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datleggy · 3 years

Note

Let’s take “birth day” literally and have pregnant Buck go into labor someplace really dumb and/or inconvenient.

It's the hormones, Buck would like to say in his defense, but honestly, the omega would have done it even if he weren't nearly nine months pregnant....

The doctor's told him some light exercise will help, even with his due date being so close now, and so after picking Christopher up from school they'd decided to take a nice stroll in the park.

And it would have been nice if some asshole hadn't put his hands on his kid on the goddamn playground of all places! One minute Buck had been struggling to get up off the bench to see why it looked as though Christopher was in a seemingly heated argument over something or the other, with another little boy around his age, and the next said boy's mother was shoving Christopher away with a sharply pointed nail, poking at his shoulder and shouting obscenities.

And Buck was there in a flash, putting himself between Christopher and the woman and telling her to back off. "You don't touch someone else's kid like that, lady. If you have a problem, you come find me."

The woman looks flustered for a moment before raising her voice again, yelling about how she had barely even touched the eight year old, and about how maybe he shouldn't bring his son around other kids if he couldn't learn to play nice. "If you taught that boy some manners we wouldn't even be here right now!"

Buck knows he should have let it go, knows they were causing a huge and unnecessary scene, and this? This next part he totally blames on the hormones. "If your parents had taught you some manners and common sense we wouldn't be here right now!"

And that had only served to escalate the situation to the point where police had actually been called and arrived on the scene--and apparently the woman had been very convincing when she'd burst into tears and told the cops that Buck had threatened her with violence.

Which is how Buck ends up in a jailcell on a sunny Friday afternoon, waiting for Eddie to come and bail him out and worrying frantically about Christopher, who last he saw, as they'd cuffed him and put him into the back of their vehicle, was currently in the custody of a child services worker.

Buck puts his head in his hands and groans, beyond stressed. Not only is this humiliating as all hell, but his alpha is probably going to kill him for letting this shit happen. He should have ignored the woman and walked away with Christopher in tow. Instead, he'd made it worse and gotten arrested for an assault he hadn't even committed. "Jesus Christ."

"Buckley? Evan Buckley?" An officer calls out; he's older, maybe mid fifties, with a faint Southern drawl.

Buck raises his head. He'd only called Eddie fifteen minutes ago, was he really here that quickly? "Uh, yeah, that's me." he says.

"You're free to go; luckily a bunch of witnesses came forward with the same story--you weren't the aggressor here, son. Now c'mon, your kid's waiting for you right outside."

"Oh thank God." he breaths out, immeasurably relieved. But when he attempts to stand up Buck lets out a hiss and doubles over, face contorting in pain.

The officers eyes go wide and he rushes to open the cell, which is nearly empty, thankfully, except for Buck and a slumbering man in the corner, arrested that morning for public intoxication. "Whoa, whoa," the man's eyes go even wider, if possible, when he realizes what's happening. "Shoot, I think your water just broke, young man."

Buck shakes his head, even though the proof is on the bench and soaking his jeans through and through. He whines as the contraction continues, huffing and puffing. "H-hospital. Please." He pleads.

There is no way he's having this baby while still technically in custody at a police station. Hell, they're in a jailcell, for shit's sake. He'd rather give birth like a total cliché and in the back of a yellow taxi!

"I'm gonna have 'em call you an ambulance, but let's get you outta here first." the officer tries to help Buck stand but another contraction hits, this one harder and more agonizing than the last and Buck cries out, his knees buckling under him.

The officer manages to hold him aloft just long enough to reposition him on the floor as Buck pants and tries not to lose it. The contractions are way too close...

The officer radios his men and calls for help. "Need help in the holding cell on floor 2B, we've got a custodial here who's gone into labor. Urgent request for help in holding cell 2B."

Buck can't help but let out a sob--it's even worse than he'd imagined--he's going to end up giving birth inside a jailcell five feet away from some guy who smells like tequila and regret. Alone.

"What the hell is going on in--Buck?!"

Buck sniffles as he turns his head towards the door, where Athena is standing, mouth agape at the chaotic scene before her. "Athena!" he cries, reaching out for her, needy as can be and not giving a damn.

Athena doesn't waste any time, dropping to her knees beside him, letting him rest his head on her lap. She sooths back his curly locks, now sweaty, and look at the officer, asking sharply, "What happened?"

"He was being released when he went into labor--must be from the stress of the situation. Tried to get him up, but that baby's comin' and soon." he informs her, grimacing when Buck whines in pain as another contraction follows his statement, as if to prove the mans words true.

"Eddie," Buck clenches his teeth, tries to stifle another groans. "Need Eddie."

"He's right outside," Athena tells him, reassuringly. She nods at the officer. "Reyes, get me Eddie Diaz, he's a medic and he should be waiting down on the first floor for us. Hurry!"

***************

Eddie's at the grocery store picking stuff up for dinner tonight when he gets the unexpected call. He almost doesn't answer it, when he sees it's from an unfamiliar number, thinking it's spam, but something nags at him to take the call.

"Hello?"

"Hey..."

It's Buck. And he sounds upset.

"Buck? What's going on? Everything alright? Who's phone are you using?"

He can hear Buck gulp from the other end of the line. "I've been arrested. I need you to come bail me out and get Christopher out of police custody." he says, all in one rushed statement, like he'd ripping off a band aid.

"Wha--I'm sorry, what? Did you say you're in jail? And Christopher's with the police? What the hell is going on?" Eddie's not proud of the way he raises his voice, especially not in the fruit aisle, where a mother with her toddler gives him a dirty look on her way past, but he's so shocked and panicked he can't stop himself from blurting out, "Buck, what the fuck happened? You were picking Christopher up from school today! Where does jail fit into this?!"

"Eddie, I'm sorry." Buck sighs. "I swear I'll explain everything when you get here, but I don't have a lot of time left on this call and I'm kind of freaking out right now. Please, can you just--"

"Of course, yeah, sorry, I'm on my way, give me like twenty minutes, ok? I'm across town."

"Thank you." the line cuts off abruptly and Eddie's left to ponder what could possibly have happened to have led up to his almost nine months pregnant husband being arrested as he abandons his cart and runs out into the parking lot.

****************

Eddie nearly gets arrested himself, with the way he's speeding down the highway before turning onto the main road and parking right in front of the station, where only police vehicles are allowed.

The alpha finds his kid with a social worker, happily munching on a donut. “Chris!?” Eddie runs over and engulfs his son in a suffocating hug. “Are you ok? What happened?”

Christopher pulls away slightly, nodding. “I’m ok. Bucky got in trouble ‘cause the lady at the park lied. Officer Reyes said he’s gonna bring him out soon.”

The social worker explains the whole story to Eddie, “Thankfully there were a lot of witnesses who corroborated the events. Your husband should be out in a few minutes; it was all just an awful misunderstanding. The woman at the park is in custody right now for giving the police a false accusation and wasting everybody’s time.”

Eddie’s shoulders slump in relief and he practically falls into a chair nearby, pulling Christopher onto his lap and holding him tight around the middle. “Is he ok? Buck is pregnant. He’s due in two weeks.”

The social worker gives him a sympathetic look. “I’m sure he’s in good hands. Officer Reyes will have him out here in a couple of minutes.”

****************

After a couple of minutes turns to five, turns to ten, Eddie starts to get angsty. Which is why it’s a good thing, when he happens to spot Athena rounding the corner and into the station. He calls over to her and she furrows her brows in concern before making her way across to them.

“Eddie? Christopher? What’s going on?”

“It’s a long story.” Eddie sighs, “But Buck is being held in a cell right now, they said an officer Reyes was supposed to bring him down here, that he was free to go, but that was forever ago,” he exaggerates. “Can you please find out what’s taking so long?”

“Of course.”

****************

Buck sobs openly when his alpha enters the room, “Eddie!” he calls out desperately.

Athena holds Buck close and looks up. “He’s in labor. Contractions are less than a minute apart. He needs to start pushing.”

Eddie doesn’t hesitate, though his brain feels like it’s about to short circuit if even one more insane thing happens within these twenty four hours. He drops between Buck’s knees and reaches out to squeeze his hand. “Hey, I’m here, I’m here, you’ve got this, ok? Cause I’ve got you.”

“I’m scared.” Buck admits, tears sliding down face, and he’s shaking like a leaf, terrified that something will go wrong. “I don’t--” he groans pitifully against another contraction. “Don’t wanna have her in here.”

“I know baby, I know, but she’s coming now, Buck. She’s not gonna wait for us to make it to a hospital. She’s impatient,” Eddie kisses his hand, squeezing again, comfortingly. “Just like you.”

Buck huffs. “No, like you. Y-you never wait for your soup to cool down.”

“My Tia’s sopa is worth the burnt tongue.” Eddie plays along, trying to distract him from the pain. “Baby, I need you to push, ok? I know this isn’t how we pictured any of this, but it’s time.”

Buck nods through the tears and steels himself.

“Good, good, now push, c’mon, you can do this. I’m right here.”

****************

“You look handsome in your mugshot.” Eddie tells Buck, staring at the photo he asked Athena to send him on his phone.

Buck glares at the alpha. “Funny.”

Eddie leans down to kiss the frown off his face. “Sorry, too soon?”

Buck turns the other way in bed with an annoyed huff. “You’re on baby night duty for the rest of the week.” he shuts the lamp light off and then the room is dim with just the moon peaking in through their blinds.

“Hey,” Eddie sits up, tilting his head. It’s been over a month since the incident, and sure, it hadn’t been pleasant, but Buck and their baby had made it through just fine, health intact, and in the hospital Buck hadn’t seemed too phased after the ordeal, mostly content with Christopher and the baby curled up against and on him. “That was a stupid joke, I’m sorry.”

Buck gulps. He’s being way too sensitive about this. Everything turned out alright and shortly after the whole thing had passed Chimney had even teased him that of course only Buck would have bad enough luck to end up giving birth in a holding cell. And Buck had laughed it off.

Mostly because he’d been relieved.

And then of course with the new baby the last month has been a whirlwind of constant activity, of making sure all her needs are met, of making sure Christopher’s not feeling neglected, of debating on when he should start thinking about going back to work and--

Eddie’s heart leaps when he hears Buck’s sharp intake of breath. “Buck?”

Buck sits up now, too, swiping miserably at the tears that suddenly won’t stop falling. “Sorry, I--ignore me. I didn’t--” he sniffles. “I haven’t really thought about that day since--everything’s been so busy with--you know?--and--” he cuts himself off with a choked off sob. “It’s the hormones.”

It’s been four weeks now and his hormones from the pregnancy are still driving him every which way and he feels ridiculous right now, crying over something he should have processed a month ago already.

Eddie wraps his arms around Buck and pulls him between his legs and against his chest. “Let it out.” he says. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Buck curls into Eddie and releases all emotion he hadn’t realized he’d been keeping all pent up inside. The fear, the anguish--Buck lets himself be held, coddled, loved.

It feels good.

After he’s cried for what feels like ages Buck rests the side of his head on Eddie’s shoulder and exhales. “You know Christopher wanted to name her Tuubee?” he murmurs.

Eddie, who’s rubbing up and down his husbands back, pauses a moment. “’Tuubee’?” he repeats.

Buck half smirks against his shoulder. “Two B. The cell where she was born.”

#911 fox #bday drabble #long post is long #thanku for the prompt! :)#buddie #mpreg #hurt/comfort

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hopeintheashes · 3 years

Text

let go

Buck and Chim, during and after that scene in Home and Away. Read it here or on AO3.

It comes out of nowhere, and it comes out of everywhere, everything pent up and held back finally set free.

It comes out of nowhere, and it rings in his skull like a hammer on an anvil, the strike of steel on steel.

It comes out of nowhere, and leaves him reeling, righteous indignation rising, bleeding through the shock.

He doesn't move, at first. The blow falls and the door slams and he's frozen still, and the lights that flood his apartment in the darkness are like a display case in a museum. He wonders if anyone saw, looking out their windows into his as if his world is a stage. What they assume, if they saw. What sequence of events they imagine led to this.

She left, but she'll come back. It was so simple, in his mind. I made her a promise I had to keep. Pinky swear. I can fix this, I can fix this, I can fix this. Until the edges start to fray.

They're more than frayed, now, here with the shock wearing off and the pain setting in. Something has given way, snapped, the tension more than the line could take. And he'd been standing there, wrong place, wrong time, and caught the recoil in the face.

That's it, right? Wrong place, wrong time? Because he knows what Maddie needs. She just needs time.

She always comes back.

Chim just hasn't done this before. It's hard, the first time. But she always comes back.

He's sure, and his face is starting to throb. He unsticks his feet and closes the blinds. Strips, and showers, and gets half-dressed again. Sits on the couch arm, feet on the cushions, phone in his hand.

Who—

Who? Who do you call, and what would you say?

What could you possibly say?

He texts Taylor, short but enough that she could read between the lines. That maybe she would call. Come over. Stay the night.

Yeah, she says, a lot going on here, too. A photo from work, always work alwayswork, and he blinks back tears at the sudden rush of this is never going to (work) and saliva fills his mouth but he will not. Puke, cry, feel any of it right now.

Just that low ache. The way the skin around his eye is already getting tight. The headache setting in deep.

He could do something about that. Ice it, numb it, dull the pain.

Wouldn't feel right.

He lies on the couch and stares at the ceiling until the world blurs, and at some point sleep takes him and he dreams of losing Maddie-Chim-Eddie-Bobby-everyone.

His fingers hover over Eddie's name in his phone in the middle of the night, after this single dry heave over the trash can in the dark. I can still taste your blood on my tongue; please tell me you're alive.

He presses his palms to his face instead. His breath catches at the pain, but he just leans in.

He's still holding the phone come morning, blinking back to consciousness.

Certainty rises with the sun: She made me promise and She always comes back.

He makes coffee, makes breakfast, holds that certainty in his chest. Texts with Eddie like everything's fine. Makes it two hours of stop-and-start conversation before Eddie says, You want to come over? Chris would love to see you. Buck stares at the words, and turns the camera to selfie mode, and snaps the picture and hits send.

Jesus Christ, Buck, and then there's nothing for a while.

A knock at the door, even though he has the key.

He opens it.

A breath sucked in quick between teeth at the sight, and a hand, strong and warm, on his jaw, near his eye. In so close.

It all spills out without Eddie having to say a word. He moves around Buck's kitchen like he lives here (god, the thought of it), and then he's back in close, and the ice is coldcoldcold and when he flinches away it's into Eddie's waiting palm.

"Gotta do it," he says, with this undercurrent of why haven't you yet? and the answer is—

The answer is—

He sets his jaw and leans into the cold, into the pain, away from Eddie, and the momentum carries him out the sliding glass door.

Eddie lets him go. Follows behind with two beers in hand and stops too far away.

"She'll come back," he says, and Eddie just looks at him, those eyes those eyes those eyes, and he says it again: "She always comes back."

Begging for it to be true.

Not many more words for the whole first beer, and when Eddie takes the empty out of his hand and sets it on the table next to his own and gestures for Buck to actually put the ice on his eye while he goes in for a second round, it feels like some kind of exhale.

"What am I supposed to do?" Was I supposed to break a promise? A Buckley sibling pinky swear?

"She's your sister. And you're the guy who likes to fix things. But maybe this isn't something you can fix."

- - -

It comes out of everywhere. Out of everything. Eight days of torment; of sleepless, sickening fear. Of finding out that in the end, what wins are Buckley family secrets and lies. He'd thought—

It would be naive to say he'd thought they were past that. That kind of shit runs deep. He'd just—

Thought they were in this together.

Eight days.

Sometimes he's managed three hours of sleep in a row, when his body just fucking gives out. He's running on coffee and adrenaline and fear and delusion (is it delusion if you know it's not real?), and on desperate, desperate hope. And Buck's been there, all along. Eddie, too, tagging along, doing laundry and dishes and diapers and meals without ever asking or being asked.

Jee-Yun looks up at him like he's some magical creature, the way he smiles at her and tickles her chin. Buck watches them both with his heart on his sleeve, spilling out of his fucking chest, and Chim wants to cry and puke and punch through a fucking wall at how goddamn perfect they look, like some family in a magazine, and how they, he and Maddie, never got the fairytale.

He'd thought they did. For a while.

Apparently he's good at being fooled.

So maybe he should've seen it coming. But he didn't. Eight days of betrayal. Of straight up fucking lies.

"Did you know?" Sickness roiling in the pit of his stomach.

And he's not affronted, or offended, not attempt to deny it. He's just resigned.

Resigned, and then explaining to his goddamn face why all of this makes sense; why Maddie's the one who's thinking straight, here, and he's just losing his mind.

It boils over like sap in a pan, angry and acrid, and his fist meets flesh and bone.

He doesn't regret it.

He will, later. But in that moment? It's the only thing that's felt real all week.

He drives even though he knows it's a terrible idea; even though he's shaking hard. He drives, and he finds himself telling his phone to call Hen, and she picks up before he can change his mind.

"Chim?"

A ragged inhale, and a choking sob, and her voice in his ear, all around him, in the car. "Are you driving? Pull over. I'll come to you."

He pulls over in some warehouse parking lot, empty for the weekend, and stumbles to the edge, and pukes in the gravel.

His knuckles are starting to throb.

He loses time, he's pretty sure, because he blinks and Hen's there, getting out of her car, striding toward him, arms open wide.

"He knew," he says. Sobs into her chest. "He fucking knew this whole time."

This angry, protective sound, deep from within her with her arms around him tight, and somehow that's what makes his knees give out, like a sanity check that came out in his favor for the first time all week.

She catches him, and holds him through the wracking sobs, the outpouring of grief, and, once he can see straight, follows him home. Takes him inside. Pours him a drink, and lets him talk himself out, and spreads a blanket over him on the couch when he can't fight the exhaustion any more.

He drives.

Jee-Yun's asleep in the back within the first fifteen minutes, but it takes him an hour to settle. It feels good, to have a direction. Somewhere concrete to start.

Jee-Yun wakes up eventually, ready for food and attention and a diaper change, and he finds a park where they can do all of the above in the shadows of some trees. Spreads a blanket on the grass so she can play for a while.

There's a text from Buck. He takes a shaky breath and opens it.

i'm sorry, it reads. for thinking i could fix everything. i don't know what the right move is here, but i love you. all three of you.

This is the right move, Buck. This is the only move. He hits send, and then looks down at Jee, and opens the camera app. Sends three photos of her playing with her feet. He stares at his screen long enough that the read receipts appear, and then sends, The punch was too far. I shouldn't have done that. Is your eye ok?

yeah, it'll be fine. The typing dots appear. Disappear. Reappear. talk when you get back?

Yes, he sends, and pockets his phone. "Okay, Jee." He gathers up her and the blanket and the toys, and faces the sun. "Let's go."

#911fic #9-1-1 #buck and chim #home and away #buckley-han family feels

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buckaroosboogara · 3 years

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No Longer Feels Like Home

itsjust_soff

Read it on Ao3

Chapter 1: Manaʻo (Feeling)

Something was wrong with Buck.

Steve could sense it, because there was always some horrible sensation at the back of his head, screaming something he couldn't quite understand.

And it wasn't about his leg, nor the tsunami.

It was something else.

He had seen the news of the bomber in LA, and Danny had been his support while both saw Buck pinned to the road by that enormous fire truck in the news. Steve then had to explain what the kid meant to him, and some days later, he texted and called Buck to make sure he could count on him in whatever situation.

"Just text me and I will be taking the next plane to LA." Steve had said during a call.

Buck chuckled and thanked the former SEAL.

Five months later it was the pulmonary embolism.

Buck had texted Steve sometime before going over Athena's to have some 'celebration dinner' with Bobby, May, Harry, and her before his first shift after the accident.

Sometime later he received a message telling 'it was a party! :)' and a picture of him, Christopher, and Eddie.

He sent the picture to Danny, who had demanded that Steve told him about every news from Buck, although the detective and the firefighter didn't know each other.

'Are you kidding me? The kid looks like the Diazes had hung the moon for him.' Danny texted back.

Steve chuckled fondly, his mind free of worries until he unexpectedly woke up at 1 am, with a call from Buck's number.

"What the hell? It's 3 am in LA." He thought. But when he answered he noticed it wasn't Buck who called. It was a woman.

"Hi, um, am I talking to... Steve McGarrett?" She asked.

"Yes, ma'am. Is Buck okay?" Steve had woken up completely.

"Yes... No..." The woman doubted, she didn't know if she could trust this person, although her brother told her it was fine.

"What happened? Who are you? I want to talk to him now." Steve demanded as he stood up and started pacing around his room.

"He had a pulmonary embolism. I'm his older sister, Maddie. He wanted to talk to you, but the nurses took him for a CT scan, so I told him I would do it." Maddie answered, alarmed. Steve could sense the worry in her voice. So he told her comforting words until the nurses brought an asleep Buck back to his hospital room. She thanked his company and promised updates from his brother before cutting the call.

Then, like a week or two later, it was the tsunami.

Everyone was at the Five-0 headquarters, bored between the Hawaiian constant heat and the paperwork when Danny appeared through the office's cristal doors with fast steps and a tablet in his hands.

They all peeked from their offices at the detective when he exclaimed, "Hey! Something happened in LA!"

Steve knew it was directed to him, and his mind immediately rushed to think of every bad thing that could have happened. He calmed himself down before stepping out of his office.

When Danny reached the computer, he slid his hand through the tablet, to move the image into one of the screens. The group had reunited around the computer table to watch it.

The headline was worse than what they could have imagined.

"Tsunami hits Santa Monica Pier in LA"

Danny locked eyes with Steve for some seconds. He knew that Buck had texted the Commander, telling him that he and Christopher were going to the beach after Eddie dropped him off at his apartment to cheer him up.

Everyone's breath hitched when they watched the phone recorded video on the screen.

"Oh my god," Tani muttered as she saw the first wave hitting the pier on the news.

"This video was recorded by a brave teenager who is residing at Ocean Plaza Apartment, near the Santa Monica Pier.." The news reporter spoke but everything was just white noise to them.

A giant wave appeared in the background. The people who were at the border of the pier started running to the mainland and giving advice to others in their way.

The wave finally hit the pier and in a matter of seconds, all the people disappeared into the salty water.

All of the officers' stomachs dropped to the floor, their mouths dry with no words.

It looked unreal, like a movie.

Steve immediately looked for Buck's number on his phone and frenetically tried to call him. Meanwhile, Danny started calling Mary, Steve's sister who lived in LA, and Adam tried to contact Kono, his ex-wife.

Junior, Quinn, Lou, and Tani just stood there worried, watching as the men tried to contact their loved ones.

Danny and Adam finished their calls, and a tense ambient settled among them as Steve was still trying to contact Buck.

After trying one last time, he hit the table with his fist before he placed both of his hands on the computer table and looked at the floor.

The Five-0 members shared a look before Danny asked, "Steve?"

"I can't contact him." He sighed.

The men and women in the place shared another look; everyone thought he was trying to contact Mary.

Only Danny understood who he was referring to.

"What can I do to help?" He asked, hating to see Steve in that state.

"Find a way to contact Maddie or Athena?" Steve replied unsurely.

"Okay, then," Danny replied and started typing on the table's screen.

He looked for Maddie Buckley in the interstate files and found out she worked at the 9-1-1 Emergency Call Center in LA, next to some other information like her contact number.

Danny passed her phone number to Steve, who entered his office to call her.

"Danny?" Tani was the first to say a word. "Can you tell us what's going on? Who is this guy?"

"Well..." Danny started.

Then he proceeded to tell them all he knew about Buck, which was that Steve met him years ago after the kid enrolled for the Navy SEALs and convinced him of dropping off because Buck hated to 'turn that emotional switch off', and how both stayed in contact throughout the years.

Everyone understood the situation. They even tried to joke at how easily Steve 'adopted' people, just to lighten the heavy, tense climate in the room.

Eventually, Steve got Buck's number from Maddie and found out about how he had survived the natural disaster, and his almost endless search for Christopher.

It was almost a month since the last event, and Steve had barely spoken with the fireman. He had a good excuse though. It seemed like May was the unspoken month for all kinds of murderers, robbers, kidnappers, terrorists, and even the Yakuza to come out of their caves and try to finish them.

It was one case after the other, sometimes they even accumulated, so Steve had to separate the group in halves, this way they could cover two cases at a time.

That was when the feeling started.

At first, he thought it was just stress from all the cases, but after May ended and the pile of unsolved cases started reaching an end, the feeling was still there. He tried to take some days off without connecting with the world, but it just got worse.

Finally, he spoke to Danny about this, and both reviewed Steve's life for the last months, to see if something was missing. Suddenly, Danny had an idea.

"Have you talked to Buck lately?"

And the pieces almost clicked in his mind.

"No. I think... You just discovered it Danno!" Steve said as he patted his grinning partner on the back.

Then he looked for Buck's contact and called. And... He didn't answer.

Steve decided to shrug it off and convince himself that Buck was in a long shift. So instead he texted him.

"Hey, Buck! I'm sorry I haven't talked to you, May was a crazy month

"I think something is wrong, Danny," Steve said to the detective after the man asked him about his recent anxious attitude.

"With what?"

"Buck," Steve replied, shifting on the couch.

"You still have the feeling, don't you?" Danny inquired, looking at Steve by his side.

The man sighed, rubbing his face with one hand.

"Yeah, I do. But I don't know what to do with it. It's driving me crazy, Danno."

Danny moved from the comfortable space he had on Steve's side to get the remote. He stopped the movie and shifted his body so he could face his best friend.

"Thanks, my arm was already falling asleep," Steve joked.

Danny rolled his eyes and his partner chuckled.

"Okay, serious talk now. I think I know why you have the feeling."

"Illuminate me, Doctor."

"Sometimes when Grace or Charlie is in danger, or not feeling well, I get that feeling too."

Steve leaned his head as his brows frowned, expecting an explanation.

"Like I know something is wrong and I need to talk to them, to know that they are safe and sound. And I know that you feel it with my children too."

Danny paused a moment to let his words make sense before speaking again, "It's like a fatherly feeling. You, my friend, care about Buck as you do about my children."

It made some sense in Steve's mind, but he still questioned it.

"So you are telling me that I care for Evan Buckley like he was my son?"

"Exactly. And let me guide you in this new parenting thing." Danny added. "Most of the time you are right and something happened. The last time I had his feeling, Charlie was being bullied in school by that Zach or whatever his name was."

Some seconds passed while Steve processed the information.

He had made a promise to Buck, and he always kept them.

"When is the next flight to Los Angeles?"

#ao3 link #ao3 fanfic #archive of our own #hawaiian buck au #evan buckley #steve mcgarrett #danny williams #911 on fox #9 1 1 on fox #911 fox #eddie diaz #hawaii five 0 #h50 #crossover fanfiction #buddie #mcdanno

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whats-rambled-rambled · 3 years

Text

Long Nights - playlist

You can find it on Spotify here.

Eddie Vedder - Long nights

I’ve already talked about it in another post a bit, so--

For the first time, I had a full series figured out even before I started writing. All the arcs, main plot points, even the final conversation! I even had a 3h long playlist with all the songs that would come in handy along the way, but still, none of them was the one (so basically same thing that happened with Smoke series)

I started thinking about the main theme and/or drive for our new Reader, and then it hit me. There already is a story with that vibe, and it has such an amazing soundtrack.

So I opened Spotify and browsed through the album.

And I found it.

The overall mood was not something that was going to be helpful at the beginning of the series, but oh my, those lyrics were it for all the things I had planned.

//Have no fear

For when I'm alone

I'll be better off than I was before//

That’s R, all right. Not afraid to be alone, she prefers it. Nothing can hurt her, unlike when she gets too invested. Commitment issues and whatnot.

//Long nights allow me to feel...

I'm falling...I am falling

The lights go out

Let me feel

I'm falling

I am falling safely to the ground//

Knowing what I was about to put R through, this looks only fitting, don’t you think?

Chapter 1: Sigrid - Don’t kill my vibe

I could see LN!R so clearly. I wanted to explore some of my favourite rogue tropes, and she was perfect for it. In my head, she was definitely younger than the other two from my previous series. A bold type, a joker, but serious when it comes to her craft. Not with the same heavy emotional baggage (not at the start, at least - I felt like, opposed to Smoke!R who was more about distracting herself when she felt too much, our new R would be more about denial, or hiding her issues behind her jokes).

I found this song on some random playlist, and I knew it was her.

//You shut me down, you like the control

You speak to me like I'm a child

Try to hold it down, I know the answer

I can shake it off and you feel threatened by me

I tried to play it nice but

Oh-oh-oh, ooh, ooh

Don't kill my vibe

Oh-oh-oh, ooh, ooh

Don't break my stride//

To me, that was that moment she gets dragged into the car. Not having the obvious lies TP feeds her, definitely finding them all and the stuff they throw at her hilarious, calling them out on their bullshit without thinking twice over it.

//Guess you're surprised I'm the puzzle you can't figure out//

That got me an idea for part 2 and the coffee situation - come on, you know I can’t resist that trope when it comes to Neil, I think it’s an excellent way to get to know the characters a little bit and tell something more about the dynamic.

Tom Grennan - I might

To me, it’s another character introduction song.

//Oh I love, oh I love, love my freedom//

....you already know what I’m getting at, right?

//Don't want no one taking up my time

Staying on my mind, changing up my life

Don't want no one messing up my bed

Fucking with my head, it's no lie//

That’s her. R hates to be manipulated, that’s why she’s mad at Mahir. I didn’t want to put all the angst here, but I knew there was something deeper hidden there, after his comment about her trust issues. I didn’t know what exactly, but I knew it would come in handy later.

There was one spin on the story I was playing with - where she actually lets them all lead her on for a while, a whole elaborate ruse to get her invested and onboard, but that was a lot of drama quite early on, and I wanted this to be a lighter series (oh shush, I am well aware how that played out in the end, I tried, alright? Not my fault I apparently can’t come up with a story without sprinkling it with a shitload of angst)

//But when you look at me like that

I might//

See, this is when I stopped. I didn’t think R would be falling head over heels for Neil right from the start. That’s why the heart beating faster at the end of the chapter was supposed to be about the lock and something finally sparking her curiosity, taking her out of the boredom of everyday life.

Kings of Leon - Find me

That’s more chapter-specific.

//I really wanna know your name

See your face, know who you are, who you are

How did ya find me, how did ya find me?

What are you looking for, are you looking for

How did ya find me how did ya find me

Up in the shadow, picking up my load//

I found it quite fitting the moment R meets Neil again and he drags her to a back alley, and then again, in the car. She isn’t scared, more like fascinated, she finds the whole thing exciting, even.

American Authors - I’m born to run

Oh my god, the vibe of this song! This is that need for freedom and carelessness I needed to tap into.

//I'm gonna live my life like I'm gonna die young

Like it's never enough, like I'm born to run

I'm gonna spend my time like tomorrow won't come

Do whatever I want like I'm born to run

I wanna see Paris, I wanna see Tokyo

I wanna be careless even if I break my bones

I'm gonna live my life like I'm gonna die young

Like it's never enough, like I'm born to run

All these things I've seen and done

I live my life like I'm born to run//

The Pretty Reckless - Prisoner

Another random song I found one day while I was cooking breakfast. I was like “oooh, I dig that!” and then I listened to the lyrics and I knew I needed it for this story.

//You could have my body

But you can't have me

I know I'm a criminal

Don't you tell on me//

That’s it. Her. I knew that would be handy for the moment Neil breaks after all the teasing. And that criminal bit. I mean - come on!

Missy Elliot - Work it

(This is technically part 2 but it was messing with the flow on the playlist and I’m leaving it here)

Okay, this is quite meta and corny, because this is probably one of the oldest jokes you can find for Tenet, and I’ve been battling with myself if I should even put it here, but I referenced it in the chapter, so here we are. I’ve loved this song for years, and when I was trying to think what would R listen to while she tries to clear her head while she works on the bloody inverted lock - that was the only thing that seemed appropriate.

//Come on

Is it worth it? Let me work it

I put my thang down, flip it and reverse it

Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i//

...you see what I mean?

Chapter 2: Praise you

God, okay, this song - when I heard it while I was working on the story, it brought a movie-like montage of scenes in front of my eyes. You know the type, when they try to show you how the time passes, how someone progressively becomes better at something. That was Neil, working on those locks. R giving him tips, then teasing him. The way he loses his cool, only to slowly gain confidence, and then how she ups her game, both of them getting their bits of satisfaction from the whole game.

//We've come a long long way together

Through the hard times and the good

I have to celebrate you baby

I have to praise you like I should//

Have I ever told you when exactly I got the idea for the series? When I was writing that hostage situation fic and the moment R remembers her lockpicking sessions. I thought - what if it was the other way around? What if that was Neil who was about to start learning about picking locks?

It had so much potential for ✨hand content✨ and how could I resist?

...And I knew that R would see what I’m seeing, and she would rather like it. And the image of a very flustered Neil while she teases the hell out of him? Yep, yep, yep.

Sam Fender - Start again

This one definitely starts that montage as well, the repetition of going over and over again. Even if the whole song is definitely heavier than I needed, I decided to keep it, mostly for this part:

//Let's start again

Let's learn to talk

Without the fear of being heard

'Cause everybody's listening to everything and everybody

Let's pull the cord

Move below

Let's start again//

Chapter 3: Billy Raffoul - Difficult

Ah, Billy. And when I found this one, I got goosebumps, because I instantly knew that if I had to choose one song for them, it would probably be this one.

//You never get lost in love, you only get lost in me

You never can get enough of whatever you think you need

No matter how hard I try I never can beat this rush

Ain't nobody get me high, feel lighter when we touch//

This fits them so well, innit? We know how R feels about this whole love thing, she enjoys a good shag, and I had a feeling that after such a build-up, that night together would be something quite amazing, for both of them.

//We never get lost in love, we only get lost in sheets

You'd rather just shut me off whenever we get too deep//

That’s the moment when they have a vibe check in the morning. They had fun. Is it gonna affect their dynamic? They’re attracted to each other, they understand one another. Can they keep it casual? We know that R can, or at least she thinks so, but what about Neil? We know he’s a soft idiot, but I specifically imagined a bit younger version of him for this story - he had to be, if he was just learning about lockpicking. So the whole “no dating, just sex” could be fine with him for a while, but would he catch feelings anyway? Probably, yeah. And sooner than later.

//And now I'm standing in the rain

And your hair, it's falling in your face

And I know we're doing the right thing//

Not the rain, but shower, kinda works too, right? And I already knew that the rain would be a pretty important factor a little bit further into the story.

//But I can't help wondering, who will take my place?//

Ouch.

//On and off, difficult

Too in love to let it go

Now, who's gonna hold me like you do?//

The emotions in this bit, dear lord. It’s this high that takes your breath away, sweeps you off your feet, scorches the reality, and leaves no survivors.

That being said, I don’t think they are really in love at this point. They really care for each other, though, that’s where the softness comes from.

//Hmm who's gonna hold you like I do?//

I literally gasped when I heard that last line. Hits right in the heart, just as I like it.

Rhys Lewis - Waking up without you

There’s something in this song that makes it incredibly sexy. It was great for the morning after vibe, where they don’t really have enough of each other yet.

//Skin on skin

We didn't finish what we started

Heart to heart

I'm missing your love//

Keir - Probably

The way it flows? How powerful the chorus is? It’s heavy, hot, and just makes my heart beat faster.

//Colliding were the walls

And I forget where I began

I wish I could remember love//

Holy fuck. It always makes me think of something awakening deep inside R, definitely not ready to be acknowledged at that moment in the story.

//Probably underneath

There's a remedy

Possibly in the air

In the oxygen I breathe

Probably//

And this part is just mind-blowing. There’s this longing there, and if that feeling isn’t perfect for something more steamy, then I don’t know what is.

Dermot Kennedy - Glory

This one just… expands my heart? I don’t know how else to explain it. Especially the chorus. And then when I think of it in the context of the story, I somehow place it in TP’s office, when Neil gets all protective and doesn’t want to risk taking Reader on a mission where something can so easily go wrong, only because he isn’t prepared enough.

//A set of eyes had pinned him

Became his version of a kingdom

She's everything the devil can't be

When she's singing to me "Glory"//

Maybe that’s when he starts to realize that he cares more than he thought.

Rhys Lewis - Living in The City

If the previous song was Neil’s perspective, we’re back to R. Just look at the lyrics:

//I've been living in the city too long

I've been given everything that I've got

Been a sinner and a saint

Crazy, and sane

I've been living in the city too long//

We’re kinda circling back to part 1, that need to skip town, right?

//There's a part of my soul that wants to let go

Wants to just run away

But the rest of my soul says I should stay

I should stay//

And now we’re back when she can say that the mission is not her problem, she did the best she could, and TP can go fuck himself. Is it just that she feels responsible for her student? Or she likes him enough so she has to make sure he succeeds and comes back? Or she sees a friend in need, something to open, and doesn’t think twice about it?

Chapter 4: Bastille - World gone mad

God, do I love this song.

//So this is where we are

It's not where we had wanted to be

If half the world's gone mad

The other half just don't care, you see

You don't want to fuck with us

British to the very last

When it feels like the world's gone mad

And there's nothing you can do about it

No there's nothing you can do about it//

It felt so accurate for the part when R gets to see all that inverted reality? There’s a slight heaviness of heart there, and it matches the mood when she feels overwhelmed. On the other hand, there’s a bit of hope, the feeling of not being alone in this mad world, and that’s all that matters.

Who’s Molly - Touch the sky

Badass. Pure and simple. It hypes you up, brings a smile to your face, makes you believe everything is possible.

//We can never see beyond that horizon.

And no one knows this road and where it's going to lead.

But there's one thing, one thing that's for certain.

We'll make it through.

If you were here with me.//

That softer bit with inverted guns. And later on, throughout the chapter. They both find comfort in each other’s presence on the mission, after all.

//I wasted so much time trying to find a meaning.

I never looked up, couldn't seem to turn around.

And then you crashed in, and you gave my life a reason.

You pick me up, so high and my feet won't touch the ground, no no no.

Never would have thought I could win this battle.

I was left for dead, every hope in tatters.

We're going to set the world alight tonight.

Cause we can touch the sky!//

That’s the excitement and fun they’re having on the training grounds, not at all stressed about what’s to come.

//Close your eyes, free your soul.

You feel it, don't try it, then you’ll never know.//

Ah, and we’re here at my favourite reference to feeling something, thank you Mr Nolan, sir, so useful.😌

Dermot Kennedy - Young & free

Another one by Dermot Kennedy, and definitely not the last.

//All that she said to me stays with me, never to die

Held me brand new in the silence that went through the pines

Like I said already darling, I don't want you looking back at all the ghosts left behind

Know you'll stay near me so road remains hopeful this time

We were young

We were free, come on now, let it go//

The little whiplash in the mud, where they share a short moment, before they follow with the crackheadery, maybe partly to push back from coming close to something more meaningful. Because it’s there already, kindling, waiting to be spotted and recognized.

James Gillespie - Don’t let me get me

Okay, so - the original song by P!nk was always something that resonated with me, so when Spotify recommended that one, I was like “okay, I’m not sure why but let’s try it.” And then it brought me to that scene in the container.

//I'm a hazard to myself

Don't let me get me

I'm my own worst enemy

It's bad when you annoy yourself

So irritating//

To be honest, I didn’t plan on R to have such a strong case of a mean brain. It was supposed to be a lighter series 🙃. But as you already know, those characters have minds of their own, and it kinda sorta happened. I knew it would be more of a simple panic than full-blown panic attacks that haunted StuckIn!R, topped with pretty loud intrusive thoughts causing her to spiral, especially when she was exhausted.

Ruelle - Oh my my

Listen to that one and tell me you don’t want to go on a sneaky mission, I dare you. I even had it noted as my title song, but then I switched to Bastille.

//I can feel it in my bones, in my bones

Hear it rumble like a drum, like a drum

Like a vapor in the wind, in the wind

You never see us creeping in, creeping in

Oh my my, oh my my

You never stood a chance

...

Ready or not, here we come//

The vibe is just amazing. The low-key hype? Is that a thing? It must be. And those drums! Even quite fitting for a patter of rain, one might argue.

Speaking of rain--

Chapter 5: Dermot Kennedy - After rain

The title alone is perfect for this chapter, but the rest of it - my poor heart. This chapter and the finale have some of the most beautiful and/or heart-wrenching songs I’ve ever heard, and this one is definitely one of them.

//But it's alright because

You cause lanterns to light

And force demons disperse

And if Lucifer may fear the swift drying of tears

Then, for evil, you could not be worse

But I see you now, yeah, I see you

And release me now, kinda like dreams do

And I see you now, was hard to see you

Just don't forget to sing

Remember everything//

So we have Neil storming off from the bathroom because he’s clearly going through something. The immense guilt brewing inside him, overflowing and backfiring, when he can’t cope with seeing her so battered, knowing that she may never fully recover, and just because he hesitated out there. The fear is there, but also other feelings he tries to keep in check now.

I had that image of R asking him to stay, then just breaking down in the darkness. I was aware it would only add to the issues Neil already had, but it would be nothing compared to the fact that she needs him, and he’d be ready to push everything that bothered him away to comfort her.

Humming a lullaby that he promised her in the container. And R recognized it (kind of), because he used parts of it to plead with her to stay with him after the fall, so she could one day hear the whole thing, because she took that rain check and she needed to cash it in, right?

...yeah, I like breaking my own heart, why? (should I write that part one day?)

//If you think just maybe it's her

Then promise me, young man, you're gonna let her know

You won't go lonely, yeah

It'll all be better in the morning

'Cause while you sleep, I'll build a wall//

Aquillo - Six feet over ground

Whenever I hear this song now, my mind goes to that scene in the bathroom.

//Today's the day I found myself alright

When I look ahead, pretend it never came.

I found a way to keep my head above

But the hardest part is to say 'No it's not'

Well I'm okay, and I'm still breathing

I'm still six feet over ground

But you don't need to know now

You don't need to know how I'm doing//

They both hide how they really feel. That they are not okay. They’re both scared, blaming themselves. Reader doesn’t want to worry Neil too much, but she also tries to convince herself that she is fine. And a moment of peace they share shatters as soon as she downplays what happened aloud, and when Neil goes off, she hides behind yet another joke, and then behind a blindfold.

Aquilo - Silhouette

The one for when R tells Neil goodnight and then can’t fall asleep. //Devil's on your shoulder

Strangers in your head

As if you don't remember

As if you can forget

It's only been a moment

It's only been a lifetime

But tonight you're a stranger

Some silhouette //

When he comes to check in on her, and something feels off. She’s lost, yet finds enough strength to ask him to stay.

//Just hold me//

Nathan Ball - Drifting

//I can see in your eyes

When you lie awake at night

You convince yourself you're fine, it's alright

To keep on drifting

With the drugs keeping you high

They catch you falling from the sky

I keep asking myself why

You stand by

And keep on drifting

…

So tell me what you hold inside

Tell the backstreets of your mind

You're still lonely as a child

Teary eyed

Kept on drifting//

Knowing our Reader a bit longer by now, I knew what would happen if she was to be left alone with her thoughts, in pain, and with Neil being weirdly distant.

Have you ever lied in bed, crying silently, trying not to wake up the person next to you but getting absolutely torn apart by the sadness roaring inside you? It’s a different kind of loneliness, not helping in the slightest when you’re biting back sobs. Anyway,--

//So take my hand and hold on

Take my hand don't let go//

That’s something that happened almost organically with these two. Part of their language, hand touches as a sign of support.

I gotta admit, I watched Shadow and Bone already being in the middle of writing the series and seeing how overused the hand-holding flashback was... it there made me slightly cringe every time it came up in the story I was writing later on. On the other hand (hah), it was so them. It had to stay.

Dean Lewis - Need you now - Acoustic

//Cold light wakes me in the morning,

Your side is empty I was calling out to you,

I was calling out to you.//

That’s the next day after R’s breakdown, but check out the next lyrics.

//But I don't need your love,

I just need your

Talking next to me when I wake up, wake up

Talking next to me when I wake up next to you,

When I'm hungover too.

Cause you're the only one who comes when I'm lonely,

You're the only one who comes when I'm lonely for you,

When I'm lonely for you.

All that I need is a sweet escape,

And all that I need is a sweet escape.

...

Cause I don't need your love

But I just need you now

And I don't need your love

I just need you now//

This, y’all, is R, still convinced that it’s not about love, and it’s so perfectly put into words, but the music and the vocals are dripping with longing, making it even more spot-on for the occasion.

RHODES - Breathe

The emotions captured in this… holy shit. They clench my chest and make me struggle for breath. This could have been a song playing in the background when R wakes up from a nap to Neil having a breakdown of his own.

//Mind break in two,

There's a light in the sky, there's a light

And it's all for you

Dawn colors all

Tell me how do you feel?

Tell me how do you need to heal?//

Looking for his hand, only to find a clenched fist. And when she realizes he’s been crying and she hears how broken he is, that’s enough to make her heart shatter, doubly so because he’s agonizing over something she feels responsible for.

//Breathe, release it all

Come on now, I'll keep you warm

Come on!

Breathe, release it all

Come on now, I need your love

Come on now!//

To me, every “come on”, repeated with urgency, is how desperate she is to make him stop spiraling down when she kisses him, and then again, more purposefully, until he gives in and comes back to her.

Circa Waves - Fire that burns - Acoustic

The one for ✨the moment✨.

//Comfort me, oh comfort me

I'm lighting up

To see the day you run for me

You run for me, my love//

Because they both seek comfort in the act, two broken people mending whole in each other’s embrace. Ultimately, finding there something more, whether they are ready to acknowledge it or not.

//But I've been tied up

For days

And I've been thinking of the things that you say

And I've been wound up

Each way

I need to let you know, to let you know today//

Neil already knows how important she is to him. And that’s what he tries to say between the choked-out words, that he thought he’d lost his chance to tell her how much she means to him.

//You call me a liar

You call me so innocent

But you lit the fire

You lit the fire that burns

The fire that burns inside us

I'm not innocent

I lit the fire, the fire, the fire

I lit the fire//

Oh yes, that bit definitely seeped into the chapter.

The XCERTS - Feels like falling in love - alternative version

//Keep yourself safe, keep yourself safe she said

You broke your own heart but there's no need to lose your head

Keep yourself sane, keep yourself sane he said

You gotta give up, give up, give up the dark

To start again//

You can see it, right?

Outlining the whole story, I knew that part 5 would be the part when they fall in love, or realize that they already might be.

//And it feels like falling in, falling in love

Yeah it feels like falling in, falling in, falling in love

Could save me tonight//

The 1975 - Fallingforyou

//According to your heart

My place is not deliberate

Feeling of your arms

I don't want to be your friend, I want to kiss your neck

Don't you see me I

I think I'm falling, I'm falling for you

And don't you need me I

I think I'm falling, I'm falling for you

On this night, and in this light

I think I'm falling (I think I'm falling), I'm falling for you

And maybe you, change your mind//

They’re so vulnerable there. Everything Neil pours into the act sweeps R off her feet and she opens up and to let him feel the extent of how much she cares for him, unaware that it might be shifting into something from the territory she promised herself not to venture into. Because that’s not important then. Nothing else is. Just them. So simple.

Adam French - Weightless

The light and softness in this song remind me of another Weightless I used for the finale of the Smoke series.

That’s the moment after. Softness. Closeness. Bliss.

//I told ya that you were the only weight on my shoulders

You see you're gonna make it alright

How you're gonna make it alright

When you're gonna make it alright, alright, alright

You say your body will

Hold me in the night

...

Only you can make me weightless

...

Closer is all I ever wanted to be

There for ya so you can be confiding in me

There to break the fall

Here for everybody to see

Weightless after all//

Chapter 6: Declan J Donovan - Perfectly imperfect

I had the moment they fall in love. I knew how it was gonna end, the conversation with Mahir and how it goes from there. I thought that we need some calm before the storm that was bound to happen, and what’s better than a little domestic fluff? A time when they can see each other in a different setting, get to know one another even better. Fall even harder.

And my god, this song.

//You live like you're a secret

One that only I could know

'Cause I said

You know what I want and

I know who you are

I know when I hold you and love you

You'll get up and go before you fall apart//

...that last line hits different when you know what’s gonna happen later, right?

//I'll bring you every colour that I find

In your eyes

You wake me up

And it breaks my heart

That you're perfectly imperfect

You're hurting but you're worth it

You don't know why

I would waste my time

But I'm falling and I mean it

I want you like I need it

There's nothing you could try to change my mind

'Cause I'm in love

So call me when you want me and I'll come running

Find me waiting at your door

So tell me if you're lonely and it won't last long

'Cause I'm in love with you (you)//

That light when the song gets to the part about being in love -- there’s so much tenderness there, and it resonated with the story so much. And the perfectly imperfect line, so so good.

Bastille - Survivin’

The way the song swings and the hopeful vibe is just what I needed for this chapter.

//And I'm not gonna lie

Say I've been alright

'Cause it feels like I've been living upside down

What can I say? I'm survivin'

Crawling out these sheets to see another day

What can I say? I'm survivin'

And I'm gonna be fine

I'm gonna be fine

I think I'll be fine//

As much as Reader didn’t want Neil to be there with her for so long, she really enjoys his company, making the boring and still rather painful recovery period easier.

Ella Henderson, Tom Grennan - Let’s go home together - stripped

Ha, this one! The humour when they tease other words always brings a smile to my face. That playfulness just fits our duo’s dynamic so well.

//Maybe you'll like me the way I am//

Crazy concept, right? And with Neil learning to spot the times when she hides behind a joke, and still being there--

//Feels like I know you so well

You could be everything that I've been missing

I'm coming out of my shell

And I never do that

How did you do that?

It's like I've known you my whole life//

That’s exactly how she feels like. She intently doesn’t think about it though, because if she starts overthinking it… we know what happens. She’s allowing herself to be in the moment, however. And happy.

//You seem like someone I could be myself with, no defenses

Maybe you like me the way I am//

That brings me to all Neil’s animated rants, and how much he appreciates that she always listens. He feels accepted, and I don’t know, it melts my heart a little.

//Baby, I'm in love//

🙃

INXS - Need you tonight

I know I used a cover of this song for another playlist, but the vibe was so different, and you just have to bear with me. It’s one of those songs that sparks the ideas and images, and usually, they involve Neil being a tease and having way too much fun. And as I was plotting the chapter, I thought of R missing out on his shenanigans, and how he could make her see what he was doing, and 😳 oh my. I knew the imagination would run wild. (That definitely might have something to do with a certain scene from a certain movie and a conversation I had with M about how Neil would handle it)

//So slide over here and give me a moment

Your moves are so raw, I've got to let you know

I've got to let you know

You're one of my kind

I need you tonight

'Cause I'm not sleepin'

There's somethin' about you, girl

That makes me sweat//

That’s one sexy song, don’t judge me.

Dermot Kennedy - Days like this

Oh, would you look at that, it’s Dermot again! This one is for that scene on the balcony.

That quiet contentment, like everything fell in its place and life is alright.

//When it's not always raining, there'll be days like this

When there's no one complaining, there'll be days like this

When everything falls into place, like the flick of a switch

Oh my mama told me, there'll be days like this

When you don't need to worry, there'll be days like this

When no one's in a hurry, there'll be days like this

When you don't get betrayed by that old Judas kiss

Oh my mama told me, there'll be days like this//

They’re in the moment, comfortable in the relationship that blooms between them. More casual and laid-back throughout the day only to get more soft and intimate in the evenings, when the inner demons’ voices grow louder.

James Bay - Chew on my heart - acoustic

The way the chorus explodes? It makes me beam widely and my heart is about to burst.

//Take your time

I'll be right here

I know no one could ever love me better

Take all night

You're the truth that

Is breaking me and keeping me together

Together

I wanna be in your touch

Sleep is so tough

You're burning up my mind

What would it feel like if you tore me apart?

Come on chew on my heart

...

I'm on fire

I'm a hot mess

I'm thinking things that I might start regretting

So hear me out

I need you now

I'm spiraling

I'm sinking down

Look for me I'm sending up a message

A message//

I think it weirdly fits those times at night when Neil checks the bruises. When their minds wander to that first evening, and they still feel bad about how it ended up, the closeness brings them back to the present and grounds them.

Picture This - Unconditional

This one just makes my heart sing.

//This magic, I don't know what it is but we have it

Even when we're sleepless and damaged

I don't doubt it

We're holding on//

That’s exactly it.

//Baby I wish we could take this feeling

And put it away somewhere safe

'Til we need it

Unconditional

I'm so afraid of losing your love//

They don’t need big words. But they feel it, all right. Whether they are aware of it or not. And they are afraid of losing each other, now that they know how easily that could happen.

//Shivers running down my back with your fingers

The smell of your perfume it lingers

And whispers

What I want you to say

Under your skin, underdressed under covers

We bring out the best in each other

Two lovers finding our way//

The kiss, the touch, the skin on skin contact - some of the most powerful reminders that, for now, they’re safe.

BANNERS - Start a riot

But it’s not always about going all the way, because sometimes you just need to be held. And this song just speaks to me of all that tenderness, all the feelings clenching the heart so much they’re unable to say a word, just want to keep each other as close as they can. Just to make sure they’re really there.

//I will march down an empty street like a ship into the storm

No surrender, no retreat

I will tear down every wall

Just to keep you warm

Just to bring you home

I will burn this city down for a diamond in the dust

I will keep you safe and sound when there's no one left to trust

Will you take my hand?

We can make our stand

If your world falls apart

I'd start a riot

If night falls in your heart

I'd light the fire

In the dark, when you sound the alarm

We'll find each other's arms

For your love, all you are

I'd start a riot//

The lyrics are so beautiful, and there’s so much longing there, and the promise to protect each other, to be there for each other, to face whatever life might throw their way together.

Yeah, it makes me emotional, I absolutely love it. Speaking of emotional--

Chapter 7: Stone Sour - Wicked game - acoustic, live

When Spotify recommended this one to me, I almost skipped it. I’ve heard it a million times in different versions and I thought that there’s nothing to be found there. Oh, was I wrong.

I knew what was going to happen in the chapter - Mahir is about to confront R, surprised by what he sees. And he can clearly recognize that they’re idiots in love, even if they’re trying to lay low in the company. He knows what happened to R, why she’s so cautious and reluctant when it comes to any relationships that are more than simple hookups.

//The world was on fire and no one could save me but you

It's strange what desire will make foolish people do

And I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you

And I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you//

Because that’s how it started, right? With desire. One could argue that our duo had solid banter before that, respect and understanding, all those things, sure. But ultimately, that was all that sexual tension, sparked by the playful teasing, that pushed them into each other’s arms in the first place.

//No, I don't want to fall in love

With you, with you

What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way

What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you//

And when Reader finally lets the thought in and it dawns on her that she is, in fact, in love - she goes into full panic. Not because she feels it’s unrequited, god, she’s not stupid, nor blind (too soon?). But she’s mad at herself that she allowed this to happen. She’s afraid that she’ll get hurt, and to avoid that, she has to run away. And that’s gonna hurt Neil as well, and she can’t stand that, hates herself for that, but she’s so scared that she can’t think of any other solution.

Before we get to that, however, there’s a bit more softness to be shared.

Lewis Watson - Little light

//And all this shade is, illuminating

And all those love lines, are taking shape

And all my worries, disintegrating

And I've been waiting, I've been waiting

And all my days were young and wasted

When I was waiting, oh for you

And all the plans that I've been chasing are always fading

But ever since I found you

A little light is breaking through//

Gotta admit, I had this one hidden in the playlists of other chapters, because it captures that feeling when your chest is filled with light and you’re simply happy. It ended up here, because it’s this feeling when R is melting a little inside when she looks at Neil, when she’s in his arms. And how Neil feels, too.

X Ambassadors - Renegades

Funny, I had this song for both times the team appears in the story. There’s this sense of camaraderie to it that I wanted to capture, when you’re with a bunch of people who are like family to you. You can tease them all you want, but at the same time you’d go into battle with them, knowing that you can count on them to have your six.

//Long live the pioneers

Rebels and mutineers

Go forth and have no fear

Come close and lend an ear

…

All hail the underdogs

All hail the new kids

All hail the outlaws

Spielbergs and Kubricks

It's our time to make a move

It's our time to make amends

It's our time to break the rules

Let's begin//

I wanted R to have a taste of that. To let her know that she’s appreciated for helping with the mission. To get to know them all better, and to make amends with TP, of sorts.

I didn’t want to make his motivation clear. He wouldn’t tell her that he knows how the story ends. That he can’t help that, deep down, irrationally, he made her responsible for it. Even if she’s not the one to blame. (And I don’t believe he let’s that happen, in the end, because that’s too much angst, even for me - again, fuck you, Mr Nolan, sir)

Corey Taylor, Dave Grohl, Rick Nielsen, Scott Reeder - From can to can’t

Christ almighty, this one is so raw! The emotional progression in here just blows my mind.

//Under the water

It's cold and it's grey

My torrid autumn

Another season decays

Open up the Hollow

And my walls come down

I tell you it's a problem

Just when no one's around

But then

I know what's wrong

God, you complicated everything

I know you're gone, gone, gone

This is where I will draw my line

I will draw my line//

To me, it’s the scene with R having a breakdown in the bathroom, and then somehow finding the solution. She has a plan, and enough strength and determination to pull through, at least for a moment.

Chapter 8: Dan Owen - Hideaway

I found this song by accident, and I almost screamed at how perfect it is for the finale (and then screamed for the second time when my dearest friend @connie-nikas casually sent me this exact song one day saying that it sounds like something I’d enjoy). The intensity just tears your heart out and makes you struggle to draw a breath, there’s something desperate to it, and I knew that it would be my go-to song for the part where R sleeps with Neil, trying one last time to drown all the pain and sorrow in his closeness.

I could just paste all the lyrics, to be honest, because that’s exactly what’s happening in the scene.

//It's a long way down

I keep backing away from the edge

And it's a slow burnout

Like the fires that rage in my head

And it's a slow cry out

When you've got so many tears you could die

And it's a long time to wait

When you take all my tears away//

Oh, she’s on the verge of tears, all right. Knowing quite well that as soon as Neil picks on them, he’s gonna stop to make sure she’s okay. That once he starts asking questions, she’s gonna fall into pieces, unable to lie to him.

//My body is colder

Time is frozen

All these feelings have poisoned my soul

And in silence no I can't stand it

Please break these chains and hell I can

Hideaway//

She’s scared that if she’s left alone with her thoughts, they will break her and make her stay. What she fears most (besides that she’s gonna end up betrayed, alone and heartbroken) is how Neil’s gonna react to her actions. The last thing she wants is to hurt him. She just hopes that maybe if she leaves now, it’s not gonna be as painful as it would be if she stayed a bit longer. That maybe he’s not fallen in too deep.

//You're my one way out

And my tears won't save me now

Save me now

I can't stand it

All this loneliness I feel

I can't do this alone

I need someone to remind my feelings

That I've fallen down by the door

It's a long way down and my tears won't save me now

It's a long way down

I keep backing away from the edge

And it's a slow burnout

Like the fires that rage in my head//

Macy Gray - I try

One of the first songs that came to my mind when I was composing the playlist for the series. It may be a tad too upbeat for my liking, hah, but parts of the lyrics are spot on, and it had to be there.

//I try to say goodbye and I choke (Yeah)

I try to walk away and I stumble

Though I try to hide it, it's clear

My world crumbles when you are not near

Goodbye and I choke (Yeah!)

I try to walk away and I stumble

Though I try to hide it, it's clear

My world crumbles when you are not near//

It makes me think of the time when they’re in the car. She’s going over the plan, kinda skipping the moment she’d have to say goodbye to Neil. That’s the unbearable part. And when he asks an innocent question and touches her, she crumbles and jokes. Partly to distract him from prodding further, but mostly to distract herself. I didn’t plan on them getting all worked up there, it...happened, but I figured it made for a decent ground for what was about to go down in the hotel room.

Belle Mt. - Hollow - acoustic

//She told me she was hollow

That's far from what I see//

That feeling you get when everything is too much and it leaves you hollow because you can’t take it anymore. A safety mechanism of sorts. It kicks in with Reader, and of course, Neil can sense that something is off. He hopes it’s just her being tired, he knows how she feels after spending too much time with people.

//I told her she was special

She almost let me in

But she couldn't bear the thought of digging up the heart that she's been burying//

We already know it. The thing is - Neil doesn’t. They haven’t really talked about it. Well, they did after the first night, but with all the things that happened later… and with how much affection she shows him? He doesn’t have a reason to suspect something this big.

//Lonely is her favourite

If only I could change it

If I could only save her

But sometimes she's lost, sometimes she's broken

Sometimes she's closed, sometimes she's open

Sometimes she's stone-cold, times she's on fire

Mostly she's everything I desire

Lonely is her favourite place to be//

Galleaux - Tether me

I had it on repeat when I was writing that part when R collapses in Neil’s arms when they’re in bed. Did I mention that I didn’t want Reader to be this emotional in the first part of the chapter? I thought she’d be more distant. Numb, even, here and there slipping up but holding it together until the very end. And then she does that. But it was Neil’s reaction that left me all 🥺. Not only me, apparently, because she let out so much there. I think my heart broke a little when she gave me that make love to me/love me/ never let me go part.

//In this space, do I belong?

It's dark out here in my own thoughts

Pull me back, out of my body

I'm tied to my limbs

They're spinning me out of control

Tether me//

And the way the music builds up only to blow up at 3:11, heavens, and those vocals! It just takes my breath away, fits so well there.

Nothing But Thieves - Lover, please stay

There can’t be a series playlist without Nothing But Thieves! And it’s another song Chels sent me. The way it broke me-- bloody hell. It’s that gentle guitar, it’s the raw emotions in the vocals, and those lyrics! It rips my heart out, in the best way possible.

It’s for that part where Neil falls asleep and R breaks down, fully realizing what she is about to do.

//Lover, I know you're weary

Eyes are tired from the night

Lover, come to the kitchen floor

Tiles are cold, so am I//

You bet your ass she’s having flashbacks to those moments on the cold tiles, but in her bathroom.

//Lover, I feel your sorrow pouring out of your skin

And I don't wanna be alone

If I am tonight, I'll always be//

Lonely might be her favourite place to be, but losing Neil by her own decision hurts more than she thought possible.

//So take from me what you want, what you need

Take from me whatever you want, whatever you need

But lover, please stay with me, oh//

You know what’s the worst, though? As if that scene was not heartbreaking enough, my brain decided to remind me how much it parallels part 7 from Stuck in reverse. Yep. ✨Pain.✨

Foo Fighters - Home

When she walks to her apartment. Crying. Broken. Missing him already.

//Wish I were with you

But I couldn't stay

Every direction

Leads me away

Pray for tomorrow

But for today

All I want is to be home//

About to leave for good.

This is the bit that prompted the final conversation. What even is home to her? Living the way she does, it never was something important. I struggled with that idea, I thought it’s too sweet. But Neil, the stubborn ass that he is, didn’t want to give me anything else, so it stayed - and in the end, I’m happy that it did.

BANKS - Someone new

Okay, this one is perfect with its sadness and longing, but it’s a hit and miss when it comes to lyrics. Take a look -

//I can love you desperately

Though your love ain't guaranteed

Oh, I wish you knew the deal

Gotta learn from far away

And I simply needed space

Space for me to be

And I think you need it too

Though I know you call me selfish for assuming

I did this for you too//

This, this, all of this! You see it, right?

//Everything I do, I'm gonna think of you

Don't know what else to do//

Well, one could argue that they could just talk it through without all the drama, but hey, where’s the fun in that? And running away really seems like the best option to R.

//And please don't fall in love with someone new

I promise one day I'll come back for you//

And here it’s off because I don’t think she plans on going back. So she wouldn’t want him to not fall in love with someone else, because why would she? He deserves to be happy.

//Oh, you say you hate me now and you burn me with your words

Calling me a fool

Saying that I've fucked up everything

And you'll never forgive me//

See, I have a few options for what to do when Neil finds her at the riverside. I knew one thing though - it would never be a full-blown argument and accusations. At first (and when I say first I mean before I actually started writing chapter 1, because I already had the last scene plotted out by then), I thought Neil would be calm, with a kind of “I know you love me too, silly, so what on earth are you doing?” vibe to him, to R’s annoyance. Then, the story became heavier, and I knew Neil would be worried. Lost. Confused. But never to the point of losing his temper, not after that one time in the bathroom. And that’s what happens in that scene. He doesn’t know what to do as he tries to make some sense out of it all.

Agnes Obel - Riverside

//Oh my God I see how everything is torn in the river deep

And I don't know why I go the way

Down by the riverside//

As I mentioned, I knew what I wanted for the final confrontation from the start. That’s why I tried to make that river quite important for both of them, weaving it into the story here and there. That’s why they instinctively go there.

Billy Raffoul - Dark four door

There’s this sad acceptance in this song that just breaks my heart. It makes me think about the moment when Neil wakes up and sees that she’s gone. How he doesn’t know what’s going on, and how his mind slowly connects all the things that felt strange, but he’s unwilling to accept it until he checks Reader’s place. And much it costs him to keep it together when he sees that the bag is gone.

//You got up, you felt you should

I keep trying to myself I would've done the same had I could

I never thought that you would//

Chris Cornell - Before we disappear

Whenever I hear this song, I think of Neil standing there with Reader, hurt, trying to understand what went wrong.

//So how hard can it be to share your life with me?

How hard can it be to rise with me each morning?//

Dermot Kennedy - A closeness

The last one by Dermot. If that isn’t their conversation--

//Keeping her bright eyes focused on the coastline, waiting for you

Isn't she all of us pining for that last kiss

A permanent truth, a means to get through//

Why does she stay up for so long in their spot? Does she subconsciously count on him to show up? Unable to let go, once and for all?

//Deep into the night, eyes closing

Heart swollen with my loving for you

A solid embrace, kind face

And then the hurt starts leaving the room, followed by goons

Sometimes it's open wide and lights the road at night

You've got a heart like the moon

Gather courage, if you're doing something, do it

'Cause she got to go soon//

And when Neil sees her, he wants nothing more than to hug her, he’s so relieved. But then she snaps at him, and he can’t believe that she’d actually think that he planted a bug on her to track her. It’s another wound he didn’t expect, but he waits for her to explain her actions before he lets out how much it all affected him.

Ryan McMullan - Outcry

I was close to making this one a title song for the chapter because as Hideaway sounds like it was written for the time they make love, this one is for the time Neil asks why she left.

//You came a long way to see me

So don't you run off, baby stop pretending that you're fine

What's the point that you're making

Tell me what it is that's going 'round inside your mind

If in doubt, don't fake it

I have known you long enough to know that you can't lie

If you're in love don't be ashamed of it

'Cause even angels fall for demons//

God, of course he saw that she wasn’t alright that night, but she seemed so sure about what she needed that moment that he decided not to push her - they had all the time in the world, he could ask her about it in the morning, right?

And Neil knows when she’s hiding behind jokes. That’s why he doesn’t want to play her game when she deflects what he says about the way she was in bed. He wants her to be honest. Especially since he knows what he saw in her eyes, in her actions, when they were together, and he’s sure it all must have meant something to her.

//I've heard stories, but they're jaded

So give me something more

I only know what I've been told

But I can tell that you're frustrated

And I won't ever pry, I'll only be a hand to hold

If you tell me you're hurting

I'm hurting too, yeah

Don't tell me you're fine - unless you're fine

I'll wait for the outcry

Whenever there is something weighing on your mind//

And Neil knows he can’t pressure her, that’s why he just stands with her and waits. Sweeping his mind over and over again for anything that could have prompted this whole mess.

//If you feel like leaving

Then maybe it's for the best

Or if you feel like you've given in

Oh, give yourself a chance

If you feel like crying

Oh please don't hold it in

If you feel like reaching out oh

Let me in//

His heart is aching when he hears her reason why she feels like she has to leave. That’s when he touches her. To pull her back from her head to something real. To remind her that nothing has changed. That he’s there, and not going to let her go that easily. That he loves her, because he needs her to hear it, so she knows for sure. And when she tears up, there’s only one desperate plea in his mind.

Gavin James - Hard to do

One heavy hitter after another, and this is another killer. The longing in Gavin’s voice clenches your chest and you just want to hide in somebody’s arms.

//Oh, I've been thinking that I don't wanna leave

This house isn't home to me

I'm tired of losing everyone I see

Now that you're here, it's a hard thing to do

Trying to hold on//

Does she really want to leave? She feels she has to, but god, if only she knew for sure her heart is safe, she would stay with him forever. The problem with life is - you can never be so sure. And when Neil shows up… it takes everything, even unreasonable anger, to keep her together.

//Maybe I don't believe that I don't wanna run

But two hearts are better than one

You say you'll stick around but I'll be gone

Oh, I'll be gone

It's a hard thing to do, trying to hold on//

Reader knows that it’s gonna be nearly impossible to walk away now. And she’s afraid.

//Oh, but I need you

Far more than I ever want you

It's such an unnatural thing we do

When falling in love's just so hard to do

Hard to do//

She can’t bring herself to look at him after she tells him what’s going on with her. But when Neil touches her and takes her hand, she can’t keep it inside anymore. Then he tells her that he loves her, and everything floods her at once. Fear. Guilt. Love. All that combined with his simple plea is enough to finally make her give in.

Damien Rice - I don’t want to change you

I had it on repeat since the moment Neil touched her. The softness of what happens there, melting the barriers once and for all.

//Wherever you are

You know that I adore you

No matter how far

Well, I can go before you

And if ever you need someone

Well, not that you need helping

But if ever you want someone

Know that I am willing//

He’s there for her. Always has been, always will be.

//Oh, and I don't want to change you

I don't want to change you

I don't want to change your mind//

Here. I think that’s what is really important about them and their relationship.

//I've never been with anyone

In the way I've been with you

But if love is not for fun

Then it's doomed

'Cause water races

Water races down the waterfalls//

Lucy Spraggan - Run

Ha, this kinda feels like an end-credits song, don’t you think?

//I just to run to the end of the world

Just to see if it's possible

I don't care what I've been told

I want to run to the end of the world

I'm going to run,run,run

Bye bye problems

Run 'til the road hits the sea

You better run,run,run

If you want to be free//

Granted, she didn’t run off without Neil, but found a way to run with him instead. There’s that heart-bursting light and freedom in this song, I think it captures that happiness they found, working it all out in the end.

//I wanna feel invincible

One more mile out of principle

I want to see the whole damn world

One cross road can change it all//

Travelling the world. Doing what they like most. Together.

------

Quite a journey that was.

Thank you all for taking it with me.

#long nights #long nights playlist #bts long nights

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happylifefanfic · 3 years

Text

Safe Place Chapter 3

“Come on, man. Tell me more about her,” Buck insisted as he and Eddie double checked the equipment on the truck to make sure everything was operating correctly.

Eddie heaved a big sigh before turning around to face his friend.

“Buck, I really don’t know her that well. I’m not sure what else you want me to tell you,” Eddie said with frustration lacing his voice.

“Dude, she’s been babysitting Christopher every time we have to work and she’s off. Plus, she’s all Christopher talks about. I think he has a crush on her. Besides, you’ve totally glossed over the most important detail of all,” Buck said with a grin.

“And what would that be?” Eddie asked as he rolled his eyes.

“Is she single?” Buck said, clapping his hands together. Eddie’s frown deepened into a scowl.

“I don’t know,” he spat out between clenched teeth.

“Well, find out for me! Emma could be the one I’ve been waiting for,” Buck said with a hopeful expression on his face.

“No way in hell, Buck,” Eddie growled, shaking his head. He immediately regretted biting his friend’s head off, but he couldn’t shake the fury that ran through his body at the thought of Buck dating Emma. Or anyone dating Emma for that matter.

“Okay then. I’ll just ask Athena,” Buck said before turning around and pulling out his phone to tap out a text. Eddie watched his friend walk away in dismay. When he walked away from Emma that night a few weeks back, he knew in his gut that he had made a mistake. Even though he had tried dating again after Shannon’s death, nothing ever felt completely right. He’d gotten close once with Anna, but in the end he knew that he’d run away from her out of fear. He’d never been good with the unknown and a new relationship scared him more than he had realized. By the time he had decided he was ready to overcome his fear, Anna had moved on and was happy in a new relationship. Eddie couldn’t blame her. She deserved someone who had his shit together and wasn’t going to run scared every time they tried to take their relationship to the next level.

“Eddie, can we talk?” Bobby asked as he came to stand next to the younger firefighter who looked like he was trying to solve the world’s problems while he was inspecting their equipment.

“Sure,” Eddie said, putting down the clipboard he had in his hands.

“I wasn’t sure I should say anything, but I just got a call from Athena. Apparently Buck is trying to get Athena to set him up with Emma. Athena is concerned because she’s convinced that there is something going on between you and Emma,” Bobby said, causing Eddie to sigh loudly again.

“Nothing is going on between Emma and me, Bobby. She’s kept Christopher for me a few times when we had opposite shifts, but that’s it. She’s my neighbor, Christopher’s sometimes babysitter, and a friend,” Eddie replied.

“Well, if you’re sure, then Athena can’t really hold Buck off much longer,” Bobby said with a chuckle. “He’s driving her nuts.”

“I can only imagine,” Eddie said, sparing a grin.

Bobby opened his mouth to say something else when the alarm sounded causing the 118 to burst into a flurry of action. Several moments later they were racing towards the scene of an emergency. Bobby listened carefully to the information being relayed by dispatch.

“Dispatch, repeat that,” Bobby said, wanting to confirm what he’d just heard. The words that echoed through his headset caused his heart to speed up.

“What’s wrong, Cap?” Chim asked from the backseat of the firetruck. Bobby turned around and made eye contact with Eddie.

“There’s been an officer involved shooting at a shopping center,” Bobby said flatly.

“Is it Athena?” Hen asked on edge. Bobby shook his head.

“Athena was one of the officers on the scene,” Bobby said, maintaining eye contact with Eddie.

“Emma?” Eddie managed to say.

“She was shot, Eddie. Dispatch said she’s still breathing, but she’s unconscious,” Bobby said with sympathy in his eyes. Eddie just stared at Bobby as he slowly nodded his head.

“Hen, when we get there, you and Chimney are to work on Emma. Buck, you need to help keep the scene clear so we can get the ambulance out of there ASAP.”

“What about Eddie?” Buck asked, looking between his friend and his Captain.

“Eddie knows what he needs to do,” Bobby said as the truck came to a stop. The team of firefighters immediately jumped from the truck and ran to assess the situation. Hen, Chim, Bobby, and Eddie found Athena leaning over Emma’s still body on the ground near their police car. Athena had her hands pressed down hard on Emma’s upper left side of her chest. Hen and Chim immediately knelt down to begin assessing Emma’s injury. Bobby stood to the side and put his arm around Athena when she rose to her feet.

Eddie knelt down at Emma’s head as he watched his friends rush to stop the bleeding from the gunshot wound that was too close to the location of her heart.

“Eddie?”

His eyes shot down to see Emma’s green ones staring up at him. The corners of her eyes and mouth were pinched in pain. His right hand immediately found its way to cup her cheek.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as he leaned down closer to her face. Emma’s eyes drifted close briefly before blinking open.

“I’m okay, but I’ve been better,” she said. A second later a loud gasp left her as Chim pressed down on the gunshot wound. Eddie’s other hand reached out to cup Emma’s other cheek.

“Focus on me,” he said. “Hen and Chim are going to take the best care of you. We’re going to get you to the hospital and you’ll be good as new.”

Emma nodded her in reply as a tear leaked out from each eye. Eddie hated to see her in pain. In that moment, he would do anything to take her pain away from her. Within moments, she had been loaded onto a stretcher and was being put into the back of an ambulance. Eddie stood beside the ambulance as Hen and Chim got Emma settled inside. A hand came to rest on his shoulder and he turned to see Bobby standing there.

“Go with her,” Bobby said. Eddie nodded before climbing into the back of the ambulance to sit beside Emma. Memories hit him hard as remembered a different ambulance ride with another woman that had meant so much to him. Eddie reached out to take Emma’s hand in his. She squeezed his hand in return.

“Emma, I’m going to put this oxygen mask over your face,” Hen said as she moved the mask to cover Emma’s nose and mouth. The rest of the ride to the hospital was filled with Hen and Chim asking Emma questions. Eddie sat there silent as he held Emma’s hand as tightly as he could. He thanked God that she was still conscious the whole time. When they reached the hospital, Eddie helped remove the stretcher from the ambulance and then followed it into the emergency room. Hen and Chim filled the nurses and doctor in on the injury while Eddie continued to hold Emma’s hand.

“Sir, you need to move so we can take care of her,” a nurse said as she put her hand on Eddie’s arm to move him back.

“I’ll be right outside,” Eddie said to Emma as he squeezed her hand. Her eyes found his and she nodded at him before the nurse moved into his line of sight.

Nearly an hour later, Eddie was ready to climb the walls of the waiting room. They had heard nothing about Emma yet and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could wait.

“This is ridiculous,” Athena muttered. “Don’t you know someone you can talk to, Hen?”

“Let me see what I can find out,” Hen said, going to look for a nurse.

Eddie sighed as he paced across the floor again.

“You care about her,” he heard Buck say. His brown eyes shot up to meet Buck’s gaze.

“Of course, I do. She’s a friend,” Eddie said.

“You know that this is more than just worrying about a friend,” Buck said. “If she was just a friend, Bobby would have had you helping me direct traffic at the scene. If she was just a friend, you wouldn’t have ridden in the ambulance with her. If she was just a friend, you wouldn’t be pacing like this.”

“What do you know?” Eddie said as he cut his eyes at Buck and continued to pace.

“I know that you’ve been scared to give a relationship another try. I know that you looked like you were going to cry when you heard Bobby say that Emma had been shot. I know that you watch Emma every time she’s around even though you think no one notices. I know that you were insanely jealous earlier when I said something about dating Emma,” Buck said softly. Eddie stopped pacing to look at his friend.

“It’s okay for you to care about her. It’s okay for you to have feelings for her,” Buck said.

“I-I-” Eddie started to say, but was interrupted.

“Who’s here for Emma Sullivan?” a doctor asked. The firefighters and Athena all stood together. Athena took a step forward.

“I’m her partner,” she said. “How is she?”

“She’s resting right now. The bullet missed her heart by three centimeters. She’s very lucky. Based on what we could tell from her bullet proof vest, the bullet went through the velcro strap that connects the vest to her shoulder,” the doctor said.

“But she’s going to be okay, right?” Eddie asked as he moved to stand next to Athena who placed her hand on his arm.

“She’s going to make a full recovery. I want to keep her overnight, but I don’t see why she shouldn’t be able to go home tomorrow,” the doctor said.

“Thank God,” Athena breathed. “When can we see her?”

“Two of you can come with me and I’ll take you to her,” the doctor said, turning to hold open the door to the hallway. Athena and Eddie followed him with no hesitation. Moments later they were entering a hospital room to find Emma lying on a bed in a hospital gown. Athena went to her right side while Eddie sat down in a chair on the left side of the bed. Emma’s eyes fluttered open to see Athena smiling down at her.

“Hi,” she croaked.

“Boy, am I glad to see you’re okay,” Athena said as she ran a hand across Emma’s forehead.

“Thank you. Did you get the guy?” Emma asked squinting her eyes at Athena.

“We sure did,” Athena said. A shifting sensation on the bed caused Emma to look to her left. Eddie was sitting in a chair beside her bed with his hands clasped between his knees.

“Hey, neighbor,” Emma said quietly, causing Eddie to meet her gaze. The emotion she saw swirling in his eyes caused her heart to beat faster.

“Well, I’m going to run to your place and grab some clothes for you,” Athena said, patting Emma’s hand. “Do you need anything else?”

“Just my phone charger and a toothbrush,” Emma said. “Thank you, Athena.”

“You’re welcome. Get some rest. I’ll be back in a while.”

Once Athena had left the room, Emma focused her attention on Eddie.

“Are you okay?” she asked. His brown eyes had been looking down at his hands again. They slowly rose to meet her gaze.

“I’m better now,” he said. “You scared the life out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispered. “I thought I had the situation under control and the second guy came up from behind me.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Eddie said leaning forward slightly to rest his hands on the bed near Emma’s hip.

“Thank you for being here,” Emma said. “You should probably get going though. Christopher will be home from school soon.”

“Buck is going to pick him up for me and keep him tonight at his place.”

“Eddie, you can go home and be with Christopher. I’m going to be fine,” Emma said.

“You’re stuck with me, Sullivan,” Eddie said with a small smile on his face.

“Eddie--”

“Emma, just accept it. I’m staying here with you until you get to come home. I know that I have been sending you mixed signals and I’m sorry. You’re important to me and I didn’t realize just how important until today. So, I’d like to stay,” Eddie said as he took her left hand in between both of his.

Emma just stared at him for a few seconds before she nodded her head slightly.

“Okay, Eddie, okay.”

#9-1-1 #9-1-1 imagine #eddie diaz

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set-phasers-to-whump · 3 years

Text

broken bones

prompt: broken bones

whumpee: eddie diaz

fandom: 911

hey i am back with another street fighting eddie fic. this is set after he’s stopped street fighting but he goes back for this. bad idea eddie. but i will let you read on!!

Eddie bounces around the ring, light on the balls of his feet, hands raised, expertly ducking and blocking nearly all of his opponent’s punches. One or two hit him, but he barely feels them, too caught up in focusing on the fight.

He lashes out with a right hook that his opponent blocks with a swift arm, slamming into it with such an intense force Eddie’s surprised it hadn’t hurt the guy. He strikes out with another punch, which is countered, and receives a solid blow to the nose that knocks him off balance for a second.

He regains his sense of balance and launches himself again at his opponent with renewed strength brought on by the stinging feeling on his face. He lands a solid punch to the guy’s chest, leaning into it a bit too much, so that the guy in turn has easy access for a punch to his ribs.

The hit connects, and he stumbles back for a fraction of a second, during which time his opponent leaps at him, a flurry of punches coming his way like all of a sudden the guy is desperate to win within the next five seconds.

Which he doesn’t. Eddie avoids some of the blows and absorbs the rest, launching himself back with a similar intensity. Two punches to the chest, one punch blocked with a slam down of the arm, a punch to the face…

They separate after a few seconds, both near the edge of exhaustion but evidently equally willing to push themselves past that point if it means winning. Which Eddie is going to do. Has to do.

The arena has gone fairly silent, apparently in anxious preparation for the final blows of the fight, which everyone can see are coming, Eddie imagines. But even his opponent has gone weirdly still, looking at him like he’s not sure what it is he’s seeing. Eddie reaches up his arm to wipe a bead of sweat away from his eyes, hears a strange ooh sound resonate through the crowd, gives it no thought, and launches himself back for a final knockout punch.

Which comes, but not from him. A glove hits him in the chin, oddly soft, and ordinarily he doubts this is the kind of punch to take him out, but evidently his head had snapped back harder than he’d thought, because his vision starts to spin and he sinks to the ground.

Blood rushes in his ears, but normally he can at least hear the crowd cheering faintly over the noise. Now they’re dead silent. He hopes that doesn’t mean the cops are here.

Eddie looks around, blinking stars out of his vision, and sees several pairs of eyes trained on him. He’s too dizzy to see what kind of emotion they’re conveying, but the low murmur that’s started up tells him it’s probably nothing good.

Someone grabs him around his left bicep and pulls him to his feet suddenly, leaving his head spinning far worse than it had been before. They drag him out of the ring and push him in the general direction of his truck.

“Wha’s goin on?” he asks. “‘M not leavin yet.”

“Yes, you are,” says an unfamiliar voice. “You’re done for the night, Diaz, and in fact, I don’t wanna see you back here anytime soon. Understand me?”

Eddie nods, though he absolutely does not understand. What had he done wrong? Sure he’d got beat, but that was a one-time thing. He’s good at this. He…

His right arm is wet. Wet? He reaches out his left hand to touch the wetness, which feels like it’s too much to be sweat.

In the dim glow of a singular lamppost, he sees the wetness glistening red on his fingers. He looks at it with a frown on his face, wondering where it had come from, and then looks at his arm.

Which is...oh god.

He turns his head away from it immediately, trying and failing not to gag, feeling the pain swell up all at once, screaming and red-hot and physically sickening.

He looks again, very briefly, in some crazy desire to make sure he’d seen what he’d seen.

He had. There’s a bone - his bone - sticking through the skin of his forearm, which is covered in his own blood. He screws his eyes shut like not having the option of looking at it will somehow make it better.

Which it doesn’t, of course. Now that he’s seen it, there is no stopping the pain that radiates from his arm, engulfing his entire body so that it’s literally the only thing he’s capable of paying attention to. Hot tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and he lets them fall, hating the way they feel like the blood that’s dripping from his arm. He sinks to the ground, leaning his back against the lamppost, not moving his arm at all, even to a position that might make it a little more comfortable.

He needs...he has to…

He doesn’t know. There’s something...someone, who will help him. But that’s as far as his brain will allow him to think before it’s pulling him back under the frothing ocean of pain.

Buck.

The name comes to him without him needing to focus on it. He can’t think about who Buck is, but simply knows who he is - a big smile, a bigger heart, video games with Chris, teamwork on calls, love, trust. Buck will help him.

Shaking, bloody fingers find his phone in the duffle bag next to him, which he hadn’t even realized anyone had given him. He briefly blinks open his eyes to unlock his phone and find Buck’s contact - both acts done with no conscious thought behind them - and then Buck’s voice is in his ear and everything hurts so, so much, but he knows with absolute certainty that he is going to be okay.

He can’t find the energy or the focus to speak and feels himself descend further into the pain, but above the roar of it in his ears he hears Buck’s voice saying he’s coming, and to just hold on.

There’s a hand on his face, cool against the heat that engulfs his whole body.

“-die? Can you hear me?”

He forces his eyes open and finds himself staring at Buck, whose hand is cupping his cheek and preventing him from turning his face to look at his arm. “Hey,” he manages to whisper, feeling the word grate through his body like sandpaper.

“Hey,” Buck says softly, and the hand rubs gently against Eddie’s cheek. “I’m gonna take care of you, okay?”

Eddie nods. Buck’s gonna take care of him...he focuses on that thought as Buck slowly slips an arm around his left arm and shoulder, pulling him carefully to his feet.

The change in position makes him even dizzier than he had been before, and he turns his head away from Buck and pukes, trying to focus on the feeling of Buck’s hand on his back until the dizziness fades ever so slightly.

“You good?” Buck asks, after a moment, and Eddie takes a shaky step in response, not bothering to try and talk.

They make it the rest of the way to Buck’s jeep without incident, and Buck helps Eddie into the passenger seat, then heads around to the back of the car.

He returns to Eddie’s side in seconds, and tells Eddie to keep his eyes closed. Eddie feels something press into his arm, barely able to be felt over the pain, and then he feels something else touching both sides of his arm, and some part of his mind instinctively knows it’s a splint.

“Don’t move it,” Buck says, which Eddie’d needed no encouragement not to do. He hears a seatbelt click and realizes it’s his own, and hears his door slam and the driver’s side door open, and then the car starts.

They’re driving, and Buck’s not saying anything to him, and Eddie desperately wants him to. He’s growing slowly used to the pain, so that thoughts are coming more easily, and they’re all terrible and he just wants to hear Buck’s voice, even if it’s yelling at him.

“I thought you were done with this,” Buck says eventually.

“Was,” Eddie breathes. “Just...needed t’...let off some steam.”

“And there wasn’t any better way to do that?”

“Sorry.” He genuinely is sorry. He knows this hadn’t been his best idea, but he’d just felt so overwhelmed the past few days, so out of his own control...and he knows this. Knows fighting. So he’d come. He doesn’t suppose he’ll be doing it again, though.

Buck doesn’t say anything else, and Eddie wishes again that he would, that he’d lecture him forever, tell him he hates him, anything, just so that he knows Buck’s still there. So he knows he’s not alone.

“It’s okay, Eddie,” Buck says, which is not at all what Eddie’d expected him to say next. His hand comes to rest on Eddie’s thigh, a grounding weight, and Eddie focuses on it, on Buck, for all he’s worth.

“I get it,” Buck continues. “As much as I can, anyway. I’ve been known to cope poorly with things too.” He laughs, short and low.

“And I’m mad at you. Really mad. Your - well, you know - you went back to something you promised you were done with and you really got hurt, Eds.”

He knows. God, he knows. He feels the hot tears return to his eyes and tries valiantly to hold them back, like he’s losing something by letting them go now, with Buck.

The car stops, then, and Eddie feels it shift into park. Buck’s hand moves from his leg to his face, brushing away the tears that have begun to fall despite Eddie’s best efforts. There’s a gentleness to the touch that he hates and loves in equal measure.

“It’s okay,” Buck repeats. “It’s gonna be okay, Eddie.”

He wants to believe that. He does. And when it’s Buck saying it...

Very slowly, Eddie opens his eyes, needing suddenly to look at Buck. His eyes are shiny in the dark, familiar and comforting amidst the pain.

I love you, Eddie thinks, and the pain must make him bold for a split second, because he lifts his left hand to place it atop Buck’s, still on his cheek, and says it out loud.

Buck says nothing, but gently moves Eddie’s hand and his own, and gets out of the car. For a single second Eddie panics, but then Buck’s opening his door into the parking lot of the hospital and giving him a hand out, not even waiting for Eddie to stumble before grabbing hold of him. But instead of supporting him around the shoulders, Buck very carefully hugs him and presses a soft, quick kiss to Eddie’s temple.

“I love you, too,” he whispers against Eddie’s skin, and without another word he’s leading Eddie along to the Emergency entrance, the letters glowing in the dark like blood, or maybe like the pink Eddie sees on Buck’s cheeks. He’s a little too dizzy to think too hard about which it is, but the dizziness seems like the least important thing in the world. He keeps his eyes open, focusing them on Buck and Buck alone.

“I love you,” he says again, like he needs to be sure Buck had really heard him, like Buck knows what he’s getting himself into.

“You said that already,” Buck reminds him, stopping for a brief second to return Eddie’s gaze, strong and sure even through the dark, “but you can say it again as much as you want. I love you, too.”

They step together through the sliding doors, Buck’s arm around Eddie’s shoulder, and despite the pain still raging in his arm, Eddie finds himself smiling. He loves Buck.

And Buck loves him, too.

skhfldsfhldfsd i hope you liked this!!! i feel i may be too repetitive with my constant “eddie gets hurt and then there’s a love confession and it’s very sweet” fics but they bring me a lot of joy lmao. but let me know if there’s something you’d rather me do! anyhow thanks for reading :)

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhumpday16 #broken bones #911 #eddie diaz #broken arm #cared for #my writing #i say things

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thoughtfullyyoungduck · 4 years

Text

Lost letters

Summary: Richie and Eddie reunite when Mike calls them back to defeat an old enemy. As soon as Richie sees Eddie, his old feelings hit him like a train.

warnings: some curse words, Richie is a bit negative towards himself at some point (not too long)

The first thing Richie thought off, when Mike called, wasn’t Eddie, despite how much Richie would tell himself that was, or anyone else from the losers club for that matter.

No, the first thing Richie remembered was the feeling of hatred towards Derry. He couldn’t remember why, the memories still hadn’t come back to him, still whipped away thanks to the curse that IT had put over them, but the feeling he recognized straight away.

When he had finally made it too the restaurant, recognizing Beverly and Ben, his mind had provided him with the memory of an angel, Eddie Kaspbrak.

He watched, or stared more like, as Beverly and Ben reunited, but all he could feel was complete and utter heartbreak. He remembered the neurotic hypochondriac very clearly now, and Richie couldn’t imagine not knowing he excited. He almost felt excited to walk into the restaurant, to see what had come of his former best friend, the boy who he had his very first crush on.

The feeling was quickly replaced though, with a feeling of helplessness, and a feeling of disgust. Not towards Eddie, Richie could never feel anything but good towards Eds, but to himself.

The memories of days sitting in the hammock, close enough to Eddie to be able to count all the freckles on his face, often already halfway before he realized what he was doing, and look away with glancing eyes to see if anyone had noticed. Luckily, nobody ever, to the best of his ability to recall, ever did.

He would spend almost every night with Eddie in his bedroom, climbing to his window, even when Richie almost fell down, just so he could talk to him, to sleep in his proximity.

He’d lie to Sonia about having to work with Eddie on homework, before dragging him out to the arcade, or the barrens with some new comic books, that they would completely read in an hour. Then they would complain about having to wait so long for the next one.

When the losers would have movie nights, he’d make sure he could sit by Eddie every time, spending the entire movie pouting if he didn’t.

His heart stops completely when he thinks about the kissing bridge, and how scared he had been that Bowers or anyone was watching him. Waiting until he was finished so they could beat his ass for being a ‘fag’ after. He recalls something else about the carvings too though. He also felt a sense of security.

He was always so scared that he was misinterpreting his feeling. Like he wasn’t really in love with Eddie, and was just mistaken because he had never been in love. It was on his mind constantly, and it made him sick. He had asked his mother about it once, and she had responded to the best of her ability’s. Richie had asked her how she knew that his father was the ‘one’.

Though Richie’s parents weren’t perfect, and neither was their relationship, it was clear to 15 year old Richie that his parents loved each other very much. His mother had smiled, in a way that only she could, a smile that held a secret, not necessarily bad, just something that was hidden.

‘I knew because I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Because when I was scared or upset, the only person I wanted next to me was Went.’ She stared forward a little vacantly, as if she was lost in memories from older times.

‘I was certain that I wanted to marry Went and have a wonderful child with him,’ she gently nudged Richie, ‘because I couldn’t imagine having to live without him.’

It was then that Richie knew. He knew that he loved Eddie, and he also knew, that he would do everything in his power to keep it a secret from everyone. His mom still had her significant smile on her face. She leaned down and dropped her voice to a quiet murmur.

‘Just because your dad fell in love with a woman, doesn’t mean you have to.’ Then, without waiting for a reply, she ruffled his hair and walked out of their kitchen. Richie had gaped at her, too stunned for once in his life to respond to what she had said.

The carving on the bridge, gave him a security. That he feeling were real, and valid. Regardless of the fact that nobody knew of them, he had them, and he would most likely continue to have them.

Younger Richie was dumb, considering he did forget about his feelings, carved in the bridge or not. But standing in Derry, waiting to make himself known, it was like all his memories that were Eddie related came rushing back in. Richie wanted to throw up again.

He wondered if Eddie was already in the jade oriental, recollecting him. Richie banned that thought from his mind immediately. He was not going that path right now. He wouldn’t let himself internalize the emotions that were threatening to overwhelm him. God he needed a fucking drink.

‘Wow,’ he started saying as he saw Ben and Beverly hug. He didn’t want to wait any longer. ‘You guys look great, what the fuck happened to me?’ Beverly and Ben turned to face him, all smiles and adoring looks. Richie smiled too, feeling happy at seeing his friends again, even if barely two days ago he hadn’t remembered them.

He reached forward to hug Ben, glancing up and down his body. He had gotten smoking, but he seemed to have kept his kindness all the same. ‘Richie’, he said, as if it wasn’t obvious already. He pulled his hands out of his pocket, gripping Ben’s shirt in his hands before pulling back. Then Ben step aside so Richie could hug Beverly.

Beverly, who he felt returning the hug attentively, and Richie released some of the strength he was hugging her with without second though. Beverly relaxed and Richie was transported into the past, them standing behind the school courtyard to smoke, out of sight from everyone expect each other.

Richie feels a stab of longing, even though he hasn’t thought of his childhood for so long. He thinks back to the feeling of utter dread when he got the call, wondering why it was that he wasn’t exciting to come back. He knows that the answer is right there, on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. He’s starting to suspect it’s just going to hit him in the face.

He follows behind Bev and Ben as they walk into the restaurant, like a petulant child who has misbehaved and has to follow his parents to get punished. He feels scared, even though Eddie has no idea what his feeling are, and it wasn’t like he can read his thoughts, but he just is.

When they reach the table, where three others are present, all with their back turned, Bev and Ben wait. It may be that they’re having their own nostalgic moments, but Richie doesn’t really care. Now that he can see Eddie standing in front of him, he just has to get a glimpse of Eddie’s face.

He glances beside him and sees a bong, and he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t reach for it and slammed it harshly, alerting their presence. Mike, Eddie and Bill turn around as fast as they can, the silence and tranquil moment broken by the loud sound. Richie doesn’t give them a chance to say anything, and just vocalizes the first thought he has.

‘This meeting of the losers club has officially began.’

He meets Eddie’s eyes. Richie drops his eyes as soon as they do, but not before taking all of Eddie in.

He looks older, which is logical, but Richie can’t help but feel wondered by it. He has stress lines and a few wrinkles here and there, and Richie wants nothing more but to make him smile so they go away. He has a few grey hairs here and there, and he still looks so small. Richie can’t help but think that he’s a giant compared to him.

‘Look at these guys.’

Eddie smiles, his dimples appearing, and Richie swears his heart stops for a few moments. His voice is rougher, his pipsqueak sound has turned mature. Richie wants to hear Eddie talking all day.

Deflect. His mind supplies, so that’s what Richie does. Hopefully, he’s learned something from the acting classes his manager forced him to take. He points to Ben, who’s not looking at him. Making a motion of a slimming body, because holy hell. If Richie wasn’t so hopelessly in love with Eddie, he would tap Ben faster than anyone could blink. ‘Ben’, he mounts, just as the man himself turns around. Richie smiles at him, acting like his nose bleeds. That seems to be a pattern with him.

After that, things are alright. They sit at their table, at first a little unsure of how to act around each other, but after only a few minutes, it’s like they’ve always done this. Like they do this every day.

They order Chinese food, and Richie forgets all about the bad feeling he had, about Derry, but also about Eddie. It’s familiar to act flirtatious around Eddie without Eddie seeing the double meaning. That reliefs Richie, for he has known to speak the truth but then cover it up by making a joke out of it.

Richie orders a shot, drinking it blowjob style. He used to do that all the time in college, it was a trick he had up his sleeve to seduce the guys he was interested in. It didn’t work all the time, more like ever, but Richie still does it again.

He doesn’t know if it’s to impress Eddie, or just because it causes him to get drunk faster.

When he spits the glass back out, his filter falls out too. ‘So wait Eddie you got married?’ he asks. As soon as the word come out of his mouth, he wants to slap himself over the head. He’s such an idiot. Why the fuck would he asks that?

Luckily, it riles Eddie up, and he doesn’t notice the way Richie’s eyes sadden despite himself when he glances at the ring.

‘Yo why is it so fucking funny dickwad?’ He bites, and Richie can’t help himself.

‘What to like a woman?’ He coats his words with an air of arrogance. Trying to conceal how he really feels. Why he truly wants to know. Logically he knows it’s not going to do him any good. Eddie is not going to be gay, he probably despises homosexuals. If he would know that Richie was one, they would have never been best friends before.

Beverly glances his way, and it looks like she’s trying to decipher something.

‘Fuck you bro’, Eddie replies, but he looks amused as he says it. He doesn’t mean it. Silently, Richie lets out a sigh of relief.

Richie laughs, a real one for a change. ‘Fuck you’, he yells back, resisting the urge to stick out his tongue like a child.

‘Okay what about you trashmouth’, Bill asks. Out of the blue Richie remembers where he got his nickname for his comedy shows.

‘Did you get married?’

Richie thinks to himself that no, he isn’t married. He would have loved to be married to Eddie though.

‘there’s no way’, Beverly laughs, hearty and honest. Richie senses a gateway to an old joke. ‘No, I got married’, he says with full confidence. Looking around the table to make sure that everyone’s listening. Eddie seems very interested, but Richie writes that off as his own imagination.

‘Rich, I don't believe you’, Beverly exclaims, reaching for another piece of food.

‘When?’, Eddie asks. If Richie didn’t know any better, he’d say Eddie was jalousy. He knows that’s not the case though.

‘Haven't you heard of that?’, he asks instead, looking Eddie straight in his eyes.

‘No,’ Eddie claimed, no breaking eye contact for one second.

‘You do not know?’

‘No.’

‘Your mother and I are very happy now.’ He sees the exact moment that Eddie comprehends his words, his face turning into a scowl. Richie shakes with laughter.

‘Fuck you’, Eddie says once calmly, and then again, angrier, as if the joke is still registering.

‘She is so sweet. Sometimes she’ll put her arm around me and whisper; and then Richie does his best Chewbacca impression. Doing the voices, it’s like there’s another wall between him and the outside world, another layer they would have to get through to get to know them. He doesn’t let them.

‘We all get it: my mom is a great big fat person. Hilarious, hysterical.’ Eddie looks like he’s actually contemplating killing Richie, and all he can do is laugh. He missed this, even if he didn’t known it was this specific thing he was missing, he still felt like part of himself wasn’t there. It turns out that part is Eddie shaped, but Richie’s not sure if he wants to delve deeper into that.

‘Is Richie making another your mom joke, Eddie?’ A new voice speaks up from behind the table, and when Richie turns around, he comes face to face with Stanley Uris. He hadn’t even thought of him when he was laughing with the others, but now that he’s here, Richie can’t imagine forgetting that they were missing their seventh member.

Stan’s lips are pulled in a grimace, and his face look ashen pale. He’s terrified, even though Richie has no idea why. The nagging feeling that he was still forgetting something nagged at the back of his mind, but Richie got up to hug Stan, and the feeling went away.

Stan stiffened when Richie’s armed circled around him, but then he seemed to shrug and he hugged back.

‘Stanley the manley’, Richie joked. Stan didn’t look amused, but he ultimately decided to just let it go. When Richie turned around to sit back down on his seat, he noticed that Eddie was staring at him. Richie smiled at him, trying to get a reaction out of him, but Eddie didn’t shift his gaze, and only did eventually, when Stan came up to greet him.

As soon as Eddie’s eyes were off Richie, he shivered. He wanted to ask Eddie if everything was alright, but he didn’t want to be alone with Eddie. He also didn’t want to attract any more attention to Eddie, just in case something was really wrong and he wanted to keep it hidden from everyone.

Stan chooses the only open seat there’s left, which means he’s placed in between Richie and Eddie. Richie is both equally annoyed and grateful.

‘So Stan, are you married?’ Eddie asks once things have quiet down. Richie looks down and sure enough, there’s a ring present on his finger. Stan smiles, toying with it a few times while nodding his head.

‘Yeah. Her name is Patricia, or rather Patty, and she’s amazing. I’m lucky to have her.’

The look on his face is one of pure adoration, and Richie is really happy for him, Stan deserves it.

‘I mean it’s weird right,’ Ben says, turning the conversation over. ‘Things are starting to come back faster and faster now that I’m here.’

Richie understands what he means, he feels the same way. It’s weird being in a room full of people who were once your whole world, and Richie hadn’t recalled them for years, only to now come back and know everything again.

‘When Mike called I threw up,’ he says, feeling everyone’s eyes on him. ‘Is that weird? I got nervous and sick so I threw up. I feel fine now, I’m very relieved that I’m here with you guys.’

Everybody is still looking at him, and Richie feels nauseous again. He wonders if he said to much, again. He wants to drop from his chair and hide out anywhere, he wishes everyone would stop looking at him.

‘Why is everyone looking at me like that?’ he asks instead.

‘I crashed my car when Mike called’, Eddie mumbles, his eyes looking at the table.

‘Seriously?’ Bill asks, seconds before Richie does the same. He looks Eddie over, looking for any wounds, but he seems physically fine.

When Richie’s eyes peer at Mike, he seems awfully guilty.

‘Man I hear ya. I mean my heart started pounding right out of my chest’, Ben agrees.

‘I though it was only me.’ Bev replies, staring vacantly in front of her.

‘It was like pure f-f-f-.’ Bill looks mortified, not being able to spit out the word. It’s clear as day to Richie in an instant that he had a stutter, all the way through the third year of high school. He might have head one later too, but Richie didn’t know him beyond that year.

‘Fear’, Mike interrupts, ‘It is fear. What you all feel.’

‘Why do we all feel like that Mike?’ Richie has never seen Mike as nervous as he is now. It’s jarring.

Next to him, Stan hasn’t said a word. Worriedly Richie glances at him, but Stan adamantly doesn’t meet his eyes.

‘You remember something we don’t, don’t you Mike?’ Bill inquires, picking up that Mike is trying to dodge the subject.

‘Something happens to you when you leave this town. The further you go, the hazier it all gets. But me, I’ve never left. I remember all of it.’

Richie frown, and the feeling he first got when Mike called is coming back. He feels bad, his mind reaming at him that he shouldn’t have come back here.

He’s happy Eddie is here though, and the others, so he doesn’t know why. He does the opposite of pushing the feeling away, leaning into it now, because he knows the answer is right there. It’s like looking through water, his memory is muddled but he needs to know what he’s missing, it feels important that he knows.

It doesn’t click until Bev breathes out; ‘Pennywise’

Richie chokes on his own spit. How could he forget. The clown. The fucking clown that had murdered children, and had nearly murdered him and his friends. The terror of the summer of ’89 comes rushing in, and he understands now why he didn’t want to come back at all.

‘ow the fucking clown.’ Eddie seems to have come to the same conclusion. Richie’s breathing start to deepen, he’s panicking, but trying still to cover it up.

‘There’s an echo here in Derry, It bounces back every 27 years.’

Eddie bounces back in his chair, trying to put as much distance between him and Mike. ‘What?’ He’s looking for his inhaler somewhere in his pocket.

‘Hold on listen. We thought we stopped it back then, We thought it was done.’

‘Mike’, Richie wines, a little embarrassing. He doesn’t want to hear what he has to say. He wants him to stop talking.

‘A few days ago, Adrian Melon was slaughtered. Another girl went missing, there have been others and there will be others.’

Everyone is starting to talk over each other now, terrified beyond their comprehension, and Richie just sits there trying to make sense of everything.

‘Let him explain, Let him explain’, Ben tries to sooth. If Richie wasn’t thinking about every possible way he could get out of the restaurant, he might have been charmed by the way Ben always sticks up for others, even years later.

‘That echo? We might have changed IT, just like IT changed us, but we didn’t stop IT. IT just bounced back. We made an ought, that’s why I called you here. That’s why I brought you back. So we could kill it. For real this time.’

Bev breathes in shaky, and it’s then that Richie realizes that Stan still hasn’t said anything for the whole time Mike had been speaking. When he does turn, he decides to not address him, it’s clear that Stan is just as, if not more scared.

Richie knows his place in the group. It’s the same as it has always been. He’s supposed to make a joke, to distract from the horrific thing waiting for them.

‘well that shit got dark fast, thanks Mike.’ He reaches to take a fortune cookie laying on the table, trying to distract everyone, including himself.

The others follow his lead, Eddie first, followed by Bill and the rest of them. When Richie cracks his cookie open, he freezes again. What the fuck.

‘Mine just says die. So I guess I’ll see you fuckers in hell’, he jokes. On the outside he appears funny, but on the inside he’s screaming. He can’t believe this restaurant.

‘Mine says the same thing’, Ben says, showing everyone the paper.

The others also agree, and Richie is just about to ask what kind of sick joke Mike is playing, when the fortune cookies that were still on the table, were starting to crack open, out of nowhere.

He jumps up, after seeing the others do the same, running to the other side of the room by himself.

Despite the fact that his life is most likely at stake, he can’t help but keep his focus on Eddie to make sure he’s okay. He’s not obviously, and Richie wants nothing more than to get him out of this town, back to the safety of any other city.

‘oh shit, oh shit’, Eddie’s mumbling, terrified eyes fleeing around the room.

One of the cookies crack open completely, the wing of a baby bird popping out.

‘What the fuck is that’? Richie complains, trying to get a better look.

He takes a step forward, but jumps back when Eddie yells at him.

‘Would you step back you absolute moron?’ Eddie screeches, reaching his arm out like a mother to her child when the car has to stop suddenly, but he’s too far away to reach Richie, so he drops his arm quick.

He gets a warm feeling at the fact that Eddie is worried about him, but is pushed back into the present when the thing come crawling out, but it has a fucking baby face instead of a head. It’s crying like an actual baby.

When the thing flies to the edge of the table, The other fortune cookies start cracking too.

The one closest to Richie opens to reveal an eye sliming it’s way across the table to Richie.

‘Hey, hey that fortune cookie is looking at me’, he yells, stumbling backwards even more. ‘Shit’

‘I don’t wanna be here’, he hears Eddie say, and his heart clenches. He sees a bat flying towards Eddie and Ben, who promptly hold their arms up to protect themselves. ‘Holy shit,’ Eddie screams.

Their table is getting rearranged, glances and plates falling left and right. When the bat flies in to attack Ben and Eddie, Richie finds his voice again.

‘Hey, Eddie’, he yells useless. He can’t help him from so far away. He wants too though.

Stan is falling to his knees in the far left corner, rocking back and forth like a scared child.

A black goo spreads from the bowl of cookies, like acid burning through everything. The stupid Chinese music is still playing, as if nothing is happening, as if they aren’t fearing for their life.

It surprising that no one has come to check up on them, with all the commotion happening.

Mike comes to a realization, grabbing a chair and banging the table. ‘It’s not real, it’s not real’, he keep repeating, though Richie can’t imagine banging a chair on acid is doing much to help.

Richie crawls up the cabinet, feeling a little fear for Mike’s sanity. When he looks to his left, the waiter has appeared, her eyes are wide as she look around the room.

‘Is everything alright?’ she asks, annoyance and anger lacing her voice.

The black goo is gone, the eye aiming for Richie and the bat have vanished into thin air aswell. Richie can breath easy again.

‘Yeah, can we have the check please.’ He tries to smile to put their waiter at ease. All she does is huff and turn around, no doubt charging them for all the damage.

They hardly wait for the check before bolting, not being able to get out of there fast enough.

He and Eddie shuffle over to Stan, helping him up. Stan looks at them when he’s standing up, tear streaks on his cheeks. ‘Ow fuck.’ He uttered. And yeah, he’s right, oh fuck.

On the way to the exit, it seems that IT’s not done fucking with them yet. When the group passes a kid, looking no older than 10 years old, he addresses Richie.

‘Hey Richie,’ he stops dead in his tracks, the fun is just beginning right?’

Richie has no idea what that means, but as he is just about to ask, while simultaneously lose his mind, Stan grips his arm.

‘No’, he says simply, before marching out with Richie still clenched tightly. Luckily, the kid doesn’t follow them.

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

Richie drives out of the parking spot last. It’s a well thought off choice, because after only 5 minutes of driving very slowly so the others couldn’t see him, he stopped the car and pukes all over the side of the road.

It’s disgusting, and he wishes that could brush his teeth, but he resigns himself to deal with it once he gets back to his hotelroom. He doesn’t want to be alone in fucking Derry. When he gets back into his car, he can see the rustling of some leaves, but he doesn’t stop to take a better look. He slams the door, his tires screeching as he drives away.

When he gets to the in, everyone’s waiting for him. He didn’t take long, but all of their lips are set in a worried line.

He steps out of his car, and Eddie stomps over to him. ‘What the fuck asshole? Are you trying to get killed?’

Richie doesn’t get why the waited, everyone was planning on going home anyway.

‘Sorry’, he just shrugs, and then he steps beside Eddie to go up to his room. The hallway is silent, right until he steps into it. Then they start a ruckus, Mike still desperate to get them to stay. Richie has already made up his mind though. It doesn’t matter if anyone else stays, he’s going home.

He’s already feels like he aged 10 years in barely 5 hours, and he’s keen to forget everything that’s going on here again. He doesn’t want to spend every day looking into things, wondering if Eddie could ever possibly like him back. He doesn’t want to remember that the only guy he’s ever wanted in life, would be repulsed if he knew what Richie was thinking.

He flat out refuses to go back into the sewers where he almost died. Tough luck for the kids that were living in Derry, but he even if he stayed, he wouldn’t be able to be of much help anyway. He was and is a loser, and his friends might have something else going on for them, Richie does not.

He annoys the shit out of people, has no friends, expect maybe Steve but he doesn’t count. Richie has a shitty life but honestly that’s fine by him. At least he doesn’t have to worry about dying that way.

‘Guys, please’, he hears Mike beg, but he ignores it in favor of running up the stairs to the second floor. The Derry inn is so old it doesn’t have an elevator. When he gets up to his floor, he gets stopped by a hand on his shoulder. He stops abruptly, the touch burning his skin. He already knows that it’s Eddie who stopped him, but that doesn’t mean the sight of Eddie standing so close to him takes his breath away.

For a solid second, they don’t say anything. They just stare at each other, waiting for the other to say something. Then Stan bumps them with his shoulder, sending Eddie tumbling in Richie’s chest.

‘Move it losers,’ he teases as he passes them. Richie glares at him while he steadies Eddie. Because of the fall, the two stand even closer together than before. It takes Richie’s breath away.

‘Do you want to come up to my room for a second? Help me pack?’, Eddie asks with a soft voice. Richie knows it isn’t smart, he should probably go to his own room and get everything ready, but it’s Eddie, and Richie could never say no to Eddie.

He smirks, a carefully thought off façade appearing, hiding his real feeling just like he’s always done.

‘Sure thing Eds, go and lead the way my good fellow.’

Eddie’s face remains stoic, but Richie notices that his upper lip is trembling, like he’s fighting against a smile or laugh. ‘Fuck I forgot you did those stupid fucking voices.’

Richie laughs, and Eddie joins him only seconds later. It makes Richie’s heart drop into his stomach. He’s an idiot, why did he say yes to spend time alone with Eddie?

Eddie’s room is almost identical to Eddie’s, except for the fact that Richie’s own room is basically empty, he hadn’t bothered to unpack, while Eddie’s cabinets were full clothing. Richie snorted.

‘Damn Eddie Spaghetti, When did you have time to do all this?’

Eddie throws him a glare. ‘Some of us want order and structure in the room Richard.’

Richie plows down on the bed that’s perfectly made, not a crease to be found. Until he sits down though, he thinks about moving around a bit, just to piss Eddie off some more, but he figures he better not do that when he sees Eddie’s face turn red. He laughs again.

His angry look is undermined by the fondness that is so clearly just bellow the surface. Despite the fact that they shit on each other any change they can, they love each other. Even if for Eddie that feeling of love is strictly platonic.

‘I’m just going to get my toiletry bag’, Eddie explains, before rushing into the bathroom. He closes the door behind him until there’s only a sliver of opening through which they can talk to the other. It doesn’t make sense that Eddie would close the door, but Richie is just happy that he can take a breather.

The room itself is just as ugly as all the others, the wallpaper is falling off, the bed creaks with Richie’s weight, and the air is filled with a stench that smells like death.

Richie is reminded of his grandmother’s house, only in that house there had also been the smell of fresh baked cookies, so Richie would rate that house better.

He listens as Eddie shuffled behind the door for a while, opening dressers and throwing them in what Richie assumes is a bag. He tries to be patient, but he can’t sit still on his best days, and now that he knows there’s a killer clown behind him, he’s even more jittery. When Eddie still hasn’t opened the door after two minutes, Richie decides to speak up.

‘What’s taking so long? Are you jacking off in there?’

The sounds still for about a second, then the clinks of different objects being thrown together doubles.

‘Fuck you asshole. You know I’m not doing that. Myra just hates it when I leave doors open.’

Richie snorts, covering up the fact that he just got hit on the head with the facts once more.

‘Wow, I guess your love life must be really boring then hey, what about the sex?’ he taunts, not sure why he’s putting himself through it.

Eddie doesn’t dignify his comment with a response, so Richie busies himself with twirling the fabric of the bed round and round. His leg begins to jump up and down, and his palms begin to sweat uneasy. He wants to leave, right now.

He promised Eddie that he’d wait though, and he also doesn’t want to risque anything happening to him just because Richie was too much of a coward to stay for five minutes longer.

He jumps up though, pacing around the room. Eddie still hasn’t reappeared from there. He’s just about to groan of annoyance, when he sees something like out of Eddie’s dresser. The drawer hasn’t been fully closed, and a piece of string hangs out on the side.

Richie doesn’t want to pry, really, but he has the urge to see what it’s attached too. He looks back to the bathroom, that’s still firmly shut, and then decides to ignore his commonsense. He’s pretty sure Eddie won’t mind, although, yeah Eddie would without a single doubt mind.

He tries to open the drawer as quiet as he can, which isn’t easy, considering all the furniture is so old it all squeaks. He manages it fairly easy, and grasps the old string without seeing what else is in Eddie’s drawer.

As soon as he dangles the thing in front of his face, he understands why he wanted to see what it was so bad. It was a stupid old thing, just a shell that Richie had found somewhere in Derry, with a hole pinched in, making it a necklace. Richie wore it everyday for a whole year, but recalls now why he gave it away. It was when Eddie was getting ready to leave with his mother, moving out of Derry. Both of them had stood beside Eddie’s old home, crying because they realised what was about to happen. Beside Richie, and of course Mike, Eddie was the last to leave. They already had the knowledge that whoever left town forgot about the others, having seen five examples. Eddie wanted to stay, and Richie had wanted nothing more, but he also knew that Sonia wouldn’t allow it, so he kept silent.

He gave Eddie the necklace, saying that it was okay if he forgot Richie, as long as he remembered that he was brave, and not the sick, scared little boy his mother made him out to be. He gave him the thing in the hopes that he would at the very least know that.

He can’t believe Eddie still has the thing, and he wonders if it was because he knew what it meant, or just a coincidence.

Just as he was mulling it over, Eddie stepped out of the bathroom, stepping towards the wardrobe on the other side of the room.

‘Hey, do you want to go grab a bite or something before we leave and forget completely? I’m starving.’

When Eddie turns around, his eyes became the size of saucer, a couple of emotions running over his face.

Richie can’t help the cocky little smirk on his lips, keeping the necklace away from Eddie’s reach. ‘Can’t believe you kept this, Eds.’

When Eddie reluctantly looks Richie in the eyes and sees the smirk, his face turns into a scowl. ‘Go suck a dick Richie.’

Just like Richie predicated, Eddie tries to take the thing away from him, but Richie lets him. A little shocked by the words that left Eddie’s mouth. Logically, he knows that it means nothing, and it’s just an insult, but he has kept his sexuality in the closet for so long, it has started its own clothing brand.

Eddie grimaces as he tucks away the token in his pocket, looking guilty when he notices that Richie had paled significantly.

‘Sorry’, he apologizes lowly. Richie shrugs the comment off.

‘No worries Eddie Spaghetti,’ he says, even though his heart is racing erratically and all he can think about is don’t ask, don’t ask, please don’t ask.

‘You kept that old thing’, Richie tries to change the subject.

Eddie’s one hand still rest on the pocket of his jacket, where he had stuffed the thing in, his other hand start to shake.

‘Well yeah’, he grumbled, ‘it was the only thing I had left of you.’ His hard eyes look at Richie, like he’s trying to make something clear

‘You didn’t even reply to my letter, and then I forgot, but that ugly old thing always felt important to me.’ Richie’s eyebrows furrow. He has no idea what Eddie is talking about.

‘What letter Eds’, Richie asked bewildered. Eddie looked like he was about to jumps out of his skin. ‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t play dumb. If you didn’t feel the same way you could have at least answered.’

Richie has never in his life been so confused. ‘Eddie,’ he said slowly, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Seriously.’ For once in his entire life he was being completely honest and truthful, and he hoped to god Eddie would believe him.

‘You know the letter. The letter in which I was so fucking embarrassing.’ Eddie seems to have started on a rant, his signature hand movement coming up and acting like he’s chopping up vegetables.

‘I thought maybe, because I’m an idiot, that you had feelings for me too. When you gave me the one necklace you wore all the time, which by the way was absolutely disgusting, I couldn’t help but hope that maybe you had a crush on me too.’ He blushes bright red as he speaks the words.

Richie’s brain stutters.

‘But whatever, fine you didn’t, but I specifically asked you to still be my friend if you didn’t feel the same way, and you just gave me a giant fuck you didn’t you.’

Eddie breathes heavy and fast, grasping for air as he calms down. He’s waiting for Richie to say something, but Richie is too busy swooning on his feet to notice it. The silence that follows is long, awkward and suffocating. Eddie doing his best to appear calm and not embarrassed, while Richie is trying to get his brain rebooted.

‘Shit, Rich I’m sorry.’ Eddie continues out of desperation. ‘I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable again. Shit I’m an idiot. I just hate that you didn’t keep in touch. Why didn’t you? We were best friends.’

Richie’s scared. He’s never been so scared before. The idea of having to admit that he was gay was frightening, but Eddie had just admitted to having a crush on him, and if Eddie had been brave, so could he.

‘you had a crush on me too?’, Richie inquires, though his brain still seems miles away.

Eddie raises an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, we went over that like 2 seconds ago, keep up with the program. Dumbass.’ he adds like an afterthought. ‘Wait, what do you mean too?’

‘Eds,’ Richie takes a step towards Eddie, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ Richie wants to place his sweaty hands on Eddie’s shoulder, to ground himself, but also because it’s been too long since he’s touched him.

It’s Eddie’s time to look bewildered, but he does take a step towards Richie too. ‘I did. I wrote you that stupid letter. I knew I shouldn’t have send it, but I did anyway. I figured why not you know? It wasn’t like I would spend everyday with you and constantly feel awkward, because we lived in different cities.’

Richie gingerly places his hands on Eddie’s shoulders, worried that might push this too far. He was running on autopilot, his brain fried by the fact that Eddie had liked him back. The boy who he cried about at night, would have wiped his tears away. Luckily, Eddie just reaches up, his hands circling Richie’s upperarms tightly. Richie glances down, Eddie’s hand was so much smaller that his.

‘I never got any letter. Trust me, if I would have known, I would have been in whatever city your mother dragged you off too in less than an hour.’

Richie’s glasses are falling of his nose, but before Richie can push it back up, Eddie has already done it for him. Richie’s knees buckle at the casual domestic action.

‘I don’t get it. I gave that letter to my mom to send in the mail. I glued it shut so the letter didn’t have a change to fall out of the envelope.’

Richie lets out a hearty laugh. ‘Really Eduardo? It may fall out of the fucking envelope?’

Eddie rolled his eyes teasingly, his eyes sparkling with barely suppressed joy. ‘Shut up.’

When Richie began to think about it, a lightbulb switched on in his brain. ‘Eddie, did you say your mom was supposed to mail the letter.’

Eddie nodded his head, not seeing where Richie was going with this. ‘So’, he shrugged.

‘Is there maybe a change she took the letter, and just didn’t send it?’

Eddie started to shake his head adamantly, but the longer he thought thing through, the more he comprehended that Richie may have been right. His mother did hate Richie, she always had, and she had been so weird in the weeks after, up until he forget about the losers and Derry.

‘Shit, fuck.’ He spat, ripping away from Richie’s arms to throw something. He settled on a pillow, because Eddie didn’t want to pay more than he had to in this shithole of Derry. Richie watched him do it with amusement in his eyes.

The pillow hit the wall, failing flat on the floor. It didn’t do anything to diffuse the anger that was rising inside of Eddie. He sank down on the bed, where Richie had previously sat. After a beat, Richie joined him.

‘I can’t believe I was so stupid, I knew she would do something like that. I should have just given you the letter in person, but I was a coward, and all I could think about was that no one could find out that I was gay. When I left it didn’t matter, just for the fact that even if someone else would read the letter, at least than they were unable to judge me.’

Richie bumped Eddie’s shoulder with his softly. ‘You’re not a coward.’ When Eddie gave him an unimpressed look, Richie explained.

‘At least you said something, I was too much of a coward to do anything. I just quietly suffered everyday. When you left I wanted to stay in touch, but I didn’t know your address, and I figured you didn’t want me to either. I had no idea that leaving Derry would mean that we would lose are memory.’

‘I waited by the mailbox for weeks, hoping to see a letter of you in it. And she just knew, that I wouldn’t get an answer. I should have connected the dots, she introduced me to Myra that week and forced me to go on a date with her. She looked so smug when I forgot.’

‘She must have been jalouse you were stealing me away from her.’

‘please with your looks?’ Eddie’s joking, he could never be mean to Richie.

‘It worked on you, against all odds,’ Richie counters, and both of them grin. It’s been a while since Richie has felt so carelessly happy. He didn’t come out an say that he was gay, but now someone knew, besides his mother of course, and that person was accepting. More so, he retaliated those same feelings, Richie just wishes he had known sooner.

‘yeah, it did.’ Eddie isn’t laughing anymore, opting to glance between Richie’s eyes to his lips. Richie’s heartbeat picks up again. He wants to kiss Eddie, but he doesn’t have any proof Eddie still likes him, or wants him to.

Eddie surges forward, connecting their lips from an awkward angle. Their first kiss wasn’t like they claimed in movies, where their was fireworks and a big revelation. Their first kiss was honestly bad, but it didn’t matter to Richie, solely for the fact that he was kissing Eddie Kaspbrak, and that would make up for everything. Kissing Eddie was like coming home.

In the span of the next three seconds, Richie comes to two soul crushing conclusions. The first one is that he hasn’t brushed his teeth, after throwing up, which he knew Eddie was going to throw a fit over. Richie already felt his good mood change. The other thing he registered, was that Eddie had a wife.

It was the cold band of the ring on his finger of the hand that was cupping his cheek, he hadn’t even comprehended that Eddie had his hands over him, that made him register it.

He pulles back with a gasp, Eddie tries to follow his lips for a second, before noticing that Richie was about to speak.

‘Your wife’, Richie breathes out, regret filling every pore on his body. He wishes he was more selfish. Eddie brings his other hand up to cup the other side of Richie’s face, waiting till their eyes meet again.

‘I ca- I don’t’, Eddie huffs, not getting across what he’s trying to stay. He takes a breath and tries again. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen Richie, but I know that I don’t wanna lose this, whatever it is. I don’t want lose my memory again, and forget about the losers. I can’t go back to my wife knowing you’re out here in the world somewhere.’

Eddie’s gaze is soft, a small smile playing on his lips. ‘I’ll divorce her, we’ll figure it out, but Rich I can’t loose this again.’

Richie is, again like many times before this evening, speechless. His eyes prickle, and he has to swallow past a brock in his throat. His hand swipes away part of Eddie’s hair, the feeling of it so soft and smooth Richie doesn’t want to take his hand away. He can’t believe the turn his day has taken.

‘I don’t want to lose you either, but you know what that means right?’ Richie wants to make sure that it is what Eddie wants, for in order to remember each other, they would have to defeat Pennywise, for a second time.

‘I’m not stupid jackass. I’m scared, but as long as we have each other it’ll be alright’, Eddie replies, though Richie can feel his hands beginning to tremble.

‘So, can I kiss you again. I haven’t had such a good kiss since the last time me and your mom went out.’

Eddie smacks him across the head lightly, regretting the fact that he just had to fall in love with Richie fucking Tozier. When he looks at Richie and his goofy smile, and beautiful eyes, Eddie thinks he might not regret it as much after all.

When he goes to lean in however, Richie pulls away again. ‘Oh I forgot, I need to go brush my teeth. I kind off threw up on the way here.’

Richie watches Eddie shudder in disgust, ‘go get your toothbrush now.’ He commands. Richie stands up and salutes. ‘Aye Aye captain Edward.’

#reddie #reddie imagine #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrack #eddie imagine #richie tozier imagine #My writing #it chapter two imagine #reddie fluff

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holidaywishes · 4 years

Text

Embers X

Chapter X: this wasn’t the plan

Summary of series: Katie moves from Peachtree, Georgia, to L.A. with her son, Alex, to start fresh after the death of her husband. When she meets Evan Buckley, a young firefighter, she falls fast but will her son be so quick to accept Evan into his life?

Summary of chapter: Evan tries his best to put his feelings about Jeff aside so he could continue to be happy with Katie but when things get a little tense, some words are exchanged that lead to some trouble for Katie.

Warning: Trigger warning for the insinuation of rape, a little bit of angst and a little bit of fighting

Author’s Note: This is the start of the excitement for this series. It’s a little bit long but I hope you don’t hold that against me. Since Buck and Bobby have such a cute father-son relationship, I thought it would be make sense for Katie and Athena to grow closer but wasn’t sure exactly how to do it. So, I decided the best way to do it is by surrounding it in angst. Typical me. I hope you enjoy it. Cheers, xx! 😘

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Evan’s P.O.V

You and Kastie had been seeing each other for almost a year now and things seemed to be going well aside from the few disagreements you’d had about small things. Her family and yours were growing closer every day and it made you feel warm inside.

“So is this like a typical day off for you guys?” Katie asked, referring to the group gathered in Athena and Bobby’s backyard for a barbeque

“Not really,” you laughed, “we don’t get many days off. Usually it’s just a few hours here and there. So we head to a bar. Actually, we usually go to the one where we met.”

“That’s the go-to spot?”

“That’s the go-to spot.” You repeated and she laughed

“Well, thank you,” she said, looking up at you before looking at the group in front of them, “for inviting me here. To spend time with them and get to know your.. family.” You smiled, kissing Katie’s temple before nodding in Alex’s direction

“Looks like he’s having a good time”

“Are you kidding?” she laughed, “he’s got more kids to play with today than he has in months.” She tucked herself in closer to you as Eddie came over with Maddie and Chimney

“This is ridiculous!” Eddie laughed, gesturing to the two couples in front of him, “I mean Maddie and Chimney are expecting their first kid and you two...”

“Yes?” You and Katie said, smiling when Eddie cocked his head to the side

“I miss not being the only single one”

“Aww come on,” Katie cooed, “you’ll find someone.. when you least expect it. We did.” She gestured to the four of them and Eddie dropped his head with a smile

“I hope you’re right,” he smirked, “because I’m gettin’ really tired of having to listen to the hopeless romantics all the time.” Bobby was the last to join everyone, listening to you all laughing from across the backyard, and he smiled while he watched everyone joke with each other; Bobby caught Katie staring at you with a big grin on her face, you noticed a blush rush her cheeks when her eyes caught Bobby’s looking at her.

Katie’s P.O.V

A few days after the barbeque at Bobby and Athena’s place, you tried to gather everyone up for some drinks at the bar.

“No kids. I know Maddie and Bobby aren’t drinking but they can make sure we all stay... decent,” you laughed as you spoke to Hen over the phone, “don’t get me wrong. I love Alex, but we all need a little bit of time away from the kids don’t we?”

“Yes” she replied, a laugh lingering on the word

“So you’re in?”

“I’m sure everyone will be in.” A few hours later, the 118 met you at the bar near the table where you and Evan had your unofficial first date. You didn’t think you’d laughed as hard as you did that night, watching everyone get up and attempt to be the best at Karaoke, and you hadn’t felt this way since Jesse. When Evan noticed you fidgeting with your wedding ring, that you were still unable to take off, he knew something was wrong.

“Are you o--” he started but was interrupted by Jeff coming to say hello

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here!” Jeff greeted, barely acknowledging Evan or the members of the 118.

“Jeff?” you said awkwardly as Jeff moved Evan out of the way to hug you, leading Evan to huff and sit back down near Eddie

“I’m so glad you’re here actually,” he said but you tried to find Evan in the crowd and didn’t hear what Jeff was saying until he clapped his hands in front of her, “HEY! Did you hear anything I said?”

“I’m sorry, Jeff,” you replied, “I’m here with some friends. It was uhm... good to see you. Enjoy your night.” Jeff watched as you walked over to Evan, who had a steely look on his face when you tried to talk to him, making Jeff scoff and shake his head; leaving the bar.

“What’s wrong?” you asked Evan when he pulled his arm away from you

“Him. Why is he always involving himself in your life?”

“Evan please,” you scoffed, “I had no idea he would be here. This is your spot but it’s also a bar...”

“Why didn’t you move away from him? Or walk back to the table with me?”

“I thought you would’ve gotten over this by now,” you tried to say calmly because you saw the aggravation building in Evan’s posture, “I didn’t want to be rude. That’s all.”

“What exactly am I supposed to be getting over, Katie?” he yelled, making you wince, before standing up and taking you aside, “hmm? the fact that you can’t get over your ex? The fact that you’re still wearing your wedding ring after almost two years? Or the fact that someone you work with everyday is so clearly obsessed with you but you don’t want to seem to do anything about it? What exactly should I be getting over?”

“Evan..” you almost whimpered

“I love you,” he stated, harshly and angrily, “but I need to know you’re all in.”

“I am” you replied but the scared look on your face said something to Evan

“Prove it.” He walked back to grab his coat before storming out of the bar, looking back at you quickly before Bobby and Eddie chased after him. When Hen and Athena saw you begin to walk toward the door, they stopped you and ordered you a drink

“Just give him a second,” Hen said just as Maddie sat down, “the boy just needs to sober up a little.”

“He loves you,” Maddie said as she sat down, “I know you know that. He’s just a little hotheaded still.”

“I love him, too,” you replied, taking a long sip of your drink, “I just can’t seem to get rid of this god damn ring!” You held up your left hand, showcasing your wedding ring to the girls, who all seemed to cock their heads to the side

“You will,” Athena said, “eventually. One day you’ll realize that it doesn’t feel right anymore. It may happen over time. Or it might happen all at once. But eventually you’ll be able to take it off.” You nodded, thanking Athena for her kind words and reassurance, before you finished your drink and ordered the next round for everyone. Maddie and Chimney were the first to leave, followed soon after by Bobby and Athena, while Hen said she’d share a cab with you because there was no way either of you could drive; You gave Hen a hug when you dropped her off at her place, falling into the backseat of the cab and closing the door.

“I’m sorry” you texted Evan but when he didn’t respond, you continued to text him

“I love you.”

“I’m all in. I’ve always been all in.”

“I’m sorry I can’t take off the ring but I just need a little bit more time with it”

“Where are we going?” the driver asked and you gave him the address before your vision became increasingly blurred and you couldn’t seem to sit up straight. You could hear the muffled sounds of the driver trying to keep her awake but your body lobbed to the side; everything going blank after that.

When you woke up the next morning, you couldn’t remember anything. Not how you got home, not changing into your pajamas, not putting your phone in the charger, and yet, there you were. In your own bed, your own clothes and your phone fully charged. You stood up to check on Alex when you felt a sudden pain on your side, lifting your shirt up, you found a bruise on your hip that hadn’t been there before.

“Last night must have gotten more out of control than I thought...” you said to yourself, shaking your head before heading out. Alex and Leny were at the kitchen table having breakfast when you walked in, your mom narrowing her eyes at you quickly

“You got home late” Leny said when she got up to stand next to you at the counter

“Not now, mom, please” you whispered, trying to contain the headache that was burrowing in your temples

“It wasn’t Evan..” she stated and you looked at her confused, “that brought you to the door. I thought you two were doing so well. What happened?”

“Did you see who it was?”

“No?” she questioned, “I didn’t think to pay attention. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’m just hungover”

“How is Evan?”

“He’s good. I mean.. he’s mad at me, but he’s fine”

“Why is he mad at you?” Leny asked but all you could do was lift up your left hand to show your mom the ring that still remained, “I told you, you should take that off. He’s not going to like.. come back and haunt you or something”

“Mama..” you whined

“What?”

“You know that’s not what this is about,” you remarked, “I know that Jesse would be happy for me. As long as Alex is okay. I know that. But he was my husband, Mom. The first boy I ever dated. Ever kissed. The first boy I ever loved and I married him and had a son with him. And he’s gone now. It’s not like I’m not over him because he left me you know? He’s gone. He’s like gone gone. Like, he’s never going to see his son again and Alex is never going to see him again. I don’t think he’s going to haunt me. I just... can’t let him go.”

“Liebling..” she cooed, bringing you in for a hug, “you have to.” You pulled away just enough to look at your mom. You dropped your head back onto your mom’s shoulder and tried to imagine what letting go of Jesse looked like, when you winced, “are you okay?” Leny asked

“Yeah..” you sighed, “I think I just hit my side last night. I’ve got a bruise on my hip.” Your mom kissed the top of your head before telling you that you should get ready for the park

“Alex is really excited about the picnic.”

“I almost forgot about that. I’ll go get ready.” You groaned as you walked away from your mom, stopping to watch as Alex played in the family room

“Mommy, look!” he called to you, “I made the 118!”

“Wow, sweetie, that’s awesome!” you smiled

“Do you think daddy could’ve been in the 118?” Your eyes teared up at the question, your breath hitching in your throat

“If he wanted to be, I’m sure”

“That would’ve been so cool.”

“Yeah,” you sighed, “alright Alex, five minutes and then we’ll be on our way okay?”

“OKAY!” His little voice rang to you. When the three of you finally got to the park, you tried to get a hold of Evan again

“Can we please talk?”

“I’m sorry”

“I can’t really explain it. Not like this. I need to see you”

“Evan, please”

“I love you.” You could see that he was reading the texts by the ellipses that kept appearing and disappearing but no answer was given so you kept your focus on Alex and Leny and the beautiful L.A. sun. The day was easy but after a few hours playing in the sun, Alex was starting to get cranky and you were still thinking about why Evan hadn’t replied yet

“I just remembered I have to go to the community centre!” Helena shrieked, “I completely forgot! I’m supposed to be setting up the bake sale for this weekend. It’s the Veteran’s Fund Event, you’ll be there right?” She asked and you nodded

“I promised, Ma,” you laughed, “we’ll be there. Go. We’ll catch a cab.” Helena kissed your forehead and gave her grandson a big hug goodbye while you called a cab. The motion brought back the first memory you’d of last night but it wasn’t much to go on, so you ignored it; leading Alex to the bench where the car would meet you. You tried to focus on Alex but the smell of the cab and the route he was taking was slowly bringing things into focus and you started to feel a tinge of panic in your chest. When the car pulled up in front of the house, Alex flew open the door and you were abruptly pulled from your memories to pay the driver and stop Alex from getting hurt, he didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong, though, as he went straight from outside to where his Lego blocks were; oh to be as blissful as a child. As you moved throughout the house, you tried to recall any memories from anything -- touch, scent, music, anything -- but nothing clicked. It was then that you decided to take a closer look at the bruise on your hip, realizing that there was a matching mark on your other side that differed only in its placement. The bruise on your right hip seemed to be right on the bone while the one on the left was closer to your waist. You furrowed your brow as you looked at your face in the mirror, shaking your head at the thoughts you were having before dialing a number in your phone.

“Hi,” you said lightly, “is it okay if Alex and I stop by for a bit?”

“Hi Katie!” Bobby greeted when you and Alex showed up on the doorstep that afternoon, “come on in!”

“Thanks Bobby,” you replied, “I’m surprised you don’t have a shift today”

“Late shift. I was actually just about to start getting ready so I can’t stay and chat”

“That’s okay,” you assured, “I actually came to talk to Athena...” Bobby gave you a confused look, making you shrug your shoulders in response

“She’s just in the backyard, you and Alex can head out there. It was nice to see you, Katie”

“Thanks, Bobby. Hey,” you said, stopping him from running away just yet, “have you talked to Evan? He’s not responding to any of my texts or my calls. I--”

“Look I don’t want to get involved,” he started, putting his hands up in defence, “but just trust him. Trust how he feels about you.” You nodded and thanked him before heading out to see Athena.

“You go play over there okay buddy?” you said to Alex, gesturing to an area away from the table in the backyard, “hey Athena”

“Hi Katie,” she smiled, “how are you doin’?”

“I’m fine. Thank you for letting us pop in like this”

“Of course!” she said, readjusted her position in her chair slightly, “but I’m guessing you didn’t just come here for Alex to play in my backyard. What’s going on, sweetheart?” You breathed in deeply, letting out a long sigh

“I don’t remember anything from last night.” You stated simply, honestly, and watched Athena’s unchanging expression, “I remember getting into a fight with Evan. I remember drinking with you and Hen but after that things get.. hazy. I think I must have called a cab because I got home. But I don’t remember actually driving home or getting to my door. I don’t remember anything”

“We all had a lot to drink...” she tried to justify but you could tell from her voice that she didn’t believe that

“See that’s the thing. I don’t think we got drunk enough for me to black out that fast. And that aggressively. I just.. I need your advice, Athena, as a mom.”

“You mean as a cop?” she cocked her eyebrow

“No, as a mom,” you repeated, “I have bruises on my sides. I’m missing parts of the night. I was drunk. So, maybe I’m just thinking the absolute worst. Because I do that sometimes -- think of the worst possible outcome”

“As most moms do...”

“Right!” you confirmed, “so what do I do? What would you do?”

“That’s not a question for me to answer. I’m not even sure what you’re asking me...”

“I’m not really sure I do either...”

“Do you want this to drag on?”

“Of course not”

“Look, as a cop, I would advise you to file a report. That helps us catch whoever did this,” she started, placing her hand on your arm when she saw your head drop, “but as a mom? Baby, I would say you have to do anything and everything you can to make yourself feel safe for you and that boy over there. Whether that is getting a big ol’ alarm system or contacting the police. Talking about it or just forgetting about it. You do what you gotta do for you and your son.”

“I don’t know if forgetting about it is the problem,” you started, “I have no memory of one minute to the next. I can’t make a report because all I remember is everything before I even thought about going home. I can forget. I can put it all behind me and act like it never happened because I don’t know that it actually did happen. But my body? My body remembers everything...” Athena shifted in her chair as she listened to your explanation of the night, “I can’t picture voices or faces but I can feel breath on my skin when no one else is around. I don’t remember anyone other than Evan ever holding me last night but I’ve got bruises on my hips that look suspiciously like hand prints and I can still feel someone grabbing me but no one’s touching me. I don’t have any proof, Athena, and I don’t want to drag my son through all of this, I really don’t. But.. if this happened, how do I live with myself if it happens to someone else?”

“That’s not on you,” she tried, holding your hand to reassure you, “you do not have to think 10 steps ahead”

“Maybe I just drank too much..”

“This isn’t your fault”

“I just wish I could remember something. Anything. One small detail.” Tears started to stream down your cheeks and Athena came to your side to wrap you in a comforting hug until you pulled back and thanked her for listening.

“Hey,” Athena called out, stopping you and Alex before they walked out the door, “you’re going to be okay.” She pulled you in for a hug, and you squeezed her tightly in appreciation for all Athena had said to you.

“What was that about?” Bobby asked when Athena closed the door

“Girl talk” was all she replied, a sly smile on her face before she kissed Bobby goodbye.

“Mommy?” Alex asked while you tucked him into bed

“Yes?” you replied

“Where’s Nick?”

“Nick? He’s at his house,” you giggled, “why?”

“Wasn’t he here yesterday?”

“No, love, no one was here yesterday. Just you and me.”

“No but I heard his bodyguard”

“Big Jeff?”

“Yeah Big Jeff!” he exclaimed and you furrowed your brow, “he was in the living room and it sounded like he was talking to someone.”

“I don’t know, baby,” you said, your thoughts beginning to spiral, “but Nick’s at home. Time to go to sleep.” After you’d managed to get him to fall asleep, you tried calling Evan again but, again, he didn’t answer and you began pacing in your bedroom thinking about what Alex had said. Could Jeff really have been there last night? He left the bar so much earlier than everyone that you barely remembered him being there in the first place.

“Evan, I’m.. I need to talk to you. Please call me back.” You hastily left a voicemail for Evan before calling Maddie and asking if she knew where he was

“He’s got a shift tonight” she replied

“Has he had a shift all day? Or is he really just ignoring me?”

“I’m sure he’ll call,” she tried, “just give him another day”

“I’m just freaking out a little Maddie..”

“Why? What’s going on? Can I help?”

“I have to go.” You abruptly hung up the phone and sent a final text to Evan before heading to bed. You tried to sleep but you couldn’t seem to calm your mind, running through all different kinds of scenarios about what may or may not have happened. Although you did finally fall asleep, you kept seeing bits and pieces of faces and memories from last night that left you tossing and turning until the sound of a text message coming in woke you up.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ignored you today. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did about your ring. That’s something I can’t expect you to just... stop wearing. I get that and I’m sorry for saying those things. It was just seeing Jeff there that really pushed me over the edge, you know?” You were about to reply when you saw someone in the shadows, forcing you to sit up in your bed; dropping your phone as you did so. Your phone continued to ding as the shadow came closer, freezing you in fear, and you hoped that Alex would stay silent so he would stay safe. When the man’s face came into the light and you saw that it was Jeff, the memories from last night became clear -- one in particular from her bedroom.

“You left marks!” Jeff’s voice sounded angry as he spoke to someone you didn’t recognize, though it could’ve been the cab driver

“She bruises easily!” the voice argued

“I didn’t tell you to do that. Why did you do something other than EXACTLY what I said?”

“I couldn’t help myself..”

“Yes. You could have. You just did it anyway.”

“Whatever, Fuck You. I got her here.”

“Get out.”

“My money?”

“You’ll get it. Leave.” Jeff knelt down in front of you, opening your drawer and grabbing a fresh set of pajamas to dress you in, “it wasn’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t the plan. If you’d left with me, I never would’ve told him to take you home and he never would’ve done this to you. But you didn’t leave with me. You stayed and got drunk with them. It’s time for us to go now.” He started to pick you up, stopping suddenly when he heard Alex

“Mommy?” Alex called, wandering into your room only to find you asleep so he shrugged and walked back to his room.

Suddenly, you were brought back to the present where Jeff was kneeling in front of you once again and your eyes grew wide with fear

“It’s time to go, now.” He said as you shook her head

“No.”

“This isn’t a discussion, Katerina. We’re leaving.” You searched his eyes for any insecurity but he didn’t falter so you did what you could to give yourself a little more time to come up with a plan; You attempted to grab your phone from where it fell but Jeff grabbed you, dragging you out of your room as you screamed, “QUIET!” He yelled, showing you that Alex was already tied up in the living room, “quiet or he dies.” Tears streamed down your face as Jeff forced you and Alex into the backseat of his car.

Evan’s P.O.V

“Katie?” you continued to send texts to Katie

“Are you really going to ignore me now?”

“Just because I didn’t reply immediately to you?”

“Come on, Katie.”

“Katie?”

“Hello?!”

“ANYONE THERE?!”

“Seriously Katie?!”

“You can’t just ignore me like this. Katie!”

Missed Call (1)

Voicemail (1)

Missed Call (2)

Voicemail (2)

Missed Call (3)

Missed Call (4)

Missed Call (5)

Missed Call (6)

Voicemail (3)...

#9-1-1 #911 #9-1-1 on Fox #911 on Fox #Evan Buckley #Evan Buck Buckley #masterlist #the other masterlist

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skinks · 4 years

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Do you have any works (i.e.; books, fics, poems, even movies, etc.) that inspire your writing?

ahhh thank you for this question!! I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, sorry this is so long. I hope this doesn’t sound too pretentious either, but who doesn’t like talking about the shit they enjoy?

In terms of the technical aspects, like style and structure, I love really visual and evocative writing. Clive Barker is great. I read a book last year called Days Without End by Sebastian Barry and he would occasionally bust out these fuckin gorgeous metaphors in the middle of the character’s very guileless narration, one that comes to mind rn is a giant herd of American buffalo stampeding over a hill, described as looking like bubbling molasses, and I thought holy shit, what an amazing way to describe something like that.

Then, and I’ve mentioned this a few times, but the Dreamboy podcast has absolutely beautiful writing, it’s lyrical and hilarious and blunt and horny and gross all at once in a way I wish I could do. One great metaphor I remember is describing a driveway as a “gray loaf”. Literally the way we’re introduced to the main character is him describing a recurring dream, with stuff like: “I open my mouth and the icy water rushes in, it hits the back of my throat and zooms down into my stomach. I feel it fill me up, and then it zig-zags its way through my intestines like a cold knife, and just before it gets to the back of my asshole — I wake up. And I throw off the covers and I look down, and my dick... is rock hard. Like — so hard that it’s actually like, bobbing up, and — oh fuck I’m late for work.” I dig those very nasty visceral descriptions of sensations, and how it doesn’t shy away from how bodies react in weird ways to weird things.

structure-wise, I’m really into writing where seemingly insignificant details are revealed to be more meaningful later on, long-form stories where everything fits together neatly. I think that’s why I like heist movies so much, Logan Lucky and Oceans 11 are great. I also like stuff where actions have real consequence, where you actually feel the stakes, y’know?

That last part about stakes doesn’t really apply to ithots because it’s super fluffy, but the small details thing, I was trying to do. I love the writing in shows like Barry and Fleabag for those aspects, or films like Hereditary, or Guy Ritchie’s better gangster movies. I tried to lay some breadcrumbs throughout the fic for stuff I knew I wanted to become significant in the last chapter, like the “you brought me weeds” thing in ch11, or their Olive Garden date in ch2. Or in ch6 at the aquarium there’s a line about Eddie rubbing his right arm if he stays in the pool too long, because I wanted to make a point about it and old breaks later. Richie saying “manhattan’s all shitty and cold this time of year” in ch1, then Eddie saying it again in New York. Everything Eddie talks about in his Big Speech lmao.

Pennywise appears to Richie as a werewolf in the novel (queercoding imo) so I say he feels like a dog “territorial and owned at once” in ch5, “a neglected dog” in ch6, follows Eddie like a dog in ch11 as well as hugging Eddie til he’s “squeaking like a dog toy”, shakes his head like a dog in ch12, feels like a dog with its head out the window, as well as saying his love for Eddie as a kid was “hairy and howling” in ch13, “lycanthropic” in ch15, and THEN it all culminates in him literally howling his love at the moon at the end, because he’s a dawwwwg but he’s a good one. Not a monster.

There’s a lot of that specifically with stuff Eddie says too, because I was kinda trying to show that he listens to Richie and values the stuff he says by having him parrot/emulate him a lot. Richie makes the Tozieritis joke in ch12 and Eddie says “There’s your Tozieritis” later For the Banter. Richie says “pull a groin, then?” in ch14 and that’s what Eddie tells him before the SNL show. Richie says “I’d have made a good cowboy” in ch5, so Eddie starts calling him “cowboy” in bed, the Die Hard quote comes back in ch13. Richie calls the Losers “chucklefucks” in ch9 and that’s the name Eddie calls them when he goes berserk in Atlanta, as well as him doing a Voice, saying “yessir” at the end because Richie says it all the time throughout the fic. And Eddie wearing Richie’s clothes a lot is a physical manifestation of that whole Thing he’s doing, kinda taking small parts of Richie onto himself. In a healthy way ofc.

So yeah, I’m into writing with good continuity, stuff like Archer or Arrested Development is the god tier for good continuity. I really wanted to try to do that.

as for like, mood and tone and visuals, I love surreal/liminal feeling stuff, I like how super hot lazy weather can feel otherworldly. Whatever feeling I get from watching The Green Mile, Donnie Darko, Happy as Lazzaro, Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, or the parts in Ghibli or Makoto Shinkai movies where the cicadas are so loud and everything else is so still because it’s too hot to go outside. That hypnotised feeling. The illustrations in Shaun Tan’s book, Tales from Outer Suburbia, they were hovering in my head a lot, all the gold and long shadows.

The poems Snake by DH Lawrence, and Los Angeles/Boys by Rachel Sherwood. Definitely I Remember by Anne Sexton, since I put it at the start. The song Mad Man Moon by Genesis.

Also like, I write by basically imagining what I’d want to see if it were a movie, where the edits would be, what the camera’s seeing, what colour everything is. So I’d say the last two biggest visual inspirations would be the films The Fall by Tarsem Singh and Mandy by Panos Cosmatos. Idk how to describe it except that the imagery in those movies is the kind of stuff I see in my head when I close my eyes, like the line in ch15 about the stars falling to hang around in the canopy, that’s actually a dream I had when I was like 9 and the image always stuck with me. So yeah, all the surreal space stuff in Mandy or the strange nature in The Fall really speaks to me:

#long post

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dear-wormwoods · 5 years

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Do you think other losers understood the nature of Richie’s feelings towards Eddie? Just that scene after they got out of the sewer when they’re calming him down and hugging was so powerful! And so I wonder could teen!losers somehow notice what’s up and interprete it correctly?Could grown-up!losers understand everything? Or they all were too-busy-with-their-own-shit-clowns thinking that Eddie and Richie are just best friends? I would be so excited if you wrote a post with your opinion on this...

I think by the time they got to the quarry, they all knew, without a doubt. Just the way they all rushed to him with no hesitation, you could tell. And I think… I think Bev had it figured out in the sewers, if not after witnessing the “you’re braver than you think” moment, then definitely when Richie wouldn’t accept Eddie’s death. You can see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice that she knew he was feeling it on a totally different level than the rest.

Ben also knew, definitely. I like to think Ben saw it right away, at the restaurant, because he’s very well acquainted with lonely pining and can recognize the symptoms in others. But even if it didn’t happen right away, he absolutely figured it out by the time they had to get out of the sewer, because that man did not let Richie go for one second. He dragged his ass the whole way out because he KNEW. He knew.

I think as kids… some may have figured it out and some may not have. I think, again, that Ben would be the first to suspect Richie’s feelings, because he can recognize those damn lovesick pining symptoms! He never would have brought it up, though. He would’ve waited for Richie to. But Richie never did.

Bev may or may not have noticed, I can’t decide. On the one hand, she’s smart and observant so she would’ve seen the way Eddie and Richie orbit each other like there’s a gravitational pull there, and noticed the wide eyed smiles in between all of the bickering. I think if she did see it, she would’ve been the first to see that the feeling was mutual. But on the other hand, she was super preoccupied with Bill that summer, so I’m not sure she was paying enough attention. 🤔

Bill was the last to figure it out, both as a child and an adult. I don’t think adult Bill realized anything until Richie was sobbing in the quarry, and he probably never figured it out as a kid. Bill’s got that classic Bill Denbrough tunnel vision, and he’s pretty dense when it comes to romance (“was that a line from the play?” Rip).

But in an AU where Reddie actually dated, Bill would at first be shocked, then like “oh yeah I guess that makes sense”, and then reality would hit and he’d quickly descend into Protective Dad Mode: “R-Richie I swear if you eh-ever hurt him I’ll get my slingshot and…” “Have you met him?! He’s more likely to hurt ME!” “I’ll sh-sh-shoot you in the d-dick, Richie.” “Okay, okay! Jay-sus fuck.”

Mike maybe would’ve figured it out because he’s observant. One day he’s with Stan, just hanging out reading, and he says, “hey do you think there’s something going on between Richie and Eddie?” Stan, without looking up, “what do you mean?” Mike: “just, you know, they like each other, but maybe they like-like each other…” Stan, still without looking up, sighs and says, “God I hope not. Can you imagine how much more annoying they’d be together like that? But they do deserve each other, that’s for sure.”

The thing about Richie and Eddie is that neither of them are exactly subtle, but they’re both too dense and down on themselves to realize their feelings are very much requited. But it’s obvious enough to anyone else if they’re just a little observant.

#asks #it 2019 #this turned quickly from sad times to headcanons #stephen king's it #reddie #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #bill denbrough #beverly marsh #ben hanscom #mike hanlon #stanley uris #losers club #it hcs

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trickkombowerskru · 5 years

Text

Welcome Back-Henry Bowers Imagine

Request: Anonymous: Can you do an imagine where the reader was apart of the losers club and when they come back to kill pennywise she see's henry and is like really mad at him for all the stuff he did but like still happy to see him after all that time

A/N: I am so sorry for the long wait, thank you for being so patient with me anon. 💕 Also this unintentionally turned into like 25% a Reddie fic near the end that wasn’t the intention, but that’s just where it went

Warnings: Angst and Slight canon divergence obviously

It felt strange being back in Derry, especially considering the circumstances were anything but welcoming. The air was thick with an unspoken tension and while you were elated to see your friends again after all this time, the unknowing doom you would soon face was hard not to think about. That along with finding out about what happened to Stan, it was almost too much.

You were in your room playing with your token for the ritual, it was a necklace, one you had once promised you'd never take off. It was a simple necklace just with a single fake red stone in the middle of it. And boy after some of those memories coming back to you did you need a drink, but before you could get one Eddie came bolting out of the bathroom with blood spurting from his cheek.You along with Bev, Ben, and Richie rushed over to him, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Holy shit!"

"Uh guys Bowers is in my room."

And just like that the pin on the grenade was pulled and every single memory flooded back, and hit like a tidal wave.

"You guys patch Eds up, I know how to handle him."

"You handled him alright," Richie quips

"Rich just shut the fuck up and help him okay."

Richie snickers to himself, shaking his head as Bev attempts to calm Eddie down.As you rush into the bathroom, you take a deep breath, not sure if you're ready for what lies inside.The sound of the door opening wider catches Henry's attention.He looks at you wide eyed, paying no mind to the knife that was now in his stomach.

You could see his face contort almost like he was at war with his mind before blinking a few times and coming out of whatever trance like state he was in before. Probably the same one that fucker had him under when you were kids.

"Y......Y/N?" Henry questions in a tone of awe and hurt.

"Hey."

"You um you got a little...."

He looks down at the knife.

"Oh shit!"

He quickly pulls it out, ripping off a piece of shower curtain for a makeshift bandage. Looking into those deep blue eyes of his made you feel like you were 13 again. With those memories came all of the feelings, feelings of anger for all the shit he put your friends through, feelings of empathy from the times you've seen his soft side, and mainly feelings of shock that he was even still alive.

Not knowing what else yo do you wrap your arms around him. It catches him off guard, making him stumble for a moment before reciprocating it. You and Henry's history was complicated to say the least. You were never fully together, publicly at least but you sure sneaked around with him. He was nearly your first everything, first boyfriend, first date, first kiss, had everything not gone down that summer eventually he probably would've been your first time too.

"I'm pissed you stabbed Eddie in the face, but shit I'm so glad you're okay. I mean fuck I thought you were dead."

"Might as well have been. Getting thrown into that shithole."

He sees your look of confusion

"After the fuckin' clown messed with my head, I got blamed for his shit when they found the old fatfuck's body, they chucked me into the damn loony bin. I've been stuck in there all this time, until the clown came back, made me go wild again and helped me escape with a damn zombie version of Hockstetter."

"Oh my God."

"Yeah. Good to see somethings never change though," he smiles at you when he sees the necklace on.

"You could say that," chuckling while eyeing his mullet.

"Come on let me take you to my room. I'll actually get you patched up properly, and talk them into letting you stay we're back to kill that fucking thing once and for all and God knows you've got more than enough reasons to help."

When he removes his shirt you can't help but let your eyes travel down to his abs, it's amazing that he's stayed in such good shape while in there. He hisses as you apply some antiseptic before applying the bandage. There's a comfortable silence between the two of you before he breaks it.

"I-uh...I saw you on some magazines and shit when I was there. You some fancy model now huh Darlin'?"

Hearing that nickname come from him again sets your heart on fire, "Yeah. I do some modeling here and there."

Once he's fully patched up you head downstairs where you see that Bev and Richie took care of Eddie...well really Eddie probably took care of himself. Richie cuts in mid explanation.

"Uh uh no way. No fucking way can he stay here. How do we know he won't go off the deep end and slit our throats in our sleep?"

"Richie please! I promise I'll make sure that doesn't happen. I mean he has more of a reason than any of us to want IT dead. That thing ruined his entire life!"

"Yeah and he used to ruin ours."

"Rich....come on. Besides tell me you wouldn't feel safer with him on our side for once."

Richie bites his tongue and sighs sighs knowing you're right.

"Fine.....fine, but if he kills me in my sleep you're paying for my funeral.", Richie concludes making you roll your eyes.

"Well don't give me a reason to wanna kill you Trashmouth and you won't have anything to fuckin' worry about," Henry sasses back, getting a slight laugh from the rest of the group.

That night for the first time in a while since before you even came back here you slept soundly, Henry holding you in his arms, had the circumstances not been what they were, there would be an almost peaceful vibe that night. The next day you explained the plan to Henry and were off.

Now after literally almost being crushed to death and Henry almost getting beaten to death by his father, you two saved each other and were on the way with the rest of the gang to as Richie put it "Kill this fucking clown.

You were all fighting with all your might, when you got thrown against a wall, regaining strength just in time to look up and see Eddie get impaled by one of IT's claws.

"Eddie!," you scream in horror as you watch the claw come out at his barley alive body limply fall to the ground. You quickly run over with the rest of them, watching Richie desperately try to stop the bleeding and save him, and hearing him weakly let Richie know he has something to tell him.

"I fucked your mom."Richie lets out a broken chuckle, before his face falls as Eddie's breathing shallows even more.

He begs him to hold up while you all once and for all get rid of that thing. Mike ripping out IT's heart and crushing it. You all gather up at the quarry, after Richie had to be dragged away from the crumbling Neibolt house and you notice your scars faded away. Henry kept his distance as the rest of you comforted him.

That night as you were packing everything was set, you had paid off the asylum, and Henry would be coming with you back to your place the next day, Ben and Beverly were off together as well, Bill was going back to his place, and Mike would be making the prep to finally go and see Florida.

Your heart broke thinking of how Richie was going back alone, whether he would tell you or not because you were like the group therapist back then you knew how much he loved Eddie, how he would've done anything to have been able to bring him back to LA with him and get him out if being married to his mother.

Once you drifted off to sleep this weird feeling you had earlier intensified and in your dream you saw it. You saw the Neibolt house crumble down with Eddie's body inside, but then the strangest thing happened.

You saw Eddie slowly breathing again, before coming to full consciousness, and freaking out about being trapped underground. You heard him crying about how he probably really would die down there because you all thought he was dead anyway. And you could feel your heart wrench at the thought. Before anyone left that next morning you told them all about your dream.

Once again you all trekked back to the now empty sight of the house with shovels in hand,ready to hopefully rescue Eddie. You dug and dug for hours before Richie started crying saying it was probably just hopeless and that Eddie was really gone.

You were going to agree until Ben threw his shovel back and you could hear something and it sounded like Eddie extremely muffled you keep digging and sure enough Eddie's arm can be seen. Once you have enough dirt out of the way you all pull him up.

"Eds!," Richie exclaims practically clings onto him before you join up into a group hug.

Richie turns to you, the tears now being happy ones.

"Thank you."

You smile and nod as you all laugh at Eddie going right back to being annoyed at Richie for calling him 'Eds' like nothing changed. The entire way back you laugh as Eddie goes on about how filthy he is and how there "Is dirt in places where there shouldn't be dirt."

Once Eddie gets cleaned up and you all finish packing, you part ways, Richie finally having the guts to confess and Eddie more than feeling the same way heading out with him. You smile watching them walk out, but before you leave, Henry moves his hands to have a grip on your hips.

"Henry what are doing?""Soemthin' I've been wantin' to do again for all these years."

One of his hands moves to cup your face and he kisses you, you kiss back and once again it felt like nothing had changed, it felt as perfect as you remember it did. And now with Henry here to stay you could have those perfect moments as much as you wanted.

#it 2017 #it chapter 2 #the bowers gang #henry bowers #henry bowers imagine #henry bowers x reader #nicholas hamilton #teach grant

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scoopsohboy · 5 years

Text

I Got You Babe || Platonic Richie x Beverly

A/N: This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction in YEARS and my first time ever writing “It” fanfiction. I have a BIG series in mind based in the universe of this fic but, I knew I needed to get this piece written down first. This whole series is inspired by this moodboard post created by asthmaticeddie. Go check it out, Kay is so talented and lovely! My fic would likely be Eddie POV, so I would never get to actually write this scene! So I’m doing it anyway!

Summary: Richie gets into a fight at a party. Bev has to pick up the pieces.

Warnings: Mentions of violence, blood and spit, slight internalized homophobia. Angst that becomes fluff.

Word Count: 1508

Richie had fucked up.

That much was painfully obvious to on-lookers who watched Bev as she escorted him from the party. She flashed her brightest smile whilst moving her newfound responsibility by the collar of his Hawaiian shirt through the throngs of people. Her cheeks were a stark red, a harmonious gradient from her cherry lips to her fiery locks.

She shot a quick look back to where her friends stood, mere feet away from the incident. Eddie and Ben were watching the pair storm away, concern plastered all over their faces. Meanwhile, Bill, Stan, and Mike clearly had a handle on damage control, talking Bowers and Co. down from rushing at Richie. Who, by the way, was just asking to get choke-slammed through a coffee table at this point. The punch across the face was an appropriate escalation.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer!" Richie shouts bitterly, before throwing his empty beer can in their general direction. Bev picks up her pace and tightens her grip.

Despite how it feels as if this crowded college party is never ending, the pair finally make it to the front door. Somehow, Stan had managed to follow the pair through the crowd and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. It didn't fix anything but, the gesture reminded her to inhale, in addition to exhaling. Imagine that. Richie opted to sit on the front porch while he waited for his roommate.

"He's messy tonight," Beverly grumbles, running her hands across her face and up into her hair.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Stanley observes, head cocked, eyes following Richie as he begins to spit excess blood and saliva onto the ground, "He looks normal enough to me," this elicits a soft, tired chuckle from Beverly and Stan cracks a smile, "Seriously, though, do you want any help with him?"

"No, no, Stan the Man, you're good. He's just gonna make it his goal to bother you the entire time anyway."

"Fair," he pulls Bev into a side hug, as they stand in the doorway, watching Richie hock a glob of blood and spit on the pavement once again, "And hey, if you make it through the night, tomorrow we'll get breakfast on me." She hummed her appreciation of his proposal, giving his side one last squeeze before stepping into the threshold of Trashmouth Wrangling.

"Bevvie!" Richie cheered as she stormed past him and towards the car, "We should stop at the store!" He caught up to her within two strides, trying to hold her hand.

“No,” Beverly declared, knowing she was already in for a long night. Richie pouted, before spitting yet again, “Stop it. Get in the car."

Spit.

"Don’t spit again, Richie!"

Spit.

"I swear to God! Stop! Spitting!”

Spit.

She hit her much taller friend on the back of his curly haired head, as he laughed against the cool October night. Upon impact, Richie’s glasses slid down the bridge of his nose, as crooked as the smile playing on his lips. He leaned clumsily against his friend’s dingy Ford Freestyle, the freezing touch of the vehicle cooling him down. His intoxicated laugh had echoed off into whatever residential neighborhood the pair had found themselves in this time. He looked off down the street, expectantly, as if he was waiting for someone to return his drunken call. The quirking edges of his smile faltered as he turned to beam down at the angry redhead. Her perfectly and intentionally sculpted brows arched at his childish display, “You done?”

He smiles wider, full of teeth. He spits on the pavement again before spiraling into hysterical laughter. He had no spit or blood left in his mouth at this point. Just defiance. Beverly extends both of her hands forward and shoves her friend, “How fucking old are you?!” her cry is shrill as she goes to get in the driver’s seat. Richie, knowing that he’s already pushing his luck, gets in the passenger’s seat unprompted. He even buckles his seat belt without a glare required. He leans far back in his seat, “Old enough,”

“Can you not quote Superbad at me right now? I don’t even know how to get out this fucking neighborhood!" Beverly begs, fiddling with the GPS her aunt had gifted her before the semester had begun.

"Are you mad at me?" Richie asks.

"Yeah, Rich, I'm fucking pissed," the engine revs alive as they pull away from the curb.

"Why? I held on to your hair tie all night, like you asked," he holds his wrist out dramatically, providing evidence. The redhead rolls her eyes, softening slightly. Slightly.

"I'm mad because you couldn't just let that piece of shit have the last word. Just this once!" Bev lectures, "Everything was going fine! We managed to pull Mike out of the library for one Friday night! Ben was socializing while he got us drinks!"

"Bill was going to makeout with you," Richie quips.

"You know what, Trashmouth, maybe he was!"

"He was not. Too nervous,"

"Ah! Irrelevant!" Beverly's face had done this lovely little trick it does when dealing with intoxicated Tozier, where it fluctuates from pale to bright pink to the brink of purple, rinse and repeat, "You did enough showing off for Eddie before Bowers showed up. This didn't do you any favors. I don't think beaten to a pulp is exactly his type,"

This struck a nerve.

Richie fell silent in his seat, suddenly very intrigued by the rolling foliage that whipped passed the window. His hands gripped the sides of his seat, fingers picking at the torn upholstery there. Bev didn't push it; she would remember to yell at him for that later. She glanced over at the lanky man every few minutes, looking smaller every time she did so. His busted lip was pursed into a thin line and his posture was frail, hunched. His chest rose and fell rapidly, the only part of him that was active.

Bev broke the silence, "He's probably worried about you, ya know."

"Why would he be?"

"Rich. I'm your roommate. I'm your friend. Do you think I don't have eyes?" A whine escaped from his lips and he shut his eyes tight at the realization that his secret wasn't much of a secret anymore. She gave her friend a wry smile that was practically audible, as she reached her hand across the center console to hold his, "Or a functioning gaydar?"

The duo laugh at this, Richie letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, "Please," he begged, "never use that term," despite how it had alleviated tension between them, it built up a bubble inside him, how quickly this new "quirk" about him gave her the ability to shove him into a box. Bev nods. Richie begins to fiddle with the radio. Despite being drunk off his ass, he was still too sober to be having this conversation.

"Richie...it's not like anyone of us Losers would judge you. Eddie's out and proud-"

"And that's good for Eddie," he cuts her off, wanting to change this conversation as rapidly as he's flipping the channels.

"I just...don't see why you don't just come out and go for it? I have no idea if he likes you back...you're a little polarizing like that. But what is the harm in trying?" Bev wonders, genuine support and a longing to understand in her voice.

"I don't know if there's anything for me to come out as," Richie admits, leaving the radio alone, "I mean...I think Eddie's great. Well...probably more than great. Definitely more than great," he ignores the giggles that emit from Bev, "But...am I really...gay? I couldn't tell you. I've made out with Stan's sister enough back home-" he cuts himself off to respond to Bev's scandalous expression, "you don't know shit-" she throws her head back and laughs, "that there's no way I can't like girls. Do I even need to come out? What does that even mean? Can't I just date who I want? Can't I just make out with who I want at a gross college party, no questions asked?"

Bev shrugs in response, her attitude towards Richie having made a complete 180 since their car ride began, "You got me there," she pulls his hand up to her mouth and let's a kiss linger there until the red light turns green, "We're almost home, Richie, just relax. We can keep talking about this and cuddle on the couch. Or not. Either way, this stays between you and me, bub,"

"What a fuckin' sap," he playfully teases, before turning the volume dial on the radio nearly all the way up. Through the speakers of this behemoth of a car twangs the familiar, funky chords of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe". The two share a look. A look of love and exhaustion and understanding...of the fact that they were about to scream-sing this song until the very last note. This song was a promise. Melodramatic and disco-based. But a promise nonetheless.

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the-quiet-winds · 5 years

Text

So Much More than Royal (part three)

i am back kiddos. have you missed me? i’ve missed all of you. hope my writing was enough to tide you all over in my absence, but i am here now! don’t you worry. @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts did ya miss me?

trigger warnings for the whole story: death, ransom, violence

[part one] - [part two]

[Part 3: A Wolf Among the Sheep, Gnawing at the Wool Over My Eyes]

when they return to the palace, jane is waiting, drastically different from when they had left. her face is red and blotchy, tear stains marking delicate cheeks. she is still sniffling, clutching to a handkerchief as if it’s the only thing grounding her.

edward’s face drops when he sees her. he glances back at katherine to see her grave expression, and his eyes widen.

“mum?” he asks. “what’s going on?”

jane can’t say anything, voice overcome with emotion, and she just opens her arms. edward rushes into his mother’s arms, still not understanding but wanting to comfort her.

katherine stays a few steps away. unlike edward, she knows exactly what’s going on, and it makes her heart break. not for henry, no; katherine couldn’t say she was sad at the king’s passing. she was distraught, however, for edward and jane. and so she waits, at the edge, to be there to comfort them.

jane catches her eyes and nods slightly. katherine comes forward and joins the embrace, holding edward with one arm and jane with the other.

“eddie...” jane croaks. “your father-“ she cuts herself off with a sob.

“he’s gone, eddie,” katherine finishes the though softly.

“gone?” eddie asks.

“he’s passed away, eddie,” katherine continues. “you’re the king now.”

“he... i...” edward stammers, and then it hits him. “no...”

he bursts into tears, clinging to his mother and sister. whatever he tries to say next gets lost amongst the sobs and he eventually gives up trying to speak. katherine rubs a soothing hand against his back, her heart aching for him. not only was his father dead, but being king was far too much responsibility for the young boy to hold. and while katherine was sure henry had named some kind of regent until edward was old enough, it didn’t change the fact that by law, edward was king, and everyone would be trying to use him for their own political gain.

she can’t help but look around; all the guards, servants, and ladies were kneeling regally to the royal family.

“the king is dead,” sir percival yells clearly, his voice strong. katherine feels both jane and edward shake against her.

“long live king edward,” he calls out next.

a horn blows a mournful tune from the upstairs, one of death and regret.

jane presses her forehead into katherine’s neck weakly. “you need to help him,” she mumbles out. “please.”

katherine nods, keeping her arms around her mother and brother. she had to be strong for both of them, help them both through this. one thing she knew for certain; she had to move back to court. edward needed her here. jane needed her here. and she was going to be there for them.

edward is still sobbing against her, and jane is barely keeping herself together. katherine would have to be the one, she realises, that gets them through the next few minutes until they can finally be alone and mourn properly.

it was a bit odd, katherine reflects, being the one doing the comforting after so long of it being the opposite.

she runs her fingers through her mum’s hair lightly, and she swears she sees the faintest hint of a smile at the gesture.

she lets the other hand continue rubbing slowly up and down edward’s back, even as sobs rack his slight frame.

katherine isn’t quite sure why she does it, but she begins to sing, so quietly that only the two people in her arms can hear, that same french lullaby she would sing to edward when he was a baby.

jane recognises it right away, katherine can tell, and after a few moments edward’s sobs seem to lessen just slightly, enough for him to be able to look up at his sister. he doesn’t seem too dissimilar to how he was as a baby, the tiny little boy who would be soothed as she rocked him, and katherine’s heart breaks just a little bit more at the devastated look in his eyes. she keeps singing, the soft movements of her hands in time to the melody, and edward’s eyes close as he leans against her. jane doesn’t want to put the pressure on her daughter to take care of both of them, but at some point in the song she can’t keep everything together any more. the tears start to slide down her face as she lets katherine comfort her.

because of the way she was holding her mother, katherine could feel the exact moment jane began to lose it, warm tears trickling down onto her neck. she doesn’t pause in the singing, instead simply increasing the rate of her fingers through jane’s hair just slightly. she lets her head fall to the side, her cheek pressing against her mother’s temple as she shook with tears.

they stay that way for an agonizingly long time, until katherine’s dress is soaked at the shoulder and edward is practically dead weight against her.

that’s when percival intervenes. he speaks directly to katherine, his voice gentle and sympathetic. “perhaps the queen and king,” katherine feels edward cling tighter to her at that, “should retire for a bit, so you and i can discuss some things, lady katherine.”

katherine nods. “I will escort my mother and brother to their chambers and then return to talk, sir percival.” percival gives a low bow and the three of them make their way to the door, katherine practically keeping the other two upright. it takes a while to get to their chambers, and when they do it takes a further few minutes for jane and edward to be curled up together on the couch. edward has almost passed out from grief and exhaustion and katherine looks at jane hesitantly.

“are you going to be okay?” she means until katherine returns; she knows she could hardly describe the situation as ‘okay’. jane gives her a watery smile.

“we’ll be alright for the moment. thank you, love.” katherine is reluctant to leave, but she leans down and kisses jane’s cheek, then the top of edward’s head.

“i’ll be back soon,” she says, before heading back down the corridor. she finds percival relatively quickly, and he looks at her with sympathetic eyes.

“i hope it is not improper to ask how the king and queen dowager are doing?”

“it’s difficult,” katherine sighs. “it hit them both hard. they will be okay, i hope, but it’ll take some time.”

percival gives a few slow, understanding nods. “in the meantime, lady katherine, we all look to you.”

katherine blinks. “excuse me?”

“as much as i hate to admit it,” percival says, voice laden with heaviness and regret, “the queen dowager and king are not in a fit state to lead at this moment.”

katherine can’t argue with that, the image of her mother and brother on the couch down the hall flashing in front of her eyes.

“hopefully, by the time the traditional mourning period is over, king edward will be ready to rise to his God-given position.”

katherine isn’t sure she herself is ready to lead in edward’s place, but she nods. “if the council wishes to give me the role of regent until edward accepts his role, then i will accept this responsibility.” a thought suddenly hits her. “i imagine lady mary won’t be thrilled.”

katherine couldn’t say that edward’s oldest sister had ever been a huge fan of hers; katherine definitely got on better with Elizabeth, now a teenager, than Mary, who hadn’t taken kindly to having a new half sister. she supposed it was understandable, but she did one day hope to bridge the gap between them and potentially be able to call each other friends. katherine was not in the line of succession, which she hopes might help mary warm to her, but acting as regent certainly wouldn’t help their relationship.

percival gives a quiet chuckle. “i would have to agree with you, lady katherine.” he clears his throat. “but for now,” he continues, tone back to the business-like manner it was in before, “your main duty is to plan the royal services. we already have the burial site, he will be celebrated and mourned in the chapel...” percival thinks for a moment. “most of what you’d need to do would be to organize the celebration. pick the hymns, prepare the eulogy-“

“i am eulogizing the former king?” katherine asks incredulously.

“yes?” percival asks. surely it had been obvious? he shakes his head quickly. “we will need to begin immediately.” something dawns on him. “as regent queen,” a chill runs down katherine’s spine, “you need to make the formal announcement to the people.”

the next twelve hours are incredibly long for katherine. after the announcement, she’s immediately dragged into meeting after conversation, all directed at either the ceremony or edward’s soon-to-be-king status.

it’s well after six in the morning when she is released. she wanders into jane’s chambers, unsure of how long she’d be able to sleep, if she even could at all.

edward and jane are curled up in jane’s bed. edward is fast asleep but jane stirs when katherine approaches.

“love?” she says quietly. “what time is it?” katherine shrugs. “morning?” she guesses. jane shifts over in the bed and pats the spot on the other side of her.

“come here, love,” she murmurs. katherine climbs into the bed and curls up against jane, feeling her mum press a soft kiss to her forehead.

“what did percival want to speak about?” jane asks, voice quiet.

katherine gives a tiny shrug. “lots of things,” she answers unsurely. she doesn’t really want to tell jane that she is technically queen now, has been for hours.

“what is it, kitty-kat?”

katherine’s heart aches at that tone of voice - so soft, judgement free, ready to fight away all the nightmares.

“i was helping to plan the royal services,” she admits. “he’ll be buried in two days, celebrated at the chapel.” she shifts a bit, uncomfortable with talking about it. “they want your and eddie’s approval on a few things first, though.”

she’s silent for a long time. when she speaks again, her voice is caught and raw in her throat.

“i’m queen now, mum.”

there’s a brief moment of silence, before jane speaks.

“oh, love.” her tone is difficult to decipher, even when she continues. “how do you feel about that, kitty-kat?”

katherine doesn’t answer. she honestly doesn’t know how. her brain hasn’t caught up with all the emotions swirling around her head yet. she rests her head on jane’s shoulder and jane’s hand finds her hair.

“you need your rest, love,” jane murmurs softly. katherine gives a choked laugh.

“i don’t think i have time.”

as if they had heard her, two clergymen knock on the door.

“queen katherine?”

katherine stiffens slightly at the title and jane runs a gentle hand through her hair.

“there’s been a problem with the processional, would you please come and address it with us?”

katherine gives a disgruntled sigh, only loud enough for jane to hear. she presses another kiss to her daughter’s head.

katherine hesitates for only a moment after before shuffling out of the bed.

“duty calls, i guess,” she mumbles, before going out to join the clergymen.

it takes a further hour to sort out the processional, and before katherine has a chance to sit down she’s being whisked off a meeting with the archbishop about the funeral. she’s then met with the news that lady mary and lady elizabeth would soon arrive to take part in mourning, which leads her into a discussion as to where the young lady elizabeth should live; whether she should be educated at court or sent to live with a noble family.

katherine, quite honestly, feels that she should have no say in the young girl’s fate. she was not really related to either mary or elizabeth, and even though she and bess got along, they were far from sisters. she didn’t think it fair that she decide where elizabeth was to be sent.

she would ask jane, if she was given the chance.

she was not.

katherine is pulled in every different direction, questions and mishaps a plenty. the day was long, as was the following night. since being named regent, katherine had gotten maybe one hour of sleep, and that was with jane barricading the door so no one could disturb her.

elizabeth and mary arrive around two in the afternoon on the day before the funeral, both dressed in traditional black mourning outfits.

“your majesty,” elizabeth greets formally, curtseying.

mary does the same, just much , much stiffer.

katherine curtseys in response. “it’s wonderful to see you,” she says with a smile. “the king and queen dowager are awaiting your presence; we have prepared a feast for your arrival.”

katherine had very little input into the feast, in fact. her day had barely given her a chance to eat herself, let alone plan the feast, and luckily jane had taken it upon herself to organise it.

elizabeth returns the smile, wisps of her long red hair escaping from the hairpins securing her hair back. “thank you, your majesty,” she says. mary nods politely but does not speak.

with a slight nod, katherine turns to lead them down the corridor to the dining hall.

jane and edward are both already seated, picking at the food on their plates. the look up when the door opens.

edward smiles slightly at seeing his other two sisters. he slowly gets up and makes his way over to them. he hugs elizabeth tightly, then turns to mary. katherine could have sworn that mary gave the young boy - young king - a scowl.

“it’s so good to see you both,” jane cuts in, trying to break the ice settling amongst them.

mary gives jane a tight-lipped smile. “it’s good to see you too, your highness.” she takes a seat next to jane, leaving the seat next to edward empty. elizabeth immediately claims that chair and throws herself into conversation with edward. unlike mary, who had made it all the way to the age of 18 under the assumption that she would be queen, elizabeth had grown up knowing the likelihood of her taking the throne was rare, and she seems to hold no grudge against her brother for skipping the queue, as it were. katherine sits down on elizabeth’s other side, catching jane’s sideways glance and smile.

mary, jane and katherine eat in silence for a short while as edward and elizabeth chat, and katherine finds her mind drifting into a comfortable automatic state of shut down, managing to get some kind of rest while awake. she’s shaken out of her daze, however, when she hears her name. she looks up to see edward and elizabeth looking at her expectantly, and she blinks.

“my apologies- what did you say?”

“bess was telling me about all the languages she speaks,” edward says, “and i was telling her that you’re really good at languages too.”

katherine shakes the cobwebs in her head then nods. “i speak a couple, as well. latin, french, spanish, italian, and i’m working on russian,” katherine says.

elizabeth lights up.

“tu parli italiano?” [you speak italian?] elizabeth asks brightly. katherine gives a shy smile and nod. “forse dovremmo viaggiare insieme!” [perhaps we should travel there together!] bess continues.

katherine laughs. “può essere,” [maybe], katherine counters.

jane can see that elizabeth would love to keep katherine for hours, speaking other languages and discussing their studies. jane can also see the tiredness behind katherine’s eyes. “bess,” she calls gently. “maybe we should let the queen get back to work, maybe rest a little.”

elizabeth nods, giving katherine an apologetic smile, and katherine returns it with a kind one of her own to let her know there was no harm done. she gets to her feet, sending jane a grateful look.

“i must excuse myself, there’s business i need to attend to.” katherine hopes that her duties can include a nap, because it was getting rapidly harder to keep her eyes open, but with the funeral the next day she knows that’s unlikely. there were still final preparations to be made with the speakers and the archbishop still hadn’t finalised his address yet.

she spends the remainder of the afternoon and evening with the archbishop, clergymen, pall-bearers...too many people for her to keep track of.

it’s nearly midnight and she’s still up, running on barely any sleep, trying to finalize the eulogy. it’s impossibly difficult, she finds, to tell great stories of a man who had her tried for treason twice, irreparably damaged her shoulder, and nearly exiled her forever.

she doesn’t even hear the door open, but jane enters, holding a candle.

“you should rest, love.”

“i can’t,” katherine sighs. “i still have to finish this. i can’t stand there and not have the eulogy prepared.” she looks back at the page, but she’s so tired it’s hard to focus on anything she’s written.

“what can i even say about him?” she doesn’t even realise she’s asked the question until jane puts the candle down on the desk and sighs softly.

“love, you need to sleep. you can’t keep going on like this.”

“i have to,” katherine says hollowly. “it’s my responsibility. if it wasn’t me, then edward would have to do it, and he wouldn’t be able to handle it. he’s only a child, he shouldn’t have to have so much on his shoulders.”

“neither should you,” jane counters quietly. she pulls a chair over and sits down next to katherine. “when was the last time you slept, love?”

katherine shrugs. “i took a nap on tuesday.”

“that was two days ago.”

katherine shrugs again. “i’ve been drinking a lot of tea.”

jane looks at her with a slight glimmer of disapproval, but mostly sympathy. “that’s not healthy, kitty-kat.”

katherine chuckles hollowly. “the curse of the crown, i suppose.”

jane looks at her for a few more moments before sighing. “let me look at what you’ve written,” she says, and katherine pushes the paper towards her. it’s a mostly impersonal affair, focusing on the king’s military work and neatly avoiding the fact that he lost most wars he took part in. then it discusses the religious reform briefly, and goes on to give a polite commemoration of his life, saying as little as possible while still sounding nice. it’s clear katherine had no personal connection with henry, but for a formal address it would certainly be passable.

katherine wishes that she could have written more positively about henry, for jane. for edward. for the people in his life who saw the best parts of him.

it was just something she had no familiarity with.

even though she was never close with henry, she couldn’t help but notice the absence of such a large presence in her life. henry was ruthless yet personable, cruel yet kind, merciless yet merciful all, infuriatingly, at the same time.

katherine sees it every time she looks in jane’s eyes or see edward’s smile fade: the two are devastated.

that’s why katherine has been foregoing sleep and food in order to make the ceremony perfect. they deserve it. they deserve the best way to send off a husband and a father.

she also, somewhere where she wouldn’t dare to talk about it, feels a shame. a deep regret that henry had died, and not her - even though she knows it’s not true, some part of her thinks it would be easier on jane and edward if they had henry still.

all of the desire for everything to be perfect and the secret shame she feels bubbles to the surface, sleep deprivation tearing down her near-perfect queenly facade, and tears slowly begin to trickle down her face.

“oh, kitty-kat,” jane breathes, pulling katherine into a tight hug. katherine sobs into Jane’s shoulder, feeling much more like a child than the composed queen she was supposed to be. it feels familiar and comforting, the way jane’s hand finds her hair as always and begins combing her fingers through it, as her other hand draws soft soothing circles on katherine’s back.

both women share one common thought: they want nothing more than to take away the pain of the other, they want to see the beautiful smiles they know and love, they want there other to see there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

for jane, all she can do is try and comfort her daughter (the queen, she reminds herself) and hopefully get her to sleep soon.

katherine’s body screams for rest, but her brain is far too awake as she clings hopelessly to jane.

“i’m sorry,” she whispers harshly. “for all of this.”

“shh,” jane hushes quietly. “it’s alright, love, it’s alright.”

katherine’s mind flashes back nine years, in a very similar position, jane somehow alive after a near assassination, as she says the next words, so quietly jane barely can hear them.

“shoulda been me.”

jane takes a sharp intake of breath. “kat, no,” she says softly. “don’t you say that.” she doesn’t know where katherine’s words came from, but it pains her to know that katherine thinks them. she holds katherine even closer. “i love henry- loved,” she corrects herself, and her voice catches in her throat. “but if anything happened to you or eddie then i don’t know what i’d do. no parent should have to outlive their child, love. so don’t you tell me that it should have been you, because that’s just not true.”

katherine hears the hitch in her mother’s voice and it makes her feel worse. jane’s grieving for her husband, the love of her life, and katherine is making it all about her.

‘how typical,’ a dark little voice in her mind snarls.

she wriggles out of jane’s arms not-so-gently and steps onto the balcony, the cold january air biting at her skin. she grips the railing of the balcony with tight fingers, looking out over the blanket of dark that covered the town.

jane leans against the doorway behind her, fixing her with a sympathetic gaze.

“you need some sleep, love.”

“i’ll be fine,” katherine says, voice distant and slightly hollow. she doesn’t look back, continuing to stare out into the night.

“you won’t be fine,” jane sighs, and she takes several steps closer. “you’ve worked yourself to the bone over the past couple of weeks and you need to rest. if you don’t then you’re going to collapse, kat.”

“i said i’ll be fine,” katherine mumbles. her grip on the railing tightens even more.

jane closes the distance between them, putting a hand on katherine's back and looking at her face. kat is nearly trembling, but from cold or exhaustion jane can't tell. "let's get you to bed now, love," jane says quietly.

katherine pulls away. "i need to finish the eulogy," she protests.

"you won't get it done now," jane argues gently, "not like this."

"i have to," katherine says. she smacks her forehead suddenly. "i needed to get flowers," she says to herself. she makes for the door, shoving her shoes on as she goes, but jane catches her hand.

"you can't keep doing this," jane says, tugging on her hand. "this isn't healthy."

"it may not be," katherine agrees, "but you can't stop me."

jane sighs again. "i am your mother, love-"

katherine explodes. "and i am the queen!" her voice comes out as a slightly venomous hiss, angry not necessarily at jane, but at circumstances and sleep deprivation and inner turmoil.

jane takes a step back out of surprise. she hasn’t seen katherine have an outburst like this for a long time, not for several years at least. katherine looks exhausted; her face is pale and there are heavy bags under her eyes, and all jane can see is the scared little girl who ran away from the castle in her first week as a lady-in-waiting. jane can’t let katherine work herself to death like this.

“queen or not,” she says evenly, “you’re still my little seymour. please, love. just half an hour’s rest, that’s all i’m asking. and then you can finish everything else you need to do. i’ve just lost my husband, and i am not going to lose my daughter too.”

katherine hears jane's words, she really, truly does, but she can't focus on them. there's too much that still needs to be done before the sun rises the next morning, before the ceremony and the burial and the celebration. she sets her shoulders, standing as regally as she can in her fatigue. katherine had long surpassed jane's height, now standing nearly a whole head above her mother.

jane sees the change in her daughter's eyes. she's not going to give in.

katherine gives a clipped, empty laugh. "if you lose us both, that's just god's will, i suppose," she says, before continuing to the door.

“kat-” jane says, voice breaking, but katherine keeps walking. she’s vaguely aware of jane’s voice but she has too many things to think about, too much to do.

jane watches her go, heart breaking just a little bit more. the way katherine is acting isn’t sustainable, and jane knows that she’s going to collapse soon. she only hopes that katherine will let her help her before it reaches that point, but a part of her brain that knows her daughter, her wonderful, devoted, stubborn daughter, won’t let that happen. katherine was going to fall, and she was going to fall hard. and jane couldn’t do anything about it.

katherine strides down the hall hurriedly. flowers, how could she forget the flowers?

she fastens her cloak on and slips a dagger into one of the pockets.

katherine makes quick work of the walk to town. the florist, of course, is asleep, as are most is the residents, but katherine has no time for him to be sleeping. she knocks loudly.

“who’s out here waking me-“ he grumbles. then he sees katherine, face half concealed by the cloak. “your majesty!” he bows. “what can i do for you?”

“we need flowers for the funeral tomorrow,” katherine says briskly. no point wasting time. the florist pales slightly at such a prestigious task but he nods.

“right away, your majesty. i can have my assistants deliver them first thing in the morning.” the honour of creating bouquets for a royal funeral seems to outweigh any negatives of having to work through the night in his mind.

“thank you,” katherine sighs, grateful that at least the funeral wouldn’t be ruined by a lack of flowers. “you will receive your payment from the royal treasury on arrival.” she turns around, intent on leaving, when her vision starts to blur. she puts a hand on the doorway to steady herself, and when she can see well enough to start walking again she heads out of the florists.

“your majesty,” the florist calls nervously, “are you alright?”

“yes,” she replies, a string of ice in her tone, “perfectly fine, thank you.”

she pushes through the haze in her eyes and continues out into the cold night.

katherine is about halfway back when she hears footsteps behind her. she pulls the hood of her cloak tighter around her face, then tightly grips the hilt of the dagger in her pocket, readying herself for anyone who dared to mess with the queen.

she walks slightly faster, drawing herself up to her full height and refusing to turn around. for several moments it seems as if whoever it is had stopped, and katherine wonders if it was a false alarm, but then the footsteps start back up again.

indeed, they seem to get faster, picking up speed and following her, to the point where katherine is sure they must almost reach her. the engraving on the hilt of the dagger digs into her hand but she doesn’t loosen her grip; if anything she tightens it even further if that was possible.

she slowly begins to pull it out of her pocket, the blade glimmering in the moonlight. she grips it tightly in both hands and waits, even as her feet continue the walk.

she's nearly there, another couple hundred paces at best.

katherine can feel herself growing dizzy, her legs giving out with each step she takes but she presses onward.

the echoing footsteps follow, growing closer until she swears she can hear someone breathing nearby.

"i'll have you know," she calls, turning her head slightly and forcing her voice down as to not give herself away, "i am armed."

there’s no reply from behind her, just a low, rhythmic breathing. katherine’s hand starts to hurt from the dagger, her legs are aching with exhaustion and her vision blurs yet again. this time, however, it doesn’t come back into focus.

a sharp pain fills her head and she suddenly drops the blade, clutching at her forehead. she falls to her knees involuntarily and hunches over, eyes squeezed shut. in the seconds before katherine passes out, she feels herself falling sideways, the hood of her cloak slipping down to reveal her face. then everything goes black.

#six the musical #six musical #jane seymour #katherine howard #julie and jess write #so much more than royal #hold onto me you're all i have

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snarky-badger · 6 years

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I'm just imagining in the trapped in the elevator story after SO has the baby and V's just like 'it's so small....... a tiny human...' just completely enamored w/ this lil squishy bean. Just. Noodle Dad and smol babby is Good Shit.

Had a bunch of Prompts like this one:

Hey there! Just wanted to say that I absolutely fell in love with your Expecting Venom x Reader story!! 🖤❤️ Do you think there will be a sequel/follow up where Eddie and the reader have a cute discussion about names or Eddie/Venom freaking out over a Braxton Hicks contraction? (And maybe the reader goes, “OMG, it’s fine! I’m fine! Plz calm down!” after Venom fully transforms, scoops her up, and is about to web-swing her to the hospital, or something! XD )

OMG, I just LOVED your Pregnant Reader x Eddie Brock/Venom story!!!! Do you think you could do another one where the Reader suddenly goes into labor?

Can we get more pregnant reader with Eddie and the symbiot? Maybe she goes into labor and they are freaking out and after 5 hrs twins are born, one completely human and the other a symboit that already bonded with the human baby and they are a perfect match since they basically grown together.

Hi don’t know if I’m asking at the right site sorry if I’m not. I was wondering if you could do a venom promt, like a sequel to the Elevator one where the pregnant reader finally gives birth and Venom is immediately mesmerized by the baby after the delivery, maybe have him freak out like a lot of dads do during the labour since he is still learning things about humans? If you already have a sequel to it then just ignore me. Gamer-Kat.

WOW! So much interest for this one! Alright, here we go. I hope this doesn’t disappoint. (I tried to work in the symbiote/baby idea. It’s not quite what was requested, but I hope it’s good enough)

Sequel to ‘Elevator Troubles while Expecting’

EDIT - I have edited the prompt ‘Daddy’s Girl’ to fit in with this. Think of it as a future part of this ‘series’ of prompts.

“Eddie?”

“Yeah, babe?”

You grimaced a little as you braced a hand against the living room wall, your other hand clutching at your belly. Pain radiated from your stomach, to your lower back and down your legs, turning standing into an exertion that you really didn’t need. You breathed through it, when spoke once the wave had passed. “I think you should get me to the hospital now.”

His head jerked up and spun towards you so fast you thought he’d broken his neck. “W-What?”

“I’ve been having contractions… for the past hour.”

“The past— Babe! You said you were sleeping!”

“Yes, well, after the Braxton-Hicks incident I wanted to be sure this time.” Said incident had involved a panicking Venom, who had scooped you up and bashed his way out the living-room window - and part of the wall - in the rush to get you to the nearest hospital before you’d been able to explain to him what was going on.

Luckily the Building Manager was a good one. Most of the brickwork had been replaced, and while the ‘window’ part was still boarded up, the Manager had assured you that the order had been put in and it was just a matter of waiting for the custom window to be delivered.

Currently, however, you had bigger problems.

Like Eddie running around the apartment trying to find the bag you’d prepared for your trip to the hospital. “Eddie.”

His voice wavered. You saw little symbiote tendrils start to weave in the air around him, a sure sign that Venom was getting just as flustered. “Yeah?”

Jesus. Did all men get this freaked out? “Hallway closet, top shelf, green duffel bag.”

“Right!”

Shaking your head, you slowly waddled towards the apartment door, thankful for the slip-on sneakers you’d bought two months ago. Bending over just wasn’t possible anymore.

Eddie returned to your side with the needed bag, eyes comically wide. “Cab or web-slinging?”

You opened your mouth, then shut it with a grimace as another wave hit you. You’d had bad menstrual cramps before - had been warned by your OBG/YN that the contractions might feel that way - but this was ridiculous.

“Web-slinging. Definitely web-slinging. Off the rooftop!” you added quickly as Eddie vanished under the darkness of the symbiote, Venom reaching for you once the transformation was complete. “We managed to bullshit our way through one excuse for the wall. I don’t think we can do it again.”

“WE PANICKED A LITTLE,” Venom rumbled to you, voice low with embarrassment, as he gently scooped you into his arms, cuddling you close. He lashed out some tendrils from his back to pick up the duffel bag, anchoring it to him as he used another bit to open the front door.

It wasn’t often that you saw Venom employ stealth. Usually he just went where he wanted to go, and damn anything in his way. Now, he was silent, footfalls making no sound as he darted across the hallway and into the stairwell, bounding up them one flight at a time.

“TALK TO US MORSEL. WE CAN SENSE YOUR PAIN. WHAT DO WE DO?”

That had been the symbiote’s largest issue with your pregnancy. Not the physical changes, or the oddity of a live birth, but the fact that you’d end up in pain. Both Eddie and Venom had zero tolerance for seeing you in pain. They both fretted and hovered, and one of them had a horrible habit of just wanting to kill the source of your torment.

You worried about having them in the room during the actual childbirth.

For now though. “My lower back, can you put pressure on it a little?” Felt a tendril slip under your shirt, spreading across your back and kneading into your flesh, and instantly the seizing sensation eased. “Mm. Thanks. That helps a lot.”

“WE’LL BE AT THE HOSPITAL SOON.” He wasn’t as stealthy as he bashed the rooftop access door open with his shoulder, but you were in the middle of another contraction and couldn’t care. “OH! WE CAN SENSE THAT! HOW FAR APART ARE THEY?”

You glanced at your watch. “T-They’re speeding up. This one is only three minutes after the last one.” The symbiote had read every bit of literature that you and Eddie had brought home, twice, even pestering Eddie into going online so it could learn more. It probably knew more about childbirth than you did at this point.

Venom growled, shifting you in his grip, a thick tendril lashing around your legs, to support you as he freed his right arm and sent a webline out to another building. “HOLD TIGHT. WE CAN GET TO THE HOSPITAL BEFORE YOUR NEXT CONTRACTION.”

Blinking, you obediently curled your arms around his neck, clinging to him as he leapt off the roof. The pull of gravity felt worse than ever before, tugging at something inside you, but you didn’t comment, not when everything blurred past you at a speed you’d never experienced before.

Venom swung around a corner and rebounded off a building before sending out another line, the hand curled around your shoulders tightening a little when you hid your face against his shoulder. It was a rapid paced roller-coaster of ups and downs, pulls and pushes, the wind ruffling your hair as he crossed a quarter of the City in record time.

It was Eddie that landed in a quiet part of the Hospital’s parking lot, his left arm returning to properly cradle you. “Jesus, I didn’t know he could move that fast.”

“Neither did I,” you admitted, feeling the bit of symbiote applying pressure against your back ripple a little.

No one gave you any weird looks as Eddie carried you into the ER, though the triage Nurse was a little slow on the uptake, at least until Venom took over Eddie’s voice and snarled out that you were in labor and to call the doctor now. Then she moved.

Half an hour later - after your water broke and an ER doctor had confirmed that you were ‘officially’ in active labor (no shit Sherlock) - you were in the maternity ward, lying in an uncomfortable bed, in an itchy gown, hooked up to a fetal heart rate monitor. Your legs were in stirrups while a Nurse checked to see how dilated you were. You had a grip on Eddie’s hand, mostly because there was a sheen of white over his blue eyes, a sign that Venom was close to the surface, and you couldn’t tell if the symbiote was just curious or protective.

The next four hours went by normally, so your Nurses told you. You turned down an epidural, but accepted some painkillers. Eddie stayed by your side the entire time, helping you walk when the Nurses suggested that you walk, rubbing your back, fetching you water and ice chips when needed and talking you through the contractions. The symbiote was always just under the surface, evident by the slightly cloudy sheen that turned his eyes grey - something that only you noticed, thank God.

It wasn’t until you were almost fully dilated that the real pain started. Intense cramping, pulling, tightening, waves that left you shaking with every ebb and crest. Eddie became glued to your side, literally, as the symbiote sent out half-camouflaged tendrils, massaging your back and hips, giving you little nudges when you forgot to breathe. At the same time, Eddie encouraged you through each wave, gently using a cold cloth to wipe the sweat from your face, holding you hand when you needed and not complaining when you tried to crush his fingers.

Honestly, there were moments where you wanted to kill him for getting you pregnant.

To say you were relieved when the overwhelming urge to push finally came and a Nurse announced that you were fully dilated and ready to go. You had no idea of how long you’d been at the hospital at that point, everything had just blurred together in the rising and falling of contractions.

Nurses, a doctor for you and a pediatrician for the baby filled the room, the sudden hustle and bustle making your nerves spike a little. But by then the urge to push was massive, and you just wanted the baby out.

They allowed - funny ‘allowed’. Obviously had no clue - Eddie to get behind you on the bed so you were between his legs, back to his chest, helping you to settle into a more comfortable position. It gave the symbiote the opportunity to cover your back and sides, massaging, kneading, where ever it could touch, safely hidden from view by your gown.

You gripped Eddie’s hands and bore down during contractions, gritting your teeth at the stinging, burning, sensation. Jesus Christ, how was the world overpopulated if this is what women had to go though?

Went limp when the doctor told you to stop pushing, leaning your head back against Eddie’s right shoulder, so tired and drained. He nuzzled at you, scratchy stubble itching your cheek, the symbiote kneading your back, pressing against you.

“You’re almost there,” Eddie murmured, kissing your cheek, hands gripping yours tight.

The doctor told you to push when you could, and you shook your head a little. “I-I can’t–”

“Yeah, you can. C’mon. One more.” There was some of Venom’s voice melded with Eddie’s and you shivered as the symbiote rippled against your spine.

With a last herculean effort, your baby daughter was born. Once the doctors cleared her airway, clamped the cord, and deposited her on your chest, she started to fuss and cry. Felt the symbiote go very, very, still against you as you pulled her into a gentle hug, nestling her close to you, hearing Eddie’s breathing hitch a little as he rose a hand to rest it over her back.

“Told you you could do it,” he sniffled, pressing a kiss to your cheek again, though you knew his gaze was locked on his daughter.

Your little Jamie.

The pediatrician took her from you, briefly, cleaned her up a little and checked her over before happily announcing that you had a perfectly healthy, seven-point-two pound little girl.

It wasn’t until you were in your own room, cleaned up, with your daughter in your arms, that Venom felt safe enough to make an appearance. You kept an eye on the door as he slowly approached you, leaning down to peer at the little life in your arms.

“IS… IS IT SAFE TO TOUCH HER?” You’d never heard Venom actually sound nervous before.

“Just watch the talons,” you murmured, smiling when the blackness on his hands rippled, those wicked claws retracting.

Slowly, as if he was almost afraid of her, Venom lifted his little girl into the crook of his right arm, carefully supporting her head the way he’d obviously seen in all the books you’d brought home. Jamie was minuscule in his arms, her little face scrunched up as she slept, one hand nestled to her mouth.

You watched as he ducked his head, gently nuzzling at her, drinking in her scent, just like he did to you. “SHE SMELLS LIKE US MIXED WITH YOU. LIKE…” His voice trailed off, and you saw his pale eyes widen a little.

New motherly instincts went off. “Venom? What is it?”

He licked at her face with the tip of his tongue, blinking when she fussed a little in her sleep. “SHE SMELLS LIKE… LIKE A SYMBIOTE.”

Okay. That wasn’t as bad as your mind was thinking. “You and Eddie are her father. Of course she’d smell like you.”

“NO, MORSEL. SHE HAS YOUR SCENT, YES. BUT SHE DOESN’T SMELL LIKE A HUMAN.”

Okay. That was a little worse. “Which means what?”

One massive shoulder rose and fell in a shrug. “NOT SURE. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. NEVER KNEW WE COULD HAVE AN OFFSPRING THIS WAY.” He turned his attention back down to the baby in his arms, rumbling softly, purring to her in his own way. She fussed a little more, then opened her eyes - the same steel blue as Eddie’s eyes - and though you knew that she probably couldn’t focus her vision yet, you could swear she was looking back at him.

Venom stared back at her for a moment before his head jerked up, eyes narrowing at the doorway. Moments later, it was Eddie standing in his place, the man looking a little frazzled to suddenly be holding his daughter, though that awkwardness quickly turned into a sort of protective-Dad vibe when a Nurse walked in.

Thank God for keen symbiote senses.

After the Nurse had checked up on you and the baby, you were left alone again, Jamie back in your arms, Eddie perched on the side of the bed so he could look down at her.

“Venom thinks she might genetically, be part symbiote,” Eddie murmured to you softly, relaying the symbiote’s thoughts, since the alien had decided that staying hidden while in the hospital was safest. “That might be why she smells different to him. Which makes sense, I guess. I’m not fully human anymore.”

“I don’t care,” you frowned, keeping Jamie settled close while she nursed at your breast. Deciding that Eddie looked too bummed for such an amazing day, you rose your free hand to Eddie’s face, pulling him down for a kiss. “She’s ours and she’s perfect. So, long she doesn’t go biting the heads off of people before she’s eighteen, I can pretty much adapt to anything.”

Eddie paled a little. “Jesus, I didn’t think of that.”

You grinned as you pecked Eddie on the lips again. “And,if she ends up climbing walls and gets stuck up there, I expect one or both of you to get her down. And when the time comes I’ll even let you handle any potential boyfriends.”

“Boyfriends?!” Venom’s voice growled out of Eddie’s throat before the man whacked himself in the chest, coughing when the symbiote relinquished control.

“Calm down dude,” Eddie muttered. “That won’t be for, like, thirteen years.”

“If you’re lucky.”

“Please don’t rile him up,” he pouted, smirking when you giggled. Smiling, Eddie leaned in to kiss you again, then dropped a softer peck onto Jamie’s head. “Love you.”

“I love you, too. Both of you.”

#snarky is writing #filled prompt #venom x reader #reader x venom #venom #eddie brock x reader #reader x eddie brock #eddie brock

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