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strangersteddierthings · 11 months

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Porcelain Steve - Part 7

Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six🦇Part Seven🦇Part Eight🦇Part Nine

((TW for this part; period typical slurs and internalized homophobia. Read the tags before clicking readmore if you want the details))

Steve has been a porcelain doll for seven weeks when disaster strikes.

"What is that," Jeff says, because even though the words are in an order which would suggest that it's a question, the tone of voice Jeff uses decidedly is not questioning.

"What is whaaa-AH! Nothing! It's nothing!" Eddie, who was torso deep into his closet throwing things around to find his backup amp cord, turns to look at what Jeff was talking about, and is now launching himself across his room to stand between Jeff and Porcelain Steve. Porcelain Steve, who Eddie had lain on his bed, propped slightly on a pillow, headphones carefully perched on his little head, hooked to a cassette player currently playing the first hour of last week's Top 40 countdown that Eddie had taped for him (all three hours of it, leaving out the chatter of the radio show host. He'd had to use two tapes to get it all).

"Nothing sure looks a lot like a doll in headphones, Munson," Jeff has an amazing poker face but Eddie's certain he can see a bit of judgement underneath the carefully blank expression Jeff is wearing.

"I don't know what you're talking abo- hey! Hey, no, no, don't!" Eddie tries to bodily block Jeff when he moves forward and the two end up wrestling, a match that Eddie almost wins, if not for the hazard that is his messy room. He gets Jeff walked almost to the door before he steps wrong on something, ankle rolling and sending him down sideways. He clutches at Jeff but can't make purchase and Jeff, the bastard, does fuck-all to try and catch him. Instead, Jeff leaps out of arm's length, then lunges onto the bed as Eddie collapses to his floor.

Eddie frantically tries to stand and, in his haste, ends up with his feet tangled in a pile of dirty laundry and that sends him crashing down again, this time forward onto his hands and knees, so he gives up on standing and crawls the few short feet to the bed, finally looking up to see that the damage has been done.

Jeff has picked up Steve, holding him inches from his own face, eyes squinted in suspicion. Eddie is frozen, horrified and afraid, and can't bring himself to do anything as Jeff examines Steve closely, turning him around, poking his torso, flipping him upside down to examine his shoes more thoroughly. It's only when Jeff reached for the shirt, pinching the hem of it between two fingers that Eddie kicks back into action.

He lunges up, one knee on the bed, leaning over to grab Steve and yank him from Jeff's grip. His first instinct is to throw Steve over his shoulder, out of sight out of mind mentality, but as soon as he does, he realizes his mistake and twists, lunging to catch Steve in midair. He does manage to catch Steve, but it sends him bouncing off his dresser and almost back to the floor before he manager to regain his balance, where he proceeds to cradle Steve to his chest, which is heaving from the adrenaline, wrestling match, and subsequent dive after Steve.

Jeff is giving him a concerned look but something else piques his interest; Jeff reaches over and picks up the headphones, holding them up to one ear. His face goes through every emotion a human could possibly experience in less than fifteen seconds as he listens to whatever track was at the forty-ish minute mark on the Top 40 countdown.

Slowly, Jeff lowers the headphones, letting them drop to the bed before he gives Eddie a new, more judgmental, yet infinitely more concerned, look. "Eddie. What. The fuck."

Honestly, he's not sure there's anything he can say in response.

"Why- I don't... are you okay, man?" Jeff sounds both scared for Eddie, and scared of him, at the same time.

"I'm fine," Eddie manages to squeak out.

"Eddie," Jeff says seriously, "this is not fine. This is- this is insane behavior. You know that, right?"

"I've no idea what you mean," Eddie doesn't even know what he's defending himself from but his default response to anything is to defend himself. He grips Steve tightly around the torso with one hand and then moves both his hands to be behind his back so Jeff will stop staring at Steve.

"I mean this fuckin' insane shrine you have dedicated to Steve fucking Harrington. How did you even get a doll that looks like him. Did you- did you make that?"

Fuck. Holy fuck. What can he say to defend himself here? Is there a single way for him to come out of this not sounding deranged? If he agrees, let's Jeff's drawn conclusion be the truth, then that's all but confirmation to Steve about his big fat crush, so when Steve's back to being Steve he'll never look at Eddie again. Jeff might think he needs mental help, but he'll be here for Eddie. If he tries to deny the accusation, then he'll need an explanation. He'll have to tell Jeff something that make him seem less like a creepy stalker, but what? He can't tell the truth, not without letting everyone know he's going to tell Jeff. There's a whole other secret he'd have to let out to even have a chance of Jeff believing him.

Jeff must take his silence for acceptance or guilt, because he's speaking again. "I.... man, this is not healthy. Please tell me you aren't, like, hoarding a lock of his hair or his clothes or something."

Involuntarily, damningly, his eyes dart to the closet, where several of Steve's sweaters hang from when he'd borrowed them and never returned them. And it's not like Steve doesn't have several of Eddie's own articles of clothing, like his battle vest and a few shirts. But Jeff doesn't know they easily, willingly, swap clothes, so his eyes go wide and dart towards the closet, as if he can pick out which pieces belong to Steve on sight.

Actually, he probably can.

"This really isn't what it looks like," Eddie says because he has to say something. Being silent is too incriminating.

"I don't think you're aware of what this looks like," Jeff says, wiggling himself off of Eddie's bed to stand at the foot of it. "Of all the boys in Hawkins.... I knew you liked Steve but this is.... creepy. That doll looks so much like him that I recognized it. Does Steve know you're in love with him, or is this like a way to process your crush without having to-"

"Jeff!" Eddie yells, mortified. He can feel his whole face heat up, knows he must be bright red. Because Jeff just said, out loud and for Steve to hear, the thing that Eddie very much hasn't even said out loud to himself, even if he knows how he feels deep down.

Jeff must know he's overstepped some invisible boundary he wasn't even aware of because his face immediately shows regret. He takes a step forward and Eddie takes a step back.

Immediately, Jeff stops his forward momentum. "Shit, I'm sorry, Eddie. I'm sorry."

When Eddie answers, his voice sounds like he's been eating gravel, "Just, can you go wait in the living room? I'll be right out, and we can talk, or whatever, but can you just..."

A nod, and then Jeff is gone, closing the door behind him.

With shaking hands, Eddie brings Steve back to the front of him. Looks down at him. He's not even aware he's crying until he watches his tears mark Steve's tiny polo. He can't keep holding Steve. Can't keep looking at him. Not when- not when his best friend just outed him in the worst way possible. And Eddie can't even be upset or hurt about it because Jeff didn't know. He's teased Eddie about his crushes before, and in the safety of his own room, there was no reason for Jeff to have to watch what he was saying.

Even knowing that Steve is okay with Robin, loves her anyway, without the ability to confirm that Steve doesn't hate him right now, Eddie's going to freak out. But he can't. Jeff is waiting in the living room, and the band is waiting back at Gareth's. This was just- they were supposed to just grab the amp cable and get back, a fifteen-minute job at most, and now.

Now Eddie is staring down at Steve, willing himself to not have a panic attack.

"I'm sorry, Steve. I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have heard it like that, it s-should have come from me. It should- you-I'm sorry," Eddie gently underhand throws Steve onto the center of the bed. He lands face up and Eddie sinks to the floor because he can't stand anymore, and he can't really breath.

Steve knows Eddie's a fucking faggot now, and that he wants Steve, and there's no way he'll get to keep the friendship they had before this. There's no universe in which Steve isn't creeped out by this information. There has never been an instance where a straight boy found out about his crush on them and didn't abandon him. Not always cruelly, he'll admit. He's had friends that learned and just... slid from his life with no words and no fuss. Eddie just never spoke to them again because they never came back around, but they also never outed him.

That's what will happen with him and Steve. He'll quit inviting Eddie around, or calling when he's bored, and eventually it will get to the point that Eddie only sees him at BBQ's that Joyce drags him to.

Fuck. FUCK!

He's not sure how long he's on the floor but eventually, he finds the will to get back up and resume digging through his closet to find the amp cord. It doesn't take long, he was ridiculously close to finding it earlier, it seems.

Before leaving his room, he picks back up the cassette player and headphones. Silence comes from them, so he pops the tape out before flipping it to the B side and popping it back in. He puts the headphones around Steve's head again and presses play, doing his best to not actually look at Steve. He'll just have another breakdown if he does.

He trudges out of his room, closing the door behind himself before taking the short walk to the living room, where Jeff waiting on the couch, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled under his chin, eyes faraway as he stares towards the wall in front of him.

"Hey," Eddie says, to get his attention.

"Hey," Jeff says, sitting up straight and turning towards Eddie. "I'm sorry. Whatever I did, I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing? I'm the fucking psycho here," he sighs, leaning sideways against the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest, hand clutching at the amp cord just for something to ground him.

"Forget that, whatever I did, or said, or whatever, you were- when you yelled my name. You looked terrified. Of me," Jeff almost whispers the last sentence, and if not for the stark silence in the trailer, Eddie wouldn't have heard.

"Not of you, Jeff," Eddie whispers back, but his voice doesn't stay quiet because 'quiet' isn't a thing Eddie does easily or often. "Of... of myself, and these- of how I feel- I'm a goddamned faggot and now that Ste- when Steve finds out I'll lose him! Like I've lost every fucking person who ever even suspected I was a fuckin' queer!"

Silence stretches between them, enough to make Eddie fidget, dropping his crossed arms to twist the amp cord about anxiously with both his hands.

"Look, man, I don't know what's, like, the appropriate thing to say so I'm just going for the honest thing. You got me. You'll never lose me. And all those other assholes that you think you lost? You're wrong. They lost you. And if Steve Harrington is gonna be another one of those, then you aren't losing him. 'Cause he was never really in your corner to begin with."

If this were anyone else, with the exception of his uncle, he would be able to hold it together better. But it's Jeff. His best friend. Who never believed Eddie committed unspeakable horrors over Spring Break last year. Who didn't question the strange, new friends he suddenly had afterwards; who accepted as the only explanation a softly spoken 'they saved me' and that was enough. Who had said 'ok, cool' in response to Eddie telling him he was gay, years ago now, and continued trying to find out if Eddie had a secret relationship, switching girlfriend for boyfriend like it wasn't a big deal (Eddie did not have a secret relationship; his good mood that week was the result of snooping for his birthday present and finding the guitar hidden under his uncle bed).

It's Jeff. So, Eddie does the most metal, manly thing he can and bursts into tears, blindly reaching for Jeff and pulling him off the couch so he can bear hug him and sob into his shirt.

"There, there, you big baby," Jeff rubs his back soothingly, "let it out. Then pull your sorry ass together, because Gareth and Brian are going to think we died in a car crash on the way here if we take much longer."

"Ah, fuck," Eddie manager to say around the sniffling he's trying to get control of, "you're right."

"You good, though?"

"Uh, I will be."

Jeff nods and steps back. "How about this. We go to practice, and then you can come to my place tonight and we can like, hangout and talk. If that's what you want."

He's already nodding as he says, "yeah. That would be good. I- uh, I have something to do after practice, but yeah, after that I'll come over."

Eddie tosses the amp cable to Jeff after they climb into the van and head off.

Halfway there, Jeff says, "you know Gareth and Brian are in your corner, too. If you ever feel like telling them one day."

"One day," Eddie agrees, "but today has already been... a lot."

Practice goes well, with some ribbing for their tardiness allowed. If Gareth and Brian notice Eddie's been crying recently, they keep it to themselves. Which is good, because Eddie cannot handle one more thing today.

A promise to meet up with Jeff later and Eddie's back home.

Back to where he left Steve, who will be laying in silence on his bed because it's been well over two hours since he and Jeff left, and the tape only held an hours' worth of music on each side. Back to the nightmare of not knowing if Steve hates him now, or if Eddie's, and this is the most likely scenario, being a bit overdramatic.

His uncle is home, so he greets him, asks after his day, gets told dinner is Fend For Yourself Night (which just means leftovers or a TV dinner), and gets asked about Steve. Because of course he does.

"You sure he went on a vacation willingly with those parents of his, and he ain't actually kidnapped and trapped somewhere?"

That's a little bit too true. If only Wayne knew. "Well, no. I'm not sure. All I know is what he said when he left."

Wayne gives him a look. One Eddie is used to seeing, that says 'I know more than you think but I'm waiting for you to tell me' and Eddie's a little afraid of what Wayne thinks he knows. So, instead of prying that box open, Eddie just says he's tired and goes to his room.

Steve is exactly where Eddie left him.

Suddenly, without reason or logic, Eddie is angry. He's so pissed at Steve for being gone for this long. For having transformed in the first place. For not being able to assure him they'll still be friends, regardless of Eddie's stupid crush.

He snatches Steve off the bed, hand clamping around one of Steve's arms and his torso so he can hold him up with one hand. Steve's face, permanently stuck into a blank expression, looks back. Even knowing that Steve sees and hears through this thing, Eddie's so angry at the doll. If Steve hadn't been turned into this stupid thing, if Eddie wasn't so helplessly in love with him, this wouldn't have happened. Eddie could have taken his own time telling Steve, instead of hearing his deepest secret spilled easily from Jeff's lips. Instead of this not knowing what Steve is thinking, or how he feels. Is he recoiling in disgust at the fact Eddie's making him look at his face? Or is Eddie being awarded the same kindness as Robin, a quiet acceptance that won't change their friendship?

Eddie doesn't know that answer and he hates it.

He's so angry with himself because he should know better. He's forcing his own insecurities onto Steve, about acceptance and caring, when nothing Steve's done since they've become friends is prove that he'll always be Eddie's friend and not even the apocalypse could change that.

"I'm going to hang out with Jeff, so you're gonna be alone a bit longer. Or maybe I should drop you off at Robin's when I go," Eddie goes to toss Steve back on the bed when something pinches his palm. It's a startling sharp pain, quick to fade, but it's surprising enough for Eddie to let go.

Eddie watches, horrified, as he falls to the floor. He twists in the air, landing with a dull thump and cracking sound on his left arm before falling onto his back.

"Shit. Shit! Fuck, Steve, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to," Eddie is crouched, already in the process of reaching for Steve when he freezes.

There is a crack on Steve's left arm, a line that starts above his elbow on the inside of his arm and runs down and across his arm to his hand, where Steve's pinky finger is gone. Looking slightly to the side, Eddie can see the small porcelain piece that Steve is missing laying on the ground next to him. Eddie's own hand is hovering in the air above Steve, shaking.

This can't be- how did- Eddie wracks his brain. Was the crack there already? Did Eddie cause the crack when he bounced off his dresser earlier? When did it happen? Does that fucking matter when it's Eddie who broke a piece off him? If Steve didn't hate him before, he's got to now. Eddie doesn't have time to panic about this, he's got to- El. El can talk to Steve. Find out if he's okay. What if breaking him-

Eddie launches himself up and to his dresser, grabbing at the Walkie up there. He pulls the antenna up, clicks it on and tries not to actually shout as he says, "Code Red! Code fucking Red!" He lets off the talk button, counts to seven in his head, enough time, he reasons, for someone to respond before he repeats the process. "Code Red!! Code Red!"

He repeats this process for three minutes with no response. Where the fuck is everyone!? How is he supposed to- Oh! The phone!

He tears down the hall and to the phone. He must look a right state, because Wayne looks very concerned and is halfway to standing up when Eddie gets to the phone beside him. He yanks the phone up and dials the number for the Byers-Hopper household, holding up a shaking finger to Wayne, a silent plea to give him a moment.

It rings and rings and rings before the answering machine kicks in. Eddie presses down on the disconnect button before dialing the Wheelers' number next.

"Hello?"

"Mike! Code Red! Where the fuck is everyone and why aren't they answering!?"

"What?"

"Code Red! Where's Nancy. Put Nancy on."

"Dude, slow down, what's-"

"I broke St-it. I broke it and someone needs to get El here now. Code Red does not mean ask questions, Mike! It means Code. Fucking. Red."

"Shit, shit, right! I'll get Nancy and we'll get everyone- just- we'll be there soon."

Eddie slams the phone down and has to meet his uncle's eye now.

"Eddie. What is goin' on?"

Eddie inhales a breath and can feel his lower lip quivering. "It's- can we talk about it later? I promise I'm not the one hurt, or in trouble, or- it's not me, ok. I just-"

"Yer shakin' like a leaf boy. What's got you so spooked?"

Eddie just shakes his head and flees back to his room, slamming the door shut between him and his uncle. He can't bring himself to cross the room to Steve. He slides himself down the door to sit on the floor, pulling his knees up to hug.

"I'm so sorry, Steve. I'm sorry."

#steddie #my fic #porcelain steve #TW: Eddie calls himself a faggot and he means it in a bad way #did I make a playlist on spotify w/ Top 40 songs for June 21-27 1987 so id know how many tapes eddie had to use to record it?#yes. its 2 tapes fyi‚ using side A and B of one. a total of 2h54m. in my defense it was a writers block activity.#couldnt figure out what to have jeff say to comfort eddie that was in character and era-appropriate so... playlist it was!#if i were titling these parts this would be Eddie's No Good‚ Very Bad‚ Terrible‚ Horrible Day #I mean... he's had worse days (Spring Break '86) but this is up there for him #also back to back updates!? who am i??? but don't expect another one too soon #i started this one as part 6 originally but decided i wanted a more lighthearted piece first #so i wrote like 2/3 of this before writing what i posted for part 6 so finishing this was quick

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luluwquidprocrow · 2 months

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oh if you knew what it meant to me

albert & diane

gen

2,128 words

It’s the wrong side of midnight, and he’d planned to leave the airport, stand in the parking lot for as long as it took to smoke out the memory of Leland Palmer’s scalp from his brain, and then get a cab. But he’s dead with exhaustion after the flight (and everything else) and Diane Evans and her fucking car are the best things he’s ever seen in his life.

my fic for @tildytwo for @countdowntotwinpeaks' wonderfulxstrange 2024 exchange!! albert coming home after the end of the palmer case.

title from daydreaming by dark dark dark

He sees Diane in the parking lot, smoking under a streetlight by her blinding red Mustang. She’d told him once it was vintage, and he said that vintage wasn’t going to help her out a bit if the car didn’t crumple when some beige sedan asshole t-boned her out on the highway. No airbags at all. He’s unsure about the seatbelts. The trunk is barely going to fit his suitcases, he knows, alongside the hideously pink tool kit he’s sure is still in there. It’s the wrong side of midnight, and he’d planned to leave the airport, stand in the parking lot for as long as it took to smoke out the memory of Leland Palmer’s scalp from his brain, and then get a cab. But he’s dead with exhaustion after the flight (and everything else) and Diane Evans and her fucking car are the best things he’s ever seen in his life.

Diane startles when he gets close, her cigarette smoldering between her fingers. “You look terrible,” she says, as if it’s a revelation.

“I didn’t ask for the opinion of the local peanut gallery,” Albert says.

“You’re getting it anyway,” Diane says. “Sure you weren’t the one that took three bullets to the chest, Albert?”

“Oh, very funny, madam secretary.” Does he really look that bad, he wonders. He feels that bad, like he’s dragging himself six steps behind where his body really is. Three trips in two weeks to the Mayberry R.F.D. death trap in Washington state will do that to you. Or at least it should. Dale Cooper and all his charms aside, Albert had no plans to stay for a placatory funeral in a town that was getting a track record.

Were they giving that girl a funeral too. Or were they only having one for the father of the year. Albert scrapes around in his brain for her name—she deserves that much. Madeline. What about Madeline Ferguson, her blood still stuck on Albert’s hands. His fingers flex around the handle of one of his suitcases. Coop had said she was from out of town. Did her parents come back for her? Or was she getting buried there too, in the same yawning grave Coop was staying behind in? The thought burrows inside his stomach, another knot of background concern adding to the rest of them. In a few years, if not already, he’ll have a nice shiny ulcer to show for all the nonsense the bureau’s put him through. Fuck, he is too tired for this.

Diane takes advantage of his dazed stupor and gets his suitcases away from him. Albert was right, the toolbox is still in the trunk and still pink; his suitcases barely fit but Diane works the same feat of magic she does on everything else and gets the trunk to close before pushing him into the passenger seat. Miracle of miracles, it does have seatbelts.

He twists the radio dial back and forth until Diane gets in and smacks his hand away. She puts on a top 40s station, because her compassion is obviously limited, and reverses neatly out of the parking lot and navigates through the maze of airport traffic onto the highway. Albert keeps an eye out for sedans as a matter of principle. They’re the sort of car that creeps up on you this time of night, even with Philadelphia still alive around them, pricks of light burning like match heads.

“Oh!” Diane twists an arm behind her around to the backseat, digging for something with a reckless abandon that has the Mustang veering sharply over the road.

“Jesus, Diane, the road—”

“Keep your shirt on, Rosenfield,” Diane laughs. She shoves a thermos into Albert’s chest and then gets both hands back on the wheel. “There. I brought you coffee.”

“At what cost,” Albert mutters, but he unscrews the cup and the lid. The fact of the matter is that Diane makes coffee to die for, and he could use the warmth.

“You’re welcome.”

Then she’s silent for a whole verse and chorus of twangy guitars as someone sings about standing, and Albert knows it’s coming. He downs a gulp of coffee like a shot and his jaw starts to tighten up.

“He didn’t come with you,” Diane says.

“What gave it away,” Albert asks, “the lack of chipper humming in the overall ambience or the fact that I got your coffee?”

“I did make it for you, dipshit,” Diane insists. “I listen in on Gordon’s calls, I knew he wasn’t coming, and I thought you could use it. I just—” She takes a quick drag of the cigarette still tucked between her fingers. When she exhales, the smoke chases itself in circles. “—it didn’t sound good, why you went there again. And I thought, maybe he might’ve come back with you anyway.”

“No such luck,” Albert says. “He wanted to stay for the funeral.”

The corner of Diane’s mouth pinches in. She doesn’t say it, but both of them are thinking it. They’re intimately acquainted with Coop’s—Albert has spent a long time trying to figure out how to put it. He takes another drink. It’s not sentimentality, per se. Attachment isn’t quite right either, although it wouldn’t be wrong. It’s a show of commitment, of a deep-seated determination that sits somewhere in Coop’s marrow. An unending desire to be the one that helps.

Albert can’t begrudge him the idea, not all the way. You were supposed to feel something, otherwise you were in the wrong line of work if you did this without it being able to knock the breath out of you on occasion. But Albert has a different idea of what it means to respect a case and the people involved. And it hasn’t almost gotten Albert killed. Punched, sure, but like he said, he can take a punch and he’ll take one again if it means he can try and do his goddamn job like he’s supposed to.

He wants to say, well, Coop will be back soon enough. Funerals don’t take forever. Coop has never known where to draw the line but even he has to admit one exists, even in a town like Twin Peaks. But fuck, Albert had encouraged him. Just catch this beast before he takes another bite. And Harry had asked later—Where’s Bob now?

Albert lets his head hit back against the seat, the taste of the coffee sour in his mouth, the ache of a migraine starting behind his eyes. Blue roses never sat easy, but this—he’s been awake too long as it is.

“He’s impossible, isn’t he,” Diane says quietly.

“That’s one of the words for it, I guess,” Albert says.

The two of them share a glance—Diane makes it blessedly quick and puts her eyes back on the road where they belong. Yeah, they both know about that, too. They have their own attachments. They wouldn’t be in this car if they didn’t.

Diane drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “Are you hungry?”

“I had lunch.” Or something like it, probably a million years ago. He had the least offensive donut he could find in Harry’s office, which was an overly glazed monstrosity. It stuck on the way down.

“Uh-huh,” Diane says. Her tone is not encouraging. “And?”

“And nothing. I had lunch, Diane, I’m fine.”

“And, that was what, at noon? We’re getting something.”

“Diane—”

“You keep it up and I’ll get you a kids meal, Albert.”

“Excuse me, I am not a—”

“With a small french fry. With a fucking juice box.”

“Fine!” he shouts, which definitely sounds like a fucking child. Diane grins in satisfaction, and she keeps it on her face all the way off the highway exit and to the nearest blindingly bright drive thru, cheerfully ordering two hamburgers from an acne-faced kid in the window who’s chewing gum loud enough to break the sound barrier of Albert’s patience.

“Would you like fries with that?” the kid asks.

Diane hesitates, drawing out the moment and Albert’s absolute last nerve until she says, “Yeah.”

Albert manages to pull his wallet out when Diane gets her own, but she gives him such a look like she’s going to ram it down his throat if he even so much as opens his mouth to offer to pay. It rankles him, but then Diane’s flinging the bag of food at him and driving around to park facing the road. There’s a balancing act between the thermos and the hamburgers and the fries and Diane’s ginger ale and her cigarette, but they manage. Albert unwraps his hamburger, exchanges the onions for the saddest lone pickle slice from Diane’s, and sinks his teeth into the whole thing. It really is the greasiest thing in the world. He hates how good it tastes right now.

The radio crackles with static, only bursts of some recent subpar Chicago song coming through. Cars shoot by, one another another with the lights starting to blur. Albert rubs his eyes and says it. “I feel like I left him there.”

Diane picks at her french fries. “I don’t think either of us could’ve dragged him away,” she concedes. “Not if he didn’t want to leave.”

“He’s got all the self-preservation skills of a deer in headlights,” Albert says. “And he’s not even going to notice if he gets hit. Next thing I know he’ll put down roots there.”

Diane shifts in her seat.

Motherfucker. “Don’t tell me,” Albert says. “Don’t do it, Diane. I’m asking nicely.”

“Too late. He wanted to know about his real estate opportunities in his pension,” Diane says. Then—“I told him it was misfiled and I couldn’t find it. I thought, even Dale couldn’t be serious about that. But—”

Albert’s free hand curls in on itself against his knee. Son of a bitch, it stings. He should’ve stayed and sat through the most pointless funeral so he could pull the hooks out of Coop himself and take him home. He should’ve punched Harry back. He should’ve looked him in the eyes until he saw what Coop saw in there. He should’ve finished Laura Palmer’s autopsy. He should’ve taken them all back with him when he had the chance.

He wonders what his own pension options are. Albert is by no means going to walk right after Coop into his hell du jour, but he’s got enough sense to know where it is and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t stay close enough to drag Coop back the next time.

“You think he’d do it too,” Diane says, her voice low. She turns and faces him, and Albert can see the lights in the parking lot hit on the circles under her eyes. Her cigarette has burned out now. They’re the only ones left in the world for a second, two people waiting to see who loses it first.

So they make a choice, between the two of them. Next time.

He has to get his head back on straight. Albert clears his throat a few times, unclenches his fist. “I think Dale Bartholomew Cooper is going to give me a goddamn coronary,” he says. “Unless this burger does first,” he continues, taking another bite.

“Bartholomew?” Diane repeats, raising an eyebrow. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, I am. As serious as the coronary.”

“Bartholomew,” she says it again. “Oh, it’s so terrible I kind of love it.”

“You’ve been his secretary for how long and you didn’t know that?”

Suddenly, a smile breaks over her face. She starts giggling. “Did you know—did you know he didn’t know my fucking last name until last year?”

It startles a laugh out of Albert. It’s the sort of unbelievable thing that becomes believable, with Coop. They keep laughing to the end of the hamburgers. It’s a damn novelty to still be able to do it. Maybe there’s enough hope left for the three of them yet. Next time, by the piercing guitar coming through the radio, Diane dumping the rest of her fries into Albert’s container, Albert drinking Coop’s coffee, Coop’s tapes waiting in Albert’s suitcases in the trunk.

“Thanks,” Albert says.

Diane grins again. “Yeah, I thought you knew how to say it. Let’s get you home before you self-destruct from the strain of it.”

Albert rolls his eyes. It’s a while yet to his place, and even longer back to Diane’s after. “You want me to drive?” he asks. It’s a pointless offer, since it’s her car and she came to get him, and it’s the Mustang, but he feels obligated.

But Diane laughs. “Shut up, Rosenfield. You can get me back later.”

Albert doesn’t think so. He lets her drive the rest of the way home, watching for sedans. None come close.

#twin peaks #wonderfulxstrange #countdowntotwinpeaks #tildytwo #albert rosenfield #diane evans #the title is growing on me. i could not think of anything else. and it was the first thing i wrote down #when i was listening to my peaks playlist while planning. bc this song is on it and i thought it hit something here #but if you knew what it meant to coop.........but if you knew what it meant to albert...........but if you knew what it meant to diane.....#song with twangy guitars and singing about standing -- stand by r.e.m. the subpar chicago song -- you're not alone #the piercing guitar -- paradise city by guns n roses #all of which were in the top 40s in early march 1989.#(i don't think albert would know r.e.m. or guns n roses but i DO think he would know chicago. classic chicago.)

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