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hairrington · 2 years

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Best Thing I Never Had

Summary: When you dive into the terrifying depths of Lovers Lake, you expect to feel the usual when it comes to your recently dangerous adventures: worry, regret, and a big dose of fear. But when you notice the man you're falling for getting smitten with his ex, you realize even envy can be felt in the Upside Down.

In which female reader pines for Steve and gets very jealous when Nancy takes care of him! Some canon divergence! Gif credit: jackpearcsn

You have no right to feel jealous. You know that.

You've had months to tell Steve how you feel about him. Ever since you started working at Family Video, what you thought was harmless flirting snowballed into deep feelings, but you were always too scared to step into the realm of letting them be known.

It was risky. He could reject you and then what - you just keep showing up to your shifts pretending it never happened?

But who knew if you were ever even going to get up to the surface again? Now, the agony of yearning for a coworker felt ridiculous compared to your current situation.

But even with that, even with being in a terrifying demon-filled dimension deep beneath Hawkins, when Nancy is helping Steve with his wounds, touching his skin, envy creeps up your back like it has been every time you've seen the two of them together since you'd fallen for him.

Seeing and being touched by Nancy had sent Steve into a tailspin. Like always, he had felt a magnet pull towards her. Something about Nancy made his brain shut off and ignore any potential risks. Risks like being told he wasn't loved by her out of nowhere.

But every time he looked at you, he could ground himself a little. Meeting you felt like a reset. With you, Steve got nervous, but good nervous. With Nancy, it was like the type of fear he could only imagine one would feel teetering at the edge of a cliff. He couldn't quite explain why, but with you, it was like standing at the cliffside, but knowing he could never fall off.

But telling you this and crossing that line meant never going back. And the friendship between you, him, and Robin was just so great. If you felt the same, though, that'd be the best case scenario - but if not - well, that was the worst case because he'd lose you and mess up your dynamic forever.

Back when you started at the video store, you admitted to yourself that Steve was cute. It got even worse when you realized he's actually kind and sort of funny.

You found a friend in Robin and consequently Steve, and assumed it'd be a slow year of working shifts to earn money for college.

It didn't take long for you to realize nothing about your year was going to be normal.

When the kids you'd later learned were named Dustin, Max, and Lucas came in frantic and desperate for help, you listened from afar, trying to keep up with their hushed conversation.

"What's going on?" you finally said. All five of them stared at you with wide eyes.

"Uh, who's that?" the young redhead asked.

After a tense silence, Robin nervously scratched her head.

"You won't believe us if we tell you," Robin said to you.

"And trust me, it's better you don't know," Steve interjected.

His words stung. And partly out of spite, you pressed them for information.

Steve had been half-right about it being better that you didn't know. Because now were in a scorched wasteland drowning in red skies and spine-chilling screeching, wondering how the hell you were going to go back home.

But the other side of you knew you were a part of something important - you all could save Hawkins and stop Vecna from killing any more innocent people. And no matter how scared you were, you committed to this mission and knew you were doing the right thing.

But that didn't make watching Nancy tend to Steve any easier.

You sigh to yourself, sore from fighting off the horrific bats that had attacked you all when you swam through the gate, ready to journey to your next destination: Nancy Wheeler's house.

Or, rather, the Upside Down version of it.

You, Steve, Robin, Eddie, and Nancy trek through the murky woods. Your thoughts race and blend together - from trying to figure out how to get out of here, to how lucky you are that your parents aren't returning from their business trip until tomorrow evening so you don't have to worry about making curfew, to how bad the aching in your chest hurts over Steve being so obviously uninterested in you as anything but a friend.

The months of flirting were really just friendliness, weren't they?

A few minutes into the walk, with barely any words spoken, you feel an hand on your forearm.

You look up to see Steve's wide, kind eyes. He glances at the group walking in front of you two and his grip gets a tiny bit tighter to signal to you to stop.

Once they're out of earshot, Steve quietly speaks.

"Hey, I know this is a crap-ton to process." His voice is low. Sincere.

"Exactly that amount," you answer, pressure lifting off your chest like it always does when you talk to Steve. "A crap-ton."

He half-smiles, eyes sympathetic. You glance at the group and notice Robin's gaze is on you as they march forward, but she quickly nods in acknowledgement and turns back.

Steve begins to slowly pace and you mirror him, feeling your boots digging into soil. He lets go of your forearm and you wish he didn't.

"For what it's worth, you're adjusting way better than I did," Steve says. You smile gratefully.

"Really?"

"Oh, there was a lot of screaming."

You laugh.

"A crap-ton?" you ask.

"Maybe even two," Steve replies with a smirk. He continues to pace slowly, aiming his flashlight at your path. "But seriously, you look kinda... down. And I just wanted to say you're handling it like a champ. We'll get out of here, okay?" Hearing him say that sends your heart into flutters.

It's silly to think part of the reason you're noticeably moping is because your crush's ex-girlfriend is giving him a lot of attention and he seems to be loving every second. You slightly shake your head as if to dismiss the thought.

"You got out of here before, right?" you ask, already knowing the answer. You gaze up at him, his eyebrows furrowed.

Steve and Robin had already shared the bizarre history of Russians and monsters when they finally told you what was going on in Hawkins, but a piece of you was stuck in the reality you've always known. That piece of you still couldn't believe everything they told you, let alone that you were actually in a different dimension.

"Yeah," Steve confirms. "This is... a new neighborhood but yeah." When your smile doesn't match your eyes, his eyebrows furrow again.

"Sorry, that was supposed to be funny," he says. This earns a laugh from you and Steve's heart warms when he sees the smile on your face. "We'll get out. You can count on it."

The fact that he's taking the time to console you is exactly the reason you fell for him. His kindness. The long shifts at Family Video actually felt short when you worked with him - whether you were joking around, sharing tidbits about each other, or talking about your plans for the future. And within the conversations you'd shared those busy weekdays and dead weeknights, you felt you saw Steve for who he was. A man with a heart of gold.

It was always easy with him. Except when he was talking about his love life. One date story from Steve was one too many if you weren't the one he was on a date with. But still, you listened as he whined to you and Robin about his unluckiness, hoping one day, he'd wake up and realize what he wanted was right there. You were right there.

"Is it weird being around Nancy?" As soon as the question spills out of your mouth, it surprises you - maybe even more than it surprises Steve. Your jealousy has reared its ugly head and forced the impulse to ask before you could think to stop it.

"Kind of," Steve answers honestly, nudging his floppy hair off of his forehead. You stare up, wishing you could be the one to push his hair back. "Maybe that little jerk is right." Steve chuckles to himself, thinking back to Dustin telling him he was throwing himself at Nancy. "I'm... being a lost puppy, aren't I?"

You giggle, thinking back to a conversation you'd had with Steve only a few weeks ago. It was a slow Tuesday night, the store empty, and he was on rewind duty while you were organizing the "New Releases" section. He had broken the comfortable silence between you.

"You know what one of my high school buddies once said?" he asked.

"Something about sports?" you teased. "That's all boys talk about, right?" Steve laughed, the sweetest sound in the world to you. You had looked at him over the counter to see his chin resting in his hand as he gazed at the small television screen displaying the romantic comedy he was rewinding.

"He called me a lost puppy when I was with Nancy," Steve told you. The mention of her name made you tense up, but you hid it well. "And, I don't know, the dude in this movie staring at Michelle Pfeiffer just reminded me of that... I... It's stupid."

"It's not," you say, and even though the subject sends painful twinges of your heart, you love when Steve opens up like this. "Go on."

"I feel like I used to look at Nance just like that - like I would do anything in the world for her and it... it makes me feel dumb for not realizing she wasn't looking at me like that, too." Steve shakes his head, rubbing his forehead with his hand. "Dude, these romance movies are turning my brain to mush."

You laughed, continuing to stack the VHS tapes carefully so not to peel back any of the covers.

"Steve, there's nothing wrong with being a lost puppy. I'd love it if a guy was a lost puppy for me." You nervously chuckle. "I think... it's not stupid. And you'll find a girl who'll give you that exact look back. You deserve it."

Steve couldn't say it, but hearing those words come from you made butterflies not only fly around, but crash into each other into his stomach. If only he could ask if you'd love for that guy to be him.

"I do have that date with Lisa on Friday," he quickly deflected, already knowing he had no future with the girl who always zoned out when he spoke.

"There you go," you had answered, forcing an optimistic tone. As you stacked colorful rectangles, you swallowed the lump in your throat that always formed when you were reminded that Steve and you would only ever remain friends.

So when you're hiking through the damp forest in the Upside Down, unknown debris floating around, and Steve asks you if he's being a lost puppy, you only shrug. With how much it upsets you seeing them together, you don't know if you can answer that question without any bias.

"Oh God, that's a yes, isn't it?" Steve whines quietly.

You know it's just envy, but you had always thought Steve had been too nice to Nancy. From what you had heard, it seemed she had started her relationship with Jonathan before letting Steve know she didn't want to be with him anymore. Which shocked you, too. Who wouldn't want to be with him?

But you understood why he loved her. She was incredibly smart, confident, and beautiful.

Steve hadn't spoken much about her other than that short conversation between you two a few weeks back, but he didn't need to for it to be obvious that she had broken his heart.

"Well," you begin, trying not to stare at his exposed chest under the denim vest Eddie had given him. Instead, you stare ahead at the group a yard in front of you, recognizing Nancy's hair and wondering what it was you lacked and she had that made Steve so lovesick for her. "I don't want to pry-"

"Oh God, please pry," Steve interrupts. You look at him again and share a knowing smile. You'd seen him desperate to understand girls only a thousand times before.

"Maybe it's unresolved feelings or... a lack of closure... I don't know," you say, rambling, trying to come up with something to say. You sigh and decide to be honest. Well, honest enough that you don't admit you're falling for him. "But if she... never made you feel like she loved you as much as you loved her, do you really want to go back to that?"

Steve's lips thin as he frowns, understandably nodding.

"I... don't know what lost puppy looks like on you," you continue, aiming to lighten the tension. "So, maybe you're not doing it again. But... I guess the question is: are you feeling anything when you're with her?" You brace yourself for the impact of his reply.

"I don't know," Steve mumbles, gazing down at the ground. "If I had to put in a word - maybe nostalgia? Like I'm remembering the good parts only?"

You could live with that. Ideally, he'd say he feels nothing with her like he feels when he's with you, but you've daydreamed about Steve enough and doing it right in front of him makes you cringe.

"As much as it kills me to say, though, it seems she's still into you," you muster up, knowing that it's not right to keep it to yourself.

"Why's it kill you to say it?"

Thankfully, you notice the group has stopped ahead, waiting for you before they make the next turn.

"Oh, they're waiting for us," you say, words rushed.

"Guess that's the end of my therapy session," Steve quietly mumbles. You laugh with him, nudging his shoulder and he nudges you back. You join the group, wishing you could speak to Steve just a little bit more. But you'll take what you can get.

When you make it to the Wheeler house and the five of you discover how to contact Dustin, you're left speechless. The communication between the two dimensions shakes you, and when you realize you'll have to go outside again to get to Eddie's trailer, you do your best to hide your fear.

As your legs pump to ride the bike, hands gripping the handles, you hear the ominous thunder cracking in the sky above. You try to keep your breathing steady, following those in front of you, missing the comfort of the town on the other side of your journey.

Sure enough, Dustin was right - there's a gate on Eddie's trailer's roof. Somehow, defying all laws of physics, the five of you climb up the rope made of bed sheets and tumble down into the trailer.

The conversations that pour around you make your ears ring; the group discusses why the Upside Down is frozen in time, if there's any way to close the gates, how to stop Vecna... meanwhile you're just trying to catch your breath.

"Alright, alright," Steve says, raising his voice. He checks his watch. "It's... shit, it's way past 1 a.m. And how the hell are we all gonna get home?"

"Oh, he's laying down the law," Nancy cracks, making you smile.

"Really, Robin?" Steve mutters, but you can tell he's only half-annoyed.

"Wait a sec..." Eddie mumbles, pacing to the counter and digging for keys in a small box. He pulls out a key, clicks a button, and looks up to the sky. When we all hear a car horn, Eddie smirks. "I can't believe it's still here. Eddie's Taxi is open for business. As long as I can crash at someone's place because home sweet home is apparently a portal to hell now."

"You can crash at mine," Steve says. "Parents are out of town again."

"We can all cram into a Chevy, right?" Eddie asks.

"Challenge accepted," Robin says.

"We can just bike," Dustin mentions, motioning to himself and his three friends.

"Oh, no you can't," Steve interrupts. Seeing him protective like that makes it hard for you not to smile at him. You’re sure if you did, you’d look like a lost puppy.

Like sardines in a can, breaking several safety laws, you venture out in Eddie's car, head pounding over the overlapping conversations and the memories of all that you had witnesses.

The younger ones in the group get dropped off at the Wheeler home first, where sure enough, parents are angrily waiting. To your guilty relief, Nancy gets out then too.

"What's closer from here? Robin's or (Y/N)'s?" Eddie asks.

"I'm up on Chester," Robin says.

Now that you have some space to think, you gaze at the three faces turned towards you.

"Uh, actually, Steve, if you have room, could I crash there, too?" you finally say, stomach nervously turning. You don't want to say it out loud, but the thought of going into your empty home is terrifying.

"Of course," Steve quickly replies. You smile gratefully, staying silent for the rest of the drive to Robin's house, then Steve's.

The large home is decorated beautifully, but it seems cold. Like there is no sense of life here. No photos. Nothing truly lived in.

"Dude, you got a mega mansion," Eddie says with an impressed chuckle. "My trailer is smaller than your driveway alone. I should be depressed but I'm just amazed."

Steve only chuckles, shutting the door behind the three of you. The sound of the locks turning brings you some calmness, even though you know that couldn't stop the monsters you saw in the Upside Down.

"We have two couches and a guest room," Steve says, hands on his hips. In the light of his home, you can see the ash on his face, the cut of his muscles, the soaked blood on the cloth wrapped on his torso.

"The lady may have the guest room," Eddie says with a bow. You chuckle, unable to understand how he can be so chipper. Steve points him in the direction of the living room.

"I'll grab some clothes for you guys," Steve says. "Guest room's just down the hall there." You follow his pointing finger down the hallway wrapping past the staircase and nod, looking up at him with a grateful smile.

The guest room is just as untouched as the rest of the grandiose house. You sit on the edge of the white sheets on the queen bed in the center of the room, staring ahead at the hotel-esque painting on the wall.

Your heart pounds in your ears and you realize your legs are bouncing. You tighten your hands on your knees in an attempt to calm them.

You hear a gentle tap on the door.

"Come in," you say, voice cracking.

Steve steps inside, dirty vest and jeans traded in for a fitted dark t-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms.

"I clean up nice, huh?" he says. You realize you must have been looking down at his pj's a little too long. There's something about seeing him outside of his Family Video uniform and in comfortable clothes that makes your heart skip a beat.

"I don't think I've ever seen you not in uniform," you say.

Steve chuckles, handing you balled up clothes. You notice his hair is wet from a shower.

"I can't complain about that ugly vest too much... at Scoops, I was in shorts and a sailor's hat."

You laugh, really laugh, for the first time all night.

Steve can't help but notice how small and scared you look sitting at the end of the bed. He's used to all this by now - alternate dimensions and nightmarish monsters - but you aren't. And it makes his heart twinge in sympathy.

You hold the cotton pajamas he handed to you in your lap.

"Thanks for these," you say. "And for letting me crash."

"No problem," Steve says. "There's a shower through that door, too." He sits down at the edge of the bed next to you, sending a rush of his wonderful smelling shampoo your way. Bending to sit makes him wince, and he doesn't hide it well.

"Oh shit, are you okay?" you ask, impulsively grabbing his bicep and looking to his torso, even though it's covered by his shirt. You think back to Nancy helping Steve wrap the wound and swallow hard.

"It's not so bad. I cleaned it and put a new tourniquet on it," Steve tells you. "I'll show it to you if you want nightmares."

"Oh, I'm good," you say, leaning back, letting go of his arm. This makes Steve laugh, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly. "I got enough nightmare material, thank you."

Steve tilts his head, looking at you in that caring, big-eyed way he does sometimes.

"I know tonight was a lot," Steve says. "After we talked, you didn't really say another word and I got kind of..." He thinks back to how concerned he was when he noticed you in the trailer, eyes wide, looking petrified. "I know that shit is scary."

"I still kind of feel like I'm dreaming or watching a horror movie or something," you admit, glancing down at your lap. "I didn't want to be in an empty house tonight, so I appreciate this."

"You know how my parents are," Steve says. You nod, recalling how he had told you in the past that they were ever barely home. "You're welcome any time."

"You were... brave, Steve," you say, realizing his courage made you fall even deeper for him. "I hope I can be more helpful next time."

"What do you mean?" Steve asks.

"I kind of just followed around," you say guiltily.

"Hey, you were brave, too. You fought off those freaky bats," Steve says, placing a warm hand on your knee and giving you goosebumps. "And gave me a very honest reality check. Your help was unvaluable."

You giggle.

"You mean invaluable?" you ask.

"See? What would I do without you?" Steve asks. The warmth in his tone numbs your chest. "Seriously, if it weren't for you, we wouldn’t have made it out and on top of that, I would've just... I don't know, thrown myself at Nancy all night."

The mention of her name sends a rush of jealousy into the pit of your stomach.

"Maybe it could work out for you two this time," you say with a defeated shrug.

"I don't want it to," Steve says quietly. You finally look up at his warm eyes. This close to him, you realize he has freckles spread across his cheeks.

“How come?” you ask, surrounded in the heavy tension that has filled the room.

“I’m into someone else,” Steve says.

“Have I met her?” you ask. The way he’s looking at you, lips slightly parted, eyes travelling your face, is giving you hope that he’s talking about you. But it feels too good to be true.

“Well, you see her in the mirror every day,” Steve says.

You laugh and roll your eyes. He must be joking.

“Shut up, be serious,” you say, lightly pushing his chest. Steve laughs, placing a big hand over yours, and it stays on his chest, the thin cotton warm over his firm body.

“I am being serious,” Steve says. “And I’m sorry if I’m making things weird. Tell me to get lost if you don’t feel the same. Seriously, we’ll just pretend this never happened.”

Steve’s forehead wrinkles, like he’s bracing for impact. The way you’re looking at him, shocked and adorable, is making him worried that he’s making a big mistake.

Finally, a smile grows on your face. He can’t see it, but he’s sure he’s doing his lost puppy look right now.

“Yeah,” you whisper.

“Yeah what?” Steve asks with a sweet boyish chuckle.

“I feel the same,” you say, heart pounding against your ribs. “But speaking of mirrors, I haven’t looked in one and... I bet I look awful right now so I feel like you’re probably just delusional.”

He laughs, squeezing your hand as it remains on his chest.

“You’re always beautiful.” The way he says it makes it sound like he’s saying the most obvious thing in the world.

You feel blood rush to your face and look down, smiling and slightly shaking your head.

“Can I kiss you?” His words come out stammered, nervous.

You look up and instead of nodding, you simply close the distance between you, feeling his soft, warm lips against yours.

Your bottom lip is snug between his lips as he kisses you tightly, and you feel his hand move from yours to the side of your head, where he holds you tenderly. You’d imagined kissing Steve before, but never could have imagined just how soft, how loving it would be.

You pull apart, and when you look at him, you notice a pink tone under his freckles and beauty spots.

“Am I making Steve Harrington blush?” you tease.

“So this is how it’s going to be, okay,” Steve laughs, moving his hand from your cheek to rub his chin.

“You act like you don’t know me or something,” you say, impulsively leaning over and resting your head on his shoulder. Steve chuckles. You feel a kiss on the top of your head.

“I’m glad I do,” Steve says sincerely, tone low. “And I also think you need to sleep.”

“Stay with me?” you ask, voice small. You bring your head up and look at his handsome face.

Flowers bloom in Steve’s chest once he realizes that you feel safe and protected with him. He beams as he nods at you.

After a shower and a change into Steve’s clothes, you make your way back to the guest room, where Steve is laying on top of the covers, staring up at the ceiling.

“You look deep in thought,” you say, eager to get under warm covers.

Steve sits up, eyes travelling with you as you sink into the bed. He realizes you’re planning to leave the lights on, and that’s completely fine with him.

“You can get under if you want,” you say, holding up the duvet. He smirks, happily obliging and lying down again, head on the pillow.

You lie across from him, looking at him, unable to fully wrap your head around the fact that you’re lying in a bed with Steve. The lush white covers are up to your shoulders.

“Thinking about what the hell we’re all going to do next,” Steve says, mentally reliving the horrors in the Upside Down. “And to be honest, worrying about you.”

You reach an arm forward, and he quickly takes your hand, resting your clasped hands between you.

“What’s there to worry about?” you ask with a playful shrug. “I totally wasn’t scared. Not one bit.”

Steve laughs, shaking his head and bringing your hand up with his to his lips. He kisses the back of your hand tenderly, looking at you with sweet eyes as he does it. It makes you melt.

“I really like you, but you’re a crap liar,” Steve says, his tone slower and tired. You two share a chuckle again.

“How’s your side?” you ask, eyebrows furrowed, fighting the heaviness of your eyelids.

“I’ll live,” he says. You finally close your eyes, sinking into the pillow.

“I was so jealous when Nancy was helping you,” you mumble, words nearly slurring from fatigue. “And I must be exhausted because I can’t believe I just admitted that.”

You hear Steve chuckle again.

“You’ll never have anything to be jealous of,” he whispers back.

He gives you another squeeze of your hand and you sigh, letting a dark, long sleep wash over you as you lie across from the man you love.

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apomaro-mellow · 1 year

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Part 1 of Nancy helping Steddie happen

Nancy knew it would be an uphill battle. For one thing, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure Steve was attracted to men. But she was optimistic. She hadn’t felt any inclination towards women until a fateful Blondie performance. And since learning about Robin and Eddie’s own preferences, it seemed more likely that Steve might not be totally straight.

It was a probability thing. The hardest part wasn’t getting him to like Eddie, it was getting him to admit it and make a move. But once that block was removed, Nancy was sure his instincts would take over.

“His instincts?”, Eddie had questioned.

“Yes. His dating instincts, flirting instincts, you know. They’ll kick in and it’ll be smooth sailing from there out.”

Eddie looked to the notes he’d taken. The honest to god how to seduce Steve notes. He wasn’t even studying this hard for real school.

“I’m failing to see the actual through-line here. One moment I’m supposed to be buddy-buddy with him over sports, which, do you even know me Wheeler? And the next I’m supposed to make him feel like a big strong man? How do I even do that?”

So Nancy’s plan was less a tactical step by step process and more of a stream of consciousness thing, sue her. “I recognize we’ve got some obstacles. I figured if you got closer to Steve, you could also employ typical flirting techniques.”

“Typical of girls? Or typical of guys? Or typical of guys who like guys?”

“Eddie, it’s all the same.”

“And that’s where you’d be wrong. Because I can do the play flirting that dudes do all the time. But there’s a line. And if I cross that line, Steve will sock me in the jaw.”

“Then let’s cross that line.”

“Excuse me?”

“Cross the line with Steve. Just once. And see how he reacts.”

Eddie looked at her like she grew two heads. “Did you miss the part about my jaw being socked?”

“He won’t do that. Not if Robin is there. And if I just happen to be around-”

“Don’t you go crossing any lines yet.”

Nancy let out a groan and leaned with her hand against the wall. She didn’t always count herself as a patient girl. But if Eddie didn’t get it together she was never gonna date Robin.

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

They had agreed on toeing the line. Something that probably wouldn’t end up with Steve hitting him. Nancy tried to encourage Eddie, saying he’d never lay a hand on a friend, but Eddie was a little protective when it came to his face.

So they were at the local basketball court, where Steve was helping Lucas practice. Max and El were on the court as well, playing their own little game on the other end of the court. Robin, Eddie, and Nancy were there as support. But the plan involved having Eddie on the actual court.

So after watching from the stands for a beat, he stepped onto the court to help Lucas with his moves.

“If you can get by a scrub like me, you’re gonna warm the bench your whole life”, Eddie taunted. He still didn’t get that excited over sports. But Lucas was one of his little lambs. And if this was what he was into, he could be supportive. Especially if it meant seeing Steve in a tank top. Eddie himself didn’t like getting sweaty but a tiny part of his blackened heart warmed when Lucas was able to get past both him and Steve and score a point.

Steve praised Lucas with a high five while Eddie caught the basketball as it dropped through the net. Here it was. The moment of truth.

“Don’t just hype up the student. You gotta give props to the coach too.” Eddie felt his hand get warm before he did it. “Good hustle out there Steve”, he said before smacking Steve right on the ass.

Before he could see the reaction, he tossed the ball back to Lucas and went over to the bleachers, pretty much collapsing right next to Nancy just as Robin was getting up and heading over to Steve.

“Did you see his face?”, he murmured.

“Hm?”

“Did you-you weren’t even looking were you?”

“I was....n’t. I wasn’t”, Nancy didn’t even bother to lie. It was hard to when her eyes hadn’t left Robin, even now.

“You’re unbelievable. Worst wingwoman ever.”

“How did it feel?”, Nancy asked.

Eddie flexed his fingers, never happier than he was now for the physicality of sports. “Glorious.”

“Mhm. You’re welcome.”

Even as she congratulated him, Eddie could see in her eyes that her thoughts weren’t on Steve at all. They both had it bad.

@gay-stranger-things

#apo writes #fanfiction #stranger things #steddie #ronance

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wildlife4life · 9 months

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WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @wikiangela @giddyupbuck @disasterbuckdiaz @rogerzsteven @devirnis and @spaceprincessem You are all so lovely and I cannot wait for your fics!

So I will admit I've slowed down a bit on writing. I'm sort of stuck, but kind of powering through it. Transition scenes are a bit rough for me sometimes lol. Anywho, here's some more NFL Buck, more specifically, pre-secret relationship.

The next home game, Buck found him on the sidelines, dressed in his jersey and sweats, and still in concussion protocol, keeping him from the field. “You’re a hard man to find Edmundo Diaz.” He drawled. Eddie stiffened at his full given name, and promptly corrected the younger man, “Its Eddie and looks like you found me just fine.” Buck leaned back on his heels, blue eyes twinkling with mirth, “Well I’ve been trying to find you for the past two weeks, and in all that time I was only able to get a name and the slight possibility you would be at today’s game. Training staff knew next to nothing, and the university suits wouldn’t spill.” The EMT quirked an eyebrow, “Yet you somehow learned my name.” Those blue eyes flickered over to Eddie’s captain, Tommy Vega, who was watching the two of them with a smug grin, and shrugged, “Ran into him when Tim and I were dropping a patient yesterday. Thought he deserved a shot. Never seen you smile let alone a laugh like that since joining my crew.” Sitting nearby, Tim threw his hands up in defense when Eddie’s narrowed gaze turned to him, “I said nothing and I told her to say nothing, but she didn’t listen.” Tommy scoffed, coming over to Tim’s side, “You pointed the kid out.” She pulled the EMT to his feet by his elbow and gently nudged him down the tunnel, “We’ll give you two a minute.” Buck watched Eddie’s fellow paramedics disappear then gave an awkward chuckle, “Please don’t be angry with them. I was annoyingly persistent and charming.” “Good to know you have some faults.” Eddie remarked, keeping his arms crossed and defenses up. He couldn’t fall for this guy’s charm, with his adorable birthmark, sparkling blue eyes that he could get lost in, bright-sunny demeanor that reminded him so much of Christopher, and muscular form he wanted to run his hands all over, learning every dip and- Eddie shook his head, pulling himself hard from that train of thought. “Look, Buckley, I was just doing my job okay? And I don’t go past those glass doors, for anything.” Or anyone, no matter how bad he wants to step over that line.

I love Tommy Vega and in my world, she ships buddie hard.

If you want to see more NFL Buck, just search under the nfl tag on my page. Happy Wednesday!

Tagging: @alyxmastershipper @thewolvesof1998 @thekristen999 @glorious-spoon @lizzybizzyzzz @hippolotamus @forthewolves @brokenribsdiaz @cowboydiazes @cowboy-buddie @cowboy-buck @loserdiaz @monsterrae1 @princessfbi @bigfootsmom @eowon @bekkachaos @911onabc @911-on-abc @jesuisici33 @starlingbite @try-set-me-on-fire @spotsandsocks @honestlydarkprincess @shortsighted-owl @homerforsure @sibylsleaves @transbuck @housewifebuck

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extasiswings · 1 year

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I regret to inform you all that I am, once again, thinking about the Happiness Convention. The Happiness Convention where the walkway collapsed because the hotel identified the problem but never made the repairs. The same way that in Buck Begins, after learning about Daniel, Buck was finally able to name the root trauma of his own life…but never made the repairs. And now we’re coming up on a bridge collapse, specifically a bridge that’s theoretically going to collapse right under Buck’s feet, right as Buck is caught at a crisis point, in a spiral of regression and bad habits. Buck, who went through his whole coma dream and grappled for the first time directly with the Daniel of his subconscious mind, who learned something there but fell back into his old ways once he was back in reality. Buck, who knows he’s changing but is afraid of that change as well, who is fighting the universe at every turn, ignoring every signal that he’s making a mistake.

I’m thinking about Buck, who held his breath during the warehouse fire and kept holding it until he woke up in the hospital. And yet, Buck whose test scores show that there might still be a problem with his lungs. Buck identified the problem in Buck Begins, vaguely attempting therapy before quitting—he never made the repairs. He identified the problem AND the solution in In Another Life, but now that he’s awake, is trying to fix his perceived problems with a relationship with a woman who he thinks sees him because of her relationship with Death—but it won’t work, and he still hasn’t made, is not making, the repairs.

Originally, I was thinking that the finale being a bridge collapse and a callback to the Happiness Convention would be a positive—a chance for Buck to get it right, to show he’s grown, to take away the right lesson this time. And yet…how can he, when he still hasn’t made the repairs?

Three tries to get it right.

Buck Begins, In Another Life, And?

Crash and Learn, Pay it Forward, And?

Where his love life is concerned, if Buck Begins is the real flashpoint, then—

He misunderstood the assignment in Breaking Point when Taylor came back into his life. He misunderstood the assignment again in Death and Taxes.

Three tries to get it right.

S5, knowing about the will but never talking about it, being Something to Christopher more than friend but not quite letting himself cross the line to naming fatherhood. S6, being a sperm donor—donor, not dad—once again a father without really being a father. Although at the same time blossoming into a new domesticity with Christopher that we didn’t get to see in S5, something that it feels like grew out of 5B and Eddie’s breakdown. So close, but missing what’s right in front of him. But S7…?

Three tries to get it right…

Eddie got shot in front of Buck and we had the will reveal. Buck got struck by lightning and died in front of Eddie and we got Buck running to Eddie as a safe space and falling asleep on his couch. …what’s next?

Three tries to get it right…

…and Buck still needs to make the repairs.

Thinking thoughts…thinking thoughts…

#chapel for ts #evan buckley

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tboygareth · 11 months

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wip wednesday

i was not tagged by anybody but because i have finally been given permission to talk about my steddiebang project, i'm goddamn gonna.

RULES

Post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. This is an opportunity to flex your steddiebang - DO THAT.

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in or just post.

*Optional: Respond the the ask with the lines you wrote. (This is me holding myself accountable honestly)

WIPS - all my file names already have titles

batter up! (steddiebang!!!)

greatest hits (final update forthcoming... at some point...)

for the bit (fake dating au, currently going thru a full rebrand)

Early in the week, Wrigley Field welcomes the press for interviews about their upcoming games, the spring season now well underway, and a reporter from ESPN actually has the nerve to ask Steve about it.

“Yeah, of course I’ve listened to it,” Steve tells her, forcing a smile. “Eddie and I graduated high school together. He’s really made a name for himself, huh?”

“Well, you do know what the rumor is, don’t you? It’s been all over Reddit all week.”

Of course Steve knows what the going rumor is. It’s him, he is the rumor. He puts on his best doofus expression. “No, I hadn’t heard. I don’t spend much time online these days.”

He waits for her to say it, for the ESPN reporter he once went down on in the locker room after everybody else went home for the night to tell him that he is the subject of even more gay rumors, less than a year after he’d been caught fucking a teammate in the very same locker room where he fucked her.

What’s her name again…? Shelby? Sara? Samantha? Steve can’t fucking remember. She doesn’t say it, though; she puts a finger to her earpiece and smiles once again at the camera.

“Looks like that’s all we have time for,” she says instead. “This is Simone Tindell, signing off for ESPN.”

Simone. That’s right.

The camera shuts off, and Simone smacks Steve on the arm. “You do know, don’t you?”

“Off the record?” Simone nods. “Of course I know. That asshole hasn’t been subtle a day in his life. The album art? Cheap Cubs uniform? Number seven on his wristband? He practically gift-wrapped the rumors for me.”

“Is it about you, Steve?”

“You think Robin would let me say one way or another?” Steve asks, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. “And you can say as much as you want that you won’t tell anyone if I confirm it, but you’re a reporter above all else, Simone. If you get the scoop, you gotta run it.”

“Can you tell me what your favorite song is, at least?”

“No,” Steve says, short and simple. “I’m not talking about it. If I talk about it too much, the rumors will just get worse, and I really, honestly wanted to keep a low profile this season.”

“Are you mad at Eddie for releasing the album when he did?”

“No comment, Simone, okay? Let it drop already.”

“Are you done flirting?” calls one of his teammates.

“Fuck you, Carver.”

“Fuck me yourself, Harrington,” Jason Carver says with a wink.

“Better stay away from that one this season,” Simone teases.

“Learned my lesson last year,” Steve says, nodding in agreement.

It got really bad last year. Carver had been deeper in the closet than Steve at the time, with the gold crucifix practically glued to his neck and the sign of the cross in the batter’s box every time he stepped up to the plate.

The media storm overshadowed the team’s eight-win streak and put Steve in a vat of hot water.

Not both of them, just Steve. Because he already had a reputation before Carver even joined the team. And now on top of being a bitch and a slut, here he was corrupting a good Catholic boy from the Bible Belt, tempting him into sin. The accusations had sent Steve reeling, because they were the very same types of accusations Eddie had gotten after… well, after everything.

With Carver last year it was never serious, so after getting caught it was easy for them to put a stop to it, but it has been months and they are both still being asked about their relationship. And Jason fucking Carver is still doing the absolute fucking most when there are cameras around that might see him within arm’s reach of Steve. Carver’s stats are garbage, so like… anything to have his name in print, right? Even if the only leg he’s got left to stand on is whatever relationship they may have had last year.

There never was a relationship, is the thing. They fucked around a couple of times here and there, and Steve was finished with him the one singular time he brought Carver back to his condo and watched him push his cat off the bed. Petty? Maybe, but he was never worth the headache in the first place.

In the months since the thing between them that had never even been a thing to begin with, Steve has continued to date around. He went out with a tattoo artist for a few weeks before dropping him when he realized he hated the way the guy laughed. And then there was the girl he’d gone out with a few times that had a cockatiel. He dumped her because she had a cockatiel.

That’s another thing; Steve Harrington, serial dater, can’t commit.

It was never like that with Eddie. Sure, things between them ended badly, and way sooner than either of them would have liked, but that was justified. When you’re eighteen, threats about college and a beating from your dad outweighs every good thing in your life. Especially when every good thing runs away from the fight and leaves you to deal with it on your own, even after all the promises you made to each other.

Steve doesn’t know if he’s ready to reconcile with Eddie; he doesn’t know if he should. They were good in high school, an unlikely but compatible match in almost every way. They argued sometimes, about what they were to one another, because Steve wasn’t ready to be out, but the time they spent alone together remains some of the best memories of Steve’s high school career. Not even state championships could compare.

tagging literally all my followers and mutuals who are taking part in the bang. please join in, today's the wednesday to do it! even if you're not doing the bang and working on something else, please join in!

#bee's blurbs #batter up!#steddie fic #wip wednesday #steddiebang

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dylanwritesgood · 2 years

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Polaris | 5 | Tie You Down, Down I Come

masterlist | ko-fi | ask

Part: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Gareth Emerson

Rating: Explicit (All characters 18+)

Summary: Eddie wants to be in control, and Gareth wants to give it to him.

WC: 5.4k

Warnings: D/s, brat!Gareth, softdom!Eddie, truly lackluster negotiation of kink and boundaries, oral (AFAB person receiving), light bondage, teensy-weensy bit of sadomasochism that is tame as hell (they are learning, the babies), fingering (AFAB person receiving), multiple orgasms/overstimulation, P in V sex, spanking, threat of choking but not really doing it.

A/N: Them figuring out what they like together <3 A little manhandling and Gareth's over here diving head-first into subspace like it's an Olympic sport and he's going for gold.

Read on Ao3

They hadn’t really talked too much about what had happened at Christmas, but not a day went by that Eddie didn’t think about it. How Gareth reacted to the bites and nips, how doe-eyed he’d looked when he asked Eddie to be gentle with him, how he’d struggled just enough to get Eddie to overpower him, how drenched he’d been. It was pretty much the only thought in his head every time he showered, jerking himself under the shower spray and muffling his noises with his forearm.

He desperately wanted to talk about it. Eddie just didn’t know how to broach the subject with Gareth. He was nervous he’d push him a little too much. They’d been working so hard to build trust in each other, and he didn’t want to fuck it up. But he just couldn’t leave it alone.

Gareth came home that evening, shoulders set tight and drawn up high, stress written in the lines of his face. His classes were hard this semester, and Gareth was struggling with them and juggling his tutoring job, and he just seemed on edge all the time. Eddie greeted him with a kiss, taking his backpack from him and trading him a beer for it.

“You’re a goddamn saint, Eddie,” Gareth groaned, taking a deep drink from the bottle. “Whatcha makin’? Smells good.”

All through the evening, Eddie watched Gareth closely, gauging his mood, trying to figure out if his advances would be welcome. Once they’d eaten and they’d cleaned up, Eddie decided he might as well make a slow move.

He reached for Gareth while he was grumbling to Eddie about his tutoring students, fingers kneading at the sore spot he knew lived in each of his shoulders. Gareth groaned softly and let his head drop forward to stretch his tight neck, still complaining.

“It’s like they expect me to hold their hand through everything. I have to know everything and guide them through it all and remind them to schedule and remind them to show up and figure out the lesson plan and just… argh! I hate it. I don’t want to be in charge.”

Eddie’s ears perked up at that. Not be in charge? Eddie could work with that. He could be in charge.

“So let me be in charge for a little,” He said casually, digging at the nasty knot that had formed in Gareth’s shoulder. Gareth hissed at the feeling.

“You want to take over my students?” His voice was amused, “Tell them what to do? Good fuckin’ luck.”

“No, just you.”

Gareth went still, and Eddie got ready to backpedal. He’d fucked up. That crossed the line. He should have just waited for Gareth to come to him.

“Or not. It’s… Sorry. Never mi—”

“Okay,” Gareth agreed, interrupting him.

“Okay?” Eddie asked hesitantly. He hadn’t really expected that answer. He hadn’t really thought this far ahead. How in charge was he? What did that even mean?

“Ye-p.” Gareth popped the final consonant.

“Um… I… Okay. Yeah. Okay.”

Gareth reached up for Eddie’s hands, lifting them off his shoulders and turning around to face him and press against his chest and tuck his face in Eddie’s neck. Eddie let his arms drape around Gareth’s waist.

“I trust you. And I know you want to.”

Eddie wet his lips. “Uh…”

Gareth laughed into his neck. “I know you, Eddie. You’ve been my best friend most of my life. We’ve talked about sex and shit before, back when it was with other people, ‘member?”

Eddie’s face was burning. Okay, so maybe he had thought about trying some of the things he’d been interested in with Gareth, even before Gareth had sort of… given himself to Eddie at Christmas. And Eddie felt guilty as hell about it.

“It’s okay, Eddie,” Gareth said earnestly, pulling back to look at him. “Please don’t be embarrassed, not with me.”

Gareth was looking at him so sweetly, so fervently, how could Eddie say no to him? He should have known Gareth would accept him, no matter what he might have wanted to try. But then Gareth leaned up to whisper in his ear, and Eddie knew he was done for.

“Remember at Christmas? When you wanted to know what had made me so wet for you? I liked it, standing in front of you after you’d undressed me, and you still had all your clothes on. Feeling vulnerable and exposed for you…”

Eddie groaned, not at all proud of the noise he made. “Jesus Christ, Gareth…”

Gareth was smirking. Eddie couldn’t see him, but he just knew. His boy had him right where he wanted him, practically swooning for him.

“So… did you just want to talk about it… or are you gonna do something about it?” Gareth’s breath tickled his ear and he prodded Eddie just a little further. Stirred the pot a little more.

“I think there’s supposed to be some talking before you just agree to stuff like this,” Eddie breathed. His heart was hammering in his chest.

“I trust you. Be sweet to me?”

Eddie was biting his lip, surprised he hadn’t managed to cut it with his teeth. Gareth would be the death of him. He already knew what buttons to press to get Eddie to do what he wanted.

“If you don’t like something…”

“I’ll tell you to stop. Or tell you no, or ow, or something like that.”

After a moment, Eddie agreed. “Okay.” His hands drifted down to squeeze Gareth’s perfect, pert little ass. “Strip. Uh… as much as you want to.”

Gareth rolled his eyes but pulled out of Eddie’s arms to undress. “I thought you were supposed to be in charge.”

“I’m in charge right up until your brain says no,” Eddie responded, heading to his dresser across their tiny studio.

He had plenty of bandanas that would be soft on Gareth’s skin as he tied him up, if he let Eddie try. Eddie thought he might want to have a few close by… just in case. He heard the clunk of Gareth’s belt buckle hitting the floor. When he turned back, he found Gareth standing in his boxers unwinding himself from his binding and grumbling under his breath about it. Eddie stopped to watch for a moment, before realizing he should probably help.

“Let me,” He said, taking the messily wadded dressing out of Gareth’s hands and making quick work of the remaining wraps. Eddie dropped it in a pile on the floor and yanked Gareth’s boxers down. Gareth made a rather undignified squeak at being stripped bare, but Eddie was herding him towards the bed before he could fuss more.

“Lay down,” He ordered, but Gareth pulled up short.

“Make me,” He challenged, hands on his hips as if he wasn’t standing buck-ass naked in the middle of their living room-slash-bedroom. Eddie squinted at him. Wasn’t the point of this that he wasn’t in charge?

Oh. Oh, you brat. Shit… Of fucking course his beautiful boyfriend who constantly needed an attitude adjustment would say Make me. Eddie really should have guessed. No one could make Gareth do anything, but maybe that was part of the fun.

“Fine.” Eddie shrugged and threw Gareth over his shoulder, getting him off the floor before he realized what was happening, and dumped him unceremoniously on the bed. Gareth landed with a bounce, all of his soft parts jiggling preciously. God, Eddie loved this boy.

Gareth’s eyes were black when he looked up at Eddie leaning over him, caging him against the mattress with a hand next to each shoulder.

“Be good or I won’t be sweet,” Eddie growled.

He hoped Gareth couldn’t see just how hard Eddie was watching him for the tiniest shift towards uncomfortable. If he flinched even slightly or glanced away… anything that made Eddie think he was having doubts, he’d back down. Instead, he watched Gareth’s eyes get impossibly darker and his lips part. Gareth’s tongue darted between his lips to wet them.

“Are you going to be good?” He questioned, dipping lower. He teased his lips over Gareth’s, not quite a kiss.

“Are you going to give me a reason to be good?” Gareth’s lips brushed against Eddie’s, teasing back in equal measure.

“Be good and you’ll find out.” Eddie wasn’t sure if he should let himself get lured into Gareth’s game, but damn, it was fun. He watched as Gareth’s mouth twisted in thought.

“Mm, pass.”

Eddie could have strangled him, but actually… He settled his left hand on Gareth’s throat, tenderly holding the fragile shape of it at arm’s length and ever-so-gently pressing him into the bed. His thumb swiped along the side of it, up and down, feeling the throb of Gareth’s pulse as it jackrabbit’d under his touch. Gareth squirmed, but he lifted his chin to surrender to Eddie.

“Shit, okay. Okay, I’ll be good.”

The sight of Gareth on his back, Eddie’s own fingers wrapped around his throat sent most of the blood in his body south. He gave himself a little shake and changed the grip to a caress.

“Okay?”

Gareth nodded as best he could with a hand on his throat, and echoed, “Okay.”

Eddie stroked his fingers down Gareth’s throat again, following them with his eyes until he rested his palm in the center of Gareth’s chest.

“Want me to tie you up?” He offered cautiously. He wouldn’t spring something like that on Gareth just because he was in charge, but if he agreed to it, Eddie would happily do it. But judging by the squirming as Gareth squeezed his thighs together, the thought didn’t offend him.

“Yeah… hands only, though?” Gareth breathed, looking already on the edge of being blissed out, and Eddie hadn’t even touched him, yet.

“Give me your hands, then.” Eddie reached for a bandana and held one hand out for Gareth’s wrists. He looped the bandana around both of them softly, capturing them together, and pushed Gareth’s arms over his head.

“Budge up,” Eddie instructed, waiting for Gareth to wriggle higher on the bed so he could knot the fabric around one of the bars on their headboard. When he’d done so, he tucked an end of it into one of Gareth’s hands.

“If you pull down on this, it won’t move. If you pull that piece to the side, it’ll untie, okay?” He explained, giving his hands a few tugs to demonstrate. Gareth nodded, but his eyes were already glassy and Eddie didn’t trust that he’d paid attention. “Hey, what did I just say?”

“Down, no untie. Sideways, untie,” Gareth paraphrased. It wasn’t the most eloquent, but for someone who looked like they’d already been fucked, Eddie would take it.

“Good boy,” Eddie praised, and Gareth squirmed a little, turning pink. Shit, he’s so cute like this. Look at him!

“Gonna touch you, okay?” Eddie said. He paused, and then very, very lightly smacked Gareth’s thigh when he didn’t respond.

“Okay! Jesus, okay. Yes. Whatever you want. Knock yourself out!” Gareth jolted out of his reverie at the half-hearted blow, quickly agreeing to Eddie’s question so he would just… touch him already. Please.

Eddie sat back on his heels, looking down at his love, sprawled in their bed with his hands tied over his head and looking oh-so-easy to tease. Eddie was struck by a wave of gratitude for the way Gareth handed over control to him so willingly. He wanted to make it worth it.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did the guy tied to the bed have an opinion?” Eddie teased, trailing the knuckles of one hand down Gareth’s side and watching him shiver. “Maybe I’ll take one after I’ve fucked you, huh? Get you looking so pretty and cock drunk.”

Gareth shivered again, this time without Eddie’s touch. Eddie leaned forward onto his hands, bracing an elbow on the bed so he could toy with Gareth’s curls and bringing the other to cup his cheek as he kissed him. Gareth parted his lips obediently as Eddie’s tongue quested along the line of his mouth. Eddie curled his tongue inside, playing the tip of his tongue along Gareth’s for a moment before Gareth tried to battle for domination of the kiss. Eddie pulled back, smirking as Gareth tried to follow his mouth before Eddie was out of reach.

“No. You get what I give you, you don’t get to take what you want,” Eddie chided him.

He ducked in to give Gareth’s lower lip a sharp nip, pulling back out of reach before Gareth could connect their lips again. Gareth whined, his bitten lip slipping out in a pout. Eddie caught it between his teeth again, holding it with just enough pressure that the threat was clear. Gareth inhaled sharply through his nose, his squirming going still. Curious, Eddie gave an experimental tug and earned the softest whimper he’d ever heard.

“You like when it hurts a little, huh?” He asked, after he’d released Gareth’s lip from between his teeth and soothed it with a little peck. Gareth nodded slowly, understanding dawning across his face as he learned something about himself he hadn’t known before.

“Want me to hurt you a little bit?”

The nod came very quickly this time, much more certain of what he was agreeing to. Yes. I want it to hurt, please. The fingers that had been twirling a curl around them fisted in Gareth’s hair, dragging his head back to expose the sweet little column of his neck. He nuzzled into the side of Gareth’s neck kissing and licking until he latched onto the spot almost behind his ear, where the mark would be hidden by his hair. Gareth hissed out a shit! and thrashed a little. Eddie didn’t release him until he was satisfied he’d left a mark that would last a week.

His next target was just below Gareth’s collarbone, raking his teeth over the skin harshly before soothing the sting with his tongue as Gareth trembled underneath him. When he felt Gareth relax again, Eddie pulled the flesh between his lips and sucked mark after mark, clustering them together into a messy stain that washed across the top of Gareth’s chest. He sat back to admire his handiwork, tracing a finger over the blossoming bruised.

“Look so pretty like this. Everyone’s gonna know you’re mine.” He cooed, delighting in the tremor that wracked Gareth’s body at his words. He winced internally when he realized that more than a few marks had dipped too low and Gareth was going to chew him out tomorrow morning when he went to bind again.

Eddie glanced down the length of Gareth’s body, watching in amusement as Gareth rubbed his thighs together, trying to get any little bit of friction he could. His hand cupped one hip, thumb tracing a sweeping half-moon arc over his sensitive belly.

“Poor thing, I’m neglecting you, aren’t I?” Eddie purred, enjoying how Gareth writhed needily. “Tell me what you want, pretty boy. Tell me how to make you feel good.”

“Touch me, please, Eddie, please!” He whimpered, an edge of desperation tingeing his begging. Eddie felt himself fully harden again, cock straining in earnest now. Oh, I like that.

“I am touching you, Gareth,” Eddie laughed. He wanted to draw this out, get him really pleading. Gareth let out an annoyed huff and bucked his hips.

“Fuck me with your fingers!”

“Fuck me with your fingers… what?” Eddie’s smirk widened as he watched Gareth chewing on his own lip, trying to keep a civil tongue in his pretty, kiss-ruined mouth. Eddie could see his fuse burning low from here.

“Please,” He finally spat, like the word was a slur.

“Only because you said please,” Eddie said, tone dripping with sarcasm.

But he still let his fingers slip into the crease of Gareth’s thighs, sliding up his slit and spreading the slick around. He’d never stop marveling at just how quickly and how generously Gareth got wet, even untouched. Eddie rubbed loose circles over Gareth’s core, teasing a little, while he urged his legs apart. Eddie shuffled into a better position where he could hook one of Gareth’s knees on his shoulder.

Gareth’s hips were rolling subtly in time with the lazy circles Eddie was giving him, chasing the pleasure where he could. He wasn’t complaining, though, just focusing hard with his eyes closed and brows furrowed. Eddie moved his hand down to the entrance, teasing the tip of a finger inside, before dragging his freshly soaked fingers up to play with Gareth’s lips.

Eddie’s fingers were slow but firm, playing the folds between them massaging the sensitive area and letting his fingers ghost over Gareth’s clit occasionally. He watched, mesmerized.

“Feels good,” Gareth whispered, tearing Eddie’s attention back up to him.

“Yeah?”

“It’s not enough, but it’s nice.” Gareth had picked his head up so he could look at Eddie, shoulders straining a little with the shift.

“Is that your way of telling me you want more? Not hearing a please, Gare.” A smile teased its way around Eddie’s lips, revealing one dimple.

“I said it felt nice!” He huffed.

“Still not a please…” Eddie’s hand shifted a little, bringing his focus to the sweet little bundle peeking from between the folds. The tip of his middle finger traced tight little circles around it, dragging a whimper out of Gareth. “I’ll be nice, though.”

Besides, Eddie didn’t see a reason why he should deny himself a taste. He wanted to see how far he could string Gareth along until he was ready to actually beg in earnest. He slipped onto his stomach, groaning as his bulge dragged against the mattress with the movement.

“Keep your legs open or I’ll stop,” He murmured, voice sweet despite the threat. Gareth let his knees fall open in obedience. He’d be good. He’d be so good if Eddie would keep touching him.

The first lick was always Eddie’s favorite. He could lay his tongue completely flat and ease into it, or tease just the tip of it along the seam of Gareth’s center and make him squirm, but no matter what, he finally got Gareth’s taste on his tongue. He opted for a lazy lick this time, dragging the tip of his nose through the mess Gareth had made of himself and nudging at his clit.

Eddie maintained his leisurely pace, nibbling and sucking and licking to his heart’s content, listening to Gareth’s little whimpers somewhere toward the head of the bed. He’d felt the bed shake once or twice as Gareth tugged on his hands. No doubt if they weren’t bound above his head, his hands would be on the back of Eddie’s head to hold him in place. But he was tied, and he was at Eddie’s mercy.

He did acquiesce a bit, slipping his middle finger inside to match his lazy pace. After a few passes, he added his ring finger, loving the feel of Gareth squeezing the digits as he worked them in and out. He crooked them slightly, caressing the place inside Gareth he could almost find by intuition now, noting with satisfaction how his legs began to tremble as he fought with himself to keep his legs in place.

“Good boy, Gareth. You’re being so good. Wanna come for me?” Eddie praised, thrusting a little faster with his fingers, angling for that perfect spot. He could feel Gareth slipping a little closer to the edge with each pass.

“Yeah…” His voice was high and thin, distracted-sounding as he worked so hard to stay where Eddie wanted him. Eddie swirled his tongue around his clit and drew it between his lips for a second, releasing it with a smacking sound.

“Come for me then, baby. Come on my fingers, I wanna see,” He encouraged, mouth back on Gareth to ease him into it.

Eddie could feel it when Gareth’s orgasm hit him, clenching down on his fingers and flooding around them. His thighs jerked once before yanking themselves back into place, still trying to be so good like he was told to be. Eddie heard just a single, tiny whimper as Gareth came, then his body went slack.

“There you go, pretty boy, look at you. Think you can do that again for me?” Eddie’s fingers were still inside, feeling Gareth pulse around them, but he’d let them go still. He lapped a careful stripe up the length of him, carefully avoiding Gareth’s tender clit this pass.

Gareth hissed at the overstimulation, but he wasn’t writhing away. Eddie pressed a kiss to his clit and chuckled quietly as his boy’s hips jerked and whine escaped. Eddie flexed his fingers experimentally, brushing featherlight across the spongy little spot at his fingertips.

“Gonna be good and come for me again? Need to hear you, pretty boy.” Eddie set a gentle pace against the sweet spot as he waited. He could already feel the wetness growing again.

“I’ll be good,” Gareth whimpered. He sounded wrecked already, and Eddie hummed in sympathy, lips pressed to his center and sending a little shock wave up Gareth’s spine.

“Keep your legs open, handsome. I wanna look at this pretty pussy.”

That was met with a grumble, which Eddie was happy to hear. If Gareth could bitch about it, he was okay to go again. The pace Eddie set with his mouth and his fingers was much quicker this time, giving Gareth no time to ease back into it. This time, Eddie could feel him jerking against the bandana around his hands again and again, whining Eddie’s name and shaking like an earthquake.

“Tell me no if you need to stop,” Eddie reminded him, lifting his head up to look for Gareth. His face was tucked against one of his own arms, the triceps of both standing out in sharp relief as he pulled on the bandana, but he manage to shake his head a little.

“‘m close.” was all he could get out before white light exploded behind his eyes and left him shuddering and twitching, gasping hard for air as it washed over him. He felt like he’d been slammed onto the bed as it receded, like that time he’d gotten pummeled by a wave and smashed against the sandy sea floor before he could claw his way back up for air. His chest was heaving the same way it had, then.

“You were there, apparently,” Eddie laughed, sitting up and withdrawing his fingers. Gareth made a face as he spasmed around nothing.

“Shh, don’t fuss. I’ll fill you up again if you want it, but here,” Eddie soothed, pressing the tips of his sticky, dripping fingers to Gareth’s lips.

He took them in his mouth, sucking them clean. His own taste flooded his mouth, which was something to get used to. He’d liked how girls tasted and liked how Eddie tasted, even though they were distinctly different. He wasn’t sure what he thought about his own, though. Eddie was wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, muffling his laughter as he tried to get clean.

“Jesus, thought you were going to drown me. Did so good.” He leaned down to kiss Gareth, slipping his tongue into his mouth. Gareth liked how they tasted mixed together, he decided. “How’re your shoulders? You were pulling pretty hard.”

“‘m okay,” Gareth mumbled. He wasn’t even sure he owned shoulders. The only thing he could pay attention to was the heat already beginning to pool in his belly again.

Eddie reached past Gareth’s face to take the end of the bandana from his clenched fingers and give it a tug to free him. One at a time, Eddie brought each hand down to Gareth’s side when it was apparent he wasn’t going to do it himself, laughing under his breath at how useless Gareth was after he came.

“Wanna keep going or need a break?”

“Mm,” He purred, turning his face to nuzzle into the pillow, “Keep goin’.”

“Alright, useless boy,” Eddie laughed, “Think you can stay on your knees for me?”

It took some maneuvering, considering Gareth was living up to his pet name and doing very little to help change positions, but Eddie got him on all fours with some manhandling. Well, he was up on his knees, at least, plush ass in the air, but he was sort of face down in the covers.

“Can you breathe?” Eddie asked, amused with the scene.

“Mmhmm,” Gareth hummed, lazily wiggling his hips.

“You’re going to smother yourself,” Eddie retorted, ignoring Gareth’s half-assed attempt to distract him. He gathered their pillows up and got an arm under Gareth’s chest so he could lift him up enough to stuff two of them underneath him. Now Gareth was resting on his shoulders, not his face. “God, give you an orgasm or two and you turn into Gumby.”

Gareth didn’t argue with him. “Tie m’up again.”

“You’re gonna be sore if you tie your hands up there again,” Eddie protested, but Gareth crossed his wrists behind his back.

“So don’t. Tie me here.” He made a satisfied noise when he felt the soft cotton bandana wrap around his wrists again and tug firmly into place.

Eddie sat back to survey the scene, idly palming himself through his jeans. Fuck, how did he get so lucky? He needed to get moving, though, if he wanted to get his dick wet before Gareth dozed off like that. Not his thing, if he was being honest.

He’d already stripped his shirt off after using it for a rag earlier, so Eddie slipped off the bed to undo his belt and slide out of his jeans and boxers. It was his turn to whimper as his cock finally sprang free of its confines. He’d been furiously hard pretty much since he’d first tied Gareth up.

“How you doin’, pretty boy?” He asked as he fished in his nightstand for a condom, stripping it out of the foil wrapper and rolling it on in a stroke.

“I was promised dick, and there is no dick in me,” He laughed tiredly, still a little strung out. At least the feeling was beginning to come back to the rest of his body. Eddie snorted, kneeling on the bed behind him. Gareth’s ass fit so perfectly in his hands as he fondled it.

“Demanding little thing, aren’t you?” Eddie asked, squeezing the soft flesh and watching the blood flood back into his fingerprints, erasing them after a moment. Gareth pressed his hips backward.

“So shut me up,” He challenged.

He wasn’t expecting the sting of Eddie’s hand landing on one ass cheek, reddening it and sending a shock through his system, or for the caress that followed.

“Oh look, that shut you up. Maybe I should beat that attitude out of you until you’re sweet again.” Eddie was leaning forward, over Gareth’s back as he growled in his ear. Gareth could feel Eddie's cock nudge his belly and whined.

“I’ll be good,” He surrendered quickly.

“I don’t think you will be,” Eddie rasped, his voice making all the hair on the back of Gareth’s neck stand up. Gareth jerked when he felt Eddie’s fingers playing between his legs, tweaking his clit. “I think you keep saying you’ll be good just to get what you want. I think you should beg a little.”

Gareth rocked backward, trying to find more friction, and jolted as Eddie’s hand smacked down on the other side of his ass.

“Please!” He blurted, ashamed of how fuckin’ desperate he sounded. “Please fuck me, Eddie, please! I’ll be so good, please… Fill me up. I’ll be so good! Please, Eddie!”

Eddie didn’t say anything, and for a moment, Gareth braced for another spank. Instead, he felt the blunt head of Eddie’s cock nudging at his folds, then the sudden burning stretch as his body tried to accommodate Eddie sinking into him. A sob was ripped from Gareth’s chest, his fingers flexing helplessly behind his back. He knew he could take Eddie. He’d done it plenty of times before, but shit, that first thrust always made him doubt if he could. Eddie bottomed out against his cervix, pressing uncomfortably against it, even as the pressure sent tingles through Gareth’s whole body.

In contrast to the painful stretch, Eddie’s hands were stroking his sides soothingly. Mercifully, he didn’t move until Gareth said something, just waited patiently until he was ready. This time, it felt like an eternity before he saw Gareth’s curls stir as he nodded.

“Okay. I’m okay.”

Slowly, Eddie drew back halfway, before driving into Gareth again, rougher than normal. He repeated the motion again, one hand wrapping around Gareth’s wrists for leverage and the other snaking down to play with Gareth’s clit. The pace he set was faster than Gareth would have chosen, but he wasn’t in charge. He didn’t have to choose, he just had to let Eddie take him apart piece by piece until he couldn’t think anymore. Eddie was devastatingly effective at that, it turned out.

Gareth’s next peak took him by surprise—he was toppling over it and spasming around Eddie’s cock before he’d realized what happened. Eddie hardly slowed for him, just long enough to check in and remind him he could tap out. When Gareth refused, Eddie set a punishing pace, snapping his hips into Gareth as he chased his own end. His fingers were getting clumsy between Gareth’s legs and his rhythm was beginning to falter, signaling the rapid approach of his own orgasm.

“Fuck, Gareth. Fuck, fuck, fuck, you’re so good. You feel so good. God, shit I just wanna stay inside you forever.” Eddie was babbling, the way he did when it was too late for him to pull back. He was teetering on the edge and was going over in another moment. Gareth squeezed around him, delighting in the choked cry as Eddie pressed into him one last time, hips jerking as he filled the condom and the heat of it flooding inside of Gareth.

Rough fingers drove in tight, quick little circles around his clit and shoved Gareth over the edge again, too, leaving them both whimpering as Gareth’s body, wracked by tremors, milked Eddie for all he was worth.

Eddie did manage to pull out before collapsing onto his side with a string of soft swears. Gareth was still quivering, shifting his knees apart enough he could fold down and rest his butt on his heels, which was about as far as he could make it to flopping down with his hands still tied behind his back.

“Shit, sorry,” Eddie mumbled, fingers fumbling with the knot to free him.

He pulled Gareth over sideways, dragging him to his chest to cuddle. He let him, closing his eyes and enjoying the feeling of Eddie’s fingers in his hair and his arm wrapped around his waist as he came down. Gareth’s head was empty, buzzing slightly with static feedback that seemed to originate from between his legs—but he also couldn’t feel much else of his body besides that.

“How ya feelin’?” Eddie asked, stroking up and down Gareth’s spine idly.

“No thoughts. Wanna sleep,” He answered, refusing to open his eyes or say more than a handful of words. Eddie had found the off switch for his brain and he wasn’t about to turn it back on until he had to.

Eddie stretched to look around a little. Their bed was a mess. Gareth had made a puddle dead in the center of it, and was that…?

“Dude, you were drooling,” He chuckled, feeling more than a little proud of that. He’d never seen Gareth get quite so sloppy.

“I’d still be drooling if I was flat on my face,” Gareth muttered, “You come that much and try not to drool.”

Eddie hugged him close, lips finding Gareth’s to kiss him.

“Fuck, you were amazing, Gareth. I love you so much.” Eddie’s voice was filled with awe, pressing kiss after kiss to his lips as Gareth made a half-assed attempt to keep up. “Was it good?”

“I’m gonna have to sit on an icepack, but I don’t think I’m even capable of being stressed out anymore,” Gareth said dryly.

“So that’s a yes?” Eddie prodded. He hoped Gareth would want this again. It didn’t even have to be soon, or all the time. Just… again.

“Yes, Eddie. Yes, it was good and yes, I’ll let you be in charge whenever you want. Okay?”

Eddie pressed a kiss to Gareth’s forehead. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

“Love you, too.”

#eddie x gareth smut #trans!gareth #eddeth #stranger things fic #gareth stranger things #eddie munson #gareth emerson #gareth the great #eddie x gareth #gareth x eddie #st4 #stranger things rarepair #rarepair #minors dni #gareth emerson fanfic #gareth emerson fic #gareth x eddie smut #polaris fic

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auckie · 2 years

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hi, what was the pleakly aids story, if you want to tell it that is :)

So. I don’t know how to explain this without sounding insane but I found this fanfiction where jumba is super fucking fat and old, lilo and nani are dead but have like great granddaughters who don’t remember him anymore bc after lilo passed away, there wasn’t really anyone to explain why he looked so fucked up— like he just lost connection, and stitch is still there living with jumba in this dilapidated old house while they’re still exiled to earth so they can’t leave the planet despite constant appeals to the like. Galactic federation or whatever. And it goes in depth into his slow descent into this horrible, depressing situation wherein after the events of the movie, he and pleakley like moved out and bought a home together or some shit, and everything was great, but then pleakleys mom died, and he loses his shit, then he starts getting sick and is all fucked up so jumba gives him a check up and learns that all his organs are shutting down due to the fact that his body isn’t suited for earth’s atmosphere (this is something they would’ve learned had he originally been prepped to stay on the planet long term, but since it was supposed to be a short trip which ended in his exile, no one thought to check). So he’s dying and jumba is like miserable bc he’s kind of a dick and never says I love you or whatever, and then, well, pleakley dies. And by then lilo has a daughter I think? So does Nani. And they try to console jumba but since he has terminal grumpy old Russian man disease, he just self isolates and lets the house and himself go. David reaches out to him the most, but then dies of a stroke at some point, and then lilo and nani die of old age, and by then, their daughters remember him and try to keep up with him and stitch, but stitch is kinda feral w/o lilo around, and jumba doesn’t try that hard. His ex wife reaches out to him and tries to help him but gives up eventually. And so he’s just like, slowly dying stuck not only on earth but on an island with no money, no family or friends save stitch. It’s so fucking depressing but anyways, I read it and was like WOW so basically, pleakley died of aids. And I sent it to @riben and it literally made him BAWL. Like he called me and was sobbing over it. So then, I mentioned in our server and for some fucking reason, they wanted to a ‘dramatic reading’ of it. I think it was @sids idea specifically. And they fucking lost it, over what me and eddie thought was a heart wrenching (albeit a little odd considering it’s about an animated childrens movie yknow) story of love and loss and depression and isolation. Tbf there’s some really funny parts, like the repetition of the word TERMINAL in between line breaks, for the sake of drama or whatever, which has worked its way into the servers vernacular. Plus. It’s just an absurd thing to write. It’s also formatted very weird. I guess I’ll link it. Here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1914942/1/The-Meaning-of-Exile

Wanna add, yes I was looking up liko and stitch fanfiction. No, I don’t have an excuse or reason why. I think pleakley is an upstanding citizen and great example of a dedicated cross dresser, which I consider myself to be, and I envy the fact that he has a sort of John Goodman/Jackie Gleason figure in his life even if it is some weird purple bitch. We could all be so lucky.

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insaneoldme · 3 years

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Can you rec buddie fics? Pretty please?

OMG it's my time to shine, bitches!!!

Sorry if I went a little nuts, but this fandom has some of the best writers I've ever seen. I have 186 Buddie fics bookmarked in my AO3,

I'll link here if you are interested in taking a look cause if I put them all here it would be too long. Also, I tried to show here some fics I very rarely see recced, and a little bit o the classics. This fandom has some very underrated authors, everyone in my bookmarks is worth taking a look really.

Please take a look at the warnings before reading, enjoy!!!

I Hate Accidents (Except When We Went From Friends to This) by morganofthefairies (Rated E )

Buck and Eddie had always been unconventional. Neither of them gave it much thought – they were just them. Buck and Eddie - partners, best friends, co-parents – just as entangled in each other’s lives as any actual couple in the 118.

Or, the story of how Buck and Eddie went about their relationship in entirely the wrong order.

My Heart's Been Borrowed by ElvenSorceress (Rated E)

aka the one where Taylor gives Buck his ultimate fantasy and uncovers far more than either of them expected, forcing him to confront his long held feelings for Eddie

Half Awake in Our Fake Empire by HMSLusitania (Rated E)

Buck 1.0 fathered a child and Buck 4.0 comes into custody.

Love and Bullets Both Shatter Hearts (But Only One Can Put You Back Together) (Rated E)

Agent [Redacted] Diaz is the best at what he does. Usually. But lately there's this real pain in the ass* who's been ruining his missions: Code Name "Buck."

Keep It On by R_E_R6 (Rated E)

When Eddie walks in on Buck, bent over in nothing but a hoodie, their plans for the night immediately change. Buck's outfit though? Well, Eddie requests that it stays the same...for reasons.

Heart of Flowers / Heart of Gold by ElvenSorceress (Rated T)

Buck nearly loses everything and Eddie has to follow his heart

hungry for your love by evcndiaz (Rated G)

prompt: "who’s gonna write a fanfic where chris is not cooperating with buck and eddie accidentally says “listen to your dad”?"

or; breadsticks are a metaphor for love and boning

keep your eyes on the road by iriswests (Rated M)

A glimpse into buck and eddie’s developing relationship, told through ten moments stopped at a traffic light

when things fall into place by woodchoc_magnum (Rated M)

In which Eddie asks Buck to move in with them during lockdown to help look after Christopher, which leads to certain unresolved feelings being resolved.

Carbon Date Me, Excavate Me by extasiswings, letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Rated E)

Evan "Buck" Buckley has made a name for himself as the independent bad boy of archaeology. At least, until Professor Eddie Diaz shows up with his fedora and good looks and starts beating Buck to the punch more often than not.

Buck hates his stupid six-pack covered guts.

Except for how... he might not.

Objects in the Mirror by SevenSoulmates (Rated E)

The voice had always been around, Eddie remembers it, like a stream of consciousness that babbled incoherently to the point where Eddie just tuned it out.

But then the voice started speaking directly to him. Conversing like he was a whole person standing right in front of him. Like he could see what was happening around Eddie.

Eddie shook his head. No one was talking to him, and Eddie most certainly was not talking back.

He wouldn’t talk to the boy in his head ever again. There was no boy in his head.

ripples all the way down by iriswests (Rated M)

christopher partakes in some parent trapping

dream of some epiphany by extasiswings (Rated M)

Evan Buckley is lost.

It’s happenstance that he wanders into the navy recruiting center—he’s been in San Diego for a few weeks, bartending late nights and weekends, living in a house with three other guys not because he needs the roommates but because he doesn’t want to be alone, and the military is…respectable. Stable. So Buck thinks maybe and opens the door.

Buck leaves ten minutes later with a set of printed instructions for sending his first letter, assured that he can drop it off whenever he’s ready, and a name.

Staff Sergeant Edmundo “Eddie” Diaz.

Relationship Advice from Complete Strangers Online by HMSLusitania (Rated T)

Hi, I’ve never made a Reddit post before and I’m not 100% sure what I’m doing but I need advice and can’t ask anyone in my real life. So, I [30M] have this best friend [34M]…

Leading with the Left by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Rated E)

When Buck said he was a "bartender" in "South America" what he actually meant was "stripper" in "Mexico."

And when Eddie said, "What's your problem?" what he actually meant was, "Is this about the time you gave me a lap dance?"

In other words, there's a few things the 118 doesn't know about Buck. Or Eddie. Or Buck and Eddie's relationship.

fireflies where my caution should be by littlesnowpea (Rated M)

“You never talk about your parents,” Eddie says, which is not even remotely what Buck expects Eddie to say. He frowns, tilts his head, but it isn’t a question, as evidenced by Eddie charging on. “I never asked because I figured it was your business, but the look on your face any time they’re brought up tells me you don’t get along.”

Buck swallows hard, against a lump in his throat. His parents? Eddie’s right, he never talks about them, for good reason. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, not sure what he’s even going to say.

Eddie takes it as the answer Buck is trying to make it out to be. He squeezes Buck’s wrist again, takes a deep breath, like he’s on a call with someone who’s panicking. Buck finds his breathing slowing to match Eddie’s, and Eddie nods as Buck gets it under control.

“There are people on the porch,” Eddie says, voice even. “Saying they want to meet their grandchild.”

Asked, Offered, Given, (He's) Taken by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Rated E)

People like to flirt with Buck on calls. It kind of makes Buck uncomfortable.

And that makes Eddie frustrated.

I Hit the Accelerator (But the Car was in Reverse) by extasiswings, letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Rated E)

When Buck is forced to confront the truth about his breakup with Abby, having casual sex with his hot new coworker seems like the best rebound idea.

Unfortunately, that hot new coworker turns into his best friend. But best friends can keep having sex with each other, right?

There's no way this could possibly go wrong.

Memorable by JessicaMDawn (Rated T)

Six times Buck got recognized by people he saved during the tsunami, and how his team realized he was a hero.

All Bets are Off by NobodyKnows_U (Not Rated)

Or, the five times the firefam realized Buck and Eddie were in love, and the one-time Eddie finally did something about it.

fire on fire by extasiswings (Rated T)

Or: Buck and Eddie get in the habit of sharing a bed while living together during quarantine. It's platonic until it isn't.

Better Together by Randomfandombloggs09 (Not Rated)

5 times Eddie sees Buck wearing his last name and 1 time its not just his

Daddy and Pops by EdithBlake (Rated M)

When Christopher calls Buck 'Pops' things get a bit confusing. Buck and Eddie have a talk with Christopher that ends up with both of them being even more confused by how right it sounds.

the meaning of the words you see by florenceandthemachine (Rated E)

unknown sender: Hi!

unknown sender: Just wanted to say thanks for letting me buy you a drink, and for your number. Sorry I had to run.

unknown sender: I’m Eddie by the way.

sent: hey um

sent: i don’t want 2 be this guy but

sent: i think u mayb put the wrong # in ur phone

the dream you wish will come true by woodchoc_magnum (Rated M)

In which Christopher Diaz cannot understand why his father would want to date his former teacher when Evan Buckley is right there.

vienna waits for you by mottainai (Not Rated)

Eddie doesn't deserve a soulmate.

Work Husband by hideeho (Rated T)

“What...what have you done with Buck?” Eddie is going to kill him for messing with his phone. No, that’s too extreme. He’s going to maim him. Just a little.

“Check under H,” Chim offers helpfully, shooting a look over to Hen with a smirk.

Why the hell would he be under—

Then he sees it.

Husband.

Bad Neighbors by firstdegreefangirl (Rated E)

Eddie's new neighbors are keeping him up all night. He calls on his best friend for a little taste of their own medicine.

Cross the Line by Sirencalls (Rated E)

Eddie laughs, short and quiet and almost to himself. “No. If you want to learn, then I’m gonna be the one to teach you.”

Buck is pretty sure his brain stops working. “What? Why?”

Eddie turns to look at him and steps closer, their chests only a few inches apart. “Because there are people out there who will take advantage of how naïve you are. They’ll hurt you, and I won’t.” Eddie’s eyes are so intense that Buck doesn’t have any choice but to believe him. “If you want someone to do this for you, to—to dominate you, it has to be me. I don’t trust anyone else to do it right.”

pretty in pink by dykeevans (Rated E)

Buck forgets that he and Eddie made plans to hang out until Eddie shows up and Buck's in the middle of laundry day.

His laundry day outfit consists of a small pink crop top and grey sweatpants.

Eddie loses his damn mind. Me too, though, me too.

the distance to the stars by cloudydaisies (Rated G)

“Didn’t know you were seeing someone.”

Buck just laughs. Like, honest to god giggles. Eddie is stuck fighting off doubly massive waves of butterflies and confusion, all while Buck just gazes down at him.

“That’s cute,” he hears Buck mumble, just before climbing into the truck, calling Eddie after him.

-or, everyone knows eddie is dating buck except for eddie, literally.

Something Old, Something New by dumbhuman (Rated E)

“Damn, I love weddings!” Buck’s face lit up as he closed the door.

If asked later, Eddie wouldn’t have been able to explain what came over him in that moment to make him ask the question. Or, at least, he wouldn’t have wanted to explain. The exhaustion was an easy excuse, but he knew deep down that it wasn’t a real one.

“Why don’t you come with me?”

one of the few things by thatnerdemryn (Rated G)

five times that Eddie tells someone else that Buck is Christopher's legal guardian plus one time he finally tells Buck.

I Didn't Know I Was Lonely 'Til I Saw Your Face by HMSLusitania (Rated T)

Total strangers Buck and Eddie go to couple's therapy together to get out of the therapy requirements their captains have placed on them.

things we shouldn't do by Ingu (Rated T)

“Why is everybody taking my relationship status so personally? Can’t I be fine with being single?” Buck said.

“Hey, you don’t have to say yes, be sad and alone if that’s what you want,” Josh replied. “But, I’m just saying. I’ve seen photos and this guy is volcanic levels of hot. Also, single dad, super cute kid. Saves lives for a living like you. I think you should give it a go.”

(the one where Buck and Eddie accidentally get set up on a blind date with each other, and everything snowballs from there)

Keeping It In The Family by Wolves_of_Innistrad (Rated T)

A young man shows up at the firehouse looking for Buck. Turns out Javier was a Bartender with Buck in Mexico. He’s back in LA, looking to reconnect and very flirty. Cue Eddie realizing Buck is not as straight as he thought.

kiss me (like your ex is in the room) by rebeccaofsbfarm (Rated E)

Eddie Diaz gets drunk and protective and signs up for a fake double date to get back at his friend's ex.

Leave the Light On (I'll Be Coming Home) by HMSLusitania (Rated M)

An accident on a call leaves Buck with custody of Chris after Eddie is… missing presumed.

While they navigate their new family circumstances -- and fight to stay together, despite Eddie's parents' best efforts -- a John Doe wakes up in a coma ward with no memory of his own life beyond the knowledge he has a son named Christopher and, somehow, he needs to get home

All my Buddie AO3 bookmarks

As I said this fandom has some very talented people, some of my favorite Authors's Tumblrs below, I recommend all the things they wrote and their blogs are very good.

@elvensorceress, @hmslusitania, @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels, @extasiswings

For gifs:

@arrenemris, @skylessnights (very lovely AU gifsets)

@from-nova(good gifs & content)

For Podfics: @mistmarauder everything she ever read is amazing, her podfics are high quality and she has a very lovely voice and her presence calms me down lol I recommend it

I'm sorry there are a lot more people but I'm kinda in a rush haha most of the people I follow are amazing, but the ones I mentioned here are enough to get you started or entertained for a while.

Buddie fics are amazing, this pairing has spoiled me so much, everyone I met because of it is nice and so active and talented.

Sorry mutuals if I forgot someone!

I hope I helped Anon, have fun!

(Tell me if any link is wrong please, thanks)

#buddie #buddie recs #recs #fic recs #911 on fox #911fox #911 fox #evan buckley #eddie diaz #ao3

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steddieas-shegoes · 1 year

Text

Eddie likes painting his nails. He paints them any color he can, but usually ends up with black for shows since that’s his whole aesthetic.

Steve wants to try it. He likes the way El and Max and Eddie and Robin take turns picking colors for each other, how much fun they have painting each others’ nails, how relaxed they all seem.

But he knows that’s not what “strong men” do.

A strong man doesn’t walk around with pink nails, even if it does bring out the color of his eyes.

A strong man doesn’t let a teenage girl paint his nails purple because it makes his skin look a little more tanned in the winter.

And he’s let go of a lot of those ridiculous stereotypes his dad shoved through his head from the time he could understand words, but this is one thing he can’t let himself enjoy.

It’s stupid. But he can’t. So he watches from the couch as they gather on the floor once every two weeks to freshen up their colors, doing his best to hide his jealousy and sadness.

But he must fail because Eddie asks him to join them one night after the girls have already gotten their picks in for Eddie’s next color.

“Wanna paint them for me, Stevie?”

Steve searched his brain for any reason not to paint someone else’s and finally settled on allowing himself this one thing. If he couldn’t have pretty nails, he could give them to Eddie.

He nodded and sat cross legged in front of Eddie, waiting for further instruction.

“Doesn’t have to be perfect, okay? You’ll probably get a little on the skin around the nail and that’s okay too, it’ll come off.”

Steve nodded again.

The nerves were catching up to him now that he was holding the brush in between his fingers, leaning over where Eddie had placed his hand on Steve’s lap.

The girls were distracted, but Eddie noticed his pause.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Just looked like you wanted to.”

Eddie’s soft tone made Steve relax. He could do this.

So he started.

It was pretty easy on Eddie’s hand, his nails being big enough that he could mostly avoid getting any on the skin. He knew it’d be harder on the girls with their dainty hands or himself if he dared ever try.

Eddie was humming something while Steve worked diligently.

“This is a nice shade of blue. Did you pick it or did the girls?”

Eddie stopped humming and smiled. “I did. I could do yours next if you want.”

God, did he want.

But he shook his head.

“I can’t. Thanks though.”

Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed.

“What do you mean you can’t? Why can’t you?”

Steve shrugged.

“Well it’s just that like. Men can’t really paint their nails.”

Steve was so focused on finishing up he didn’t notice that Eddie was going through every emotion a person could.

Finally, he looked up with a smile that quickly fell when he saw the angry look on Eddie’s face.

“Am I not a man?”

“What? Of course you are.”

“So you would still be a man with painted nails, then.”

“It’s just different for me.”

“Different how?”

“Like, a real man who wants to be a provider or whatever can’t exactly walk around with his nails painted fun colors, ya know?”

“I guess I don’t know.”

Steve was feeling a bit overwhelmed at trying to explain the words his father had always said to him growing up. How any time Steve seemed too focused on his appearance, he reminded him not to cross the line into “what those queers do” as if maintaining self-image was at all based on a person’s preference in men or women. How when Steve said he liked Madonna, his dad told him she was an artist for girls and women who haven’t found a husband yet and to try listening to some classic rock.

“It’s just that you’re you. You’re confident and you can pull it off. Like it goes with your whole…thing. It doesn’t really work for me. Even if I wanted to.”

“Do you want to?”

Steve could’ve lied. He could’ve just said that he’d only thought about it out of curiosity, not that he actually thought about what color might look best on him or how he could maybe learn how to do designs.

Instead, he checked that the girls were still wrapped up in conversation before turning back to Eddie and responding.

“Yeah, I want to.”

Eddie gave him a smile that could only be described as proud.

“You wanna match?”

Steve felt his hands start shaking. He nodded despite the nerves.

“Alright. Give me your hands, sweetheart.”

Jesus. Eddie gave pet names to everyone, but he’d never called him anything but Stevie. That hit hard.

He placed both his hands on Eddie’s thighs, focused on watching him paint them the same blue as what was on his own hands.

It was over much faster than Steve wanted it to be, his brain finally quiet after months, no, years, of constantly fighting his own thoughts with worse ones.

He didn’t even notice Eddie was picking up his hands to blow cool air on his nails until he felt the breath against his fingers.

He couldn’t hide the shiver that wracked his body.

He looked up at Eddie, who was smiling softly at him between bursts of air.

Finally, he held Steve’s hands up between them.

“This is a good color for you. You like it?”

“Mhm. It’s pretty.” He gulped. “I feel pretty.”

He hadn’t really meant to say it aloud, but now that he had, he felt nothing but relief.

“Yeah, sweetheart. You are pretty.”

The girls chose that moment to crawl over to where they sat, exclaiming about their nails and how cute it was that they matched.

Steve agreed.

And he made sure to match every time Eddie painted his nails just so he could hear him say “You’re so pretty, sweetheart.”

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things #I am a baby girl Steve truther #and I will always find a way to make that happen #even subtly #headcanon #tumblr drabbles

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loserdiaz · 3 years

Note

✨buddie prompt✨

accidentally saying i love you

sorry it took so long babe 🥺 i'm not sure if it's what you wanted but i hope you like it. 💕

i love you ( ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard? )

fandom: 9-1-1

pairing: buck/eddie

words: 1.8k

rating: teen and up audiences

additional tags: domestic fluff, soft buck, soft eddie, pining idiots, light angst (you blink, you miss it).

AO3 LINK

"Bucky, please. Tell me what it is!" Christopher begs, bouncing excitedly in his arms and Buck smiles fondly at the kid, adjusting his hold so he won't let him fall.

"You'll find out soon enough, buddy." He answers for what it feels like the hundredth time in five minutes

Eddie's following them and he glances at Buck with a mixed of curiosity, concern and exasperation.

"Buck, I swear to god if you—"

He snorts. “You worry too much, Diaz.”

"Yeah, and you spoil my son too much."

“Stop trying to ruin the surprise, you grumpy old man,” he replies breezily, feeling Chris laugh and watch them amusedly.

There's a park near Buck's apartment. They walking there at his request and he can feel himself practically buzzing, excited for how the Diaz boys will react to his surprise. They're almost there and he can see Carla waiting, his gift covered by an old blanket so Chris won't see it until they're there. This feels like the time they built that skateboard for the kid, only this time Buck did it all on his own without even Eddie's knowledge.

Oh God, he didn't even checked with Eddie before arranging all of this and now it was too late. What if he crossed a line? What if Eddie got mad at him? Was this too much? Yeah, it probably was. Buck's always too much.

"Bucky?" Chris asks him, looking at him with those loving and trusting eyes that make Buck's heart melt inside of him.

"Yeah, Superman. We're here." He responds, his voice a little shaky. It's too late to back off now. "Carla! Time for the big reveal!" He yells in an overdramatic voice, letting Chris down on the floor gently, under the attentive look of Eddie. God, he really hopes Eddie doesn't get too mad after this.

Carla pulls back the blanket to reveal an adaptive bicycle. The thing took Buck weeks to built, since they were quite expensive and he wanted to be perfect for Chris, specifically. He wanted to solve all of the kid's needs and so he had to consult with doctors and pediatricians, then he had to fond the parts and put them together and it wasn't gonna do just a boring average bicycle so he went and painted it, with a cool design of space and the solar system on the seat.

"Bucky! I love it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Every second of stress and worry and physical pain in his hands over spending too much time working on the thing were worth it to see Chris's megawatt smile. How the kid's face brightened and his eyes are all shinny, it made everything worth it. Hell, Buck would probably go to Saturn and back just to see that expression on Christopher's face.

"Is that a—?" Eddie's stunned. His eyes are wide, almost in awe. Disbelief clear on his face and his jaw was lack.

"An adaptive bicycle." Buck cuts him off, nodding nervously. Chris has been a little down, since some of the kids at school started arriving in these fancy bikes all by themselves ( the ones that lived near enough, of course ) but still, and they did all of these amazing tricks that they learned. Harry and Denny got new bikes too recently and it was like the skateboard thing all over again. Chris feeling excluded and not understanding how life could be so unfair.

Buck hated that. He absolutely hated that Christopher ever felt broken or not enough. Buck knew those feelings too well and the thought of Chris feeling like that made him feel sick to his stomach.

So, he built the kid an adaptive bicycle.

"Look, Superman." Buck smiles softly and kneels down on the ground so he can look the kid in the eye. "I know this isn't like Harry's or Denny's bikes. I know it's not like the bikes you see everyday around your school or here at the park. But this is an special bike, just like you. It doesn't mean is better or worse, just... different. And that's not a bad thing, okay?" He says seriously, stealing a quick glance at Eddie, who still looks shocked and wide-eyed.

"Thanks, Buck. Can I ride it? Please?"

"You'll have to ask your dad." Buck is careful to keep his voice even but every second that passes with Eddie no saying a word... well, let's just say that his heart might jump out of him from how fast is beating and there's a lump that's quickly forming in his throat.

"Sure, mijo. Just be careful." Eddie finally finds it in himself to react and smiles encouragely to his son. Carla is just as excited as Chris, so she helps the boy to get in the bike.

Buck watches Chris for a few seconds. Proud swelling in his chest. Yeah, maybe it wasn't a bike like the other kids used, ( it was a recumbent bike with a reclining seat that helps with weight distribution, two wheels in the back and a larger wheel in the front of the bicycle ) but at least Chris can enjoy riding and he would be safe doing it.

"Look, Eds. I know I probably crossed like a thousand lines with this. You're his father, I'm not—" Buck starts to explain, once Chris is out of earshot and Carla is too preoccupied taking pictures of the cute moment on her phone.

"Evan, listen to me." Buck immediately shuts up at his first name. This is maybe the second or third time that Eddie calls him Evan, so it must be serious. Buck doesn't know if he should feel scared or what but the anxiety grows inside of him and turns his stomach into nots.

This is the moment where Eddie says he's too much, that Buck needs to back the fuck off or that he can't do this stuff without consulting him first. This is the moment where he rejects him. He's sure of it.

But Eddie doesn't say any of that.

"There's no one, absolutely no one, I trust more than you with my son. And this, what you did today is more than you can ever imagine. You keep finding ways for Chris to be happy, for him to do all these things that I never even thought he—" Eddie chokes out, tears forming in his brown warm eyes.

Buck blinks startled at the emotion on his best friend's face. Eddie Diaz is not one to be emotional or vulnerable, so this is a rare moment that he makes sure to appreciate and cherish.

"You know I'd do anything for the kid, Eds. And for you, too." He says softly, whispers it almost too quiet as he's afraid that if he says the words too loud then Eddie would run off, scared.

The moment between them is delicate and they can feel themselves in the brink of something more, something bigger than just friendship. But then Christopher's scream of joy and Carla's laughter carry through the little bubble they were in and the moment's gone.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

Buck built an adaptive skateboard for Chris. And then he built a bike. Eddie didn't even ask him to do any of those things but Buck did them anyway because that was the kind of man he was. Generous and loving and the best fucking friend anyone could ask for.

He’s not sure how it’s possible, but he thinks that Buck might know him better than he knows himself. He can't picture a life without him. A version of the universe where Buck isn't part of their family. And maybe he doesn't want to be just friends. He's doesn't know. Fuck.

He’s not quite sure what comes after that revelation, but he still thinks about it a lot.

Christopher has fallen asleep on the way home and Buck is putting him into bed while Eddie gets the beers. They've done this a hundred times but now Eddie can't help to wonder if it could be more. He's weirdly nervous and his mouth is dry.

"Chris is dead to the world. I don't think he'll be waking up anytime soon." Buck announces and he's smiling so wide it just about hurts as Eddie passes him the beer.

"Thanks for today, Buck." He hugs the blonde in an impulse, holding him for a second longer than he probably should. Buck hair smells like his expensive hair products, coconut and a bit of vanilla. He knows exactly how he feels.

And then they're pulling apart and everything is like it's always been. Buck starts rambling about his latest research whole. Chris have been obsessed with space lately and saying he wants to work for NASA so naturally Buck have read everything about it.

"...so I was reading about black holes, right? And turns out that supermassive black holes also give birth to stars and determine how many stars a galaxy gets. Did you know that, Eddie? I didn't! I never thought about where stars came from but—"

“I love you,” he says softly, cutting Buck off. And usually he would be apologizing now, because he hates when people interrupts Buck's info dumps but he's too busy panicking. He wasn't planning on saying 'I love you'. He... he wasn't- God, Eddie doesn't even know but now that the words are out it feels right, it feels natural to say them. Except that Buck is silent and his eyebrows are almost dissapearing into his hairline. "I... I wasn't planning on telling you. I wasn't even sure how I felt but today... Evan, I love you." And maybe he accidentally said it but now that he said it outloud he couldn't stop. Eddie wants to tell Buck he loves him again and again because it's what he deserves.

"You... you mean that?" Buck asks softly, almost as he's scared that the answer would be no.

The line between them is practically visible. It’s right next to them and they're about to cross it.

He swallows. "Yes, Evan. I mean it. I love you." Eddie nods, hesitant with his own small shy smile.

Buck takes a deep breath. The blonde is looking at him, his stare so soft that Eddie's breath catches in his throat."I- I love you, too."

They're close now. Eddie's not sure who walked closer but they're just so close that he can feel Buck's breath against his lips. He could lean forward and they'd be kissing.

“Can I…” The words are soft, soft enough that Eddie could pretend he didn’t hear it if he wanted to. He doesn’t want to.

Eddie swallows. He’s still smiling. “Yeah."

They kiss. Their first kiss is in the kitchen where they've spent so many nights talking about crazy calls and stars and black holes. Where they've spent mornings making pancakes with weird shapes and laughing with Christopher. And it just feels right, feels a little like it was always meant to be this way, like every decision they’d ever made was leading up to this moment.

#911 buddie #buddie fanfic #buddie ficlet #buddie prompt #buck and eddie #buck and christopher #evan buck buckely #buck x eddie #eddie 911 #eddie diaz #buckley diaz family #christopher diaz #buck 911 #911 fanfic #911 on fox

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cherishingstydia · 3 years

Text

5 times Buck helps Eddie+1 time Eddie helps Buck

“Come on it’s easy.” Buck laughed.

“Maybe for you!” Eddie sighed.

“Look Eds you’re not gonna learn if you just stand ten feet away.”

“Fine.” Eddie said coming closer peeking over Bucks shoulder. Which now Buck was regretting having him so close.

“See it’s so easy. You boil the water, and then add the noodles. Then we’re just gonna add the Alfredo sauce. This really isn’t anything I need to teach you Eddie you know how to boil water and open jars.” Buck laughed.

“Yeah, but we’re starting out easy and then we’ll let things get really hard.”

Nope. Not thinking about what things He wants to get hard. Buck cleared his mind as he watched Eddie picked up the pan, and head to the sink to strain it

“Shit!” Eddie said as the boiling water burnt his hand. “This is why I don’t cook.” Eddie shook his head.

“Let me look at it.” Buck said. Buck gently grabbed Eddies hand examining it.

“Let’s go. I have some cream in the bathroom that should help.”

Eddie followed Buck and then sat on the side of the tub like Buck told him.

Buck gently rubbed the cream on Eddies hand careful not to hurt it. He then wrapped it up and with out even thinking he left a soft kiss on Eddies hand. His lips touched his skin...well a bandage over his skin.

“Um I’m sorry I don’t know why I did that.” Buck blushed.

“Kisses are supposed to make it all better right?” Eddie smiled.

“Still I don’t think you needed it.” Buck said avoiding eye contact.

“Here.” Eddie said grabbing his hand and leaving a soft kiss on Bucks hand. “Now we’re even...don’t worry about it.”

Buck felt like his brain short circuited, and he couldn’t help, but think of all the places he wanted to feel Eddies lips.

“Also sorry for pushing you to cook.”

“It’s ok I really do need to learn.” Eddie smiled.

Buck arrived at Eddies and knocked. He was in shock with how little clothing Eddie was wearing. Just some small shorts.

“Man I feel a little over dressed.”

Buck managed to say with a forced laugh.

“Ha ha.” Eddie said sarcastically. “I’m sun burned, and I can’t wear clothes comfortably.

“Well did you put aloe on?”

“Most places. Can’t reach my back.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Thanks.” Eddie smiled handing Buck the bottle.

As Buck looked at the muscular body in front of him he realized maybe rubbing your hands all over your best friend who your feelings aren’t strictly platonic could be a bad idea.

Bucks hands began rubbing down Eddies shoulders and back reaching every muscle.

“Uh I think I got too much.” Buck said after covering Eddies back and shoulders.

“You can put it on my chest...I mean no need to wash it off and waste it.”

“Uh yeah.” Buck choked.

Now his hands were rubbing all over Eddies chest and abs and the look in Eddies eyes made it really hard not to make a move, but he’s not crossing the line when he knows Eddie doesn’t want it.

“Done.” Buck blurted before rushing to the bathroom.

“You ok?” Eddie asked following after.

“Great...I Uh just need to wash my hands.” Buck said....and control what was happening in his pants. Buck had to think of the grossest things possible to calm him down, and luckily it worked.

Buck looked at himself in the mirror as he rinsed the aloe off his hands. He let out a deep breath.

“Um I forgot I gotta go.” Buck said pushing past Eddie to leave.

“You ok?”

“Great I’ll see you tomorrow.” Buck said. Yes he was ok in most senses but his thoughts weren’t ok, they weren’t what you were supposed to think about your best friend...that’s gotta cross some line right?

Buck could barely handle the tension he’s sure he’s imagining. Eddie leaned against the kitchen counter sipping on a beer eyes looking right into Bucks. Buck had to break the moment.

“Uh let’s go finish that movie now.” Buck said clearing his throat walking away.

“Buck....I’m stuck.” Eddie said. Somehow his pants had latched on to a loose nail. “These are my favorite jeans I don’t wanna rip them.”

“Eddie you have a pair of favorite jeans.” Buck smirked. “Didn’t know you cared about clothes that much.”

“Yeah I do, and I know other people like them too apparently they make my ass look great.”

Buck agrees, but he can’t tell Eddie that. Definitely can’t tell Eddie how his ass looks great all the time no matter what he wears.

Buck walked up reaching his arms behind Eddie, standing chest to chest hoping Eddie couldn’t feel how hard his heart was beating or see how red his face was turning. When he finally got Eddie loose Eddie stumbled forward practically pining Buck to the fridge. Eddie turned his head lips brushing against Bucks neck.

“Uh thanks.” Eddie said quickly taking a step back.

“Yeah...anytime.” Buck said trying to control his heavy breathing.

Eddie had one too many shots. Buck knew Chris shouldn’t see him like this and even though Buck was drunk....he wasn’t so drunk to think Eddie going home was a good idea.

Buck called Carla explained what happened and she didn’t mind staying over with Chris.

The Uber ride was interesting. Eddies hand was creeping up Bucks thigh and as much as he liked it he had to stop him every time. Eddie is drunk and doesn’t even know what he’s doing.

“Let’s go.” Buck said leading Eddie into his apartment.

“What are we gonna do?” Eddie asked with a smirk as they walked inside.

“Going to bed.” Buck said.

“Ooh sounds fun. What are we gonna do when we get there.”

“You are sleeping on the couch, and I will be sleeping in my bed.”

“That’s no fun.” Eddie groaned.

Against his better judgment Buck decided to push this a bit. Ask some more questions.

“What um what did you want to do?” Buck gulped.

“You. I wanna do you.” Eddie said before flopping on the couch and not speaking again.

Buck rushed up to his room. Knowing he shouldn’t have asked, but as much as he wants to be with Eddie, wants to have sex with him. He would never do it unless they were both sober, he wasn’t so drunk not to know right from wrong. He’d never take advantage of anyone, especially Eddie.

Buck woke up to clanking in the kitchen. He went down stairs to see Eddie trying to cook.

“What’s going on?” Buck grinned.

“Trying to thank you for helping me last night, and not letting Chris see me drunk.”

“You were pretty wasted.”

“Is cereal ok?” Eddie laughed.

“Probably the safest option.” Buck teased.

“By the way I wasn’t that drunk.” Eddie whispered against Bucks ear as he sat a bowl of cereal in front of Buck.

He can’t mean he knew what he was doing. Knew he was flirting and coming on to him....can he?

After work Buck was stopped by Eddie.

“Hey buck could you help me out? Abuela needs a new fence put in, and she insists it’s a two man job.”

“Yeah of course.” Buck smiled.

“You really don’t have to I can do it all.”

“Eddie you asked for help and I’m gonna give it to you...ok. So when are we doing it....I mean the fence.” Buck blushed.

“Tomorrow?”

“Ok I’ll see you then.”

Buck hadn’t thought much about how hot the days can be if you’re outside working. Eddie had on a white shirt that was clinging to his skin from all the sweat leaving little to the imagination, which Buck already has every inch memorized. Which some people might find sweat gross, but with Eddie it’s incredibly sexy.

Eddie ripped off the shirt tossing it to the side and Buck is sure he literally whimpered just from the sight of Eddie.

“You ok?” Eddie asked.

“You’re hot...I mean are you hot. I think it’s hot. Like really hot out...I can’t stop sweating.”

“Take off your shirt.” Eddie said Buck didn’t know if it was a question but he liked to think of it as a command. He loved the idea of Eddie telling him what to do. Like Eddie ordering him to drop to his knees.

“Boys come get some water.” Abuela said bringing out two bottles.

Buck was incredibly grateful Abuela had interrupted his train of thought.

Eddie sat down on the steps running a hand through his hair he’d just recently grown out. Buck loved the longer hair on Eddie.

“Maybe I should cut my hair.” Eddie said.

“No!” Buck blurted earning a confused look from Eddie.

“I mean I don’t see why, unless at work you get over heated.” Buck said nervously.

“Maybe I’ll keep it. Sorry it’s so hot out today, but thank you for your help today.”

“Yeah no problem, although there are a lot more fun ways to work up a sweat.”

Buck said. He didn’t mean to, but the words just slipped out.

“Yeah, a lot more fun.” Eddie said leaning over bumping Bucks shoulder with his.

Eddies signals are really hard to read recently if he did t know any better he’d think maybe Eddie is interested in him.

+1.

“Can I have your opinion?” Buck sighed.

“Of course” Eddie smiled.

“On a scale of 1-10 how bad is this.” Buck turned on some music and started slow dancing with the air. “Maddie wants to dance with me, instead of dad, and I just I don’t know how bad it is.”

“You want my honest opinion?” Eddie asked and by the expression Buck knew it wasn’t great.

“How bad am I?”

“You’re about a 5 maybe 6...I can teach you.”

“Wait Eddie you dance?”

“Duh.” Eddie got off the couch and started swiveling his hips and thrusting in the air.

“Ok magic mike turn it down, I need to know how to dance with my sister at her wedding not something random girls bachelorette party.”

“I was just proving I can dance. Here.” Eddie said pressing his body into Bucks back one hand on his hip the other on his shoulder. “Just follow my lead.

Buck let out a deep breath the heat coming off of Eddies body, the warmth of his breath on his neck.

“Eddie I think this is a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“You really don’t know...how I feel.”

“I’m not sure if I know for sure, but I know how I feel.” Eddie said nuzzling into Bucks neck leaving soft kisses. “You drive me crazy Buck. It’s unfair how you’re not only an amazing person, but also ridiculously hot.”

“Eddie.” Buck panted turning around grabbing Eddies hips and capturing Eddies lips with his. “Feelings mutual Eddie.....I like you so much, I actually more than like.”

“I more than like you too.” Eddie grinned as he put his arms on Bucks shoulders and started swaying. “We’re dancing see it’s this isn’t hard at all.”

“It’s a little hard.” Buck said pressing his body against Eddie.

“Oh, um well maybe that’s enough dancing for now. We wouldn’t want to rush this.”

“Good things are worth waiting for.” Buck smiled. “Wanna watch a movie?”

“Yeah.” Eddie smiled.

“Thanks for the help.” Buck said.

“Thank you for letting me help. Look where it got us.” Eddie grinned.

“So uh you wanna be my date for the wedding. I mean you and Chris both obviously. If not I mean we’d both be there any way, or we could just call it carpooling.” Buck rambled.

“I’d love to be your date.” Eddie said kissing Buck. “Now let’s watch that movie.”

#buddie #cherishingstydiawrites

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blankdblank · 3 years

Text

Brother Dearest Pt 54

English Composition, Trigonometry, Calculus, Astronomy, Sociology and Rhetoric filled your Tuesday roster of classes ended with you in your mother’s old chair lounging while you drafted up more of the first papers due soon then slept to follow the list of classes for your Wednesday line up complete with a stop in your Photography club. Soon enough a week had gone by and Saturday morning you sat up in wait for your appointment with Herc later today.

Since after Mass the prior Wednesday evening in a stare at the tv set across a legal pad sat diagrams for a new set that even had the guys in their continued paths through between offers of snacks and daily pears admiring the puzzling designs. Several parts and pieces you couldn’t even find in the books available to the public that had Elliot on his latest trip to your place in an amazed look over the pages he flipped through to your anxious stare. “This is impressive, and you dreamed all of this up?”

You nodded in his glance up, “We watched the night broadcast on the storm front last week and then when I woke up those were in my head.”

His grin spread, “Well this is a very good sign. Makes the sets available to the public infantile by comparison. Have you considered manipulation of materials yet?”

“I made a screw, like thing,” you said in lifting the half metal and glass like corkscrew shaped item you were a bit timid to show him, “But it doesn’t feel like any metal or glass I’ve felt before.”

Slid forward he claimed hold of the item and smiled at it in awe turning it this way and that, “Very impressive. Manipulation is quite impossible to master, only five of our brothers were able to even attempt it and only Erich was able to master it, part of why I imagine you chose him for your Second and guardian of your essence. Is this all you have created?”

“Outside of babies, ya,” that had him chuckle to himself, “Had to sleep nearly half a day after that.”

“Yes, it can be quite draining from what I hear. Chaos magic has a weight to it. This, much like a tube for the tv set you have over there is used to harness the image. However this is much more powerful and by this design you can harness solar power to load up the wave converter box, which I can imagine for you will be the most enjoyable to make.”

“Is it all going to have to be made by manipulation? Or can we find parts here on this planet?”

“The casing and some of the more simplistic materials, screws and brackets and of course the wooden box casing could be certainly. While the aspects that power and shift and project the image onto the screen must be from materials either you manipulate or we can bribe to be smuggled off of Asgard.”

“I can imagine Odin will be pleased to have us bribing his gate keeper to build myself a television set.”

Again he chuckled and replied, “Heimdall will not require bribes.”

“Not that we have his currency anyways.”

“You are learning,” he replied, “This time of growth will aid greatly in your remembrance.”

“Ah, yes, my awakening.”

“Not exactly, have to spark the memory first, then you can pave the way to awakening. The journals are helping to show you through time and spark your imagination and memory.”

“So, maybe five television sets then I can wake up?”

Again he chuckled, “Perhaps we can expand your horizons for topics of projects to keep your mind exercised.” The doorbell rang and he smiled stating, “That must be Herc.”

“Ooh, I’ll get the tea,” you said to the whine of the kettle that had him help you up to fetch it to pour for him to Eddie’s fetch of the door to let him in to join Ambrose in the living room for the weekly check up for the both of you. Back again mentally pushing the rolling cart you returned with Teddy on your hip after having helped him fix up some sliced fruit and cheese to go with your bowls of pickled beets and baby carrots.

Victor chuckled crossing your path accepting hold of Teddy, “Come on Teddy, let’s get back to your spot and watch aunt Bunny get her check up.”

Gladly to the excited wiggle of his sister on a padded quilt on the floor still goading her body in rocks back and forth on all fours on her way to the early stages of crawling beside Leanora on her back more concerned with the toy pinned between her feet that learning to move on her own at the moment Teddy sat on Victor’s lap on the chair closest to Leanora. James already in the living room fixed up your pillows again and moved the notes and part you had made aside to help serve out the tea and snacks so he could nestle you back into your seat.

Dawn from the other room asked, “Has anyone seen my coin purse?”

Eddie upon his return said with a grin, “You left it in the kitchen by your purse.” That had her let out a puff of air and smooth a hand over her clammy forehead, “You don’t need it you need to be in bed.”

Dawn replied, “I need something to do.”

Eddie, “You’ve already given your flu to Norma now you get your butt back in bed and I will bring you some soup.”

Dawn said, “I did not give-,”

Eddie sighed and turned to scoop her up in his arms and carry her back to bed, “Honestly Sweetheart you can be so stubborn sometimes. Now get back in bed and stay there the stew and rice will be finished in a little bit. Don’t make me lock the door.”

Her grumble was heard on the staircase and you chuckled to yourself and said to Herc, “Sorry, Dawn’s got the flu, been hard to hold down. We don’t catch it but it has made Norma miserable.”

Herc chuckled and said, “Not a problem, and if you like we could give you some ground herbs to aid in their recovery from our people easy to mix in with tea or coffee to build up their immune systems. We often give it to our mortal allies through our lifetimes here. To lessen what suffering we can.”

Victor asked, “Will it make them get better quickly?”

Elliot, “Oh yes, by tomorrow at the earliest, two days depending on how early in the progression we have caught it.”

Ambrose sighed, “Well that will be used often as my boys keep passing their colds and flu’s around.”

Herc smirked and said, “I can offer monthly supplies of herbal vitamins for them if that will improve their odds of staving off this pesky cold your planet has invented.”

“Are you telling me the common cold is native to our planet?” you asked with a smirk.

Elliot, “Oh yes, and quite debilitating to a fair bit of races. While the mortals have built up a way to trudge through it, quite impressive. Most planets eradicate bacteria all together while the intestines and stomach are just a few of the locations of the human body that create habitats for strains that help to keep their bodies healthy to stave off worse strains from the world around us. Ingenious, bit mad, but ingenious.”

James, “And Jaqi won’t get sick at all?”

Herc shook his head, “There are few substances strong enough to debilitate her healing abilities and all of those are for purposes of our race.”

Victor, “What purpose could that be?”

Herc, “Labor, for one. Not in the sense she wouldn’t heal but to grant pain relief. Though it is a heavy sedative, the other two are more hallucinogenic to lower consciousness of pain to keep you awake but, mellow.”

“Like laughing gas?”

Herc, “Yes, but stronger. Most likely for labor we will give you the latter for the birth and the former for recovery to allow you rest.”

“How’d you manage to discover those medicines? Even morphine couldn’t last longer than a few seconds in my bloodstream in the war.”

Herc paused a moment then said, “Well, you gave them to us, taught us to grow them and how to harvest and mix them with the first of us. You will remember. Time has written about your studies of medicine for our race.” You nodded then he said after accepting his tea, “For now, any discomfort?”

“Not particularly, though I did get a rather rude kick to my bladder last night and nearly made a puddle on the way to the toilet.”

Ambrose chuckled knowing the bladder wars well along with Herc who set down his cup and moved to take hold of one of your feet to begin the exam there. “I wish I could aid in that, however, toes to head so you can snack and calm your girls a bit.”

A little bit beyond the basic feels of your belly and back a few feels around your ribs came before the final neck to jaw checks that had his grin spread in saying, “Perfect health. How are your skin allergies holding up?”

“Still get a few red patches from perfumes from some of the ladies at school. But lotion at home tends to fix that.”

Herc, “Honey based?”

You nodded, “Dawn’s family makes it.”

Herc, “Very good, honey is very soothing for our expecting mothers. Even some in your tea or some honey based lozenges could help while you are at school if it grows too bothersome.”

“Not to bad, just mainly in my Lit class, there’s a whole group that seem to just exhale lavender. Close to when I go home.”

Elliot, “I could possibly persuade a few young ladies to avoid the scent.”

You smirked his way, “We don’t need to go to that extreme. Can’t blank out the whole plant from the planet.”

Elliot chuckled to Eddie’s saying from his spot with Teddy now on his lap to share the snacks, “Oh I bet they could if they tried.”

Herc, “Quite a common ailment for all our brothers on this planet. Though a few centuries of exposure has built up a minor tolerance to the plant. Yet, honey has aided in our tolerance. When our brothers arrive a great many colonies of bees will be bred to aid in the exposure ailments of those who have little tolerance from no prior experience on this planet.”

Victor said, “Jimmy used to get the worst of spring every time it came around until we managed to coax him to eat honey on his rolls. Local pollen from the hives nearby helps.”

Herc grinned and said in the production of his stethoscope for the lung and heart check before the girdle scanner, “If you change your mind let us know.”

“Hard to imagine,” you said to his switch from a listen of one lung to the next, “Tear planes out of the sky but a tiny flower can take me out.”

Herc chuckled to Eddie’s saying, “Everyone has a weakness. All the best heroes do.”

You nodded and asked, “Do you think I’d be more likely for a natural birth?” His eyes snapped to yours and Eddie’s lips parted to James’ hand smoothing across your back showing you’d had this worrisome conversation before. “By my progress so far, do you think?”

Herc gave you a kind grin and answered, “Caesareans as the mortals call them are quite common amongst our people. I could give you an answer now and most likely be proven wrong for how the labor develops. Though I assure you were we have to handle the labor apart from the natural breathe and push method you are in the safest hands, especially should Eric and Sarah be present. I will warn you either way you will require a break of rest. Which you are greatly due for.”

Ambrose asked, “From it being triplets?”

Herc nodded, “Mainly yes, however there is a drastic recovery for our birthing mothers.”

“How drastic?” James asked.

Elliot said, “Where mortal mothers gradually lose the birth weight within an hour roughly Jaqi should be back to her former size. The shock can be rather upsetting to mothers especially in their first birth. My wife barely spoke at all to me for three days afterwards.”

Herc said, “The response varies, however merely prepare to be at rest for a time afterwards, that mentality of an upcoming rest can be calming for some mothers, especially with multiples. And much like when you have lost a limb before while there is rapid regrowth should we operate we will ensure your daughters are all within sight while the change occurs. We have learned that lesson of distance being discouraged for a steadying moment after birth by a few very upset mothers.”

Victor, “The drugs, made them think they imagined the pregnancy?”

Herc nodded, “Something like that.” Earning a round of calming nods to the problems your birth might entail. “However, I am certain with all of us around the trio can be cared for along with Mother while she recovers her strength.”

Ambrose asked, “Did you want us to come out or do you think you would want the quiet away from the kids?”

“I don’t really know how I will handle the long drive back again to Canada, I’d hate to put you through that ordeal with your owl girl you have a system worked out and I know you like your space after. You shouldn’t have to fawn over me, I’ve got the guys for that.”

Making them smirk your way and her nod and say, “You do have a point. At the very least we can visit with Father Thomas for a joint christening for our girls.” She looked to Herc asking, “Is there a better way to get her to Canada if she can’t handle the long drive?”

Herc nodded, “Absolutely. We can use our mist gateways to travel through which is quite safe for expecting mothers. Quick and painless we can cut the travel time, middle of the night you get to a bridge and we can drop you on the long tree lined road just outside of your town up there.”

Victor, “Be a good change, especially since we haven’t picked a car yet for when the girls are here, truck won’t be big enough for all of you soon.”

Ambrose smirked saying, “Oh don’t you worry on the car, our family is picking something top of the line like we did for when Teddy was born.” You sighed and she smiled at you with a pat of her hand on yours widening the mens’ smiles around you, “You need something safer than a truck for your girls to travel in, just finishing up the paint job last I heard.” You sighed and she said, “Cars are a given from us.”

Belly scans to supper and the first dose of medicine was given to the ailing mothers who would indeed feel better the following day and both sit excitedly with you through the first bout of crawling that Marigold took with some goading from her big brother fully recorded on film by both you and Victor.

20 weeks along and in your third week of classes the first of your private study time in the library found you at a comfortable table in a corner near to the section of books you had scanned for any titles that you had yet to read. On the other side of the section you could clearly hear a group of pre-law students who were locked in a sort of prep debate that seemed to be a losing battle. The argument however had you turn your head and sigh softly in a scoot of your chair back to ease up to your feet and halfway across the room you stopped at the directory. With ease from the drawers you pulled out simple flicks of fingers brought out the first card that onto the pad of paper atop the wooden directory you used the pen there to copy the details of the book then put the card back to pull out another drawer and find a second card to copy that as well. Smoothly you strolled back to your section and then passed it to approach the table of bickering students who relented to irritated huffs and looked up at you with curiously raised brows.

Onto the table you set the sheet as they all had their hands full of notes and books they were drawing arguments from. “This will help. First one talks about the contract clauses you were referring to. The numbers underneath is the page then paragraph. And if whoever you are bickering against brings up Malone vs Tumnson that verdict was overturned 15 years ago with an undertone of profiteering by extortion. It’s noted in the second book.” On your feet you turned while the closest student lifted the sheet, “happy arguing,” you said and went back to your seat. Into which once you settled back again while they had looked over the now torn sheet two of them were off to fetch the books they returned with the books they each read over aloud then paused. A silence that had the hair on the back of your neck shift to the known feeling of the table looking in your direction.

All at once on their feet around the table they all walked around the shelves to your table where they saw you look up from the book in your hands. “How did you know about these?”

“I’ve read every law book in the New York City Public Library.”

Another asked, “Every book?”

You nodded, “I didn’t have many friends aside from the Brocks who adopted me.”

One of them nodded and after a moment of pursed lips asked for your opinion on what book could help him on his own prompt that led you to write him a note on a spare sheet of paper you handed him stirring up a round of questions to get more help from your wealth of knowledge. Then each darted off to get back to sleuthing for what else they would need.

Left to your notes again you read through and returned each of your chosen books ignoring the newspaper in your bag that bore headlines that Princess Elizabeth was pregnant and dared to stir up comments that you were jealous of that status. Two more trips to fetch book finished off your free period and then off you went to your next class once each book was returned to its proper home.

Notes copied in their next class for the missed lab were handed over by your lab partners to you in passing. Though it really didn’t matter as the next Chemistry class again in the library where on your way to the same table you spotted General Eisenhower alongside a larger group of pre-law students, each of whom you looked over wondering what they were up to aside from possibly asking for help with their study group references. “Hello General.”

With his grin he replied, “Hello Corporal. I overheard from a few of our Law Professors how you helped some of their students with their case arguments for the lead up debates to the mock court sessions beginning next week.”

“I did,” you replied.

The General said in a notice of the approaching Law Professors who head the mock court sessions, “Well then we have an offer for you to fill up your private studies schedule. Normally amongst our pool of pre-law students we divide them into groups for four cases, Defense and Prosecution and for our best student we grant the position of Judge with the remainder chosen as the jury pool. Although it would seem this year like the last we are in need of a neutral party as the former class was unable to avoid being swayed to side with their friends no matter how convincing the arguments of the opposing party. Would you be willing to assist us? You would be fully credited for the role.”

“I suppose, how often are the cases?” You said in a combination of curiosity and a loss for how to refuse.

His grin eased out wider, “Same dates as your free classes. We will keep the schedules to that time parameter and the cases will not last a full month each, we will be ensuring neither side stalls for time. To ensure the defense is granted a speedy trial as per their rights. Two cases the first month and two more the next. They will be fully followed by the journalism students and Columbia’s Paper. Since you are not versed in courtroom etiquette I will be sitting next to you as a sort of voice of experience if you do get stumped on anything as I am somewhat versed as a Judge and have seen a fair share of Court Martial cases in my time.” A book on etiquette was handed to you and he continued, “The week before your first two cases you will be given your supply of evidence and the file pertaining to the cases. All of which has been drafted by the visiting Lawyers who will be observing the court proceedings to aid our students in their paths onwards in their studies for their degrees.”

“Okay. Happy to help.”

“I hoped you’d say that.” One of the Law Professors stated.

“Hey handsome,” you giggled in James’ place at the bench halfway to the stairs from the car who wrapped you in a warm excited hug.

“Hello my Darling,” he locked eyes with Elliot in his own grin for your meeting, “Meetings and teacher politics not getting to you yet?” He asked in the blind acceptance of your armful of books, one book heavier that had him glance down at the book on courtroom etiquette then back up to the Professor again when he spoke.

“Not too terrible yet. Though there are whispers that prep for the Easter topics are to begin to be ready in time, as if they won’t just do the same as they’ve always done.” His smirk spread to James’ excited smile your way, “You seem to be holding in some news.”

James chuckled at your curious smirk up at him and replied, “Jaqi got a set of trunks from Spain, and a thick letter as well.”

“I don’t know anyone in Spain, do any of our people live in Spain?” You asked Elliot who shook his head.

“No. There is one just past Uraguay, but last I heard from his letters he said he was off to the Brazilian rainforests on an expedition of some traces of one of your lifetimes.”

You nodded and asked, “Well are you free and up for an adventure?”

That widened his smile and James’, “Thank you I would adore a chance to explore with you. And I speak and read various forms of Spanish if you require translations.”

“There’s more than one? Like French French and French Canadian?”

“Oh yes, not to mention Creole, which in Louisiana is a variation of French as well to an extent.”

Before you could ask in your turn James said, “We can’t go to Louisiana, me and Vic are still wanted there.” Your brow inched up and he flashed you a grin, “We um, blew up some buildings in the Civil War to track down a relative of a friend serving with us. I know they’re dead, but, some places still have our wanted posters on display.”

“I don’t,” you said in a shake of your head and he cut you off.

“Four of them were banks, you remember that guy who you asked if he was following us down in Texas?” You nodded, “He tried to corner me and Vic on your school tour trip. We hit a lot of banks, he wanted to ask where the money went. Had to make a few calls to make him leave.”

“If you just blew them up why would he think you had,” your lips parted to his smile that flinched wider a moment anxiously, and you asked softer, “You robbed banks too?”

“Hit a rough patch, after Xander.” He inhaled sharply then said, “But we didn’t keep it, drank it away, bought out some slave auctions to smuggle up North, but don’t worry, don’t have a cent of it now so it can’t hurt us.”

You pointed at him a moment then shook your head and curled the finger back and turned to the car, “Just when I was getting used to you’re being hired as a grave robber.”

He looked to Elliot and said, “We worked with Archeologists on digs.”

Elliot nodded mid chuckle, “Yes, I’ve seen you two in a few pictures, I’ve been collecting them. To go in our records.” James stepped back and opened the car door for you and Elliot said, “I’ll get my car and be right behind you.”

James nodded and looked to you in your ease down into the car he closed and hurried around to climb inside and fire up again with a timid grin. “Are you mad?”

You glanced at him and shook your head with a grin, “Just, bit of an odd day to hear you robbed banks.”

He shifted on the seat to ask, “Odd how?”

“Well the General found me in the library,” that had him nod, “And he asked if I would sit as Judge for the law students’ mock trials. Apparently there’s four trials and the top students are attorneys, the rest are witnesses, defendants and jurors. There will be a retired cop group for the bailiff and guards and actual attorneys sitting to judge the whole thing.”

“Why you? I love you, but why you? Clearly you aren’t in their classes.”

“Well I helped some guys the other day with their arguments and they told their Professors I’ve read all the law books in the Public Library and the General heard and he’s seen some Court Martials so he’s acting as my sort of buffer if I need help with something and gave me a book to read on how to act and procedure and all that.”

He nodded and said, “Well I’m sure you’ll be fantastic. Are you excited?”

“Um, I don’t know. They’ve scheduled the court sessions on my new study breaks and even the journalism students will be there to write all about it.” He nodded and turned to get you home at the mild shiver you fought back to get you home to the warm house to open your mystery trunks. “Apparently past few years they couldn’t get the top student to not side towards his friends or against those he doesn’t like so they wanted a neutral party I think they asked the General first and I was a convenient person to hand it over to.”

“Well if you change your mind just let them know.”

You nodded and asked, “Did you ever knock over any stage coaches or rob any trains or any other big heists I should know about?”

“Best you don’t know,” he hummed in a grin your way to your playfully challenging smirk, “Plausible deniability.”

“Ok,” you said in a content sigh settled into your mother’s chair, “I’m sitting down.” You said accepting he letter that Victor handed to you after having insisted that you sit first after the long day at school while his other hand lifted your legs for the footrest James brought over for you. “Hmm,” you said eyeing the front of the letter that was styled familiarly to how King George’s letters usually came.

Turning it over you eyed the wax seal there that had Elliot say, “That’s the seal of the Monarch of Spain.”

Once broken and lifted the flap was peers under and gently you pulled the folded pages out that you unfolded to read the top page after a clearing of your throat to the excited crowd of family around you.

“Baroness Jaqiearae Pear Howlett, we have not been formerly introduced. And I do hope you will not take this as forward of me however there is a new discovery of mine that I have wished to share with you since the first time I had seen your image in the photographs of the first meeting of you and His Highness King George VI. For a great many years I lived in Italy to focus upon my education prior to my having succeeded the Crown of Spain, and whilst there there is one figure that ages back to the very beginnings of my country.

The Queen of the Hare, for many nations all through Central and Southern America this figure exists and often in several places recorded at one time. Proof enough for some to have labeled her as a myth others used the name of to amass great fortunes and power amongst those they live in the same territories. All of them named Jaqiearae and described exactly the same as my Ambassador had described you upon his meeting you at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth of England with an affection for rabbits in one form or another.

The greatest in power, unlike the others, of which being the tales from my homeland of Spain. Said to have once been able to in a lift of her hand force an entire fleet of soldiers to strip them of their armor and weapons and in a cloud likened to a colorful starry sky fog they were off the shores and back on their ships that began to sail away from the shore. Eventually our King of old wished to have that devotion from those who in his ear whispered of plots to possibly overthrow him and put her in his place ordered her to be executed only to find her home empty upon arrival save for a symbol etched into the door.

Similar actions to those from central and Southern America from my studies and continuing even on further several kingdoms throughout Europe have similar tales with the same symbol and unreadable runes. All of which end in the same mysterious flight from all rumored to be directed towards Ireland, from where your family hails, to join the Pagans and to our people’s belief to spurn the advances of the British to claim their lands as long as possible.

Concerning the trunks, I have included a detailed list of how the documents inside are arranged. Including several letters in communications between various Kings and Queens with various Popes and religious figures to aid in overthrowing the assumed Witch ensnaring their people’s minds. While for others had been deemed a benevolent Goddess healing those brought to her with mystical powers unrivaled and unexplainable to even be able to bring those back from the very brink of death itself. All of which are amongst copies of documents both translated and not along with photographs of sketches and portraits of the varied women using the name. This is all I have acquired in my years of study into this myth that have been aided by copies from other countries to aid in possibly filling in some family history for you since I have been informed you were orphaned young and might have lost a great chunk of that lineage to have been shared with you as you grew.

My people were very disheartened to have heard of the stories being published concerning your health and know that you have been in our prayers wishing that those stories are false and you will be granted a great many children whenever God deems you and the Baron ready to welcome them. As always you will have a fond place within our hearts as the hopeful descendant of our cherished Queen of the Hare and know that when ready we will welcome you with open arms in a tour of Spain including the castle which your ancestor built herself.”

A moment you paused to giggle then say, “And it goes without saying none here will hold you responsible for any of the supposed crimes committed by the magnanimous Queen no matter how uncanny the resemblance or similarly brilliant mind capable of the same miraculous ability to protect those they cherish.” Making the others chuckle before you said, “Signed, Juan Carlos the first, Monarch of Spain.”

James teased, “So we’re not the only criminals of the family.”

That made you smirk back and then roll your eyes to Eddie’s saying, “Anything but a life of crime would never suit us misfits.”

“Just goes to prove I am not the voice of reason some people assume in our bunch.”

Victor chuckled and asked, “Which case first?”

You glanced over the second page and said, “The one from, Japan is in the hat box shaped one.”

Victor hummed amusedly, “You were in Japan? Wonder when.” He lifted the box and peered inside saying, “All in Japanese. We can translate those later for you.”

“Um, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Norway are in the briefcase one underneath that. Egypt, Italy, Greece, and Ireland are in the smaller chest, with the copies of what he’s gathered from England’s records as well. Just leaving the large trunk for South America.”

Elliot nodded and said, “Well I can get started on the large trunk, browse through what he has gathered.”

You nodded and said, “I guess I’ll check out the briefcase one, since it’s the smallest collection.” James and Victor brought it over and from the top down you began to read the top page of the first paper folder bound with twine on the stack of more bound stacks that filled the box and named the order the history was complied.

Elliot however drew your gaze by his saying, “These are Royal Record copies. Not available to the non-noble born historians. No telling what’s in these.” More amused by the secrecy of it all while you smirked and unwound the folder that while he began to use his own golden pen and a legal pad from a stack of spares to translate the first document while you turned through the stack of papers you would need to translate later from translation guides the guys would pick up for you off the list they were making and stopped to each photograph of various photographs and diagrams and sketches throughout. By the fifth folder you had to take a break and move to have the dinner that had finished cooking where you said, “It could take us years to go through all this.”

Elliot said, “I could call the twins to stay with me.”

Dawn asked, “The twins?”

Elliot glanced between you and said, “Oh, yes, they live out in Maine, mostly hermits but they have a good deal of money to live off of from several sound investments over the years. While we work they could translate the documents.”

“Wouldn’t that be bordering on abuse of power? To have them translate everything for us?”

That had him chuckle and say, “The pair of them together aided in the formation of the Oxford Dictionaries and translation guides to several languages both dead and still kicking. They compile all of our discoveries into the directory vaults we have. Trust me, they are starving for information like this and much like the scans for your children the information will be compiled in holograms as well within our system for easy travel between locations and events. Even be able to show you pinpoints on maps for events to show where you were focused and then perhaps when they are done we might know why you chose now to come back and be solid again. We’ve already deduced James and Victor had to be in Canada before that big meteor shower that one of your former selves hinted at within our runes back on Asgard.”

Norma said, “That Hubble guy, he discovered the universe in 1925. We learned about it in school.”

Elliot drew in a breath, “Yes, how could I forget that.”

Eddie, “So, this planet finds out that it’s one universe of many and you decide now’s the time. It fits. Us being aliens and all.”

Dawn asked, “Is it that big of a deal to know why now?”

Elliot shook his head, “Not particularly to us, though others will question it eventually. Now we can say Jaqi chose the year this planet essentially realized they were not alone and came to help them grow.”

Victor, “Much better than the alternative that you came to fight in the war.”

You asked, “Could that be why that Ares guy came to start the First World War?”

Elliot nodded, “It is plausible. Discovery of other planets and technology of their own means helped to dismantle their power scope over the mortals. While the country is at war mainly brute strength is focused on, not intellectual growth.”

Norma said, “Either way I can’t wait to hear what you have been up to on this planet. Be a nice change to not hear another endless cycle of history written about the men of this planet.”

That had you giggle and say, “Well if I’ve had numerous Popes contacted to have me exorcised no telling what hell I gave those Kings and their soldiers.”

Pt 55

All –

@sherala007, @mariannetora, @jesgisborne, @knitastically, @catthefearless, @theincaprincess, ggbbhehe4455, @lilith15000, @alishlieb

X Marvel-Cast - @himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @changlingkhat

Brother Dearest - @thorinanddwalinsdwarrowdam, @swoopswishsward

#James Howlett x OC #Victor Creed x Norma Jeane #Eddie Brock x OC #Venom #Elliot Randolph #Classes #Surprise Gifts from Spain #History of Mystery #Queen of the Hare #Marvel #XMen #Proposition #Mock Jury Judge #General Eisenhower #Baby Check #OC Herc

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the-iron-orchid · 3 years

Text

BOOK II: THE HIGH PRIESTESS

Chapter 1: The Seer (~2330 words)

Warnings: None

Back to table of contents

The landscape is desolate, a place of tawny sands and little else. The sky overhead is oppressive, thick with dark, lowering clouds. Where the two meet, the slim line of the horizon pulses with a viridian glow.

My arms hold fast to Asra’s waist, the scent of his hair in my nostrils. Beneath us, I feel the loping stride of a great beast, shaggy and immense. I realize that I must be dreaming... and in dreams, I have made contact.

“Mast -” I stop and swiftly correct myself. “Asra, where are we?” I ask him. It is only then that I notice the path of shining obsidian before us, snaking ahead to the horizon - clear, and yet ever-changing, its reflection of the sky above further confusing the perception.

Asra says that we are far enough away... but for what?

For answers, he says. For clarity. He senses a terrible storm on the horizon; something is changing, and not for the better.

I am instantly reminded of what the Countess said, her dream-visions of a terrible future, which must not come to pass.

Asra tells me that soon we will reach a crossroads, a nexus, a liminal place. He says that I will make a choice, one that changes everything for me... and for others. I feel his hands over mine, squeezing very briefly. But they are trembling, just a little, and he lets go hurriedly - as if the touch might burn him, or me, if held too long.

A chill wind rises around us, bearing the sands up with it in a vortex. It blots out first the landscape, then the horizon… then everything.

The last thing I hear is Asra’s voice: “Rest now, ya albi. I'll be back soon.”

---

I awaken to late morning sunlight slanting through the small windows - rather later than I wanted to sleep, but it seems that the previous night left me exhausted. I stumble into the kitchen, yawning, and rouse the stove salamander so that I might brew a pot of strong tea. He, too, needs to use his abilities regularly, lest they cause him trouble. If I am to be out, he should have a good round of exercise first.

Over my tea and a scone that has seen better days, I consider what I should bring with me to the Palace - a change of clothing, spell components, my current journal… I’m certain that they will be able to provide me with writing instruments...

It keeps my mind off of my strange dream, and its portents. For now.

Fortified with multiple cups of tea (the scone, not especially improved by toasting, was left out on the doorstep for the pigeons), I pack my things. The bag that Heron made for me is very special - it holds much, much more than it appears to. Then I set about readying the shop for my absence. I dust down the counters, and ensure that the stove salamander has a supply of coke to consume.

I go up to the rooftop to water my plants, such as they are. Heron has a lush rooftop garden that provides us both with herbs and vegetables year-round; I have a planter box full of pretty flowering weeds. But the basil is doing very well in its bucket, and the aloe in its large bowl. There is also a forgotten bean that started to sprout, now residing comfortably in an old mug with no handle. Hopefully I won’t be gone so long that they all wither in the midsummer sun… well, the aloe will survive, I am sure.

When I come back downstairs, I must turn away a few customers, hopeful for a reading. Everyone wants to know what the future holds.

If only I could ask the Arcana about the past, everything that came before the last three years. Three years of struggle and pain, of learning to be an adult human all over again, after whatever accident or illness took that part of me forever… for the most part. Once in a while, a dim memory will float by, like a distant iceberg on the sea of my mind. To try and grasp such memories is to invite pain and terror, and so I let them go.

But sometimes, there are things that I know or can do which I did not learn in the last three years with Asra and Heron. I must assume that these come from Before, written so far below the surface of my mind as to escape erasure. I dance fairly well, and I sing better than that. And while Asra and Heron are always cautious in how they teach me, I very often feel that the small, shallow pool of my magic bubbles up from something much deeper, an underground ocean in the caverns of my soul.

It is a place I cannot explore, not even with the seemingly unending patience and help of my teachers. When I have tried, it leaves me bedridden for days, my body unresponsive, my mind a maelstrom of vivid hallucinations. Giants, ghosts, talking animals… a deeper dimension to my relationship with Asra, which is almost certainly wishful thinking on my part.

They tell me that my power springs from something very fundamental and dangerous, the primordial Chaos that underlies creation. By the same token, Heron’s magic springs from the primordial force of Order, and Asra’s from a direct connection to the Magical Realms that lie beyond our own. Each of us is something different, and yet the same.

They both tell me that I’m making wonderful progress, that my power and ability will continue to grow; it simply is not a linear progression. Magic grows in fits and starts and flashes of understanding.

I hope they are right.

As the day wears on, I must be on my way to the Palace. I thoroughly lock up the shop, tracing the wards on the doors (not that this seemed to help against last night’s intruder). As I am doing this, a sudden prickle down the back of my neck causes me to start in alarm - a huge shape has materialized at my side, seemingly from nowhere.

Eldritch energy immediately crackles around my left hand, but I rein it in - they are doing nothing in particular besides looming, so large that they block my access to the side alleyway entirely. Two glinting eyes watch me from within the depths of a rough hood of furs, draped over a massive body that is crossed again and again with ropy scars.

I clear my throat. “Er, excuse me… I need to pass through there.”

For a moment, they simply continue to look at me. Then, they shift their weight, and start moving out of the way. There is a strange muffled clanking, as of chains.

“Thank you.” I nod curtly, settle my bag on my hip, and start walking past the large figure.

“He will return. Though uninvited.” The voice is deep, so deep it’s like the thunder of a waterfall. “He will offer you an escape when you need it most. Turn him down, or you will fall into his hand… just like the rest of us.”

I pause at this apparent prognostication. A teller of fortunes, I know a seer when I hear one.

“Take this, or my warning is for nothing.”

I turn back to the person, curious. The light just barely strikes two glimmers of green from within the hood. Pinched between the huge thumb and forefinger is a little leather pouch on a thin cord. Grudgingly, it seems, the figure holds it out to me. I reach a hand out, palm up, and they drop the item into it, as if unwilling to touch.

And without a further word, they turn and shuffle away. Oddly, no-one seems to take notice of the hooded figure, despite their immense size - normally, people would be gawking, pointing even.

How odd. I scrutinize the tiny bag in my palm with my magical sight. It radiates a faint aura of protective magics. I glance up again - but the figure is gone.

The pouch is well-sealed with complex warding knots, and the leather is inscribed with a sigil. Bringing it to my nose, I smell the warm, woody scent of myrrh resin.

Philosophically, I hang the little pouch around my neck. My magical sight shows nothing malicious in it… and I can use all the protection I can muster, I’m sure.

I step into the flow of traffic and noise as I cut my way through the bustling Market, but I hear little of it; I am lost in my own thoughts. Who is the he spoken of by the seer? Julian tried to give me some warning or other about Asra… but I’m not sure I credit that. He seems to have some personal vendetta. Julian himself, perhaps? What more warning could one need about a wanted criminal?

As I climb the steps that lead into the market plaza, a black shape catches my eye - it’s a large raven, perched on one of the lines of colorful lanterns that crisscross overhead. The bird looks back at me with one beady eye, blacker than my own, then croaks and turns its head. I, too, turn my head, following its gaze.

...and my heart stumbles and skips a beat as I spot Julian Devorak, walking through the crowd as if nothing at all is amiss, his face bare to the world... and unblemished. His temple shows no bruising, no hint of a wound where last night he bled.

He hasn’t seen me yet. Half of me wants to flee, but the other half is intensely curious as to how he can walk about so freely, a fugitive from the law. And how has he healed so quickly?

It is this second half that sends me after him.

Unfortunately, this means I must move against traffic, and I am not large. I also don’t want to form an obvious eddy in the crowd with my movements. Devorak is making his leisurely way along the market stalls, seemingly without a care in the world. Is he looking to get caught? Wanted posters litter the city, and between his height and that profile, it’s not like he is anonymous in any way. An eyepatch only distracts so much.

The raven gives a sudden shriek, and Devorak turns, our eyes locking for a frozen moment through the crowd.

And then a cart passes between us, causing me to step back involuntarily. When it is gone… so is he, vanished as if he had never been there at all.

I pause, traffic flowing around me, and wonder at my own actions. The man is a wanted criminal, maybe even a killer. Why on earth would I put myself in danger by following him around, no matter how curious I am? Shaking my head at myself, I rejoin the foot traffic, resuming my interrupted journey.

Maybe it was Julian that the giant of earlier was warning me about.

A voice cuts through my reverie, a voice I know. It’s Selasi, the baker, whose stall Asra and I often frequent - one of the small handful of merchants who seem unfazed by us. He asks if I’ve eaten, saying that there are spiced pumpkin loaves fresh out of the oven, almost cool enough to eat. He cajoles me to sit and talk with him in the meantime.

A pot of tea isn’t enough to fuel my day. My stomach rumbles to resentful life as the scent of the spiced bread reaches my nose.

“Well… I can’t stay long,” I tell him. “But I am starving!”

Selasi laughs and waves me to the back of the booth, where I seat myself up against the sun-warmed wall of the building behind. An enormous orange fluff of a cat appears from under a table, and rubs itself against my side. Absently, I scratch it between the ears.

The baker offers me a steaming cup of tea, asking after Asra.

“Oh, out on a journey again.”

“Of course! Where to this time?”

“I… don’t know, actually. He didn’t say.”

Selasi frowns slightly. “Really?”

“It seemed really important. Maybe it’s a secret.” I shrug, sipping my mint tea.

The baker folds his arms and shakes his head with a sigh. “Nothing new, I guess. Your Asra on a mysterious journey, that is. But what about you?”

I lift my brows. My Asra, indeed. “What about me?”

He grins widely. “They say that the Countess’s own carriage was spotted here in Center City, late in the night. You can’t miss it, not with all the escorts on horseback. Circling around not far from your shop, even.”

I do my best to cover over my surprise. Selasi loves gossip as much as he loves to bake, and maybe even more. It’s harmless, but I don’t know that the Countess wants her business all over the market.

“Really? I wonder what she was after?” My stomach chooses that moment to let out a long growl, and I laugh. “Me, I’m just after pumpkin bread. I’m a simple creature.”

Selasi laughs, throwing his head back. “Keep your secrets, then, just like your master.” He shakes his head and pulls a fresh loaf from the cooling racks. “One hot for now, and one cool for the road?” he asks, and I nod, giving the cat one last pat before rising and placing my empty cup aside.

Selasi wraps the loaves for me, and I hand over my coin. I place the cooled one into my endless bag before taking a big bite out of the warm loaf. The outer crust has a pleasing bite to it, the inside soft and fluffy, the spices fragrant. “Mmph! Delicioush azh alwayzh! ’ll zhee you lader!” I say around the mouthful of pumpkin bread, waving as I exit the booth.

“Don’t keep the Countess waiting!” he says, almost making me choke on my bite of bread.

I suppose it’s true what they say… the only thing that travels faster than magic is gossip.

#the arcana rewrite #arcana rewrite: tides of chaos #jinana aditya #chekhov's bean sprout lmao

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doorsclosingslowly · 3 years

Text

Hell is just a beat away (5/9)

Despite early promise, young Maul has turned out to be a disappointment, willfully delaying his training with secret attempts to make himself friends from scrap metal. He must be properly motivated, and so Darth Sidious sends him to a slave market on an impossible mission. It backfires. Star Wars: Darth Maul (2017) comic AU | 8k | warning for limb loss, discussion of sexual assault of a teenager, body horror (implanted bombs)

If the kids are united

Ta-tap tap tap, tap ta-tap tap. He takes small steps by necessity—the buyer holds his hand and creates a pace he must match—small steps, but many of them, and quick ones, taking him ever further away from the palace of Xev Xrexus. It is little cause for happiness. He has been on this path before, twice, though not back then in the company of a twi’lek child, so young that if she was a boy even the Sisters would have left her to grow for a few more years. There is no point in looking at her, in growing attached—but her presence nevertheless settles his determination, step after step after step.

A street is crossed, and there is a bright sudden pain down there and—he does not yearn for his home. There is no point. But he knows he had thick calluses then, would walk through nettles and thorny underbrush barefoot as he is now and then he would stomp for the joy of it, and laugh. There is no point in missing that boy who lived then, unsoftened by captivity and so naïve that the worst he could imagine was the siring of his child.

That boy was filed down to nothing along with his calluses and his nails and his horns. That boy died.

Soon, so will he.

It is useless to mourn. Nothing is real in the world anymore, nothing but violation, and violence.

The new Master is short, and that will make it easier. They gave their name, he dimly remembers, but he can’t recall it and it will not matter soon. Even here there are maggots, and maggots don’t care for names. The slaver’s arm is bent upwards to keep hold of one of Savage’s fingers, and the twi’lek’s chain is tied to what looks like a necktie misused as a belt. She’s walking so close behind that she bumps into the slaver with every other step, which should further diminish their range of motion, and most crucially—the slaver stowed the bombs’ remote control device inside their satchel. They will not reach it in time.

Tap ta-tap ta-tap. Now all that is missing is a spot that is dark and unobserved. Something ebbs and bobs deep inside him, but it’s futile now to wonder whether it’s regret or relief or just more fear. If he does not act soon, he’ll arrive at a ship or a palace, and his one chance will be spent.

There. Alleyway. A few more steps, and—

I’m sorry, he thinks, I know I promised to try to come home and then he shakes his thumb loose of the Master’s hand and grabs their arm tight and he pulls them up and—

He slams them against the wall.

Again.

The necktie belt’s come loose, he notices in his peripheral awareness, and the twi’lek’s picking it up and backing away. The Master in his hand squirms. Shudders. Whimpers, in a voice that sounds higher than what Savage thought he heard in the palace but Savage wasn’t all there back then, not truly, hasn’t for a very long time been as present as he is now. The false roles and expectations have dropped away from him like dried mud. (He was bred to be a warrior, not a plaything. When his Mate looked at him She should have judged his lethality and not his body, his symmetry, his submission; She should have chosen a brutal fighter to fuck and carry the line of the night. He wouldn’t have liked it, either, but at least—he would have understood. This new Master looked and saw a broken toy and so they thought nothing of stowing away the remote that gives them power. They’re holding Savage by the hand, when he is an abducted son of Wrath.)

He roars in wild triumph and swings the Master over his head, one circle, another, for more devastating impact and on the second turn something dark swirls out against the wall, something that must have covered the face, because he gets a glimpse of—

He sees—

He—

He catches them in his other arm and—

He looks but his eyes don’t want to see. He blinks and blinks, but the face doesn’t change. It still looks the dreams he tried to forbid himself. It looks like his…

It’s the face of a brother.

Not a Master. This is a nightbrother, eyes shuttered and a face as red and powerful as Savage’s ever seen. A face as small as—no, he used to raise babies, it’s not that small, but the nightbrother is a young boy and so Savage cradles him in his arms, whispering, “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry.”

He wants to know his face, his horn pattern, wants to know whose brother this is, who sent him to Savage’s rescue, who sent a childto the hell of Nar Shaddaa—he desperately wants to see, but he almost killed this boy, almost killed this young nightbrother when he’s been so alone and bereft of purpose for years and now he almost killed—he wants to look, but his arms cradle the child and his mouth keeps repeating, “I didn’t want to hurt you, I’m sorry,” and whatever he may want to do his hands cannot let go. Savage’s body has acted against his wishes every day of every week of every month of the past few years, but this is the first time it feels sweet. He won’t let go. He is curious and shameful and shaking from adrenaline-drop, but his arms want to hold this child forever.

They are still on Nar Shaddaa, still in the slavers’ den, and any passing stranger could—but Savage waited until a dark alley to attack, and there’s no-one walking by. No threat, for a moment.

“I’m sorry, brother,” he mumbles, and his fingers slink over the back of the boy’s head—bruised, but no broken bone—and feel the breath that comes from his mouth and then he holds on tight, tight, but not so tight it’ll trigger any wound that Savage—oh Mother—that Savage just gave this miraculous small nightbrother child.

⁂

The shift was rapid, dizzying, but even in this Master has taught Maul well: the quick turn to violence and its even quicker end would certainly have terrified Maul if it was not exactly like the base pattern of his training. As it is, and with the living force bathing him in the zabrak’s intentions be they grim determination or, for minutes now, a soft and anguished terror soaked through with a strange emotion he cannot parse, but it eddies and bobs with the hand cradling Maul’s head and it doesn’t feel lethal, not even hostile…

He would have been scared, disoriented, he decides, if he was not Sith—but he is and so the sudden attack just made the world make sense.

Sense. His head aches and so does his arm but the world makes sense again, it makes sense, like it didn’t when he was leaving the palace holding onto a slave he didn’t know how to talk to, a zabrak slave that Maul desperately wants to like him—and the zabrak’s doomed, doomed, or Maul is, once they get to Master, but still he can’t help wanting to be liked—it was strange, and he didn’t know what to do except walk and get to the ship and then they would—and then they will get to Master and someone will die. That was all he understood. He didn’t want to think about it, but when he tried to focus on something else, focus on his desperate dream, he still had no idea how he could make the liking happen. Any of the small in-between interactions that people apparently have. None of the hololessons covered this scenario, and Maul didn’t have time to dream and re-dream about it until it felt perfect… He knew he’d dipped his toe in a world that didn’t make sense, and there was no guide as to what to do, before the violence.

And now he understands again. The world is back on its rails.

The darkside zabrak tested him.

There needs to be a hierarchy, obviously, and before it wasn’t clear where the zabrak stood compared to Maul, so they couldn’t really interact. That was the problem with Maul’s ideas of how to make them friends. They didn’t have roles without the hierarchy. And without the roles, nothing makes sense. Nobody knows what to do.

Except the clever yellow zabrak. He knew that the only thing they could do was find the hierarchy, and Maul’s grateful for his quick thinking, so grateful that he almost isn’t angry that he lost (even though he is Darth Maul! He was supposed to beat everybody!) and anyway, the zabrak, Savage, he decided that Maul should survive even though he’s weaker, he obviously has a purpose for Maul, and even if the purpose conflicts with Master’s and Maul will have to turn against him very soon—it feels nice, good, that Savage let Maul live. That he has a purpose for Maul. It’s so close—no, Maul decides, it’s exactly what he wanted. What else is liking but seeing someone’s purpose, anyway? (The zabrak is a darksider. He’s strong. He likes what matters. Only Maul likes things that are useless, like mangy old brachno-jags and droids made from trash, and soon he will learn to become better. Master will teach him. He’s been trying, has been punishing Maul for these useless likes, for so long now. One day it’ll stick.)

The zabrak beat Maul, and he let him live. He’s running his fingers—his bare warm-skin fingers—over the back of Maul’s head with more care than Maul would need soldering a tiny circuit, and when Maul turns his head slightly he can rest his cheek against a naked shoulder. It’s—it’s more contact with another living being than he can ever remember having. The few animals that found their way into the Mustafar complex would always scramble away from him, unless they were brought by Master and they hurt and he had to kill them. A warm pulsing neck under his fingers, hot blood—it felt nothing like this. This is gentle, luxurious, softer by a thousandfold than any robe Maul has ever touched. He almost can’t feel the leftover throbbing in his skull over the revelation that is touching, skin-to-skin, another being. A darkside zabrak, just like him.

“Sorry,” the zabrak keeps muttering. “Sorry, brother,” and Maul doesn’t know what he’s sorry for. Letting him live? It would have been honorable to die in battle, but selfishly, Maul is glad he didn’t die before he found out what resting his head against someone’s shoulder feels like. Sorry for holding Maul? He should have been. As a Sith Lord, Maul is above these animal comforts. But also—Savage would stop petting him, if he was sorry for that, and Maul is shamefully grateful that this guess, too, is wrong. It will have to end, and soon, and forever—when they get to Master either the zabrak will die or Maul—but he will carry this moment in his hearts as long as he lives.

Master will take the padawan and he will kill either Savage or Maul—wait—The padawan! Maul pushes his way out of Savage’s arms and cranes his neck. The padawan is gone. She’s—

“Brother, what is—do you sense danger?” Savage asks, but Maul has no time to think about him now.

The padawan’s gone.

Master will kill him.

Master was going to kill Maul anyway, when he found out that Maul disobeyed and used the force and brought back another zabrak, dark and much stronger than Maul, but now that Maul completely messed up the mission, Master’s going to extra kill him. Going off-script and buying the zabrak was bad enough. Maul can’t lose the padawan, the whole reason for his presence on Nar Shaddaa. He can’t botch the mission. Master is going to kill him, and he’s going to let Maul live by a thread and throw him in bacta just to kill him again. And again. And again.

And still, it’ll be better than what he deserves, because Maul just failed the ancient plans of the Sith.

He failed Master Sidious and he failed Darth Bane and he failed every single other Sith in the long lineage that led to Maul, stupid Maul who let the Jedi escape just because he thought the mission was going well and he was lonely. He failed—

But the Jedi can’t have gone far! Maybe he can salvage this!

“Brother, wait! Don’t leave—” Savage shouts when Maul starts running down the alleyway in the direction away from the slaver palace, but whatever problem he has, if he can’t stop Maul he will have to live with it. This padawan is important for the grand plans of the Sith. Maul will find her, come what may. He will not fail Lord Sidious again.

⁂

Eldra’s almost finished wedging herself into an alcove hidden three meters above the ground in the cul-de-sac of massive windowless skyscrapers—hiding’s the only thing left, there’s no way out—and that’s when the pain comes.

It’s a piercing, shrieking sort of pain; the kind of pain she last felt when her Master sagged atop her, riddled with holes and gurgling her last unkept promises through bloodied lips. It’s mixed with dread, with the certainty of failing the one you wanted to protect. It makes her sob and tremble. It wants to drown her, at once the maelstrom and the tendrils of the beast old beyond time that hides inside. It’s dark. It’s heady power. It’s madness. It’s the pain of an unshielding force user.

It’s the zabrak.

Shit. The zabrak. He provided the distraction that let Eldra get away. He gave his life for hers. Eldra could have lived with that, with knowing he died so she could run. She thought she could, anyway. A good Jedi would have. He was just a slave, a force-sensitive found too late for anyone’s good, a desperately angry and scared young man. Perched on the very edge of the dark side, at best. Fallen, maybe. Too late. She is a Jedi, and she knows that sometimes, a life must be given for the greater good. If someone had to die, maybe it was for the best that it was his life: he’s just a darksider. She has been raised to give her own life, and the zabrak’s a civilian—a slave, a slave just like she is now—but this is the way the world works.

Eldra had to survive, because she must tell the council of the return of the Sith. That’s what matters. A single life is nothing to that, even if the zabrak’s death is agony. The good of the many comes first.

There is no death, there is the force, Eldra mumbles. There is no death. I accepted that he would die, when I ran away instead of helping him take down the Sith. I accepted his death. I must stay calm.

But this isn’t death. This is torture.

What the fuck is the Sith doing to him?

Maybe it will be over soon.

Maybe. Please. Don’t let him suffer too long. Eldra stays sardined in her hideaway, concentrating on not whimpering too loudly and on releasing the secondhand pain into the force, because what else is there to do? She can’t escape. She can’t save him. No-one can. It’s a decade too late for that.

There’s no way out of this dead end, no decent footholds for climbing and even if she managed—there’s no way she won’t get tired, half-way up these hundreds-of-meters tall buildings. Thousands of meters. She can’t guess well right now. She doesn’t remember the last time she ate, though the slavers must have given something to her, and her arms still ache from a day of immobility. Spiritually, she’s weak, too, and even reaching into the force to unlock the damn manacles had almost destroyed her. Had almost made her Fall.

Eldra is terrified. She can’t pretend not to be, can’t meditate it away. She’s scared. She’s angry, at Woobudg and at her Master and at the Jedi and more than anything, at herself. She’s an escaped slave, perched on the brink of the eternal dark—she is no better than the zabrak, and it freezes her heart—and her Master is dead. She can’t use the force. She can’t be a Jedi. There’s no way in fucking hell she can be calm enough for that.

There’s no way out.

The only way is back.

The only way is… how long until the Sith walks into the mouth of her cul-de-sac? How long until he’s finished torturing the zabrak? How long until he comes looking for her?

‘cause that’s the only thing that’ll happen. He’ll get bored eventually, and then he will find Eldra. There’s no way out for her. She’s dead.

She could… okay, she could count on staying hidden, and probably starve to death in her alcove, or be found anyway. There’s no way out of this cul-de-sac, and if he’s watched her run into it, it’s game over. The way her luck’s gone, for the past days, Eldra should definitely be expecting that he saw her. Which… if she goes back out, she might run into his open arms. Or he might be gone, after all.

Or she could help the zabrak. He’s still alive: she can feel his pain.

She shouldn’t, though. The Sith have returned. That’s what matters. Eldra must stay alive and return and bear witness.

⁂

Master will kill me. Master will kill me. There’s no space for anything but this truth, as Maul runs through mazes of skyscrapers in search for the padawan he almost successfully brought back to enact the nebulous ancient plans of the Sith, head pounding and the stuffed satchel bouncing against his back. No space for anything, not even the firestorm of pain that suddenly filled every square meter of asphalt. No time to think about what it means. Whose it is. Master will kill me. I lost her.

(I lost her just because I didn’t want to be alone.)

Master will kill me.

⁂

The zabrak’s only a few meters off the mouth of Eldra’s dead end. Maybe that’s why the echoes of his agony are so strong. The alternative, a juggernaut strength in the force she’s never before seen, only makes his fate more tragic. More wasteful. He could have been found as a baby. He could have become a Jedi. And now he’s lying there, and he is alone, in the very eye of his pain storm.

Alone in a puddle of blood.

Is he dead?

No, he can’t be, Eldra can still feel how much he’s suffering, but he’s—she staggers towards him and stumbles, tumbles down and catches herself with weak and shuddering arms. He’s—she looks and what she fell over was a foot, a sentient being’s actual severed limb, with charred raggedy bone and meat where a shin should be but the rest is intact, as intact as an amputated foot can ever appear, and the yellow and black skin is stark against the grimy floor. It’s the zabrak slave’s foot. She stumbled over his actual real torn-off foot, a few meters from where he’s lying, and she’s covered now in dry and tacky and congealing blood. It’s all over her once-cream padawan robes, and the zabrak’s missing a foot.

An entire foot, just gone. The zabrak’s curled up in agony and his hands are clutching the stump of his left shin.

He looks up, though, when Eldra climbs to her feet. Not unconscious, then, though that would be kinder, and Eldra must find a way to contact the Council about the re-emergence of the Sith, she must remember the bigger picture, but surely, surely, if it’s her duty to warn the galaxy then it’s also her duty to ease the pain of this one person who helped her, as much as she can. She was reprimanded for ignoring the unifying force so often in her education, but surely it would be just as wrong to walk on by. Not even Master Fyaar would have told her to walk on by. She could have, but she’s dead now,Eldra remembers grimly, she died, and I can’t just let her be my conscience anymore.

“Help me,” the zabrak begs.

It’s enough to chase off her absent teachers. Who could leave him to this desperation? Who could ignore this all-consuming tornado of pain?

“I’m not a healer,” Eldra warns, kneeling down next to him. “They steered me away from that, but I can do enough to stop the bleeding, I think.”

The zabrak coughs. No, he laughs, that was meant to be contemptuous painful laughter, and he says, “Not that. I won’t bleed out.”

“There’s an artery in your leg—"

“It was just the first warning. There’s coagulant released after it explodes. I have seen it before. This bomb is not supposed to kill.”

“Bomb?!” But she heard that inside that loathsome palace, she remembers, though she was too terrified to pay close attention—Master Fyaar would have been disappointed again—but the zabrak’s slaver said something about bombs, and a remote, and oh kriff is that what happened?! A slave control bomb blew off his foot? Oh force, they discussed planting bombs inside me, too, Eldra remembers. Default procedure, they said. But they thought it was too expensive for a standard blue twi’lek, and she’d been angry back then but—oh force, oh mercy, she’s so glad she’s not worth much.

“He ran away so quickly I lost him, and then the radius—” he swallows. “It does not matter. I need to find my brother, and I can’t walk. He’s just a child. Please. I need your help.”

A child. A child in danger, and this poor man in pain, in so much pain the very air aches and shivers, and yet—Eldra is a Jedi, and her duty is to the whole galaxy. She must warn the Jedi Council. She doesn’t have time for this. She mumbles, “I’m sorry, but I have to—”

Quick as a viper, the zabrak pushes her down and crawls on top of her. He drives his forearm into her neck and pushes her head down, not with so much force it hurts but a definite threat, a definite herald of… of something, with his muscular naked body pressing against her clothes. Something. Something bad. She doesn’t want to lure it in even by thinking the word now but it’s been the danger all along—and then he growls, “You’re going to help me, understood?”

“I’ll fucking bite off your dick,” Eldra hisses. “Try it. I’ve still got my teeth.”

“You…” The zabrak eases off a little, lifting his whole torso off her with trembling arms though not far away enough that Eldra can get the leverage to fight her way free, and he frowns. Confusion, or thought, but not—not lust. The force swirls less blindingly bright, for a second. He doesn’t look as scary anymore, even though he just easily overpowered Eldra. He also looks really young, when she peers up at him from this close, like he’s maybe one or two years older than her, and his shuddering grows more and more worrisome. “I need to find my brother. Please. He’s just a child.” And then, he shutters his eyes and swallows. His face does a strange thing that looks almost… sultry? Though not appealing at all, not with the sweat and the wide eyes of pain and the fact he’s an actual mutilated terrified Fallen teenage slave. “I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll do anything. Anything. I’m—good. But he’s just a kid.”

Anything, with a cadence like… And he’s basically naked, because someone wanted him that way, and Eldra saw perverts feeling him up back at the market. He’ll do anything. He’s trying to look appealing. Oh force. Oh fuck. “I am a Jedi. A guardian of peace and justice in the galaxy. I’m not a rapist. And you’re not, either—”

He nods, baffled.

“Glad we got that straight. The thing is—I have a very important task to do. The fate of the galaxy might hinge on me talking to the Temple as soon as possible.”

“He’s a just child. A tiny nightbrother child, on Nar Shaddaa.” His grey eyes are feral and pleading. He plainly doesn’t care about duty, or the galaxy, when the price is a child, and it’s growing harder and harder for Eldra not to agree. Master Fyaar, give me strength. Harden me, Master. Let me bear this dreadful hope I can’t fulfill. I mustn’t, I won’t, and yet he keeps arguing, “You’re a twi’lek. You know what that means.”

“I don’t…”

“A zabrak. He’s a zabrak,” and that doesn’t explain anything more to Eldra, but the man—the boy—above her will not leave her be, even when she shakes her head wildly, beseeching, “There’s no such thing as a free zabrak on Nar Shaddaa. As soon as they see him. Please. He’s just a child. He’s just my little baby brother.”

“But I—”

“No such thing as a free tailhead either. You won’t reach the Temple. They’ll just take you back to the slave market.”

“I’m a Jedi. I’ll manage.”

But his tearful eyes turn shrewd. “I have been here for years now,” he whispers. “You’re new. You’ll never find your way around without me,” and fair enough, these streets truly are a maze. “I’m not leaving a nightbrother on Nar Shaddaa. I am not leaving a child here. I am not leaving my brother. But I’ll help you after we find him. It’s your only chance. You can cooperate, or I can abandon you here to get caught again. Your choice.” He tightens his hold on Eldra’s neck.

It’s a hollow threat, and they both know it. The zabrak can’t leave her. He can’t walk, the best he could do is crawl away slowly until someone puts him out of his misery, or, more likely, picks him up and sells him again, as he just predicted for her.

The worst he could do is kill her, and since that wasn’t the threat…

She must warn the Jedi. She must warn the Jedi as quickly as possible, but. A child. He’s begging for the life of a child. And Eldra… No matter how many lectures she got, she never managed to get the unifying force. The big picture. It’s so remote, and it just makes sense, that the certain immediacy of present pain always overshadows the possibilities of the future. In the future, there are the Sith, grim and ancient and the foresworn enemies of the Jedi; but the Sith haven’t yet hurt her. Even the Sith she met hasn’t. He was the least horrible of all of them.

In the present, there are slavers. A whole planet of them. In the even more present, there is the offer of a temporary alliance, made by the one person she’s met in the last few days who doesn’t see her as meat.

She is so tired of being on her own.

“I’m Eldra,” she says. “Let me up, or I won’t be able to carry you.”

Stormy grey eyes turn bright and then they crumple up in pain again when he must’ve accidentally bumped his stump somewhere while he rolls off her. He’s seriously, seriously hurt. Well, of course, Eldra, he just had his foot blown off, she mocks herself. Obviously, she mocks her mocking self back. But we both need to move, so I probably need to carry him, so knowing how much pain he’s in, what movement he has left… that’s useful. And if I could lessen that pain…

Eldra can’t reach for the force while she’s afraid or angry, or she will Fall. But she’s not as scared now. She just wants to help him. That’s not evil, right? How can compassion for a slave be evil? Master never expressly said it was, so surely it can’t be that bad?

“Wait. Let me touch it,” and the zabrak presents his burnt stump without question. “I’m not a good healer. But I think I can… shut up the nerves?”

What the zabrak mumbles in response sounds suspiciously close to Witch, but after the first flinch, he allows her to touch him again, resolutely refusing to shudder though he definitely looks like he wants to, and refusing to tell her what he meant, too. He does look slightly less agonized after she feels her way into his synapses and cells and tells them to heal, heal, and that their warnings are great but no longer needed.

Now she just needs to heave him upright and hold him, somehow, while she walks, so he can hop along.

“How did this leg-be-gone thing happen, anyway?” she asks right before she pulls, because a distraction might make this easier on him.

“He—” The zabrak’s breathing heavily, but not accidentally fighting her or crying or anything else she feared. He’s doing much better than she would in his position, that’s for certain. “My brother. When he ran off, he still had the remote. The bombs trigger when it’s away over a certain distance…”

The remote? The one that the slaver gave the Sith? How— “How did your brother get that remote?!”

“He put it in his satchel. Must have forgotten about it. It’s not his fault.”

Wait.

Satchel.

He put the remote in the satchel.

Is his brother the…

“The Sith?!”

The word means nothing to the zabrak, she can tell. If he recognized it, he would have shuddered in fear and the force around him would turn frigid, because the Sith are the very worst threat in the galaxy, but instead he looks gently confused again and says, “No, he’s a nightbrother. A zabrak. Like me.”

That’s not a hindrance, as far as Eldra knows. There is a Sith species, but towards their fall—and now in their resurrection, presumably—Sith could be of any sentient species in the galaxy. “I meant… Is your brother that tiny person with a mountain of black clothes who bought both of us?”

“Isn’t he clever?” There is nothing on the zabrak’s face but deep adoration. For a second, even his pain seems forgotten. Even the smog clouds seem to have lifted, for a second, but no—that warm breeze. The sudden pure air. That’s the force. The force, lit up by love for this brother, and yet, he’s talking about a Sith. The embodiment of evil. The ancient enemies of the Jedi. It doesn’t make sense. “If they’d seen his species, he would have been captured immediately, but he made the perfect disguise and he fooled all of them!”

The love doesn’t make sense. But even worse… “You are talking about the weirdo in three dress shirts and that handmade leather balaclava and winter sports sunglasses combo?! The tiny ragged black ball?! That’s a perfect disguise?!”

“It worked,” the zabrak replies, as if that’s all the proof he needs. “My brother’s a genius.”

It’s impossible to love a Sith. They don’t feel affection. They can’t; all they process is dark possessive urges and hatred and so on. Maybe Eldra was wrong about the buyer’s aura, though. She’s never met a Sith before, after all, so how should she know what they feel like in the force, and she’s only met a few corrupted force sensitives before too and most of them in the presence of Master Fyaar, who may well have dampened their impression on Eldra… Maybe she was wrong. Maybe there is no Sith here. After all, she can feel the zabrak is dark and Fallen, too, but he’s not a bad person. His life just sucked. Wait. ‘The zabrak’…

Eldra prods his navel with a finger. She’s holding him up by now, his chest half-propped up on her shoulder and head, and it’s as high as she can reach with only minimal danger of dropping him. “You never said your name.”

“Savage,” he says, and hops to catch up to her one step.

“A pleasure to meet you, Sir. I’d bow if I could, but you know…” Eldra grins, and he does too, and it’s… nice? Despite the general horror of, well, everything, this is nicer than anything else that’s happened on the mission so far.

She puts her foot forward again and waits for him to catch up. And again. This will take forever. But the alternatives are all worse. Hopefully the little brother knows how to stay hidden until they manage to steer their three-legged train wreck to… “How are we going to find him? He could be anywhere. You can’t walk, and I can barely keep you upright—”

“He’s close,” Savage says.

“How do you—”

“I wouldn’t be alive if he wasn’t.”

Of course. Eldra feels stupid. How could she have forgotten… “The bombs.”

“Yes. Stop for a…” Eldra braces herself, and he leans against her head, cold and trembling finely. He’s heavy, even though she’s never been the weakest in her age-group by far, both as a twi’lek—not the frailest of species anyway—and because she always feels better when she’s moving. She adjusts her grip on his waist so he doesn’t slip. His hearts beat loudly against her lekku. “Second one’s at two hundred. In the stomach. Takes a while to bleed out, and even if I don’t the sepsis… The last Master took real pleasure in explaining it. Not gone off yet. He can’t be more than two hundred meters away.”

Eldra won’t ask where the fourth bomb is. She won’t. “But in which direction?”

“Not in that dead end.”

“Worked that one out myself,” Eldra snaps.

“So… sorry.” Heavy breathing. “I…”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t—a Jedi would not take their fear out on you,” Eldra whispers. “Okay. Good. Two-hundred meters, that’s manageable. We can do that. We’ll find him.”

A few more steps. Then: “The stomach,” Savage whispers. “It’s—you should probably get your head away. It’s a strong one, I think. You might get hurt when it goes off.”

Great. Her head is right next to a bomb. Got it.

“You’re heavy, Mister. Can’t carry you otherwise.”

“You might be quicker if—if you promise you’ll look for…”

He’s proposing she leave him behind.

“Maybe I’ll lose an eye,” she suggests bravely. “Some massive scarring would be nice. I’ll look so fucking ugly that every fucker who’d fuck me throws the fuck up instead.”

Savage grins, weakly but genuine, as if it’s obvious she’s never been much of an out-loud swearer before. As if he’s gently mocking her. It’s nice, though. It’s nice.

Hop. Walk. Hop.

Savage’s gone quiet, and Eldra pauses and pokes his abs again. “If you pass out, Mister, we’re both screwed. Motherkriffing fucked and utterly pfassking scraggled, even. Cruddlingly fucking boondoggled,” because it made him laugh the last time.

“I am used to pain.”

Eldra doesn’t want to know more. She really doesn’t. If the whirlwind in the force is anything like he’s feeling right now, there’s no way she could’ve been as calm as he seems. Whatever it took for him to learn that separation, that control… “Fine. As long as you’re sure… and it’s not macho posturing that I wouldn’t believe anyway… Hey, do you want a distraction?” It’s always helped her at least, having something small to fiddle with her fingers or turn over in her brain. “You know how I helped your wound with the force just now? You can do that too. You have the—I don’t know how to explain it for beginners, you have those midichlorians in your cells that interact with the force that flows between every living thing,” she prattles on, needing to gasp for breath less and less as the force grows less immediate, “and it’s basically interoception with another sense, healing yourself. You might even—maybe you can feel where the bombs are!”

“I saw them go in. Won’t bleed out for a while anyway, not even when the stomach bomb goes off.”

“No. We are absolutely not doing that, asshole,” Eldra hisses, because she doesn’t like that ‘when’. Why is she even bothering to lug around his heavy body when he acts like it’s a foregone conclusion he’ll die. He’s with a Jedi now. If that means anything at all, it means Eldra’s not going to let some slavers turn him into flesh goo from kilometers away. “There’s a warning before it goes off, right? We’ll walk in the other direction then, get back into the distance you’re allowed to be. You’re not dying on my watch. Just try the healing, okay?”

“I’m a male,” Savage whispers. “I have no magicks.”

“You definitely have midichlorians. I can feel them, you know—I could feel your bomb go off because you’re broadcasting your emotions. You’re doing it now. You’re definitely a force-sensitive.”

“But it’s forbidden!”

“Uh, yeah, probably.” This is something Eldra should have considered. Master Fyaar would have told her right away. Savage’s too old, way too old for Jedi training. He’s Fallen. She can’t just teach him how to access the force. That’s probably as bad as helping a Sith, right? But now she’s unwisely mentioned it, he seems to like the idea.

“Will it help me protect my brother?”

“It will.”

And that’s it. He won’t let her drop the topic, and Eldra can’t really hold out, not when he starts talking again about what could happen to a baby zabrak. Not when she already compromised this far. He’s already Fallen anyway, so what is the harm in teaching him something? It doesn’t matter if he’s able to be careful or not. He won’t Fall. He’s already Fallen.

“The Jedi way won’t work for you because, well—it’s complicated. But there’s something my teacher says, that fear leads to anger, and anger to hate, and hate to suffering, and that’s the path to the dark side. It always sounds really easy to slip down that path, so you’ll probably be able to do it. And get that power. Just promise me you won’t become evil, right? Just a little bit of power, to close your wounds.”

Savage shudders against her lekku. A face swirls before her eyes for a fraction of a second, a memory he probably didn’t mean to spew all over her. “I am afraid. I’ve always been afraid, and angry, and… But I don’t have power.”

“You do. I don’t know how you do it, exactly, for the dark side… They only said not to do it, they never said what not to do. Or how to avoid it, in detail. But it’s about using the force when you’re already feeling awful emotions, and reinforcing them through the force. I think, if I was Falling… I’d feel everything bad, really hard. I’d feel the things that have hurt me and the futures I dread. And then I’d feel the force in everything around me—or inside my body for healing—and I’d just—concentrate.”

“I’ll try.” Savage takes a few more shaking breaths. “Maybe once you put me down? I’m—I’m less afraid, now you’re here. We might have to…”

There’s a gable in the road. Two paths to follow, and if they take the wrong one, the bomb goes off.

“What do we do now?”

“My brother’s still less than two-hundred meters away,” Savage says.

“Should we… shout?” Even as she asks the question, Eldra wants to punch herself. Not so much because it’s a stupid idea—they do need to find the brother quickly and not go down the wrong path, for fear of accidentally triggering the distance-bomb—but because of how quickly she’s fallen into the habit of asking Savage what they should do.

It should be the other way around. She is a Jedi—was, anyway—and Savage’s a slave. Freed, maybe. Probably. Definitely, because he’s been rescued by his brother—by the Sith he’s insisting isn’t one. Eldra has to believe that this probably-not-a-Sith freed him. The fact remains, Savage was just a slave. That’s not a slight to his ability. It’s not a judgment of his worth, or not anymore. It’s just that she was trained for these situations, and Savage… he’s not even that much older than her. Four years, at the total absolute most. He’s barely an adult. She hopes he’s an adult. These slavers surely wouldn’t have paraded him around like that if he… Oh, who is she kidding. They totally would. Might even prefer it, the fucking pigs.

There is no emotion.

Eldra tries to calm herself. It was nigh-on impossible when she was alone, and with Master Fyaar’s guidance she still slipped so often, but now… it’s easier, now she has Savage to carry around. She can focus on the beat of his hearts against her squished bruising lekku, da-dam-da-dam. Da-dam-da-dam. He’s here, in the mouth of a badly lit empty street on Nar Shaddaa. He’s real. So is she.

“—Eldra.” A finger knocking against her head, gently. “Eldra. Listen. Can you fight?”

“Better than you, anyway.” It’s a good idea, though, to be ready. Eldra drags both of them towards one of the buildings and lets Savage slide to the ground where he won’t get in the way. No cover, but this’ll have to do. “Stay here. I’ll shout and if anyone—”

Savage shakes his head. “He’s my brother. He’ll listen to me. And if someone else comes, you can surprise them.”

“You want to sit out here, immobile, and shout for whoever hears it to come to you.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“I don’t.” Eldra takes a deep breath and tries for a last moment of levity. “If the wrong people come, at least your resale value is lower now. You wiped several thousand credits off of Nar Shaddaa’s gross domestic product.”

“I got them where it hurts.”

“Yeah. Last chance to back out,” Eldra says. “Sure? Your funeral.” And it may well be: Savage’s clever enough to know that she probably won’t fight, when a slaver comes. That’s just being realistic. They’ve spent too much time on Nar Shaddaa to still cling to comforting illusions, and a shocked and starving thirteen-year-old has little change against a group of armed slavers, Jedi or not. Instead, this way, there’s a chance any attackers will only notice him, and she’ll be able to flee. It’s broadly the right tactical decision. Savage alone and one-legged could never make it, while Eldra’s at least got the ghost of a chance. She pats his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Could you—”

“I won’t let you die,” Eldra says. “You like my jokes. You’re practically an endangered species.”

Savage laughs softly, and then winces. He’s hit his stump again.

“Sorry. But. I’ll find your brother for you, if you don’t make it. Promise.”

“Thank you.” Savage doesn’t shout just yet, and somehow, Eldra is inordinately grateful for the reprieve. Soon enough, she might have to run. She might lose her only ally. Or she’ll have to fight, and she has no weapon but the force. She’ll Fall. But if she must… If she doesn’t, Savage will die, and she’ll be alone again. If she runs, she’ll die to. She’ll die, because there is no way off this planet for her alone and if she’s found she’ll be enslaved again and she’d rather die. Soon. Any second. Falling or death. Falling or…

“Eldra.” Savage indicates a shadowy corner. “There. Don’t be afraid.”

“I don’t want to die.” It just bursts out, even though she’s meant to be the Jedi, the serene agent of the force. She trained so often and for so long, and yet, she’s terrified of death. There is no death, there is the force, and Master Fyaar would make her meditate on this for hours but she just can’t stop, can’t calm down. She wishes she was still carrying him on her back. That she still felt the solid drum of his hearts.

The response is quiet and deeply gentle. “That’s good. They haven’t taken everything from you yet.”

It’s so much kinder, more understanding, than anything Eldra’s ever thought or heard in her life about her random outbursts. So soft it raises her hackles. “Thanks for the condescension. That’s not what I meant. I don’t want to die. More than anything, I realized. I’ll fight. I’ll use the force if I must.”

It’s almost as if Savage anticipated her anger. He grins. “Don’t be afraid, Eldra.”

“Very funny, asshole. I’m ready now. I’ll go hide, and you shout.”

When she walks away, she hears a mumbled promise, too quiet for most humanoids but still clear for the auditory senses of a twi’lek. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. You told me that trick. I’ll fight anyone who wants to hurt you.”

He can barely hold himself upright. Still, she has no doubt he means it. Asshole.

⁂

Master is going to kill Maul. He’s not found the Jedi, and he should probably have kept running down the street except he wasn’t sure whether it’s the one the Jedi took in the first place, and down in the distance, he could see people, a lot of people, and many houses lit up bright, and the echoes of pain have grown fainter but they’re still there, and he doesn’t know how to interact with these people because he had no time to prepare and what if they’re oily too and Master’s going to kill Maul but the Jedi probably didn’t take this road and so he turns around and runs back.

The pain in the force grows stronger, and soon enough, so does a voice. “Brother, brother!” it shouts.

Maul has half a mind to turn around again because it’s the zabrak probably, the zabrak that Maul wanted to be his friend and that he ruined the whole mission for, and he doesn’t have time to stop, but Savage’s stronger than Maul so he might make Maul stop anyway—but he already turned back once and he can’t go back. (He can’t turn around without admitting it’s only because he’s scared.)

“Brother, brother,” and it is Savage sitting down on the ground, and Maul cranes his neck for a good path to slip by him and there’s the Jedi, the yellow zabrak brought him the Jedi, Savage saved him from Master’s wrath, he fulfilled the sacred mission, but as quickly as the old mantra drains from his mind a new one takes its place.

The zabrak’s left leg just stops slightly below the knee. No, it doesn’t, there’s an edge of charred bone peeking out and Maul knows what happened, suddenly, he remembers the slaver—"four explosive charges within your zabrak, set to go off at staggered distances. The first one will slow him down if he runs.”—he remembers the zabrak’s alarm when Maul ran away—“Wait for me, brother! The bomb will explode!”—he remembers the pain, the endless pain exploding in the force

And he remembers the hand carefully stroking his head.

Seeing the first person in the world who is like him.

He staggers and—

“Don’t be afraid, brother.”

He gets within striking range and—

(this is a trap this is a trap)

“Come here, it’s okay.”

He kneels down next to Savage, eyes screwed shut, and he waits for the punishment to come. He waits.

“It’s okay, little brother.”

It isn’t, though. The leg is gone. The leg is gone because of Maul. It’s gone because Maul forgot about the remote and because he almost lost the padawan and because Maul was stupid enough to buy the zabrak in the first place. Maul maimed the one single person in the galaxy who ever might have liked him.

#darth maul #savage opress #savage oppress #eldra kaitis #dimtraces makes things #hell is just a beat away

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