise asks as the book lands on his desk with a loud thud. His eyes snap up and the panic must be obvious in them.

“Huh! Oh, yeah. Everything… Everything is fine, I just… I need to check something. Could you please close the door?”

“Sure,” she nods slowly, but suspiciously before walking out of the office and closing the door.

Harry sits down grabbing the book again, taking another look at the cover to make sure he didn’t just imagine it. But he sees the same thing as the first time.

Your name.

He runs his fingers over the letters as if he was caressing your skin. Millions of thoughts are running through his mind but at the same time it’s completely empty.

Our wildest fantasies. What an odd title, but it definitely tickles his curiosity. He opens the hard cover and flips to the title page and he is surprised to see there’s a handwritten message there. Not even a message, rather just a date scribbled there.

Friday, 5 pm.

“What the fuck?” Harry mumbles under his breath as he flips to the end of the book and see your portrait with a short introduction of yourself and his breath hitches in his throat.

You look so pretty. A wide smile adorning your perfect lips, a gentle breeze is blowing at your hair and you barely wear any makeup. It seems like it was a candid photo of you somewhere out in a natural setting and he is so grateful that you didn’t go with a forced picture taken in some studio. This is so much more you and it feels like a piece of you was brought back to Harry seeing your smile.

He flips the pages back to the beginning of it and he doesn’t hesitate before starting to read it, feasting on the pages faster than ever, ignoring every work he was planning to get done today.

One chapter after the other, he gets lost in your words and at first he is oblivious to what the story will be about, but maybe his mind is just trying to block the truth out, because it’s so absurd and unbelievable.

But as he slowly moves over the first three, four, five chapters, it finally clicks.

This is the story of the two of you. The story of you and Harry.

As soon as he realizes, he drops the book again and turns to his computer, typing your name into Google Search, adding the date that was scribbled into the book. And just like that, the first find is exactly what he is looking for.

“Young, promising romance novel author Y/N Y/L/N holds her first book signing this Friday and talks about her first story, ‘Our wildest fantasies’.”

Harry reads the headline out loud and then there’s the same picture of you in the article like in the book and it talks about how your book is already on its way on toplists and it’s selling out everywhere.

He goes back to read the date and then checks the writing in the book again. He has no idea if it’s your handwriting, but it sure seems like it’s a female’s. Could you be the person who sent him this? But if it was you, how did you find him? If it wasn’t you, then who the hell? Especially a woman just starting from the handwriting. And what is that supposed to mean? Is that an invitation? Why didn’t they write anything else?

There are so many questions racing in his mind, he is still in shock and has no idea what this is all about, but there’s one thing he knows for sure.

You wrote a book about him and you and published it. Without him knowing it.

And he knows exactly where and when he can find you on Friday.

NEXT PART

Thank you for reading! Please like and reblog if you enjoyed!

[leorawright]

Hey! hmmm... I wanted to ask mercenaries who were challenged to go to an abandoned hospital/lab and meet a s/o which basically goes like this:

face: https://pin.it/1n1pknqbody:

body: https://pin.it/3pUeXO7 (or is it too thin)

arms: https://pin.it/7tJlQh9 or https://pin.it/6A8q2bEhas

ears: https://pin.it/2HfMAcYhas

Have 2 horns (1 broken) and multiple bruises all over his body and is very talland it's a love of a person who was scared of several traumas and several people who have been there before and called him a monster and ran away and he/she just went to warn that there are more people like her up there and that it was dangerous to go there :< if you want you don't need to do this and please rest before placing any order and try not to get overwhelmed please <:] (and sorry if I wrote something wrong or if it was hard to understand)

It all looks great! And thank you for your concern😊

Mercs finding s/o in an abandoned lab

Scout

He was already terrified but he was double dog dared to go in so he couldn't not

He also almost ran from you but he hit a wall and knocked himself out

When he came to he saw you and cautiously approached you

Scout feels terrible about his first reaction and apologizes profusely

He's your new hype man and he gets Medic to reattach your broken horn

Soldier

He almost hit you with his shovel when he first saw you

But then he calmed down and took in how you looked

He didn't see you as a monstor just someone who was told that but actually looks frickin cool

He insists that you come to the base and now you've got an American soldier at the ready to defend you from anyone

Demoman

At first he thought he was hallucinating

He immediately began praising the way you looked

He loves supernatural things and you are a dream come true to him

If you don't want to leave the lab Demo visits every day he can

Demo is determined to make you comfortable enough to leave and move on from the bad memories

Pyro

You look like a fantasy creature and they're in love

The first thing they do is pick up the broken piece of horn and try to help you reattach it

How could you so no to a starry eyed Pyro?

Pyro will bring so many books to show you and read to you

You're their new hero and the coolest person ever in their eyes

Heavy

When he jerked back after almost running into you he though he hurt you

You seem surprised he didn't run away screaming

Heavy immediately began checking you for wounds because he was worried someone hurt you

Heavy doesn't mind your strange appearance on the contrary he thinks you look interesting and wonderfully strange

Medic

Holy crap dreams are coming true

Medic immediately wants to observe you but keeps his distance based on the look on your face

Once you let him come near Medic is rambling about how amazing you look and talking about how cool you are

Medic helps reattach your horn and understands when you don't want to talk about the bad memories but he's already met you so he's satisfied knowing you exist

Sniper

He fell backwards in surprise when he saw you

When you didn't immediately try to kill him he calmed down slightly

He didn't want to get to close in case you changed your mind but he really wanted to observe you

Sniper won't say it often but he hates every person who called you a monster because you're the most wonderful person he's ever met

Spy

Definitely intrigued by you

You didn't notice him because he was cloaked

Spy was so focused on you he didn't see the can and tripped

Once he starts to have conversation with you he feels bad for stalking you

Spy is nervous to let you around anybody else but he's determined to get you out of that lab

Spy kept your broken horn in hopes of being able to reattach it for you

(AN: what would you guys think if I did a couple part fic with this prompt for one of the mercs? Maybe Scout??? Would you guys read that???)