#Ezekial was not as conscious about it though

[andro-dino]

For the ask game i wanna know abt 9 for luther. Im very curious

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

He swears very frequently now, though that wasn’t always the case. He tended to bite his tongue a lot and watched what he said most of the time because he didn’t wanna get in trouble. He was very cautious about it, really only swearing occasionally when he and Ezekial were 100% alone. I don’t know if he’d remember the very first time he swore, but I imagine it’d be when he and Ezekial were together and he was ranting about some authority figure and said “and like, they just wouldn’t get off my ass about it!” and kinda just went on with that until pausing midsentence like 10 seconds later like “…wait a minute.”

[narcolini]

trapped

ezekial ‘ez’ reyes x gn!reader, whump, happy ending, 2627 words

warnings for claustrophobia(?) 

for day 11 of whumpril : ‘i’m right here.’

a/n: i always knew this day would come... the solo EZ fic finally beckoned, and i answered. and i promise next time i write him he wont be in mortal danger LMAO

tagging: @drabbles-mc @cositapreciosa @hausofmamadas (let me know if u want to be in any taglists ofc)

Gilly’s barely got the truck in park before you’re flying from the passenger side, door left open behind you. He’d driven far too slow for your liking, so you’re running now, toward the orange-lit yard and the house EZ has passed through a thousand times—with no issue. Until today, of course. And still, Gilly showed no hurry in bringing you here, despite the situation. The very time conscious situation. You’d think, after trying to hide it from you, and then trying to stop you from coming to help, that he’d drive with a bit more pep under his pedals. Use that guilt he’s harbouring, to make amends and get you there fucking faster than the speed limit.

If he did, you’d have time to consider the situation properly. To assess the risk, the likelihood of EZ being in real, serious trouble. As is, you don’t, and your sneakers can’t hit the ground fast enough.

Coco’s the only one you can see, standing by the open garage. Standing, yes, fidgeting, smoking, and doing nothing—like he can afford to do nothing. Like his brother isn’t buried beneath the concrete he’s killing time on.

‘Where is it?’ you blurt, pausing long enough to show him your face. Let him see that it’s you, you’re serious, and stressed out of your mind, so it would be very fucking smart for him to answer without argument. ‘The tunnel?’

‘The fuck…’ His arm falls to his side, cigarette smoke curling back up the length of it. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘Hm, I don’t know.’ You line the sarcasm with enough venom to sting. ‘Something about my boyfriend being trapped in a collapsed smuggler’s run?’

He tuts sharply, looking past you to Gilly. ‘You were supposed to keep this shit quiet, bro.’

‘I couldn’t—’

You cut Gilly off, snapping your own voice over his reply, ‘The real question is, why the fuck are you out here and not in there, digging him out?’

It’s behind him, you realise, the opening. A small square cut from the concrete, with a ladder set over the edge it. You don’t have time to debate it, though you could chew Coco out until the sun came up, so you burst past him instead.

‘Keeping watch—hey!’ he shouts after you, sounding as annoyed at you, as you are at him. ‘There’s no fucking space for you, dude. You’re just gonna get in the way.’

It doesn’t matter. If EZ’s stuck in there, you’ll make space. You’ll pick the walls apart with your own hands if you have to.

You take the ladder facing forward, which is a mistake, but you’re too committed to it to turn around now. Your hands grapple at the metal rungs behind, heels slipping every other step. It looked like a bigger height from the top, but the clambering, clumsy approach you’ve taken, makes it feel like two or three foot, max. Gone in a blink, and then you’re underground, at the end of the tunnel with the destruction sitting right there in front of you. And God, it’s as bad as your anxiety had told you it would be.

The air is choked with dust, disturbed dirt from the collapse, you assume, and it’s thick enough to make you cough. To irritate your throat as soon as you take that first breath. It’s even making it hard to see, putting a cloudy filter over the narrow alleyway that you have to squint through. Your arm goes up, forearm shielding your eyes, like that’ll be any help at all.

‘EZ?’

There are figures ahead, that you can make out, two men swinging at the wall where the ceiling caved in. As you get closer, toes catching on the gaps between the plywood walkway, it’s obvious who it is, Angel and Creeper, both working away at the rubble. Creeper’s topless, Angel's sweating through his A-tank, and both have been working long enough to look sick with it. Tired and lagging.

‘Get out the way,’ you bark, pushing between the two. You have to get to him, you have to get close enough to the landslide of mud to see for yourself, to know. To know that he’s…

‘The fuck?’ Angel stumbles back, shovel swinging free from the dent he’s made. ‘No, nah, you can’t be here.’

You flick your gaze back to him, hand flapping behind you. ‘Give me the.’ You swallow, airborne dust drying your tongue and words with it. ‘The thing, the fucking. Give it me.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

Creeper’s still working, chipping away at the dirt with the end of his shotgun. It isn’t efficient, by any means, but it must be all he has. All you have, now. Two dudes with a shotgun and a shovel. One big fucking wall of collapsed earth, with no sign of life on the opposite side.

‘EZ?’ You turn to it, desperate. ‘Ezekiel?’ Your palms smack against it, but all you make is a shallow pathetic slap that has no hope of carrying through. ‘I’m right here,’ you shout, before turning your head to put your ear to the cold of it. ‘Can you hear me?’

Angel answers in his brothers place, ‘You really shouldn’t be in here.’

‘Shut up.’

‘This shit isn’t stable, it could collapse again any fucking—’

‘I said shut up,’ you snap, ‘I’m trying to listen.’

It hums, almost, the dirt against your ear. Echoes like you’ve held a shell to it, and not pounds and pounds of ancient soil.

‘EZ?’

Creeper stops when you call for him this time, giving you the momentary silence you need, because—there, yes—there it is, faint as anything: your name said back to you, muffled but clear enough to be real. EZ, alive, conscious, and talking back. Hope jumps into your chest, right behind the heart. It’s not over yet. He’s in a pocket, somewhere, a gap big enough to survive in.

‘Give me the shovel, Angel.’

You look back when he ignores you, just in time to catch him and Creeper exchanging a look, a pair of expressions that you know to take as a no. Loco, they’re thinking. You’re in over your head.  

They set to work again, and you let them, staggering back a couple yards to give them space to swing. You can’t dig any faster or better than they can, determination or not. Even love can’t manage that.

‘Hold on, EZ,’ you tell him, though you’re probably too far away now, and the shirt you’re holding over your mouth, to block the rising dust, is muffling the words. ‘Just, hold on.’

A little longer, and he’ll be out. Just a little longer.

They’re making progress, you can tell, the wall is concave and crumbling now. In fact, your arrival seems to have only made them quicker, more thorough, the dirt coming off in chunks, splitting and shattering by their feet. If they aren’t careful, they might get through so fast that they’re a danger to him. Shovel to the head, shotgun nose to the outstretched arm. He could be anywhere within the collapse, hearing them get closer and closer, unable to speak loud enough to stop them.

You can’t think about that. You can’t think of him in there, under the weight of it all. Chest tight, restricted. Mud in his eyes. Wires and plastic from the overhead lights, all wrapped up on top of him.

You chew your lip to stop it. Teeth through the skin, copper in your mouth. He’s alive and you’ll see him soon enough. He’s alive and you’ll see him—

‘I got something.’ It’s Creeper, loud and certain. ‘Help me clear this shit, man.’

Angel tosses his tool aside, just as Creeper has, choosing to use their hands instead. Dirty and desperate, their knees on the piles of earth they’ve already shifted. It only takes a moment before they’ve cleared enough away that you see it too: black, muddied leather. The white edge of writing.

It’s him.

You can’t give them space after that. You’re in there with them, shoulders bumping, six hands clawing away at the wall until more and more of EZ is revealed. His arm, the blue of his jeans. A bit longer, and you’ve found his head, found the bent metal strip-light that has shielded him from the worst of it. If it wasn’t for that, he’d have no pocket to breathe in, no eyes to blink up at you.

‘Hey,’ you whisper, bending down to put your face next to his. You had imagined saying something useful to him, something reassuring. But when you’re down to the moment of it, all that comes out is that, hey, soft and wavering.

He blinks again, pulling in a wheezing breath as he looks up at you—he hasn’t recognised you yet, you can tell, he’s still catching up on being alive. On having light on his face, and free air to breathe, dusty or not. He’s on his back, lengthways down the tunnel. Not out yet, but Creeper and Angel are working on that, pulling chunks off with clawing fingers.

‘EZ?’ you try, brushing the grit from his eyes, then the corners of his mouth, the angles of his beard. ‘We got you, okay? We’re getting you out.’

He croaks your name, makes the connection at last. Bleary eyes at bleary eyes.

‘Yeah,’ you sniff, fighting tears without realising it, ‘it’s me. I’m here.’

Your hands are shaking as you put your palms to his head—too far gone to try and still them now. What matters, is EZ. His comfort. You want flesh between him and the ground, warmth, not cold roughness, to cradle his head.

‘Just a little bit longer,’ you promise.

His eyes close, but he attempts a nod, moving his chin just enough to be noticeable. The next breath he takes is bookended with a cough, dry and filled with the crap you’re all breathing in.

‘You sure I’m not dead?’ he asks, only audible because your face is so close to his, your hair flopping down onto his forehead.

‘Yeah,’ you laugh, though it’s more of a sob, ‘I’m sure.’

‘Seems like heaven.’ He forces a dry swallow. ‘I see an angel.’

You sniff again, your nose threatening to leak, and brush over his face once more. Gentle, because you’re too scared to break him. ‘You’re choosing now to flirt with me?’ you joke, keeping your voice quiet. ‘You’re ridiculous, EZ.’

He smiles—or at least he tries to, one edge of his mouth twitching upwards.

‘I think that’s that’s good enough,’ Angel says, sitting back on his boots. ‘Think we can pull him out now.’

You nod, shuffling back yourself, though it’s the last thing you want to do. His legs are free enough to wiggle him out without threatening the structure of it all—without crushing the rest of you in the process. So if you have to leave him to do that, let his head sit back in the dirt, just for now, then okay. ‘Okay,’ you tell them. ‘Where should I…?’

Angel’s taking your place at the head of him, forcing his hands beneath EZ’s shoulders. Creeper grabs the leg they’ve dug entirely free, hooking his elbow around his thigh and, well, there isn’t room for you to help at all. So you step back, again, stumbling to your feet so they have space to manoeuvre him.

‘You ready, lil bro?’ Angel asks, panting still, a thick sweat over his brow. ‘In three.’

Creeper nods, and then they pull without waiting for three at all. Probably because they’re just as desperate as you are, now, just as keen to see EZ out and safe again. They’ve been digging so long that there can’t be much energy left in their reserves. It’s now, or never. One tug, two grunts, a catch in the dirt, a tear of EZ’s shirt sleeve, and then it gives. It all gives.

They pull him out of the landslide using their bodies as the counterweight, EZ tugging free and over their laps as they fall backwards from the effort of it. You’re only watching and it’s made your breath heavy, matching the rise and fall of their own chests. They did it. He’s out. Sprawled and painted with dirt, red spotting up his arms from the scratches and nicks he’s collected, but alive. Scooping breaths in like water.

‘God,’ Angel rushes, slapping a palm to EZ’s shoulder, ‘you need to cut some weight, bro.’

‘Yeah,’ Creeper laughs, ‘like moving a fucking bear.’

And then they’re all laughing, even EZ, as weak as it is, panting for air and laughing with the relief of it. Shit, even you’re smiling, and the lump of worry in your throat is still set there like concrete. It’ll stick until you’ve seen him up and walking again.

But they need to catch their breath first, and you can’t carry him alone.

‘D’you think you can stand?’ you ask, looking down at EZ laying over their legs. If he can’t, you’re all in for a struggle, trying to get him up that ladder and through the gap smaller than his shoulders will be near impossible.

EZ nods, taking a finally deep breath before pulling himself upright. He nearly manages it alone, but Angel helps him in the last minute, with a palm to his back, and then once he’s got the momentum of it, he’s up. Wincing and limping as he turns, but up.

You’re crying again. Or, your eyes are, and you’re just letting them. Wet down your cheeks.

‘I thought you were…’ You can’t manage to say it. The words become a whimper that you try to hide by clearing your throat. Before, you had enough of a mission to ignore the fear of it, the sinking what if behind your eyes. Now, it’s pouring out like gasoline. So thick, you can hardly breathe.

He struggles over to you; from the clench of his jaw, you can tell he’s hiding what it costs him, how much it hurts, to protect you. To save you from worrying even further. One foot in front of the other, between where the two men sit, and then he’s in front of you. Upright, and alive, and breathing hot, dry breath over you.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, pulling you into a hug with the arm he seems to be favouring.

You press your face to his chest and lock your hands behind the back of him. ‘For what?’ you mutter, glad of his clothes to muffle the catch in your voice.

‘Scaring you all the time.’ He puts a kiss to your head, against the hair, holds you tighter than you dared to hold him. ‘Must be the worst boyfriend in the world.’

You scoff, puffing it at the skin by his neck. ‘You think I’d dig through this shit to get you, if you were?’

You’d dig through three times the amount if it meant seeing him safe. If it meant having him, like this, on the other side.

He squeezes you again, before pulling back and shifting so he can lay his arm over your shoulder. There’s a thank-you in the way he looks at you, a level of relief, and love, that neither of you need to articulate. It’s enough to make you sniff away the last of your tears, to take an edge off the lingering concern.

‘Can we get out of here?’ he asks, wincing, and hissing a breath as he tries to walk again. ‘Always fucking hated these tunnels.’

‘Yeah,’ you scoff, ‘me too.’

If only it made a difference. If only that would stop him walking through one again.