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kuzann · 4 months

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The Last Letter

@schnuffel-danny approached me with a delightful premise for a Vlad/Jack fic and here's the result! 💜 Had an absolute blast writing this!

Also on Ao3!

Summary

Vlad at last receives a love letter from Jack that was written long ago and realizes he might have to change a few things...

The Fic

Vlad was trying, he really was. Maddie had told him that if he wanted to get on her good side he would have to get along with Jack. She’d already wrung several apologies out of him for his past interactions with her, which he’d gladly given once she was direct about it; clearly his past approach wasn’t working anyway, it wasn’t worth sinking any further effort into regardless and she’d provided a potential path forward for him. Hanging around with Jack was worth a try, since nothing else had worked. And he was trying.

But toxic associations and bad memories meant that getting close to Jack was like trying to cozy up to a cactus.

Jack was on board the moment Vlad asked if he wanted to spend some quality time together, even to the point of canceling all other plans for such days just to make sure they had no need to rush. He doted on Vlad like a lovesick teenager, overflowing with compliments and enthusiasm for anything Vlad was presently interested in. The whole thing turned Vlad’s stomach. He hadn’t liked it from the merciful distance he’d maintained before and he liked it even less up close.

It felt... Fake, coming from Jack. Twenty years of radio silence and suddenly Vlad was one of the most important people in Jack’s life now that he was worth something. ‘Fairweather friend’ would be the appropriate, least-vulgar term. Vlad wasn’t born yesterday. He knew how these things went.

A distant part of Vlad wondered if this was how Maddie saw him and made a mental note to stamp out any similar behavior when he noticed it. He was supposed to be better than Jack, after all. More refined, less of a clown.

Supposed to be. These days he got the sneaking suspicion that he was more like Jack than he wanted to admit, and it bothered him to no end. He would have to take a day to make sure those suspicions were only that, and to make changes if they proved true. Take stock, ask ‘is this something Jack would do?’ and then act accordingly.

Today’s hangout was thankfully out of the public eye, down in the FentonWorks lab. Unfortunately that didn’t stop Danny and his friends from wandering through, and even now Jack was gushing about Vlad to the three of them. Vlad was only half-listening as he tried to fight the embarrassed blush that was settling over his face and ears.

The second-hand embarrassment was almost too much to bear at times. Why couldn’t Jack just be normal about this? Did he really think Vlad was stupid enough to fall for such tricks? That assumption alone was an insult to Vlad’s intelligence. He had to be after something, there was no possible explanation other than that.

“Yeah, that’s great, dad,” Danny said quickly, before Jack had a chance to launch off into another Vlad-related tangent; he’d undoubtedly intended to keep an eye on the two, only to be roped into Jack’s nonsense the moment he’d been spotted. “Are you guys gonna finish up soon or what?”

Jack chuckled. “We can’t stop now, we’re on a roll! We’ve almost got this new invention all figured out, right Vladdie?” He pulled Vlad into an abrupt side-hug.

Vlad barely kept a lid on the sudden flare of anger at being touched without permission. “Yes, indeed we have,” he said, after a pause that stretched just a little too long.

Danny gave him a suspicion-filled squint but didn’t interrupt.

“That’s right! Once the Buster-Vack is operational we’ll be cleaning out the ghost infestation in this town in no time at all!” Jack said proudly.

“Dad, don’t you already have a ghost-fighting vacuum?” Danny asked. “You know, the Fenton Weasel?”

“Now Danny, it’s not like they’ll do the same thing. The Fenton Weasel sucks up ghosts, but the Buster-Vack will drain the energy right out of them and store it for use somewhere else! Much more useful!”

“Yeah, I’m sure Vlad’s gonna find a real great use for it, huh?” Danny shot a pointed look at Vlad.

“Well it could be used to charge devices that require ecto-energy to run, certainly,” Vlad said, not rising to the bait. “But that does require that we get it working first.”

“Right you are, V-man!” Jack said, giving Vlad a back-slap that would’ve sent a weaker man to the floor. “Let’s get back to it!”

~~~

In the end they made little progress on the Buster-Vack. They’d gotten hung up on the present problem of how to peel the energy off whatever ghost it was aimed at without just taking the whole ghost—there was a certain dimensionality that had to be tuned just so—and had decided to sleep on it once Maddie came down and asked them if they wanted dinner. Vlad had excused himself, unable to stomach much more of Jack’s presence, and gone home for the night.

Vlad only realized how exhausted he was after he got through his front door. He sighed, and considered whether he wanted to bother with dinner or not. An early bedtime was looking quite attractive, and eating would mean he’d have to stay up longer to avoid indigestion.

He started toward the kitchen regardless; whether he was going to have dinner or not didn’t matter when there were cats to feed. They appeared like a pair of pale shadows as he neared the kitchen, giving him burbling happy meows of greeting and inevitably getting under his feet in that special way cats did. He picked up each in turn and gave them a little kiss on the head; Maddie only half-tolerated it and immediately tried to clean the top of her head when he put her down while Marty simply purred.

His mind inevitably wandered back to the situation with Jack as he prepared their food.

He was trying. It should’ve been getting easier. He’d been doing this for weeks and he was still just as exhausted now as when he’d first started hanging out with Jack again.

Why was it still so hard to just be around him?

Because he hurt you, abandoned you, and then never even did the bare minimum of apologizing for it, his inner voice replied. Some days he wondered if Maddie’s esteem was even worth this. He’d suffered for years because of Jack, and the man just pretended nothing had even happened between them! Was he supposed to forgive and forget? Brains didn’t work that way! Humans didn’t work that way! Why was he having to do so much when Jack hadn’t even said such a simple phrase as ‘I’m sorry’?

In the end Vlad decided to go to bed without dinner. He’d only end up wandering in endless angry thought-spirals if he stayed up, and that was simply a waste of time. Better to reset, avoid Jack tomorrow, and try to recuperate.

~~~

This time Vlad waited a few days before approaching Jack again. He gave Vlad that puppy dog smile of his when he found him at the front door and immediately took him down to the lab where the Buster-Vack was still waiting. They would be able to pick up right where they left off.

“Why did you even call it that?” Vlad asked after a half-hour of batting calculations back and forth. No matter how much time he’d dedicated to puzzling over the name he hadn’t been able to figure it out. “Shouldn’t it be called, oh, the Fenton Specter Buster or something like that?”

“Well it made sense to put both our names on it,” Jack said with a grin.

Vlad gave him a blank stare. “Huh? But it doesn’t have our names on it—”

“Sure it does! The Vack part! V-A-C-K.”

“Oh, so just half of my name and most of your name?” Vlad asked, a little more snippily than he’d meant to. Only half an hour in and he was already feeling tired.

“Well I had to keep it sounding like ‘vac’, and there’s no ‘l’ or ‘d’ in vacuum,” Jack said matter-of-factly.

There’s no ‘k’ in vacuum either! Vlad thought, but he stopped just short of saying it aloud. He forced himself to drop the matter and returned to his set of calculations.

A few minutes passed in blissful silence before Jack spoke up again. “I missed working with ya, V-man. I’ve been having a blast with you lately,” Jack said with a warm smile.

Vlad’s patience was already paper-thin. That apparent lie or supreme bout of forgetfulness was enough to tear it in half. “Missed me?” Vlad muttered, partially to himself. “I don’t believe you.”

Jack stopped his math scribbles and looked up at Vlad, the smile dropping from his face. “What?”

Vlad didn’t meet his eye right away. He was at a crossroads: make something up and convince Jack that he’d misheard, or tell him the truth. Jack would be more than happy to take the lie, Vlad knew that very well, but the truthful option… Well, that might get him thrown out, but at least it might put a stop to this exhausting dance they’d been doing for weeks. If Jack really wanted Vlad to believe in him then he could prove it.

“I don’t believe you,” Vlad said, louder and more clearly this time, though he still didn’t look up at Jack.

Jack stared at him, absolutely dumbfounded. “But why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Jack,” Vlad said sarcastically, making a show of pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. “Maybe it’s the fact that you left me to die and then never bothered to reach out to me in the entire twenty years we’ve been apart.”

“But the letters—”

“What letters?” Vlad snapped. “I never got a single one from you or anyone else.”

“They never got to you?” Jack surged to his feet and moved to take Vlad’s hand.

Vlad stepped back and out of reach. “Oh, what? Did they conveniently get lost in the mail? So you can claim you sent them without giving any proof?”

“They all came back,” Jack replied. “I still have them.”

That was enough of a surprise to derail the rising anger that had taken hold of him. He’d been expecting a convenient lack of proof on Jack’s part. “Show me,” Vlad said.

The house had a subtle spin to it as Jack led him through it. To think Jack had been trying to reach out after all... No, he wouldn’t believe it before he saw proof. He would not be tricked by Jack’s fake friendship again.

Jack led Vlad upstairs, to a hall closet near the master bedroom. He reached into the very back, behind the extra blankets and sheets, and dragged a decently-sized cardboard box out of the depths. “I had to hide them,” Jack admitted sheepishly as he set the box on the floor between them. “Maddie already threw away the ones she sent, I kinda worried she’d do the same to mine.”

Vlad said nothing and knelt beside the box. A light chill from anticipation settled into his fingertips as he looked down at it.

The box had been closed by folding the flaps under each other, suggesting that Jack hadn’t intended to store it for long periods of time. Jack pulled them open and revealed that it was full almost to the top with old letters.

Vlad slowly selected one at random and checked the postmark: November 15th, 1983. Two years after the accident. He’d been stuck in that government medical facility for four years after it happened...

His head was swimming a bit now. He turned the letter over and started to open it.

In his peripherals he noticed Jack stiffen slightly and reach into the box to take one of the letters. Vlad continued as if he hadn’t noticed. Idiot, he really must’ve considered Vlad to be an oblivious fool if he thought he wouldn’t spot him.

Jack did his best to discreetly slip the letter under a set of folded sheets. It would be easy enough for Vlad to retrieve later as long as Jack didn’t get a chance to move it. All he had to do was wait a little bit and take it once Jack wasn’t paying attention.

Vlad slid the present letter out of its envelope—this one had been written inside of a blank card decorated with a picture of a forest in autumn on the front—and read through it. The letter was brief, unmistakably penned in Jack’s blocky and direct handwriting, and split between news from Jack’s personal life and pleas that Vlad come back to them if he could.

So here it was, the box full of proof that Jack had not forgotten him. At least at first.

Without a word Vlad slid the card back into its envelope and folded the seal flap under its bottom counterpart. “I’m surprised,” he said, finally.

“You can take them home if you want. They were meant for you,” Jack said, shifting a little awkwardly on his knees. Whether his unease was from the delicate emotional matters at hand or because of the letter he’d just hidden Vlad couldn’t say. “I don’t really understand what happened. We thought you were sending them back...”

“Whoever handled the mail at the facility must’ve returned them before they got to me,” Vlad said, his voice sounding distant in his own ears. Yes, that did make sense. Why would they bother letting him get correspondence from the outside? It would be easier to simply send them back. They were both lucky that said person had decided to return them at all rather than disposing of them.

Vlad put the letter back, a pall of exhaustion settling over him. “I don’t feel well,” he said. “I think I’m going to head home for today.”

“Do you want to take them?” Jack offered again.

“Yes, I’ll take them,” Vlad replied slowly. Along with the one you tried to hide, he added silently.

Jack folded the flaps of the box under each other again to hold the top shut and passed it to Vlad, then led the way back down the hall.

Vlad followed, sending an invisible duplicate back to the closet as he did so. The letter was there under the sheets, and addressed to him when he checked the front. Now why had Jack wanted to hide this one? He would have to find that out once he got home.

~~~

The box of letters sat on Vlad’s desk with the previously-concealed letter on the tabletop before him. Vlad picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It seemed normal enough as far as letters went, and a quick comparison to the dates on the topmost letters revealed that it had been the final one Jack sent. August 10th, 1984 said the postmark. Jack had sent it a few months after he and Maddie were married.

Vlad took his little sword letter opener and cut the seal flap. The letter within was written on stationary paper this time, its edges decorated with pale blue clouds. It was... Worn, somehow. Like it had been folded and unfolded and smoothed out multiple times before finally being sealed within its envelope. Something had smudged the blocky handwriting of this one too; perhaps Jack had gotten a bit sloppy with food or drink while writing it. That would be just like him.

Vlad, I really miss you. It’s just not the same without you here. It hurts every time I think about you being gone, I can’t find the right words for it. Please come home. We’ll help you out with any medical bills you have, no matter how long it takes.

From this point on, the writing became noticeably more sloppy, requiring many white-out corrections to stay coherent and more portions that had simply been scribbled out and left behind, looking like partially-smashed insects on the page. Words compressed on the right side of the paper where Jack ran out of room and tried to fit too long a word on too short a line. The stains from water droplets were also more numerous here.

My life’s just not complete with you gone. I miss your laugh and your lips smile and how we used to talk and how close we used to be. I miss holding you in my arms hugging you. I hope you’re doing okay. I hope you’ll be cured soon. I’m sorry I hurt you. I was stupid. I should’ve listened to Maddie. I should’ve made sure you were safe before turning it on.

The next paragraph had been blotched out entirely with a felt-tip pen. Vlad glared at it and turned the letter over; Jack used a lot of pressure when he wrote by hand, and the paper was thin enough that Vlad might be able to read the impression of the letters on the other side. The reading was slower, for obvious reasons, but the hidden paragraph was plain as day:

I’d marry you too if I could. I don’t know if Maddie would be okay with that. I know the government wouldn’t let us. I wish you could be part of my family that way.

Vlad stopped reading. It was suddenly hard to breathe. He carefully placed the letter on his desk and stood, swaying a little as his head spun from the confession.

Jack... Wanted to marry him? How long had he felt that way? They’d been close back in college, sure—far closer than even best friends tended to be—but he never suspected that Jack would want...

He was coming unmoored. It was a strange, empty feeling. Like something had hollowed out his skull and chest cavity, making him weightless.

Vlad picked up the letter again, his fingers cold and clumsy and clammy, and read the final part.

I love you, and I miss you every day. I hope you’re doing okay. Please write back. Love, Jack

Again Vlad set the letter aside. He braced both hands against the desktop and took a deep breath. Then another. The cold weightless feeling refused to go away, and thoughts came and went at a meandering pace.

Jack... Loved him... In the same way he loved Maddie.

Did he still—

Vlad stopped the thought before it could go further. No… He had to think about this. Jack had tried to hide the letter from him earlier, and the confession had been crossed out before the letter was sent. A momentary miscalculation on Jack’s part, quickly hidden once common sense got the chance to set in.

Another part of him asked: But why send it like this? Jack could’ve rewritten the letter with this one as the rough draft, avoiding any possibility of the crossed-out sections being read.

Laziness was the simplest answer. Yes, that would be it. Jack wanted to make the gesture but was too lazy to properly go about the execution. He didn’t really mean it...

Vlad glanced over the box of letters again.

But he had indeed been writing to Vlad. He hadn’t forgotten, as Vlad had been so sure he did over the past two decades.

The letter even had an apology, something he’d wanted so desperately from Jack all along...

Vlad wished he could believe it. But he’d been hurt too badly to trust Jack again. At least, not without additional proof...

The cold, hollow feeling still hadn’t gone away.

He picked up the letter and carefully returned it to its envelope. Vlad needed time. Perhaps this was still too little too late to change things, but regardless... He had been wrong about Jack, at least in part. That was a revelation that needed proper time to sink in.

~~~

Danny looked over the mess of sheets and blankets and then back up at his dad again. Jack still hadn’t noticed him, being too busy turning the closet inside out as he looked for something.

“Uh, dad?” Danny said.

Jack yelped and jumped up so suddenly that he immediately tripped on a half-folded blanket and sat down hard on the floor. “Danny! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” he said once he caught his breath.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh well I uh...” By the pause Danny knew his dad was about to give him a lie, and a hasty one at that. “I hid some snacks in here yesterday and was trying to find them but wouldn’t you know it, they’ve gone missing!” Jack declared, only managing half of his usual confidence. “Guess someone else found them.”

So the location was probably accurate, but the thing he was looking for wasn’t. And Vlad had been visiting just yesterday too... “Well good luck finding who did it,” Danny said; it wasn’t worth trying to get a straight answer out of his dad when he was so determined to lie like this, but Danny already had a good idea of who might be the cause of this situation. He started back down the hall, only to pause after a few steps. “Oh yeah, dad?” Danny said as he turned back to him.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t forget to clean that up,” Danny said, pointing at the mess of sheets and blankets strewn in front of the closet. He then dashed down the stairs before Jack had the chance to ask him to help.

Danny found cover a little ways down the street from FentonWorks and transformed. Time to see what Vlad was playing at.

~~~

The mansion was quiet when Danny arrived. He phased through the nearest wall, then drifted through the library and into Vlad’s office.

Vlad was at his desk, eyes closed as he rested his chin on his interlaced fingers. He looked tired, melancholic; the usual smirk he wore whenever he dealt with Danny was nowhere to be found, and the shadows under his eyes were darker than usual. After a few moments passed opened his eyes and looked up at Danny. “What do you want, Daniel?” he asked, his tone sharp but lacking energy.

“Did you steal something from my dad yesterday?” Danny asked, arms crossed over his chest as he looked down at Vlad. He couldn’t help the curiosity over Vlad’s current state, however much the man annoyed him, but he kept that question in reserve for the time being.

“I did not,” Vlad replied simply.

Danny noticed the worn and marked-out letter that was even now open before Vlad and drifted a little closer to look at it.

Vlad put a hand over it and pulled it closer to himself. “Don’t you know it’s rude to read someone else’s mail?” he snapped.

“What, did you get bad news from home?” Danny asked. “Did papa Dracula write to say he’s disappointed in you?”

“Both of my parents died years ago,” Vlad replied, his voice completely flat.

The reply knocked Danny completely off-balance. “Oh uh. Sorry for your loss,” he said weakly.

“Now if you have nothing else to pester me about...” Vlad said. “I ask that you leave.”

~~~

Vlad tried to return to business as usual. Work on his own inventions, research various artifacts of the Ghost Zone, take care of human-world business dealings...

At every step the letter and the questions it raised haunted him. Not the hauntings he’d grown so used to, as a result of dealing with real ghosts for twenty years, but the ones found in rumor and urban legend. The ones you read about in tales by the old horror masters. Quiet and subtle most of the time, only to loom out of the shadows to claw at him when he least expected it.

A text from Jack interrupted Vlad’s routine stock market research, asking how he was doing. Vlad gave a quick ‘I’m fine’ in return and set his phone aside. He’d only just gotten Jack out of his mind, and there he was barging right in again. Typical.

Vlad sat back in his chair, chin resting in one hand, and stared at the far wall for a time. He hadn’t gone through the other letters yet. Their mere existence was enough of a statement for now, and he didn’t have the stamina for another shock like the final one had given him.

Twenty long years of hate were not so easily dissipated, but the existence of the letters gave a certain hollowness to it all. It was the abandonment that had cut deepest back then. The fact that Jack didn’t even have the decency to try to fix the damage he’d done, that he’d just tossed Vlad aside like a broken toy once he’d become too much of a burden.

So Vlad had thought. And how could he think otherwise? It was a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to from where he’d been sitting.

But that conclusion had been wrong in the end. Part of it, at least. There was nothing to stop Jack from trying to reach out once Vlad escaped that wretched facility and started making a name for himself. He hadn’t even tried, and Vlad knew Jack couldn’t be so under a rock that he would’ve missed some of the strides Vlad was making back then.

So why? Had he written all those letters, just to forget Vlad in the end anyway? That might be worse than what Vlad had assumed for all these years.

He had to know, even as he dreaded the answer. From the beginning he’d thought himself justified in his enmity toward Jack, in his schemes and attempts at revenge, all because of the harm Jack had done to him. But the letters... The love confession... Threatened to change that, threatened to cast Vlad’s past actions in a new, uglier light. The thought brewed a dull feeling of nausea deep in his stomach. Things would have to change if the letter was true.

Perhaps if he’d confronted Jack years ago they could’ve settled things between them, perhaps even mended their friendship and again intertwined their lives as they had before. If Jack really was genuine about his words. If he really did mean what he wrote in that letter. Vlad could’ve had a happier life up until now.

They’d wasted so much time...

Vlad shook his head. No. He refused to get his hopes up. With his luck Jack had sent that final letter and then written Vlad out of his life, and had only re-entered it later because of Vlad’s status. He would not be fooled again.

He shoved such musings out of mind and returned to his work.

~~~

The book he was looking for was not in his library. Or the lab. Or his office. Vlad checked everywhere it could be yet again and came up short. He scowled at the span of bookshelf where it should’ve been and wracked his brain for where it might be. It was a book he hadn’t needed since before his move, a text on Ghost Zone fabrics, which meant he might’ve forgotten to unpack it after all this time.

Vlad hurried to the hall closet nearest to his bedroom, where he’d tucked a few of the unpacked boxes away to be dealt with later—quite a lot later, in this case. He moved the blankets and sheets aside and pulled three of them out.

The first contained a mix of books and clothing—he’d been in a hurry while packing due to the whole lack of roof thing, so item types had ended up jumbled together. Vlad took out the topmost books and found that they covered only mundane subjects—disappointing—then removed the clothes to see if he’d packed any more books underneath them.

His fingers brushed denim, worn and familiar, before he saw the garment it belonged to. Vlad flinched as if he’d been stung and withdrew his arm. Just his luck, to think it would be here of all places at this particular moment... After taking a few seconds to gather himself he lifted the other clothes out, revealing an oversized denim jacket at the bottom of the box.

It had originally belonged to Jack. He’d bought it just before going to college, but shortly after they got their dorm room together, well... It unofficially belonged to Vlad, given how often he wore it. He could still remember the night Jack first placed it on his shoulders to ward off the chill; Jack could make heat like a furnace and claimed he didn’t need it as much as Vlad did, and his warmth had lingered on it for some time after he’d passed it on.

They’d been far closer than mere friends back then. Their nights together were never cold, even in deep winter—

He cut the memory off before it could go further. No point thinking about that right now...

Vlad took the jacket in both hands and lifted it out of the box. It was heavy and cold and smelled faintly of the sandalwood cologne he’d been wearing when he last handled it; over the years and various washings it had lost its original owner’s scent, and Vlad had never bothered trying to recreate it. He shifted his hands and slowly let it fall open. The blue fabric was marred by a few burn marks here and there; the first set was from when he’d tossed it into the hearth in a fit of anger, only to claw it back out again when he realized what he’d done; the second was from the fact that it was one of the items to survive when his ghost portal exploded.

He’d felt a strange sense of kinship with it when he found it among his belongings all those years ago, after finally reclaiming what had been in his dorm room once he was out of the facility. Jack had carelessly left it behind, same as he’d done to Vlad.

But now Vlad wondered if Jack had specifically left it behind for him instead...

~~~

Sleep was elusive that night. Vlad stared up at the ceiling, his eyes wide and his face slack and otherwise expressionless. The jacket lay spread out on the comforter next to him. Occasionally he reached over and took it in one hand, rubbing the fabric between his fingers or simply holding on to it for a time.

At a glance he looked the same as he always did, but now everything unseen was shifting underneath him. A current of emotion and subconscious thought that dragged him farther and farther away from the familiar shore.

A deep, aching sense of longing settled in his chest. He took a deep breath in an attempt to ease it and closed his eyes, for what little good it would do.

Even if Jack still held those feelings after all this time, there was no way they could be what they once were to each other. Jack was happily married to the woman they both loved, any secret relationship would only serve to drive her away from both of them. He would lose Maddie, and he would lose Jack too. He would be alone again.

His own feelings hadn’t completely gone away in the twenty years since then. He’d been terrified when he first noticed them rising out of the depths once more in the wake of reading the letter. If Jack still shared those feelings now then it would only become all the more painful as he stifled them.

Vlad’s grip on the jacket tightened. He liked neither option when it came to the answer Jack could give: he was only now realizing just how miserable he’d been before while he still hated Jack, but the thought of having to settle for never being able to be with him despite mutual romantic feelings didn’t make him happy either. Maddie... Disliked Vlad, after all. There was no way she would ever be okay with a romantic relationship between him and her husband. Things were looking bleaker and bleaker no matter what the outcome was.

Vlad pulled the jacket over and spread it across himself like a blanket, then rolled onto his side and tried to will himself to sleep.

~~~

A few days later Vlad was working on calculations for a new invention when Maddiecat stood in front of his monitor and stared at him.

He briefly tried to look around her—a futile effort, given how much visual space she took up thanks to her long fluffy coat—then moved his chair back to make room.

She examined his lap for a few moments, then stepped down and flopped onto her side with a loud purr.

Vlad smiled and scratched under her chin, instinctively shifting his legs so she wasn’t in danger of rolling off. His thoughts drifted back to her namesake. Doing so did not bring the usual burst of happiness the way it tended to most of the time.

Had his continuing love for her been determined by Jack’s betrayal back then? Why did it feel so incorporeal now? Did it all go back to that?

It almost made him wish he’d never taken that letter. The others were enough to suggest he’d been wrong—at least in part—but that final one... He had yet to regain his balance after finding what it contained.

An indescribable feeling had settled over him ever since. The sensation of something that cannot be undone, of entropy’s relentless march to the future. Even if Jack brushed off the letter there would be a new status quo to replace the old one. There was no perfect reset after this.

Things were changing, and it terrified him. The grudge that had defined him for twenty long years was feeling more tenuous by the day, and he had no idea what would be left in its place if it dissipated completely.

~~~

Vlad proposed another visit with Jack a little over a week after reading the letter. As usual Jack jumped at the chance and cleared his schedule for the day, already making plans to resume work on their joint invention.

The usual hate Vlad felt whenever he was around Jack had that hollowness to it now. Perhaps if Jack brushed off the letter there would be substance to it again. But Vlad would have to ask Jack about it in order to find out.

They went down to the lab and set about calculations for the Buster-Vack. Vlad did his best to focus, but his attention was split between the math and the question of the letter. How to bring it up? He couldn’t just come out and ask about it, could he? But perhaps that would be the best way... Subtlety was not Jack’s forte, after all.

Vlad’s first attempt at bringing it up was abruptly cut short by Danny intruding to ask Jack about some item he’d misplaced. He dropped it once Danny was gone, having remembered that the boy was a possible eavesdropper for any conversation he tried to have with Jack. That added threat of possible embarrassment kept Vlad silent a while longer.

The day passed without an answer. Vlad was lagging behind on his calculations thanks to the divide in his attention, something that he explained by saying he was feeling a little under the weather. Jack didn’t mind; to him the only thing that mattered was that Vlad was here at all.

Vlad returned the next day. Jack worked on the main canister of their invention while Vlad turned his attention to finishing his calculations. For a time the lab was filled only with the hum of lab equipment, the clank of metal and tools, and the scratch of a pen.

“Jack?” Vlad said, at last breaking the silence between them.

“Yeah?” Jack looked up with a big smile on his face.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Vlad began. Anxiety threatened to choke him even as he spoke the words. Why did this have to be so hard? What was he so afraid of?

Jack waited patiently, the sheer force of his attention seeming to settle on Vlad like a lead weight.

“Erm, do you think we should celebrate once we’re done with this? It’s the first invention we’ve built from start to finish in twenty years,” Vlad said, even as he mentally kicked himself for chickening out on the real question.

“That’s a great idea!” Jack said with the utmost gusto. “We’ll have a special dinner and drinks, just the two of us!”

“Yes, that sounds wonderful,” Vlad said weakly. He returned to his calculations again, only to find that it was impossible to focus due to sheer frustration.

Vlad wanted to physically kick himself for that fumble. Maybe he actually would! Duplication was an option, once he got home he could use it to give himself a good kick in the rear for being such a coward. He was one of the richest men on the planet, making progress on bringing the Ghost Zone to heel in a similar manner, he’d fought many powerful ghosts without flinching, and yet here he was balking at a question. A question! A mere string of words with an upward inflection on the end! What was he so afraid of?

The answer to that question proved somewhat murky when Vlad looked for it. There was the fear of change of course, but that wasn’t the only thing that made him hesitate. There was the other side to Jack’s possible reply, the one where he told Vlad that the letter didn’t mean anything. For years he’d thought that Jack didn’t really care about him, but to actually hear it from Jack rather than assume...

It would... Break his heart all over again to actually hear it. The mere thought made him sick to his stomach.

But he still had to know, one way or the other. He couldn’t just sit in limbo agonizing over what the answer might be. He had to ask the question.

~~~

Another day went by. Vlad at last finished his batch of calculations and passed them off to Jack to be incorporated into the rest of their work and went home for the day. He did not, in fact, use duplication to give himself a kick when he got home. It was still tempting, but he had more important matters to attend to. There were cats to feed, dinner to make, and as much sleep as possible to catch once those were taken care of. He would need his wits about him when they tested the prototype tomorrow. Perhaps it would also be easier to ask the question if he got enough sleep tonight.

~~~

Vlad found no opportunity to ask his question as they put the final touches on their prototype. All their focus went into assembly and tuning the internal chamber. Vlad’s calculations were key for getting the energy drain to work properly, and he was confident that he’d done them to perfection despite all the distractions.

Jack placed a collection of faintly-glowing beakers on the testing table. “If this baby can suck the ecto-contamination off of these we’ll be ready to move to the next phase of prototyping. And the final version will be great for cleaning up the lab on top of dusting ghosts!”

“It will be quite the useful device if so,” Vlad said as he took up a position next to Jack. He was a tad dispirited despite their progress, but it was good to see their joint invention make such a milestone.

Jack took up the Buster-Vack’s wand—the device already looked very much like a canister vacuum—and hit the switch.

The device was quiet, giving off a low pulsating hum as Jack brought the wand over to the contaminated beakers. As expected the glow on the beakers was drawn into the end of the wand and soon enough they looked like perfectly mundane pieces of lab equipment again—

Vlad became aware of a horrible weight in the room, as if the air had suddenly become thick as water. He snapped his head around to look at the canister and noticed the odd shadow that seemed to be gathering around it. The rhythmic hum took on a more discordant pattern as something went wrong inside the prototype.

His calculations—

They were both standing far too close. Fear and instinct stamped out rational thought, his inner dialogue going silent as he grabbed Jack by the jumpsuit and leaped away—

The Buster-Vack imploded with a dull thud and an abrupt screech of warping metal. A shockwave flowed out, the leading edge glowing with ectoplasmic energy as it forced the ghostly power out of everything it passed over.

They landed on the floor some distance away. Jack was at a safe range. Vlad was still far too close. The shockwave broke over him like boiling water, the sheer pain of it tearing his voice away. It flowed through him and dragged every speck of ghostly energy from his body as it left—and tore most of the mundane energy from his cells as well.

Vlad collapsed as his consciousness surrendered to the cold darkness.

~~~

Jack sat up once the lab had gone quiet. It was pitch-black, save for the lingering glow left on the walls. Even the Fenton Portal had gone dark. “Phew! Never thought that would happen. Great reflexes there, V-man!”

His words were met by silence. No reply from Vlad, and even the lab equipment had gone dead quiet thanks to the shockwave shoving all the energy out of it.

“Vlad?” Worry crept in, sharp and cold.

The silence was broken not by a reply but by a flurry of footsteps coming from upstairs.

“Vlad!” Jack felt around in the darkness at his side where Vlad should be. A sudden wave of panic rushed over him, and it felt as if his heart was trying to force its way into his throat. What happened—

“Dad!” Danny’s voice rang out from the stairwell just as the beam of a flashlight hit the floor at its foot.

Jack found Vlad as Danny entered the lab. Vlad lay on his side with his eyes closed, arms limp with one draped over his waist. He didn’t respond as Jack shook his shoulder, and Jack could feel an unnatural chill even through multiple layers of fabric.

“Dad, what happened?” Danny ran over to them, rounding a table as he did so. “What was—” he spotted Vlad and stopped to stare for a few moments. “Is he—?”

Jack lowered his head to Vlad’s level and listened. For a few heart-pounding moments he heard nothing, and then—shallow, with long pauses between as if Vlad barely had the energy to pull air into his lungs, but it was there. Vlad was alive.

For now.

“He’s breathing,” Jack said. Now that Danny had the flashlight on Vlad’s face he could see that all the color had gone from it, leaving Vlad’s skin nearly gray. Jack picked him up and held him close, trying to share a little warmth; Vlad had always had issues with being too cold, but he’d never seen it this bad before. “Where’s Maddie?” he asked as he looked up at Danny. He needed someone who could think more clearly than he could right now. At least Vlad had been conscious after the proto-portal accident, but this time—this time he looked like he was on the verge of death.

“Mom’s out shopping,” Danny replied.

“What do we do? Should I take him to the hospital?” Jack brought a hand to his head as he aloud to himself. Could a hospital even treat this? He knew that the hospitals back then hadn’t been able to cure Vlad’s ecto-acne—he and Maddie wouldn’t have had to do that recently if they had—so their knowing that to do for this—

“We need to get to Vlad’s lab,” Danny said, disrupting Jack’s train of thought.

“What?” Jack looked up at him.

“I bet Vlad has something to help with this in his lab. He’s always doing ecto-tech experiments, and a hospital wouldn’t be able to treat this anyway.”

“You know what’s wrong?”

“Um.” Danny paused, the question taking him off-guard. He glanced around the room as he thought of his answer. “Well it looks like whatever happened shoved all the ecto-energy out of everything in here. So that must be what’s affecting Vlad.”

“But I was just fine at the same range.”

“Maybe having ecto-acne left him permanently ecto-contaminated?” Danny asked with a shrug. “Even after it’s been cured it could still leave permanent changes, right?”

“That’s possible...” Jack admitted. Truthfully they still didn’t know as much about ecto-acne as they would’ve liked, such as permanent effects after the cure. Long-lasting ecto-contamination could be one of them... “If his body adapted to having constant levels of ecto-energy then having it suddenly removed could make him sick...” he reasoned to himself as he stared down at Vlad. With his mind made up, Jack took Vlad in his arms and stood. “You know how to get to his lab?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked to Danny.

“He showed it to me once,” Danny replied. “I think he was trying to show off.”

“Let’s go.”

~~~

They took the Specter Speeder over to Vlad’s mansion to save on time. Vlad’s house keys were in his breast pocket, and soon enough they were inside looking for the lab. Danny led the way, meeting only two missed attempts to find the entrance before locating the correct one.

Jack watched the wall slide back as Danny released the lamp that had served as its lever. Vlad definitely had style, it was just one of many things about him that Jack admired, and they had similar tastes in this respect—the entrance to Jack’s own lab wasn’t a secret, but there were certainly a few special functions of the Fenton residence that he’d hidden around.

Danny led the way down into the lab. Jack had never seen it before, despite his newly-rekindled friendship with Vlad. He hadn’t pressed him on it, figuring that Vlad would give him a tour when he felt ready. If only the circumstances for finally being able to see it weren’t so dire...

The lab was dimly-lit by the faintly-glowing lights of slumbering equipment and other devices. The two of them looked around for a light switch, only for the lights to come on mere moments after they’d begun their search. Lights on the equipment pulsed in a wave toward the other end of the lab, leading them toward something that they couldn’t see yet.

They continued on around a corner where they found a large tank with various panels and devices forming its framework. The pulsing lights ended here. This had to be the healing device that Danny figured Vlad would have. A panel lit up next to the tank and its screen declared that the entire array was indeed a recovery chamber meant to speed up healing and re-energize the patient. Instructions on how to prepare Vlad for it followed as a nearby cabinet opened with a whir of servos to reveal something similar to a wetsuit.

“Hey Danny, could you step out for now? I can take care of this,” Jack said with a glance back at Danny.

“Okay,” Danny said after a brief pause. He stepped back around the corner, but the sound of his footsteps stopped there.

It was reassuring to know that his son wanted to stay and support him, but Jack was confident that he could take care of this himself. He laid Vlad out on a nearby exam table as instructed. A scanner popped out of the side and ran its bar of light over Vlad. The readings on the chamber changed with an accompaniment of foreboding beeps, showing that Vlad was at critically low metabolic energy levels and giving the estimate that he would likely die within the hour if left to his fate.

Jack worked swiftly, changing Vlad into the chamber suit and gently pulling out his ponytail so it wouldn’t interfere with the breathing mask. Once ready the chamber’s information panel directed him to a set of spiral stairs that would allow him access to the top of the main tank. Jack ascended with Vlad in his arms and found the top hatch already open. He attached the necessary tubes to the breathing mask, then lowered Vlad into the tank, his movements slow and deliberate. Jack stepped back as the hatch closed with a heavy metallic clank.

He returned to the front of the tank and checked the main screen: it estimated three days to get Vlad back to full consciousness. They’d made it just in time.

Jack’s shoulders went slack, and he breathed a long sigh of relief.

“Everything okay, dad?” Danny called from around the corner.

“Yep! Everything’s gonna be a-okay!” Jack declared, straightening a little as the weight of worry eased off his shoulders.

Danny peeked around the corner, then joined Jack near the healing tank. “So how did this happen, anyway?” he asked as he looked up at Jack.

“Something went wrong with the Buster-Vack. Won’t be sure what until I can look at what’s left, but Vlad pulled me to safety just before it went off.”

“Vlad saved you?” Danny asked with plain disbelief.

“He dragged me away just in time,” Jack said, watching Danny closely as he did. Just what had Danny thinking Vlad would let him die like that?

“Huh.” Danny turned his attention to the tank instead and said nothing more on the matter. “Says it’ll take three days. We can head home for now.”

“I’m not leaving,” Jack said.

“Dad, you don’t have to stick around. He’s gonna be fine.”

“But something could happen before he’s ready to wake up. I’m not gonna leave him alone.” Jack crossed his arms over his chest but didn’t look Danny in the eye as he spoke. The unspoken ‘this time’ hung in the air like a piece of cobweb, slight and drifting but unmistakably there.

Danny let out a grumbling sigh. “Fine,” he mumbled.

Any further discussion was cut off when a nearby screen flashed and displayed a message asking that the two feed Vlad’s cats for him.

Danny stared at the screen. “Wait, he has cats?!”

~~~

The first thing that he became aware of was the pain. A bone-deep ache accompanied by the sensation of having had every one of his muscles wrung out like a damp rag. Next and more pleasant was the temperature: a comfortable warmth that uniformly embraced every part of his body. Then the muffled quality of incoming sound… He was submerged given what he could hear.

The Revitalization Chamber?

He briefly clutched for any recent memories that might reveal why he was here. The Buster-Vack, something going wrong with it… Ah, the shockwave from its implosion shoved nearly all the energy from his body when it hit him. That was why he’d felt so cold as he passed out.

But who had gotten him into the tank, then?

Vlad slowly opened his eyes and looked out through the clear glass at the front of the tank.

Jack was seated at its base, sleeping with his head and near shoulder resting against the glass. It was a surprise to find him here and it... Did kindle some warmth in Vlad’s heart. Just how long had he waited?

Vlad’s gaze lifted to take in the room at large. Only then did he notice the mess of food wrappers and discarded pizza boxes that had been left on various lab tables and on the floor. The resulting spike of aggravation immediately stamped out any fond feelings. Vlad scowled behind the breathing mask. Jack had been waiting around long enough to make a pig sty of Vlad’s lab, that was for sure!

The chamber reacted to his movements and began to drain the healing medium away.

Jack stirred and opened his eyes at the noise. He spotted Vlad and broke out into a happy grin as he stepped back from the tank.

Vlad took the mask off as the front of the tank unlocked and swung up and away. “Jack Fenton, just what do you think you’ve been doing to my la—” the rest was cut off by an awkward yelp as Vlad’s knees buckled under his own weight.

Jack caught him easily—sparing him the indignity of a faceplant—and swept him into an equally-undignified hug. “Vladdie! You’re okay! I was so worried when you passed out!”

Any reply Vlad tried to give was smothered by his face being shoved into Jack’s chest. He tried to yell at him anyway and only managed a lot of incoherent, muffled grumbling as he weakly swatted Jack’s arm in a wordless demand that he let go.

It took a few swats for Jack to realize what Vlad wanted. “Whoops! Sorry, Vlad. I was just so happy that you woke up!”

Vlad gasped as Jack loosened his hold on him, then let out a long groan. “How many days has it been?”

“Three.”

The bottom fell out of Vlad’s stomach. “My cats!” He had automatic systems in place to ensure their needs were met if something happened to him in the short term, but that didn’t stop him from worrying that something might’ve gone wrong.

“Don’t worry, Vladdie. We took good care of them,” Jack said. “We even followed the feeding schedule that popped up.”

Vlad let out a long sigh of relief as the worry receded. “That’s good. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to them.”

“Aww, I’m glad you have cats, Vlad,” Jack said, giving Vlad a warm smile. “They’re so sweet, too!”

“Yes, yes, it’s very nice,” Vlad grumbled, though he couldn’t deny the warmth that bloomed in his chest when Jack looked at him like that. “Thank you for looking after things. You can go home now.”

“I can’t leave you like this, Vlad,” Jack said, his smile replaced by a look of earnest concern.

“What do you mean you can’t leave me? I’m awake now, you don’t have to worry!”

“Vlad. You can’t even walk right now.”

“Yes I can!” Vlad snapped indignantly. “You just haven’t put me back on the floor yet!”

Jack lowered Vlad to the floor as asked and let go; Vlad’s legs held for only a few seconds before threatening to give way again. He scooped Vlad up once more.

Vlad let out a grumbling sigh and let his head rest against Jack’s chest. “Fiiine, you can stay until I get my feet under me again. Just don’t make more of a mess while you’re here.”

“You can count on me, Vladdie!”

“Yes, good. Now could you take me up to my bathroom? The healing medium tends to get sticky as it dries and I don’t want it on me when that happens.”

“On it, V-man!” Jack carried Vlad bridal style—Vlad refused to examine how this made him feel right now, despite the blush that was already settling on his face and ears—and hurried back up to ground level.

After some directions from Vlad—and a few wrong turns from Jack due to his sheer enthusiasm to help—they made it to the master bedroom and its attached bathroom. Despite Jack’s insistence Vlad got him to at least let him shower on his own; Vlad was able to walk a little bit by then as long as he had something to lean against, and he still had his shower chair from the particularly bad ecto-acne flare-ups that would keep him off the floor while he cleaned himself up.

Vlad sat under the stream of hot water for a while and let his mind wander. How many times had he cursed Jack’s name while sitting on a shower chair like this? For all the years of medical agony he’d had to endure, the most terrifying flare-ups where his body lost functions and he wondered if this was finally the end, all from Jack’s five seconds of carelessness. And he’d endured every second of it alone. It would’ve been so much easier had Jack at least been there for him.

A knock at the bathroom door cut off any further ruminations.

“Everything okay in there, Vlad?” Jack asked, his voice just loud enough to reach Vlad over the sound of the water.

“I’m fine,” Vlad replied.

“Alrighty then!” There was the sound of the door closing again as Jack withdrew.

Vlad lingered a little longer under the shower’s stream, then finished up and dressed in the underwear and pajamas he’d picked out before coming in. His legs were a little more steady this time as he walked out of the bathroom and over to his bed—a relief, he wasn’t sure how much more of Jack carrying him he could take—and once there he slipped under the covers and was almost ready to fall asleep immediately upon resting his head on the pillow.

Jack followed and stood next to the bed, looming over him like the comforting bulk of a familiar mountain. He did always tend to hover when Vlad was sick back in college...

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Go clean up the mess you made down in my lab before you forget,” Vlad said. No way in hell was he letting Jack get away with leaving that for him to tidy up, no matter how nice it was for him to be so attentive right now.

“Oh yeah, I’ll get on that,” Jack said with just a smidge of sheepishness, apparently aware himself that he was quite likely to forget to do that without the necessary reminders.

Vlad drifted off as soon as Jack left, soon joined by his two cats who curled up on his bed beside him.

~~~

There was something hovering over his bed. Vlad lashed out instinctively without even opening his eyes and was rewarded with a solid punch to whatever it was, accompanied by an awkward yelp from the intruder.

“Hey! I wasn’t even doing anything to you!” Danny cried indignantly, his voice now coming from a few feet away.

“Invading my personal space counts as doing something to me,” Vlad replied as he opened his eyes. He turned his head and spotted Danny standing with his night stand between them. “And for all I knew you were planning to do something more. Why are you in my bedroom?”

“Unlike you I don’t pick on people who are helpless,” Danny snapped, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to stand up straight after the blow he’d taken to his stomach. “I’m here cause I wanna know what you’re playing at.”

Vlad let out an annoyed groan and ran his hands down his face. “Playing at? I’m trying to recover from a near death experience at the moment! There are no games to be played in this case.”

“Why’d you save my dad?”

It was a question Vlad hadn’t gotten the chance to ask himself, in all that was going on; he’d only been conscious for a grand total of less than an hour today. “I don’t know,” Vlad replied after a few moments’ thought. “I just moved without thinking.”

Danny was watching him carefully when Vlad glanced at him again.

“What now?” Vlad asked. He was still exhausted despite the sleep, and he didn’t care to be pestered with difficult questions at the moment.

“You’ve been kind of different lately,” Danny mused, his eyes narrowing. “What happened?”

“Will you go away if I tell you?”

“Fine.”

“Very well...” Vlad paused, choosing his words as carefully as he could in his exhausted state. “I recently acquired some information that forced me to reevaluate my previous judgments of your father’s character.”

“Wow. All those words just to admit that you were wrong about my dad,” Danny said with a knowing smirk.

Vlad’s last nerve snapped at the disrespect. He threw caution to the wind. “Well it’s not every day that a love letter written years ago finally reaches me,” Vlad said, making a show of examining the backs of his fingernails. “So raw and heartfelt, too. Jack certainly meant it when he wrote it.”

Danny stared at Vlad with a mix of shock and horror on his face that Vlad found every bit as amusing as he’d expected it to be. “You’re lying!” he said, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

“I can show it to you if you need proof.”

“Ew! I’m not reading that!” Danny leaped into the air and gave Vlad a glare. “Don’t— Don’t think this is over just cause you’re not trying to kill my dad anymore! I’m watching you!”

Vlad burst out laughing; watching the boy try to act intimidating now was just too funny. “Watch all you like. Maybe you’ll see some of that proof for yourself.”

“Ugh!” With that final declaration of disgust Danny went intangible and flew up through the ceiling, leaving Vlad alone at last.

The mirth remained as Vlad drifted off to sleep again. He would find a way to deal with the repercussions later; it had been worth it just to see the look on Danny’s face.

~~~

Jack was seated next to the bed when Vlad woke up next.

“My lab had better be spotless when I see it again,” Vlad said as he looked over at Jack.

“Don’t you worry, V-man. It’s as tidy as when I found it,” Jack said, giving him a thumbs-up.

“We’ll see about that,” Vlad grumbled. At least the lab would be cleaner than he’d seen it earlier. It was better than nothing. He stared at Jack for a few moments as he made up his mind; the lingering exhaustion had caused his previous hesitation to evaporate, and he’d already told Danny about the letter...

“Actually, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Jack.” Vlad sat up and draped his hands across his lap.

“Er, what’s up?” Jack asked, looking a little worried.

Vlad stared down at his hands for a few moments, then he looked up at Jack as he spoke, “That letter you sent to me, the final one. Did you mean what you said in it?”

“Can you give me a few specifics...?”

“Oh, it was in a sloppy state, lots of corrections, an entire paragraph blotted out that said you wished you could marry me...”

“So it did end up with you...” Jack said slowly. “How did that happen?”

“Some ghost played a prank on you, perhaps?” Vlad suggested. It was somewhat true, in a way. “And your answer? Did you really mean it?”

Jack had no immediate reply for him and stared at the far wall for a while. At last he sighed and scratched the back of his neck, unable to look Vlad in the eye. “Don’t tell Maddie.”

“Don’t tell her? Why? It’s not like you still—” Vlad stopped short as he made the connection. “You don’t still feel that way, do you?!”

“Yeah. I never stopped feeling that way, really,” Jack said, shifting awkwardly on the chair.

“Then why did you never try to reach out to me? You could’ve done so at any point after I got out of the hospital.”

“I thought you didn’t want me in your life anymore,” Jack replied, looking a little hurt. “The letters came back, and you didn’t find me after you got out. So I figured I messed up so badly that you were just done with being my friend, and I didn’t want to bother you after that.”

Vlad stared at Jack as a new wave of emotions crashed down on him: relief, shock, regret, longing... The tension he’d been unconsciously holding onto left his body all at once. His head swam, the room slowly starting to turn around him. It was all—just a little too much to handle at the moment—

He was only out for a few seconds at most, but he woke up with Jack holding him in his arms again.

“Vlad? You alright? What happened?”

It was all still sinking in. He had his answer now. He’d been proven wrong about Jack, and now he had to figure out how to handle that. How to navigate a world where he’d have to smother his own lingering feelings for the man even while knowing that Jack felt the same. He had no idea how Maddie would react when she found out...

“Still a little woozy from healing up,” Vlad replied weakly. “I’ll be better in a moment.”

Everything was different now. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little hopeful, with the warmth of Jack’s arms around him. His pessimism had been disproven before, perhaps it would be again...

#Danny Phantom #Vlad Masters #Vlad Plasmius #Jack Fenton #Vlad/Jack #Danny Fenton #Hurt/Comfort #dp fanfic #Kuzannfic #So happy to be able to post this!!

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kaylinlmao · 1 year

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could you do yandere! poly! TBP boys x reader when someone is sexually harassing you (I only say this because I need some more comfort while this is going on)

I'm so sorry that this is happening. The world is fuxked up. I'll try to make it super long to maybe make you smile. That's all I wanna do with these stories is make friends and make people smile! 😁 everyone in this fic is 18+

As I was walking down the halls, I heard someone whistle and say "looking good baby. Come down to my house. I'll show you what good sex is really like" He grabbed my arm and I saw it was Moose, the school bully. "No thank you." I said quietly, pulling my arm away from his grasp and walking off. "Why not? You already have 5 boyfriends! How can you even keep track, you slut?" I looked at the ground and ran out the double doors at the front of the building. I feel yucky. My arm doesn't feel good. He squeezed it too hard. I go slide down the wall on the side of the school.

He's right. I am a slut. I'm dating 5 boys. Billy, Bruce, Vance, Robin, and Finney. I never thought it was wrong to love so many people. My mom always said that I had a big heart full of love and that I should share it. So I do. She supports our poly relationship entirely. Even if my boyfriends do act a little weird, I still love them! Is that wrong? I understand that they don't act. Normal. I've had boyfriends before. I don't know where those guys went by the way. I woke up one morning to the news saying that they were missing and two weeks later they were found off the side of the freeway downtown.

I never really thought about it but over the past couple weeks they've been acting really off. I think I'll just avoid them until they move on to another girl. Yeah. Hailey says they're toxic anyways. The next day, Moose did the same thing. Asked me to go with him to the janitors closet, I declined, he called me a slut and a whore. I know, Moose. I know. The avoiding the boys wasn't going too good. I have at least one class with them everyday and they always demand I sit by them. Why would they want a slut to sit by them? Why would they want to date a whore?

I sat next to Donna in all the classes I had with her. Everything went smoothly until my class with Vance. I was sitting next to a girl named Maddi, who I had hung out with a couple of times when I saw Vance hovering over the desk. "You're in my seat." He said. "No she isn't! I want to sit by her today! I sit by you everyday!" I butted in. "Its OK, Y/N. I can move." Maddi said. "Yeah, Maddi here can move." Just then the teacher walked in. "Have a seat over here Vance." She said. It was a seat at the back farthest from the door. Perfect! Maddi and I were sitting at the desk closest to the door. That means I can sneak out of class before he can grab me!

After class was over, I got up and bolted out the door. As I was pushing through the doors to go outside, someone grabbed my wrist. Robin. He dragged me around the building to where the rest of them were. "Hey, I really have to go. I have a lot of homework" "Why have you been avoiding us, pretty girl?" Billy asked. "I haven't been!" "You have!" Vance said. "No I haven't! You guys have been avoiding me!" As they looked at each other confused, I took my chance to bolt. You are diabolical, Y/N. Absolutely diabolical. I got to my house and ran up to my room, shutting and locking the door. As I turned, I saw them climbing through my window.

"How did you get here so damn fast?!" "We ran, doll. You walked." I rolled my eyes. "Now, princesa. Cut the attitude and tell us why you've been avoiding us." "I wanna break up" I whispered. "What? No!" I heard a chorus of. "Why, baby?" Finney asked, looking heartbroken. I had a soft spot for all of them and I couldn't stand them getting hurt. Finney started to cry. I layed on the bed, his head buried in my neck and me stroking his hair "No no no. Finn, I'm sorry. I don't really wanna break up. It's just, Moose was sexually harassing me and calling me a slut so I figured it would be best to break up. And you guys are kinda toxic."

Finney looked at me with doe eyes. "Please don't leave us angel. We're sorry. We'll be better, right guys?" I felt so bad when Bruce said, "yeah darling. We'll be better." "And we'll help deal with Moose." Vance added. "Please don't leave us." Finney said again. "Ok." I sighed. "I won't leave you." "Ever?" "Ever" I agreed.

Little did I know that Finney was smirking over my shoulder.

Love y'all! :) -Kaylin

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lover-of-mine · 9 days

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I keep thinking about the Tommy leaving post and the Buddie being ready for each other post and I feel like there's a comparison I want to make here but I'm not sure exactly what it is but something about Tommy leaving because he was not down with that whole mess of date, understandably, but also Buck's boatload of issues still even tho Tommy came back & they're in this "maybe this could be the something I'm ready for" & potential issues that might crop up going forward like will Buck be hesitant still or dive headfirst or some combination, will Tommy feel like it's too much or just not working, will it be the thing that finally makes something click in Buck's head that he needs to go to therapy bc hey Tommy is different from his exes but the issues are still the same idk or he decides it's not working bc it's not the thing he wants but he's ready to figure that out so again therapy! but also when he realizes he's in love with Eddie & they could be it for each other he knows he doesn't want to make those same mistakes and the way to do that is to be honest with himself and Eddie and it's not perfect but they're both in it and self enough aware they know they can make it work together (therapy would be so good but also Maddie or Bobby have some wisdom here too) like a desperation almost of I love him and I want him and this is it for me but I'm so scared of losing it all and it's like well. What are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna let yourself have this? I read a fic today where when they were discussing starting something but Buck was scared Eddie was like "we deserve to be happy too and being with you makes me happy" and that's all I want now okay sorry this is so long and probably makes no sense but I didn't know who to send it to I can stop rolling it all in my head over and over again send help or a sedative my god they make me feral and all these new ttpd edits are making it 10000x more

Okay, I see what you mean, and I am team Buck/Therapy first and foremost, but let's discuss Tommy outside the perfect queer Yoda people seem to have put him in. First of all, Tommy didn't come back, the energy that exists there is that there would be no second date if Buck didn't ask him for coffee (and Buck only called because Eddie told him to). I don't blame Tommy for walking away, the situation Buck put him in is shitty, but he did not come back, he indulged Buck in a coffee for whatever reason I don't understand. I don't understand why someone would agree to go to someone's sister's wedding after one kiss and half a date they walked out of. But what I'm getting from Tommy is that he's not gonna put up with Buck's bullshit just because he's cute. And Buck is diving in head first, asking someone to be your date to your sister's wedding after half a date where they left you on the curb when he's out to exactly 2 people is somehow crazier than buying furniture with Natalia, because at least there he had what? 3 successful dates under his belt? Buck is in the hamster wheel, this time with a guy. Dating a guy is bringing him clarity in some aspects of his life, but he is still showing the same patterns when it comes to dating. Will he break out of his pattern this time? Who the fuck knows. Realizing he's repeating these patterns and letting go before he gets in too deep, realizing he needs to work on himself, would be a major sign of growth from him, but Tommy pointing something out and making him take action works too, but I don't know what or how that could be approached. I was talking about this with someone last week, I'm pretty sure i sent them a voice note of like, 12 minutes on this, but do we trust Buck to separate the way he's infatuated from what he actually needs? That his bisexuality is his no matter what? Because I don't. If he's still that insecure about Eddie when Eddie has been stable in his life the whole time they've known each other, then I don't trust him with anything emotional, really. Could he wake up one day and realize maybe it was about Eddie, see what's in front of him and proceed to work through his insecurities? Sure, they could go there, especially with how intertwined Eddie is to bucktommy, make Buck realize his feelings, work through his insecurities somehow and realize he needs to talk to Eddie and that they will be okay no matter what. But the thing is, Eddie loves Buck too much. Like the post said, he loves Buck at his own detriment, so if Buck goes all weird on him for whatever reason again (which he probably would if he realizes he might be in love with Eddie, he would panic, 705 Buck would freak out if realized he's in love with Eddie) he's gonna internalize that, and that's something they need to address before there is any movement into making them romantic.

Because now that there's a real chance buddie is gonna go canon, they need to address some problems that were created between them, mainly the way they assume things about each other a lot instead of having an open conversation. All they need is an open conversation, I will accept if the show magically decides they can talk to each other now, that the issue was the denial, but Buck needs to ask for shit, he needs to talk when he's insecure, he needs to not let Eddie get away with assuming he's right, and Eddie needs to stop assuming he can read Buck's mind, he needs to call Buck out when he's getting in his head, and he needs to stop trying to fix past mistakes with someone else, they need to actually be able to address things that hurt them, because they will hurt each other, the question is how they work through the problems. Dating your best friend, even more after being best friends for this long comes with issues, the adjustment would be intense because they have an intense relationship already. And they both need to let go of the idealized version of what a relationship should look like they have. Can Tommy help Buck there? Yeah, absolutely, but he also shouldn't be expected to hold a grown man's hand through his own feelings, yk? Buck doesn't know what he wants and he's working through it, allegedly, so, like, there's potential there but I have no idea how this can unfold tbh. They need to get to the point where they're like "I deserve happiness" but also realizing that happiness doesn't look the way they think it does, that it's never gonna be perfect, but that it is worth fighting for, you don't find it, you make, works here too, but the thing is, you need to keep making it as long as you're together, love is not all it takes, the fight never stops. I've been thinking about this a lot too.

#yeah #i dont know dude #but i feel you #911 #911 speculation #i really need a tag for asks #anon 😌

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renecdote · 1 year

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the tide comes (and goes and goes)

yes this is my third fic in two days. no I am not okay.

@nymika-arts this one is for you 💛

It’s almost funny that Eddie brought him to the beach today. To the ocean. He doesn’t know—can’t know, Buck hasn’t told anyone—but Buck feels unbearably seen by it anyway. He almost wishes Bobby was here too, so he could let his captain wrap an arm around his shoulders and say, “See? It didn’t take either of us.”

(That’s not true though, is it? It took them, it just didn’t keep them.)

Buck, Eddie, the beach, and conversations about okay.

For BTHB: hyperventilating

[Read on AO3]

The water is calm. Too calm for surfing, Buck thinks, not that he’d be allowed to do that anyway. He’s pretty sure surfing comes under the no strenuous activity rule. Swimming, too, so he’s not really sure why Eddie dragged him out to the beach this morning when all he can do is sit in the sand and watch the water creep closer.

“Relax,” Eddie tells him, reaching up to poke at his shoulder. He’s lying on his back, eyes closed behind his sunglasses, and Buck has been trying and failing not to look at the way his tank top has ridden up slightly over his stomach, or the glow of morning sunlight across his skin, or the way his swim trunks stretch over his thighs, leaving nothing to the imagination.

So no. He can’t just relax.

He’s telling himself that the Eddie of it all is the only reason why.

“Why are we here?” Buck asks, dragging a finger through the sand. He draws a heart, then another, then another, then sweeps them all away with a flick of his hand.

“It’s a nice day.” Eddie doesn’t shrug, but Buck hears it in his voice anyway. “Why not?”

Buck frowns down at the sand between his fingers. He wonders whether he’ll ever be able to say, “you know, I’m pretty sure you jinxed me that day when you said you hoped the lightning wouldn’t strike twice,” without the joke falling flat.

“Why didn’t we bring Chris?” he asks.

An eyebrow raised over Eddie’s sunglasses. “It’s a school day.”

“Yeah, but…”

This is starting to feel like an ambush. Buck glances over his shoulder, half expecting Bobby to come walking down the beach towards them. Maybe Maddie and Hen and Chimney as well. He’s barely had a moment alone in the ten days since he was released from the hospital, someone always at the loft, someone else always calling or texting to check in. It’s unnerving that his phone is so silent now. So unnerving that Buck has to pull it out of his pocket just to check that it’s still on (that it’s still real).

Out over of the water, a seagull swoops down to the surface and arcs back up with a fish gleaming in its beak.

“Relax,” Eddie says again, quieter, and his hand is flat against Buck’s back this time, the kind of steady pressure that makes him take an automatic breath and lean into the touch. Eddie smiles. “There we go. Will you lie down now? You’re blocking my sun.”

Buck huffs. “Well if I’m blocking you sun…”

He lies back on the towel, legs stretched out in the warm sand, so close that he can feel the heat of Eddie’s body next to his own. His turns his head, watching his best friend’s chest rise and fall as he breathes, imagining how easy it would be to reach out and feel it.

I didn’t dream about you, he thinks about saying. I dreamed about everyone else but I think I was too scared to dream about you.

He takes a slow breath and holds it, holds it, holds it. Lets it out in a gust. He hasn’t told anyone that he wakes up in the night sometimes, the memory of feeling like he couldn’t breathe so visceral he thinks his lungs have stopped working again. Maybe he should, that seems like the kind of thing Maddie would tell him a doctor needs to know, but if he talks about it, then he has to talk about all the other shit going on in his head as well.

(That’s not true though, is it? It took them, it just didn’t keep them.)

Buck props himself up on his elbows, watching the waves race up the sand, then just as quickly retreat back to sea. He doesn’t know what time high tide is, but it’s pretty high now, surely it can’t get much higher. He glances down the beach, both directions, a crooked line of seaweed and driftwood dark against the sand.

(“It’s called a wrack zone,” Monica told him long ago, Virginia Beach bathed in golden sunset around them. “It marks the high tide line, where all the seaweed and other crap from the ocean has been washed up.”

“Why is it called wrack?” Buck asked, tracing a finger down her spine, drawing shell patterns on her suntanned back.

She laughed, a surprised kind of sound, like she couldn’t figure out why he would ask. “I don’t know, Evan. It just is. Why is anything called anything?”

He went to the library the next day, looked it up in a book and came back with the answer, and he told himself it didn’t sting when Monica didn’t care.)

“You’re thinking.” Eddie’s voice cuts through his eddying thoughts, his eyes still closed. “Stop it.”

Buck flicks sand at him. “I’m not allowed to think?”

“No.” Eddie opens one eye to look up at him. “I know what you’re like.”

Buck isn’t sure why that makes his heart stutter the way it does. He almost presses a hand against his chest, just to check that it’s still working right, but stops himself at the last second.

“Did you know that seagulls mate for life?” he asks, the first thing that comes to him, because he’s pretty sure Eddie is going to ask him if he wants to talk about what’s bothering him if he doesn’t say something, and Buck really, really doesn’t want to talk about what’s bothering him.

“Yes,” Eddie answers, surprising him. “You shared all your seagull facts after that call with the hang glider a while ago. They also have excellent memory.”

Buck barely remembers that call, it must have been… two years ago? Three? He can’t believe Eddie remembers it so well.

“What else?” he asks, curious.

“They’re omnivores,” Eddie recounts. “They fly in erratic patterns to avoid predators. They drink both salt and fresh water. And they’re symbols of healing and tranquility.”

Buck rolls his eyes, slumping back down on the sand. “Yeah, okay, I get it. Healing and tranquility.”

Eddie’s teeth poke out of the corner of his smile. “You’re the one who asked.”

He did. And he kind of wants to ask Eddie to keep talking forever, his voice drowning out the sound of the waves, but Buck bites his tongue and holds the words inside. Asking Eddie to talk to him now feels too much like the start of a slope, steep and slippery, ending in a rocky why didn’t you talk to me while I was in the coma?

The sand under his back is lumpy, something hard under his right shoulder than might be a shell, or an ocean-smooth rock, or just the nub of stick buried in the sand. Buck shifts to get away from it and ends up closer to Eddie.

“Sorry,” he mutters, starting to move away, but Eddie’s fingers brushing against the back of his hand stops him.

“’S’okay,” he says, and when Buck settles back down, he doesn’t move away. “You good?”

“Yeah.”

Getting there.

Buck closes his eyes, and doesn’t reach out to hold Eddie’s hand properly, no matter how easy it would be to do.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep.

Wakes with a start to Eddie shifting beside him, his heart suddenly pounding, his breath sticking in his chest.

“Sorry,” Eddie is saying, his shadow cast across Buck’s face. “Sorry, I was just—Buck?”

Buck swallows, and tries to breathe, and finds that he can’t do both those things at once. Should he be able to? He can’t remember. He can’t remember how his body is supposed to work. He shoves himself up to sitting and tries to suck in more air, but his lungs burn like they’re full of smoke, suffocating him from the inside out. There’s a part of him that always thought he’d die in a fire. That he’d die doing something reckless to save someone. It wasn’t supposed to be lightning. Wasn’t supposed to be a freak fucking accident.

“Hey,” softer, closer, Eddie’s hand on his shoulder, “you’re okay. We’re at the beach, remember? Can you breathe with me?”

He takes Buck’s hand and holds it against his own chest, skin and cotton both warmed from the sun, his chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths. Inhale, hold for one, for two, for three, and exhale. Inhale, and hold, and exhale, and hold.

They’ve done this before. It was Eddie, then, wild-eyed and gasping after a nightmare, his back pressed so far back against the wall that Buck had to crawl onto the bed, practically on top of him, to pull his hand away from clawing at his chest and press it against Buck’s own instead. He’d been terrified, then. Is something close to terrified now. But this time it’s not Eddie he’s afraid of losing, it’s himself.

He makes himself take a breath. And another. And another. He focuses on the movement of Eddie’s chest, the beat of his heart under Buck’s fingertips, the warmth of his fingers around Buck’s wrist.

“That’s it,” Eddie murmurs, and his voice is low and steady, but when Buck meets his eyes, there’s a wild edge to them that he wasn’t expecting. A blurriness that he thinks is his own tears for a moment, until he blinks and they run down his cheeks, and he finds the blurriness still there.

Buck takes another breath and it trembles, rippling through his chest, his legs, down his arms. A gull caws and he flinches. The sun flashes bright on the water. A lightning flash. Half a memory. Sea mist like rain on his face. Eddie squeezes his wrist, pulling him back before he can get lost in it.

His other hand is tight around his phone, Buck realises, three numbers typed out on the screen ready to hit call: 9-1-1.

He takes a deep breath.

Another.

“I’m okay,” he makes himself say. “Sorry, I’m—I’m okay.”

He has a sudden surge of memory:

What’s wrong with him? Why didn’t you call 9-1-1?

Because he wouldn’t let me, so I called you.

And he’d thought then—must have thought, because Chimney said—

Maybe he’s just having a panic attack.

“How do you feel?” Eddie asks, and Buck knows he doesn’t mean emotionally, although they’ll probably get to that later. He means it the same way he means it on calls: what are your symptoms? where is the pain? what do we need to treat?

Irritation licks up Buck’s spine. He’s so sick of being a patient. Sick of resting, sick of everyone being worried all the time, sick of not being fine. He tugs his hand free of Eddie’s grasp to scrub roughly at his face.

“My lungs are fine,” he says, and it comes out more shaky than sharp. “My heart is fine, my—my hands, and my knee, and everything else is all fine. You can stop looking at me like that now.”

“Like what?” Calm. Even. Always so in control.

“Like I’m going to fucking break,” Buck snaps, and the rush of anger steals his breath again, makes him cough, one hand pressed against his chest, the other held up to hold Eddie back.

It doesn’t matter. Eddie doesn’t reach for him this time. He doesn’t let go of his phone either, though, 911 one finger tap away.

“Fuck,” Buck manages, when he has caught his breath again. He squeezes his eyes shut, curls over his knees and grips his hair, like maybe he can hold himself together. Maybe all he needs to do is hold, and hold, and hold. He wishes desperately that Eddie would touch him and is absurdly grateful that he doesn’t.

Somewhere down the beach, a child shrieks. Another laughs. A parent calls for them to come out of the water and Buck feels a shot of adrenaline straight to his heart. It’s so sudden and visceral he thinks he’s going to be sick, the world tilting on it’s edge, reality spiralling away from him. He has to put a hand down in the sand, warm and almost-smooth and real real real against his skin, to try and steady himself. Fuck. Why the hell did he let Eddie bring him to a beach?

“Why don’t we get out of here?” Eddie says eventually. “I promised your sister I’d have you back for lunch.”

Lunch is still hours away, but Buck only thinks about fighting it for a second.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and he’s suddenly too tired to care how tired he sounds. “Okay.”

They’re silent as they pick up their towels, shaking the sand out before throwing them over their shoulders, the cooler bag Eddie brought hanging from one arm, beach umbrella tucked under the other, flip flops carried to the grassy edge of the beach before they put them on. Buck’s skin feels itchy, gritty from more than just sand, and the water from the makeshift shower at the edge of the carpark does little to rinse the feeling off.

“Your hands are shaking,” he realises when they’re sitting in Eddie’s truck, the engine on but the car still in park. He reaches out, but Eddie pulls his hands away, wraps his arms around his chest and tucks them under his armpits, out of reach.

Time stretches, the engine ticking, cold air blowing through the vents. Buck shivers, then shivers again, and when gritting his teeth doesn’t work, he gives in and reaches under his seat for the hoodie he abandoned here earlier.

“I’m okay,” he tries again, fiddling with his cuffs, watching Eddie out of the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

Eddie opens his mouth, probably the start of an automatic denial, then closes it again, his jaw tight.

“You don’t have to apologise,” is what he finally says, and Buck hears you’re right, you did scare me. It leaves a strange, almost salty aftertaste in his mouth.

“Do you want me to drive?” he offers.

It gets Eddie to look at him. Whatever he sees makes him frown and he reaches for the fan dial to adjust the AC. Then he sighs, looking back at Buck while he slowly stops shivering, and the last thing Buck expects him to say is, “Maddie is going to kill me.”

“Maddie likes you,” he protests, even though he’s not sure what he’s really protesting. “Why would she kill you?”

Eddie gestures, up and down and then up again, as if to say look at you, you’re a mess. Buck glares, and hugs himself a little, and tells himself it’s not sulking.

“I knew you were conspiring,” he mutters, because this whole trip was definitely an ambush.

“We weren’t—” Eddie starts, and then he bites off with another sigh, frustrated this time. “How long have you been having panic attacks?”

Buck doesn’t say anything, taking his own turn looking out the window to avoid his best friend’s gaze.

“What happened to ‘you need to talk to me’?” Eddie pushes. “I’m pretty sure that goes both ways, Buck.”

“Because you’re so good at talking,” Buck shoots back, and he hates himself a little for the way that Eddie flinches.

He used to argue with Bobby like this too. Used to push them right to the edge, right to the cliff top of regret, and wait to see if Bobby would throw them both over it.

He waits now, braced against the free fall, adrenaline sharp at the back of his tongue.

“You died,” Eddie says abruptly, and it’s not the push Buck was expecting but it almost sends him into free fall anyway, the ground taken out from under him. “You were dead, Buck, for seven fucking minutes before we got your heartbeat back, and it almost killed me too. Is that what you want to hear?”

No. The recoil presses Buck back into his seat. He’s got a hand against his chest before he realises it hurts, pain sharp and sudden, his heart screaming and his lungs seizing. There’s wind whistling in his ears. Everything has narrowed to dead and seven fucking minutes and the smell of ozone in his nose.

“Shit,” Eddie mutters, and then he’s unclipping his seatbelt and throwing open the car door.

Wait— Buck wants to say, another surge of panic sweeping through him, but then Eddie is circling the front of the truck and pulling open his door as well.

“You’re fine,” he says, stumbling through the words like he’s trying to reassure both of them. “Deep breaths, Buck, come on.”

Fingers around his wrist again, hand on Eddie’s chest. It turns Buck towards him, sitting sideways in the seat with one leg almost on the ground, Eddie pressed in close while he coaches him to breathe. Inhale, hold for one, for two, for three, and exhale. Easier this time, but that might just be because Buck’s lungs are too tired to keep up the panic. He feels greyed out and rubbery by the time his breathing is evening out, exhaustion rushing in where the panic drains away. He sags, forward instead of back, and Eddie catches him in a hug before he can slide right out of the car.

“I’ve got you,” he says, almost a whisper, the words muffled against Buck’s hair.

Buck lifts his arms just enough to wrap them around Eddie’s back and return the hug, and then he’s just—done. Can’t fight it anymore. Doesn’t even know what it is he’s supposed to be fighting. All he can do is hold on and hope that Eddie doesn’t let go. He doesn’t even realise he’s crying until Eddie is pushing him gently back and wiping the tears away.

“I’m gonna take you home,” he says. And when Buck makes a half-formed sound of protest, he adds, “My place. I’ll tell Maddie you’re not up for lunch.”

“No,” Buck tries, and god, is that his voice?

“Sorry,” Eddie apologises, and Buck knows it means you can’t get out of telling your sister about this. Probably also I’ll be calling Bobby too.

He wants to fight it. Wants to insist that he’s fine—that he will be fine—but.

But.

Buck gives in. Lets himself be driven home—to Eddie’s house—and shuffled from front door to shower to couch. He’s starting to hurt, even though he doesn’t feel like he’s done anything that should make him hurt, but that’s pretty much situation normal these days. He doesn’t say anything about it, but Eddie knows him well so he doesn’t really have to.

“Here,” he offers, holding out Tylenol, then water. “Do you want tea?”

“I want coffee,” Buck grumbles, swallowing the painkillers. A headache is setting in and it shows no sign of letting go easily.

Eddie shakes his head, more fond than exasperated. “When the doctor clears you for coffee, I’ll be the first to buy you a cup. Is that no to tea?”

Buck shrugs, hunching down in his corner of the couch. “Tea is fine.”

He closes his eyes, then opens them again a moment later because Eddie hasn’t moved. He’s still perched on the coffee table, worrying at his lip while he watches Buck.

“What?” Buck asks, rubbing self-consciously at his birthmark

A slight head shake: nothing. Eddie stands up, takes half a step towards the kitchen, then turns back.

“We’re gonna be okay,” he says, and Buck feels the words in his chest, lodging somewhere around his heart. An affirmation. A promise. A fuck you to the universe and whatever it wants to throw at them next.

“Yeah,” he agrees, offering Eddie a smile. “‘We’re gonna be okay.”

And when he’s alone—when he’s lying back on the couch with the muted sound of the boiling kettle like a shell held up to his ear, the ocean rushing through him—Buck takes a deep breath—and another and another—and finds that he believes it. Not today, not tomorrow, but one day—whenever one day comes—they’re gonna be okay.

#Evan Buckley #Eddie Diaz #911 Fox #911 Spoilers #fic #badthingshappenbingo

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luffyrose · 9 months

Text

Hold for the Prince - DPxDC Fic to Be

As a quick note before this, I was asking my sister for help naming this prompt/fic and before I could even finish speaking she had gone;

"Felix."

With such confidence that I will now have to somehow get the name in this fic at some point XD

ANYWAY, onto the snippet of the fic I promised for today while I get back on track with my writing overall!

~~~ TW; Death, heavily implied gore, and all the fun stuff that comes with vivisecting a teenager! ~~~

It had been going so well.

Sitting nervously at the table, Danny’s hands tightened, hidden from his parent’s worried few. He opened his mouth, it dry and only a choked noise came out before he shut it with an audible click.

“Baby, I know we say you can tell us anything...and...I know we haven’t been the most, no, we haven’t been very present in a while now. Jazz helped us see that recently. I digress, but you don’t need to tell us anything hunny.”

He could almost laugh at the pure love he could hear in her voice. A part of him had been so close, so so close, to giving up on them. Then Jazz finally got through to the two. Finally, they paused in their obsessive work to look back toward them. The Fenton parents’ had finally turned back to look at their children. Those two little kids who’d gotten so much bigger, so much older, as they ran after ghosts. It had been a shock for them both to truly see their children so big and the entire week after they’d ignored multiple ghosts in turn of being there for them.

They’d even begun to listen.

Danny’s shaking eyes slowly rolled sideways, meeting the cold stare of his mothers.

It was just a few words. He could just say it. Just get it over with. Looking down at the hand that slowly gripped his own, he stared at the familiar nail polish of his sister. She’d promised to protect him, even if their parents didn’t agree. He didn’t want her to ever have to make that choice, but the words and gentle rub on his back had sent him to tears the night before.

Raising his hand slowly, shaky, he tried to reach outward. Tears burned his eyes, a horrible feeling of suffocating enveloping his throat as he-

“Dann-o, we’re here for you buddy! You tell us when you’re ready!”

Maddie nodded with a gentle file along with her husband. She’d never wanted to become like her own father, so enveloped in his work he never truly was her father, and maybe it stung just a bit to think that her kids probably felt at least some of what she’d known as a child.

“Just like the ghosts. It was...a lapse in judgment to believe they were all mindless, though I still believe those like the Wisconsin ghost are beyond evil with the idea that they do have true emotions. Truly, what insane-”

A cough from Jazz had their mother falling silent, a slightly sheepish smile on her face as she dropped it, instead looking back fully at Danny.

“Mom...Dad...I’m-”

His hands shook. Even the gentle pressure of his sister’s hands in his didn’t prevent it.

“Do you, remember when I got the portal working?”

Jack tilted his head, a clear sign of confusion from their brilliant yet simple father. However, Maddie’s face paled. It had been a secret that he’d...died...but it was impossible to hide the symptoms it brought. Even if he could barely remember his mother sitting beside his bed with a gentle hand running through his head as the initial aftershocks wore off...

“I didn’t actually- I, um...”

The words just wouldn’t leave his throat, the choked feeling coming back tenfold from earlier. It seemed as though the meaning began to come across however, both of their parents were much more somber and worried as they glanced at one another. Looking quickly away, he could feel the temperature drop, the way his fingertips were coated with frost. Quickly letting go of Jazz’s hand, he clenched his hands together between his legs. Whether this went well or bad, he refused to let his lack of control over his own emotions harm his sister.

“It may have...um, killed me...”

Now the cold of the room wasn’t from his own ice, but the silence. His voice was weak, terrified sounding he knew, but he quickly fought the wavering of his voice and continued.

“The electricity and ectoplasm both killed me and saved me, and I was really really lucky to not just die or become a full ghost or-” his breath caught, stuttering as his panic took over “-I became what they call a Halfa, half human half ghost and then things just all happened and you all were-”

A hand landed on his shoulder, causing him to tense, closing his eyes tightly.

“Danny...I’m so so sorry.”

Snapping his eyes upward he found tears. Both his parents were crying. Shakily reaching up toward their face, his mom’s other hand gently took his own.

“We never- oh my god, Danny- we never even knew, never noticed...I’m so so sorry, how could you ever stay when-”

Her voice was wet with emotion, arms quickly wrapping around him, much larger ones joining quickly as well. All tension left him as he felt his own chest shake from a sob. Surprised at his own crying, he let his parents hug him, let their warmth, regret, and sorrow just envelop him. It was so much to feel it all at once, but everything felt so real. His fears were unfounded, his pain recognized...his anger rewarded. Danny felt almost wrong to find some joy in their sorrow, but it was easily overpowered by his own grief.

Things would get better.

-tried to reach for his mother. Her body slumped in a pool of her own blood. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t cry...he couldn’t even scream.

Things had been going so well.

His parents had accepted him and had worked with him and the ghosts. They had listened and they had changed. For once he could relax. Yet things didn’t stay peaceful. The Observants nagged at him to come to the zone, to do what very few things he was required as the Prince of Ghosts. It was only a week in the zone. Just one.

He never would have left if he’d known what would have happened...never would have asked Jazz to come home a few days after he returned.

White hair stuck wet from his own blood, tears, and vomit to his own head. Eyes and arms still desperately aimed toward his mother, he didn’t dare to look toward her hand...toward the one laying loose within it. Danny couldn’t look at both of them, not when he was the reason they were now dead.

The GIW had learned of him.

It was the day he was planning to return, happily parting with the ghosts who’d agreed to leave the town alone for a few weeks so the family could mend. Stepping through the portal he’d been met with so many white suits he’d nearly missed his tied-up parents behind them all. Shaky eyes met his mother’s own.

“Danny run-!”

The words were lost on the boy as something struck him, electricity soaring through his feigns as a scream involuntarily left his throat.

He’d woken later to so much pain. The scientist were nothing like the agents. They didn’t fear getting dirty with his blood, didn’t panic at even the slightest gore as they tore him apart from the inside out. Didn’t’ blink as they simply slit his throat to stop his screams of pain and fear. How they simply decided that once enough pain was dealt with physically, they would continue to experiment while causing emotional pain.

Silent sobs escaped his trembling body, the hands that had been present within his open chest for what he was sure was at least the past few months finally nearing his core.

His parents had been locked away so near yet so far from him, being used to cause him pain. They’d finally decided to see what death would cause. The pure sorrow and distress his core reverberated finally gave them more of an area to search. Danny couldn’t even care about the nearing hands, trying so desperately for any strength to reach his parents. He wanted to be with them. Even if it meant dying, he didn’t want to be alone.

“...If this is the react ...... would it’s ‘friends’ or ..... Fenton girl cause .... solid read?...”

In an instant, his mind became clear, time feeling so slow as everything just changed. The air was cold, and he no longer felt himself shaking, not even his eyes despite the blurriness of his tears still present. It took him far too long to realize he was no longer on the table, far longer to realize he wasn’t actually in control. His mind pulled in on itself, begging him to fall into the much more comforting darkness than the harsh reality around him.

“G̷̡̡͇͆͋R̷͇̻̹͒̓͌A̷̭͋Ḁ̷̰̈́̈̍A̶̯͂̽G̸͇̜̚ͅḢ̶̡͠ͅ”

The loud echoey roar almost pulled him right back from the void he was falling into, and yet he only felt a harsher tug, slipping fully away.

A bright symbol appeared hastily on every available screen within the large meeting room. Silence enveloped it as the shape changed into a video, no noise coming through yet, but clear ongoing destruction present just outside a small town. Nobody spoke while waiting for the audio to come through, yet nobody had been ready for it either.

“G̷̡̡͇͆͋A̷̭͋Ḁ̷̰̈́̈̍R̷͇̻̹͒̓͌A̷̭͋Ḣ̶̡͠ͅ”

The deafening sound had many covering their ears, horrified by it. As the roar ended, a single voice spoke, shaking in what everybody could tell was dawning horror. The words only sparked distress in many.

“Bloody hell, it’s crying-”

~~~

I know that there's not really much DC present in this yet- BUT IT'S THERE! You could call this the prologue to the fic that it will one day become >:3c

As always I love hearing people thoughts or ideas so if you even just wanna say something small please do :D

#dp x dc #dc x dp #danny phantom #danny fenton #ghost king danny #jazz fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #jasmine fenton #dp #fenton family #I am remembering how much I hate trying to make sure I got the tags I need on these-#Local British man makes a semi-appearance #he was at the meeting for once and is horrified by the crying eldritch horror #especially because he can HEAR the sorrow and pain through a video

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spotsandsocks · 9 months

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Fuck it Friday

Tagged by the adorable and wonderful @panbuckley @hippolotamus @wildlife4life @honestlydarkprincess sharing a fic that I loved writing and sharing. Posting now cos I’m off the deepest darkest wales today so who knows what kind of Internet access I’ll find this week.

Tagging to share if they want to @ronordmann who made the wonderful cover @shortsighted-owl @prince-buck-diaz @heartshapedvows @heartbeatdiaz @thewolvesof1998 @fiona-fififi @alyxmastershipper @monsterrae1 @rogerzsteven @spaceprincessem @wikiangela @the-likesofus @like-the-rest-of-la @princessfbi @cowboy-buddie @buddierights @housewifebuck @stagefoureddiediaz @elvensorceress @bekkachaos @thekristen999 @megsvstheworld @mysteriouslyyounggalaxy - and vos it fic I’ve tagged some new people too hope you don’t mind… anyone else tag me in I love to see what you’re up to - don’t be shy 💕

Who You Gonna Call?

Call 1: Silence fills the room as soon as Eddie hangs up the phone. He’d known something was wrong the second he’d seen his Dad’s caller ID pop up at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon. It had been a quick call, just long enough to update him on the situation, his Dad had been keen to get back to Abuela, Eddie doesn’t blame him, he wishes he could be there too. He hates that she’s moved away even though he knows it made sense. He just misses her so much, worries about her too, even more now.

His phone is still in his hand so he doesn’t really think much about what he’s doing, just makes the call. It’s picked up in under three rings and Eddie breathes out a heavy greeting.

‘Hey. It’s me.” Although Buck knows that, caller ID and all.

He gets a “Hey,” right back and then after a brief pause Buck asks the question Eddie knew he would.

“You ok?” There’s quite concern in his friend’s voice, he already knows something’s wrong. Eddie guesses there must have been something in his voice to give it away, even if he has only said three words. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised, Buck’s good like that. He knows people, he sees things people don’t expect him to and he cares. Eddie knows he’s lucky to be one of the people Buck cares about.

“Not really,” Eddie sniffs and he can just imagine Buck stopping whatever he was doing and frowning in worry. It’s an expression he’s quite familiar with but he hasn’t seen too much of lately, not now things are getting a little better for him.

“My Dad called, it’s my Abuela.” He takes a deep slightly shuddering breath, “she’s in the hospital, they’re doing tests and things but no one's sure what’s wrong, Dad tried to play it down but I could tell he was worried.”

“And now you’re thinking about plane tickets right?” The understanding is instant, Eddie nods and confirms Bucks guess.

“Yeah, I can’t go, I know that and I’m glad he told me but..”

“You’re too far away and you feel useless.”

Again he nods, a small huff of air escapes too, Buck knows him well.

“I’m gonna call her later, Dad said she’s sleeping.”

“She’ll like that, give her my love.” A heartbeat later Buck says “You want me to come over?”

He does but what he says is “No it’s ok, you’re busy. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Buck’s voice is soft, “Anytime Eds. I’m always here, you know that.”

They hang up not long afterwards, Eddie feeling slightly better having spoken to someone. No, having spoken to Buck, who’s right, he is always there for him. Every time. Eddie’s still not sure what he’s done to deserve it but he’s glad, so very glad he has Buck in his life.

Call 2

Caller ID tells him it’s Buck’s calling and he doesn’t even wait for Eddie to say hi, just jumps in with,

“Eddie! You have to help! Maddie’s going to kill me.”

“What have you done now?” Eddie knows that tone, he waits to hear what minor crisis Buck finds himself in today.

“I’ve lost Jee’s favourite teddy. Maddie just called and Jee’s distraught.”

Eddie thinks Buck’s worked himself up into a similar state by the sound of him.

“Ok, calm down.”

“I am calm.”

“You’re really not, ok, take a sec and...”

“I’ve looked everywhere, Jee will never forgive me, Maddie won’t either.”

“Buck you were here this morning, let me check, maybe it fell out somewhere.”

“Please find it Eddie, I’m a terrible Uncle.”

Eddie rolls his eyes as he pulls cushions around and looks under and behind couches and chairs.

“You’re a fantastic Uncle. Jee loves you. Maddie loves you too. A lost teddy isn’t going to change that .”

“I don’t know Eds. She really loves that bear.”

His hand closes around something fluffy under one of his chairs, he pulls it out and recognises the bear Jee had had earlier.

“Well it’s a good job I’ve found it then.”

“You have!? Oh thank god!” he can just imagine Buck's face, the way he’s throwing his head back, exposing his neck, mouth open as he sighs in relief. He gets lost in the image for a moment then shakes himself free.

“I’ll run it over to Maddie for you, I’m closer.”

“Thank you, thank you, you're the best man, I mean it.”

He laughs, he’s glad he could help wipe Buck’s distress away, a quick trip to Maddie and Chim’s is the very least he can do for Buck.

Eddie knows he’d do almost anything for his friend, but all he says is “No problem, just glad I can help reunite a girl with her bear.” before he hangs up, bear in hand ready to save Buck’s neck from his niece’s tears and sister’s wrath

Read on AO3

#buddie #911 fox #eddie diaz #evan buckley #spotty scribbles #buddie fic #fuck it friday #911 fic

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finduilasclln · 1 year

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Welcome to my Buddie Fic Rec List!

Since I read so many Buddie fics, and some of them are so good, I thought I’d share them in some handy lists. I’ll be posting them in different categories, and you will be able to find all the posts HERE.

Disclaimer: Always read the tags and warnings! Also, tastes differ. These are my personal favorites, which doesn’t mean they’ll automatically be yours of course.

If you want to reblog and add some of your own favorites that fit the category, please be my guest! I always love discovering new fics. I will also add new recs of my own whenever I stumble upon them.

One last thing: Please like and comment when you’ve had a nice read. It means so much to authors to hear your thoughts! And don’t hesitate to share this post and spread the love for these fics around!

Buddie Fic Rec: "Lightning Strike / Buck's Coma".

Fics that are dealing with episodes 6.10 and 6.11 aka Buck getting hit by lightning and his subsequent coma. (Speculation as well as canon compliant)

It only falls into place when you're falling to pieces, by justhockey || 4759 words ||

“You don’t deserve him,” Eddie says. “You never have, and you never will.”

And then he hangs up the phone and lets out a ragged breath - one it sounds like he’s been holding for much longer than the length of that conversation.

It makes Buck’s fingers itch with the urge to reach out and touch him. He’s reached through fire and over cliff sides, across blood-soaked asphalt and between a decades worth of trauma, all for Eddie. This - this is nothing.

one more tomorrow, by fallingthorns (@fallingthorns) || 4438 words ||

He presses Buck’s hand into his forehead and breathes in the scent of antiseptic that lingers on Buck’s skin. He doesn't understand how he missed so many clues, doesn't know how he's been so clueless. But he thinks that some part of him did know that he was in love with Buck, because he put him in his will and made him Christopher’s guardian. Some part of him, deep down, knew what Eddie himself didn’t even realize.

He exhales and squeezes Buck’s hand again. It’s not supposed to be like this – the will doesn’t cover this. It was never supposed to be Buck that goes first.

“Bobby,” he whispers, voice cracking as he closes his eyes against the dorsum of Buck’s hand again. “What am I going to do?” -- Or, in the hospital, Eddie waits, and thinks, and dreams.

coming back as we are, by markofalover (@markofalover) || 4178 words ||

“Hey, Buck,” Maddie cuts in, soft. “Evan. Look at me.”

Buck looks at her. His heart rate is up, he can hear it on the monitor, and the nurse is looking between them with a raised brow. He’ll have to remember to apologize later, after he gets to his—

“They’re in the waiting room.”

...or, wherever he was, Buck comes back.

the tide comes (and goes and goes), by renecdote (@renecdote) || 3402 words ||

(That’s not true though, is it? It took them, it just didn’t keep them.)

Buck, Eddie, the beach, and conversations about okay.

For BTHB: hyperventilating

like the peel clings to the pomegranate, by fallingthorns (@fallingthorns) || 3482 words ||

Buck startles awake to Chris prying his eye open. Chris’s concerned expression swims into his vision as both eyes adjust, squinting at the morning sun streaming in through the window.

“You’ve been sleeping for fourteen hours,” Chris deadpans. Buck is still half asleep, but he catches the slight waver in his voice, can see his eyebrows furrowed as he watches Buck carefully. “You went to bed at seven last night, and now it’s nine in the morning.”

“Nine in the morning, huh?” Buck’s own voice resembles more of a croak as he sits up, muscles aching and head still throbbing. It’s all a result of being struck by lightning and in a coma for a few days, he knows, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.

But what he does like is the smell of Eddie’s sheets, the pictures of him and Eddie and Chris on Eddie’s bedroom walls. He likes the feeling of Eddie’s arms around him in the middle of the night, making sure that he’s okay and breathing.

“Christopher.” Eddie’s voice hisses through the crack in the bedroom door. “I told you not to bother him.” -- Or, Buck recovers and doesn't quite realize what he means to others.

Raise my hand before I can speak my mind, by Mellaithwen (@mellaithwen) || 1696 words ||

“My name’s Eddie, by the way. Eddie Diaz.”

“Buck,” Evan says in response, before frowning. He’s never introduced himself as Buck in his entire life. “Uh—I mean—my name is Evan but…"

“But your friends call you Buck?”

Evan wants to say no, actually, because they don't. The youngest Buckley sibling has always gone by his first name, or his full surname. Never anything in between. The closest he’s ever come to having a nickname is when kids like to call him Mr Bee! And he buzzes back in response, but….Buck? No, that’s...that's new..

Eddie meets his son's favorite teacher, although it's not technically their first meeting at all... aka a coma!dream meet-cute.

let me know you (bedhead and morning breath), by burnthatbridge (@burnthatbridge) || 6157 words ||

When Eddie wakes, it’s to Buck’s arm slung across his chest, Buck’s ankle hooked over his, and Buck’s erection pressing into his hip.

Two out of three of those aren’t unusual.

It’s six weeks since the lightning. Five weeks and two days since Buck woke up. Four weeks and three days since he was released from hospital. Four weeks exactly since he came home, came to stay at the Diaz house while he recuperates, like he should have from the start.

It’s been three weeks and four days since they started sharing the bed.

or: Buck hasn't gotten off since the lightning strike. Eddie watches him do something about it.

Fragile lines (and wasted time), by Mellaithwen (@mellaithwen) || 7457 words ||

“Hey Buck,” Christopher says a little shyly, before reaching out to grab Buck’s foot through the hospital blankets—shaking it in the same way he’s woken his father up on many a bleary-eyed morning. The familiarity of the gesture makes Eddie’s head spin.

But of course, there’s no response from the comatose man on the bed.

“I thought you said he was sleeping,” Chris mumbles, angrily swiping at his cheeks, and Eddie’s already broken heart shatters all over again for whatever hope his son had just lost when his expectations were so cruelly dashed..

While Buck sleeps, and dreams in the aftermath of the lightning strike, Eddie tries desperately to hold himself together.

***

I will be adding my own fics that fit the category, in case you want to read those too:

lights will guide you home, by Finduilas || 916 words ||

Buck and Eddie have a talk after Buck gets back from the hospital.

#Buddie #Buddie fic rec #911 #Buddie fic #Fin's fic rec list #NEW CATEGORY!#Because this one needs a new page :)

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fxnfiction · 5 months

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Buddie Fic Recs! (pt 1)

A few months ago I shared my FirstPrince fic rec list- today it's time for Buddie fics! (part one- 2023 fic edition!)

happy reading!

All My Shattered Oaths by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels | 107k | E

Eddie wants to stay away from his family’s legacy and give his son a normal life. Buck’s desperate to find a way to get over the love he lost.

Fate has other plans for both of them.

still by brewrosemilk | 9k | T

For the first time, Buck longs for a bullet wound to treat. Dirt to dig at. A door to break through. Something. There’s nothing.

“Your guess was correct, Diaz,” the bomb technician tells them, as he gestures to the orange circle. “You’re standing on a large sensor plate, wired to a detonator. It’s incredibly important that you don’t move. Don’t shift. When you put your weight down, it was like cocking a gun - you take your weight off, this thing is powerful enough to take the entire house with it."

Inspired by Castle, S05E22: Still

come close, let me be home by Daffi_990_ao3 | 4k | Not Rated

“Looking good out there, Buckley” Eddie says as he hands him a beer.

Buck accepts the bottle and takes a seat beside him, popping the cap off to take a drink. “Any chance we’ll see you bust some moves on the dance floor, Diaz?”

“Maybe, if I have the right partner”.

Eddie’s looking right and him and Buck can feel a blush creeping its way across his cheeks. It’s shit like this that has him thinking maybe this thing between them isn’t just one sided. Buck takes another pull of beer, keeping eye contact with Eddie and watching how the other man tracks the bob of his adams apple as he swallows.

“The night is still young and full of possibilities.” Buck replies, and he swears he sees Eddie’s eyes sparkle

Buck and Eddie slow dance at Maddie and Chim’s wedding

if i'm honest (it felt like love by sparegarbage | 2k | G

“You have a good partner, Eddie.”

Eddie flushes, because he knows that her partner isn’t the same as work partner. It’s an assumption they had never bothered to correct at Christopher’s school, mostly because it made it easier for people to understand why Buck was around so often, versus best friend or colleague or legal guardian in case I die.

“Yeah,” Eddie responds, his voice thicker than he expected. “He’s the best partner I could ask for.”

Or: Christopher hosts a sleepover, Buck helps, and Eddie realizes he hasn’t been a single dad in years.

i’ll bandage up your body and your bones and your bad days too by oklahoma | 6k | T

Eddie’s day is going pretty well until he’s held hostage at gunpoint in the Dollar Store five minutes from his house.

Okay, that’s a lie. Not the being held hostage at gunpoint bit—that’s very much real, if the gun in his face is anything to go by—but the good day part.

Because it’s been a bad day. A shit day. A stupid day. A horrible, no good, very bad, awful, ugly day, and it all started when he woke up this morning.

You, all the way down by justhockey | 8k | Not Rated

Suddenly, between one moment and the next, there are hands on him. Hands that Buck would know anywhere; hands that Buck knows maybe even better than he knows his own. The touch is exquisitely gentle - tender to the point of devastation, even though the calloused palms scratch against the soft skin of his cheeks.

It’s Eddie, because of course it is. Because who else would it be.

“Breathe for me,” he says, loud enough that everyone can hear, but meant only for them. Only for Buck.

It’s Not the Roaring Dream, It’s the Silent Lightning by giselleslash | 15k | M

Buck gets struck by lightning and wakes up in another life where he has everything he’s ever wanted, but soon that life starts to crumble around him and the painful pull back into reality nearly breaks his heart.

(or the one where Buck is married to Eddie in a coma dream and he doesn’t want to let the dream go.)

feels like I'm closer to a revelation every night by wafflesofdoom | 2k | G

She sees me.

Like Eddie didn’t? Like Eddie didn't know Buck better than anyone - better than he knew himself, sometimes? Eddie sees him for exactly who he is – kind, and caring, and wonderful, and fundamentally changed by those three minutes and seventeen seconds he was dead.

or, a look inside of Eddie's head during their conversation at the cemetary.

I’m Not Breathing Unless I’m Giving You CPR by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels | 51k | E

Evan Buckley fascinates Eddie. And when Eddie's fascinated by something, he wants to play with it. Especially when the thing in question hates him so much.

But then something odd happens - Buck sees past Eddie's mask for what he really is. And it turns out, Buck's the same way. And he's not something to play with. He's something to keep.

Now the real game begins: the game of being who they are, what they are, together, without their well-meaning friends and family finding out. Because now that they've found each other, they're not going to let anyone separate them. Buck is keeping Eddie, and Eddie is keeping Buck.

By any means necessary.

The one where Buck can’t leave by buddiefication | 1k | G

At the end of movie night, Buck usually goes home. This time, he can’t seem to force himself to leave.

OR: Buck and Eddie curl up on the couch together, and somehow don’t know they’re in love.

wishing to be the friction by ipretendtobesane | 97k | E

Buck and Eddie are straight best friends who start having no strings attached sex. Eddie has a hard time having sex with someone he doesn't trust, and Buck's tired of hookups after being with Abby. Besides, they're both comfortable with their sexuality, and there's nothing wrong with giving your friend a hand. What's surprising is how long it took them to fall into bed together, really.

What's entirely unsurprising is how quickly strings start getting attached.

or; the straight eddie friends with benefits fic

heart in hands, hands in pockets by soyxunxperdedor | 5k | G

In which Eddie tries to move on.

not all of us are heroes (not all of us are brave) by withmeornotatall | 6k | G

Buck shakes his head and grimaces apologetically at Marisol. "I'm so sorry for interrupting your night," he tells her. "I'm gonna leave you guys to it, but it was nice to see you again." "Nice to see you too," Marisol replies with a smile. "Sorry again," he addresses this one to Eddie. "I didn't think. I just—" "You thought Chris needed you," Eddie says softly, eyes so warm Buck wants to stay here forever. "Don't apologise for that." "Right, well." Buck takes a deep breath to calm his still pounding heart before saluting at Christopher. "Forever at your service, Superman." He backs out of the kitchen in an exaggerated bow, ducking to hide his smile when Christopher's laugh follows him out.

(OR: buck and natalia break up, eddie decides to introduce his girlfriend to his son, christopher knows way too much, and the 118's wine night has never been quite so eventful)

translate the magic (show me) by extasiswings | 8k | E

“I think I might be bad in bed.”

Eddie rolls that thought around in his head, trying to decide the best way to respond, weighing the options of what Buck needs to hear versus how to say it. It’s not a conversation he wants to be having, is part of the problem. Thinking about Buck desperately seeking connection through fleeting sexual encounters with strangers already makes him swallow back a wave of petty jealousy and possessiveness. But there’s an added level of insult to injury to the idea that Buck wasn’t even having good sex. Which maybe explains why despite his initial commitment to delicacy and tact, what comes out of Eddie’s mouth is—

“You probably were. Bad at it.”

Buck’s eyes widen, a strangled noise sounding from his throat.

“Don’t pull any punches,” he shoots back as he hunches in the chair and drains the last dregs of his beer.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

[Or: the one where Buck has a crisis and Eddie teaches him what good sex really is]

Enjoy! Find part 2 here x

#911 #911 on abc #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #fic recs #buck x eddie #fanfiction #fxnfiction does fanfiction #i want to make a million of these tbh #pls let me know what you think #letmetellyouaboutmyfeels i am submitting my application for your biggest fan actually #anyway more tomorrow bye!

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hannahmanderr · 1 year

Text

DannyMay Day 19 - No Backspace Challenge

Yup, this fic was completed without using the backspace key! So there will be mistakes, but I'm hoping I was able to incorporate the mistakes into the story ;)

Words: 3,858

Summary: Jack has finally caught Phantom! Except Maddie's out of town, and he's not that great with a scalpel. So how about studying him with the next best thing: an interview?

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FENTONWORKS LOGS - Phantom, D.

ABILITIES: (click to expand)

OTHER DESCRIPTORS: (click to expand)

THREAT LEVEL: (click to expand)

THEORIES: (click to expand)

FIELD NOTES: (click to expand)

LAB NOTES:

Showing: Most Recent

DATE: Sept. 12 15:49 pm

PREPARED BY: Jack Fenton

LOGS:

Today I finally did it! I, Jack Fenton, captured the menace known as Phantom! I might’ve accidentally spilled my drink over the backspace key on this keyboard and glitched it out in the process, but it’s a small price to pay to get a chance to examine the ghost boy! If I mess up, I’ll just strike it through. But I’m sure it won’t be to too much! Other than that mistake, at least.

So! How’d I capture him!? Turns out it was real simple! I just walked into the basement and he was there, standing in front of the portal! That’s one of the spots we have pop-up containment units installed, so all I had to do was jump on over to the computer and hit the button, and presto! One protoplasmic punk sealed up tight in a Fenton Containment and Observation Unit!

I might’ve gotten a little excited when I got to the button though. That’s how I spilled my drink. But like a I said, a small price to pay for this breakthrough!

The only problem was that Maddie and I have really wanted to dissent disect dissect Phantom, but I’m no good at actually going through ghost bodies and stuff (ha! Ghost pun!). That’s more Maddie’s stint. I’m the engineer! Bu But yeah, Maddie’s taken Jazz to visit a college this weekend, so it’s been a Fenton’s man weekend for the Fenton men! Without Maddie though, I can’t try and start peeking into Phantom. Especially because I think Maddie wants to try and keep him “alive” for further study (she has a theory about how he gets his ectoplasm apparently, a genius idea!).

But I’m Jack Fenton! I’m not gonna going to let an opportunity like this pass me buy by! There’s still plenty of ways I can get more info on him! Only question is what.

Maybe I’ll ask Danny. I know he doesn’t want anything to do with the family business, but he just doesn’t know he really is meant for it yet! And he’s a clever kid, even if his grades aren’t great. Maybe he can help me brainstorm some ideas - ooo, or maybe he’ll even be okay with helping me! It’s always great to have a lab partner, and I don’t want to take away from the girls’ special bonding time.

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FENTONWORKS LOGS - Phantom, D.

ABILITIES: (click to expand)

OTHER DESCRIPTORS: (click to expand)

THREAT LEVEL: (click to expand)

THEORIES: (click to expand)

FIELD NOTES: (click to expand)

LAB NOTES:

Showing: Most Recent

DATE: Sept. 12 20:12 pm

PREPARED BY: Jack Fenton

LOGS:

Well, I couldn’t get a hold of Danny, but Tucker called over and said the two of them were going to have a sleepover to work on a history project together. Believe me, I’m glad Danny-boy is taking the opportunity to improve his grades, but I’ll be honest, I’m kind of dissapo disappointed. I was hoping to get to bring him into the wonderful world of ghost hunting, have a little man-to-man bonding! Maybe next time.

I thought about what to do with Phantom over dinner. I’ve been trying to ignore him, because he keeps asking me when I’m going to let him go and stuff, so I just keep telling him I’ll let him go when I let him go. Weirdly enough, he got all quiet while I ate my dinner (I made sure to eat it in the lab to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t try anything slippery).

I’m not sure why I did, if I’m being honest, but I asked him what was up. One thing everyone knows about Phantom is that he’s not a quiet person at all - kid’s got a mouth that was born to run sass - so maybe I found his lack of talking uncharacteristic. It kind of made the whole lab feel eerie. We’d been bantering forth back and forth all afternoon, so the silence made me uncomfortable.

He looked surprised when I wasked asked him what was wrong. He definitely didn’t seem to want to answer me at first, but , but I guess his curiosity or something got the better of him, because he wanted to know what I was eating. I didn’t mind showing him, it was just leftover pasta from the other night, but the weird part was that he asked if he could have a little of it.

That one definitely threw me off a little. Everything Maddie andd and I have stuf studied has indicated that ghosts don’t eat; if anything, they “eat” ectoplams ectoplasm, which is why they have to live in the Ghost Zone. Our world doesn’t have enough ectoplasm in it to keep them sustained. Even if it’s a ghost who can “eta eat “eat” emotions from humans, they still have to go back to the Ghost Zone at some point to replenish on ectoplasm, since it’s the stuff that keeps them alive. Er, as alive as a ghost can get anyway.

So then why was Phantom asking to eat human fodo food? Maddie and I have theorized that H he’s one of the ghosts who can consume emoit emotions (see THEORIES), which is why he’s around so often and involves himself in ghost fights with high emotional energy environments. Maybe my emotions alone aren’t enough fo rhim for him? Or maybe they aren’t strong enough? Of course, that’s all assuming he’s the type who can “eat” emotions in the first place.

And even then, why ask to eat human food? Surely he knows that ghost bodies can’t process human food properly, otherwise we’d probably be seeing them eat it all the time. Could it be a leftover behavior from his time alive or something? Maybe he’s used to eating ectoplasmic constructs of human food.

I’ll admit that curis curiosity got the better of me, and I didn did end up giving him some of the pasta. Surprisingly enough, he did’ didn’t wolf it down, but he didn’t take his sweet time either. The way he ate was just very… normal. It struck me as very strange.

So I asked him why. Maybe I was being too blunt - people have told me that I am t too blunt before - but I can’t help it! I wasn want to learn as much as possible out about ghosts, especially if it helps me figure out better ways to keep them from r wreaking havoc in the human world.

It was weirder because he just kind of shrugged and told me he really likes chicken fettuccine. Didna’ Didn’t really offer up any other reason why he was eating food - human food that is. And when he ate it, it didn’t just come falling out of his stomach, like Maddie and I have figured is what happens when a ghost tries to eat human food.

The whole thing got me thinking. Phantom is the one ghost that we can’t pin down. He si seems to violate nearly every rule we’ve established when it g comes to ghosts and their behavior. The fact that he was happily slurping down my pasta was proof enough of that. And Maddie and I have a lot of questions about him and why and how he does the things he does. Questions that might not be answered by dissectiona dissection alone.

So why not just ask him? An interview would be the perfect way to study him!

Maddie n might not be the biggest fan of the idea - she’s definitely more the logical, observable facts kind of gal - but I don’t see the hamr harm done. She won’t be back for another two days, and like I said, I can’t take him apart without her. Might as well do something useful with the time, right?

Maybe I should look into building a Fenton Lie Detector. There’s no way I’ll let some slippery ghost pull the wool over my eyes!

(Also note to self: look into ordering a new keyboard tomorrow. I’m starting to get tired of having to strike through all my mistakes.)

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FENTONWORKS LOGS - Phantom, D.

ABILITIES: (click to expand)

OTHER DESCRIPTORS: (click to expand)

THREAT LEVEL: (click to expand)

THEORIES: (click to expand)

FIELD NOTES: (click to expand)

LAB NOTES:

Showing: Most Recent

DATE: Sept. 13 09:23 am

PREPARED BY: Jack Fenton

LOGS:

It took all night, but I did it! The Fenton Lie Detector is a go!

Phantom was real curious about what I was up to for awhile, but around midnight or so, he fell asleep. Another thing to follow up on during our interview actually. Just like eating, ghosts js shouldn’t need to sleep, since they recharge their energy through ectoplasm and absorbing it. Plus, as far as we know, most ghosts can’t regenerate lost ectoplasm or body parts, not like a human can. Sleep is important to that regeneration process, so there’s no reason for a ghost to need sleep. I guess it just drives home the fact that Phantom is weirder than any other ghost we’ve studied.

Either way, it gave me some good peace and queit quiet to work on the Fenton Lie Detector. It wasn’t too difficult actually - I ended up repurposing the Fenton Ghost Gabber, since we found out it’s kind of redundant what with ghosts speaking human languages and such. So thankfully, a lot of the voice recording and storing as well as the processing work was already done, I just had to -

Oops, sorry! These are Phantom’s logs, right. I’ll make sure I write all this down in our invention logs though! I hope Maddie’s impressed with it!

Anyway, when Phantom woke up and started wondering what I was doing again, I finally told him. It was surprising because he actually seemed really interested in it. Said he even wanted to help me test it! Honestly I didn’t turn up my nose to that. Why would I give up on the chance to have a willing test subject? Even if they are just a piece of post-human consciousness embedded onto an ectoplasmic form.

I made sure to ask him simple questions that would be able to be obvious if he was lying about the answer or not, like his name and his hair color. The first one was a bit shaky, but the next one, when I asked if his hair was blue, went much smoother, thanks to a couple of little twew tweaks I made. All in all, the test was a smashing success!

I need to go eat breakfast before doing the actual interview, but there was something else that’s probably important to note. After Phantom helped me test it, I kind of set it to the side, but I didn’t turn it off. I started to write this log, and then it kind of hit me that I should ask why he was so willing to help me test it the Lid Lie Detector.

When I asked him, he told me that he was hoping it would give him a chance to prove to me once and for all that he’s been telling the truth this whole time. I’m not sure exactly what he meant or what he was reffer refi referring to in terms of telling the truth, but the important part is that I happened to look over to the Lie Detector, and it didn’t return with any red flags. Meaning Phantom was telling the truth about wanting to prove he’s been telling us the truth.

Whew! Kind of makes my head spin just writing it out.

That being said, I told him we’d do the interview after breakfast.

You know, now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder if Phantom would like my huevos rancheros?

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FENTONWORKS LOGS - Phantom, D.

ABILITIES: (click to expand)

OTHER DESCRIPTORS: (click to expand)

THREAT LEVEL: (click to expand)

THEORIES: (click to expand)

FIELD NOTES: (click to expand)

LAB NOTES:

Showing: Most Recent

DATE: Sept. 13 14:46 pm

PREPARED BY: Jack Fenton

LOGS:

I know the time is not going to read particularly accurate, since it’ll be the time I submit the log and not when I started writing it, but this is the official log of my interview with the ghost that goes by Danny Phantom. I admittedly didn’t write out my questions beforehand (I kind of got distracted with building the Fenton Lie Detector), so for future reference, these questions were all made up during the interview itself.

Question 1: Earlier, when you talked about proving you were telling the truth, why what did you mean by that?

Answer: (paraphrased) He talked about wanting to show me that he’s been telling the truth about wanting to protect the town and not being an evil ghost this whole time. He said he’s been trying to tell us for ages, ever since that first ghost invasion when he kidnapped the mayor. (Lie Detector results: no red flags)

Question 2: So you’re claiming you didn’t kidnap the mayor back then - what really happened?

Answer: (paraphrased) The way he told it was that the mayor was overshadowed by another ghost named Walker, who eh he’d gotten into trouble with some time before then. Supposedly, this Walker was looking to get revenge on Phantom by making him out to be the bad guy and turning the town against him. Thus he framed Phantom to make it look like he kidnapped the mayor. (Lie Detector results: no red flags)

Question 3: What about the crimes committed a couple months after that? The camera footage from then shows you explicitly stealing and destroying public property of your own free will.

Answer: (quoted) “Funny that you think it was of my own free will.” (paraphrased) He asked if I remembered the circus ringleader that had been caught masterminding all of the thefts in the first place. I did remember, though I didn’t tell him it was actually Danny and his friends who helped get the guy arrested. According to Phantom, the ringleader had some sort of ghostly artifact that allowed the person who controlled it to put ghosts under a state of mind control. In other words, he’d been forced to steal those things against his true will (Lie Detector results: no red flags)

Question 4: So why try to be the “good guy” in the first place? Why try to fight against your own kind for a town of humans?

Answer: (paraphrased) He claims to have some sort of innate need to protect the defenseless and offer his help to those in need. He also said it’s not something he limits to humans; if there are ghosts in danger, he’ll do his best to protect them too. When pressed further about this “innate need,” he explained that most ghosts have something like that that drives them and forms a big part of their identity. Apparently, these “obsessions” (his word) can even stem from something the they’d held high value in before they died. When asked where his need to protect came from, he claimed he didn’t know. (Lie Detector results: some red flags marked during the last answer; otherwise no red flags)

Question 5: Do you remember how you died?

Answer: (quoted) “Yes.” (no clarification offered) (Lie Detector results: no red flags)

Question 6: How did you t die then?

Answer: (parahp paraphrased) He did not answer this right away. I’m not sure why. He seemed to kind of be thinking about this answer more. Eventually, he said he died from electrocution, but he refused to give up any more details (Lie Detector results: significant red flags indicated)

Question 7: How old of a ghost are you?

Answer: (paraphrased) He told me he’d basically become a ghost right after he died, which was three or four months before he was framed for kidnapping the mayor (Lie Detector results: no red flas flags; NOTE TO SELF: re-evaluate this answer because of discrepancies between age and power level)

Question 8: So because you’re a fairly young ghost, is that why you eat human food still?

Answer: (paraphrased) He answered yes to this and said it helps remind him of what it was like to be alive. He also said it helps fill the “pa phantom phantom” of his stomach, and he laughed at his own joke. I might’ve laughed a little bit too, I do appreciate a good play on words! (Lie Detector results: significant red flags indicated)

Question 9: Is that why you sleep too?

Answer: (paraphrased) He explained that ghosts can sleep, despite popular belief. It might not serve the same purposes as it does for a human, but it can still be beneficial for regulating the purity of bodily ex ectoplasm and allowing the mind to process things. He even told me that there’s a ghost of dreams who will travel around and “harvest” dreams from both ghosts and humans. (Lie Detector results: minor red flags indicated)

Question 10: How often do you sleep then?

Answer: (quoted) “Not as much as I’d like to, especially when some jef jerk of a ghost decides to wake him up in the mi me up in the middle of the night.” (Lie Detector results: no red fal flags)

Question 11: How do you even know where the ghosts are? You always seem to show up before anyone else, like even before our detectors can pick stuff up.

Question Answer: (paraphrased) He told me he has something he calls a “ghost sense” that basically alerts him to a ghost’s presence if it’s within a certain range, though he doesn’t know how far that range reaches. He also said that sometimes he can feel or pick out the ectosignatures of powerful ghosts and use them to help pinpoint their location (Lie Detector results: no red flags)

Question 12: Do you know why so many ghosts seem to show up at the high school?

Answer: (paraphrased) He claimed he didn’t know, though he wondered if it had something to do with the teenagers being easy targets for ghosts or easy sources of emotional energy. He admitted sometimes he hangs around the high school since he knows it’s such a hotspot for ghost activity. (Lie Detector results: moderate red flags indicated towards the beginning of the answer; minor red flags indicated throughout)

Question 13: Is that why so many of the teenagers seem to think you’re the hero? Because you hang around the high school?

Answer: (quoted) “I’m not mind-controlling them, if that’s what you think. Teenagers think superheroes are g cool, sue me.” (Lie Detector results: no red flags)

Question 14: Do you see yourself as a superhero then?

Answer: (paraphrased) He hesitated on this one again. I almost gave up on getting an answer out of him for this one when he finally said he’s not exactly sure how he sees himself. He went on and on about how he’s been called a lot of different things by a lot of different people but he wouldn’t go into detail about them. (quoted) “All I’m trying to do is the right thing. I don’t know what that makes me, but I promise I’m just trying to help.” (Lie Detector results: minor red flags during first part of answer: ; no red flags during second part)

Question 15: If all you’re trying to do is the right thing, then why act so elusive and secretive and mysterious? No one can seem to pin you down or get a true read on you, since you usually come into and out of ghost fights so quickly.

Answer: (quoted) “Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice. I’m getting tired of keeping secrets. Especially from…” [answer cut off before he finished] (Lie Detector results: no red flags)

**NOTE TO SELF: What does he mean be by that? What choice is he talking about? And why is the Lie Detector saying he is telling the truth when he seems so nervouc nervous? He waited so long before saying that, is it really the truth?

I’m not done with the interview yet, I still have a tone ton of questions, but I’m going ahead and saving and submitting this while I go answer the door. Wouln Wouldn’t want to lose all this valuable work!

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FENTONWORKS LOGS - Phantom, D.

ABILITIES: (click to expand)

OTHER DESCRIPTORS: (click to expand)

THREAT LEVEL: (click to expand)

THEORIES: (click to expand)

FIELD NOTES: (click to expand)

LAB NOTES:

Showing: Most Recent

DATE: Sept. 13 15:03 pm

PREPARED BY: Jack Fenton

LOGS:

Alright, starting today, I’m making a new rule: no non-Fenton personnel in the lab unless they’re previously authorized!

Sorry, I’m just upset. I know Sam didn’t mean to, but this is a huge loss for us. I should’ve had her come with me when she asked me if I could help find one of Danny’s textbooks, but she offered to look in the lab while I looked in his room and it seemed like an okay arrangement at the time!

The long and short of it is Phantom is gone. She accidentally hit the release when she was looking around, and of course that punk took the first chance he had to run - er. Fly, anyway.

I wasn’t even done with the interview! That last question I asked, I wasn’t expecting his answer at all. It brought up at least five other questions! And now my mind is racing, I can’t get it off of what he said. It just has me so confused.

I won’t lie - what with the Lie Detector, he acut actually had me believing him. For the first time, I was starting to believe that he was telling us the truth about being the hero - that he’s been playing the part of the hero this whole time. Not even playing the part, like actually trying to save people!

So if his goal is to get me and Maddie to see him that way, why would he run? He seemed so eager to try and help me understand his side of things before.

I just heard Danny come in the door. I should probably go check in on him; it’s not like I have anything else down here I need to worry about.

Wait, that probably sounded really rude. I’m sorry Danny! You’re way more important than any ghost, I promise son.

Before I submit this, I’m just saying this for futuer future me: maybe don’t show this to Maddie. She’ll see it eventually of course, since we both have access to these logs, but I don’t think I’m going to tell her right away. I need time to go through the responses that I did get and re-evaluate the Fenton Lie Detector logs. Not that I don’t trust her, of o course! Maddie is my everything.

But this whole Phantom mystery, I think it’s something I need to figure out for myself first.

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay2023 #dannymay 2023 #danny phantom jack #jack fenton #interview #danny phantom fanfic #hannah writes #this was fun #but also i need my backspace key back lol

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