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steviestits · 4 months

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Heeeyy, sooooo I’m a total time travel girlie. Can we get some love for your time travel stories? Your time travel au, regency au and your Christmas knight au!

Hey there! Thank you so much for the ask! I got more than I thought I would, so I'm going to try to spread these out throughout the day. Also, all of these are unbetaed, so... if there are any mistakes, no there aren't.

CW: Mentions of Mpreg and some gaslighting in some of the prompts

Time Travel AU: Plot is Dustin is Steve's teacher in the future but tricks Steve into going through a portal to the past so he can be his sudo-big brother when he was a kid. Eddie helps.

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When the door opened, Steve expected it to be Dustin with news if he had figured out how to send him back to the future, just like in the movie. It wasn’t, however, and instead a teen around Steve’s age entered the garage/makeshift laboratory. He looked oddly familiar with long, dark brown hair and soft, chocolate brown eyes. The other man had a lithe build and was wearing a t-shirt that Steve recognized from the Hellfire Club, which was the club that Mr. Henderson sponsored back in Steve’s own time.

“Hey there,” the man said with a winning smile. “Dustin didn’t tell me he had company.”

“I’m- Uh- Steve, his cousin from Canada,” Steve replied, remembering the lie that they were telling people. “I’m visiting for a while. Because I’m from Canada.”

The man snorted in amusement. “Alright, Steve from Canada, I’m Eddie from Indiana. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Steve heard the name and remembered Mr. Henderson’s friend from that famous metal band with the same name. Eddie had come in once or twice for career day as a favor, talking about what it was like to be a celebrity. His eyes had fallen on Steve a couple of times, so maybe he’d been wondering what Dustin’s cousin from Canada was doing in his class and why he hadn’t aged. Not that Steve could think of a way to explain it away, so he could only hope that Mr. Henderson had figured out a way to in the future.

“Same here,” Steve replied, holding out his hand.

Eddie took his hand, though instead of shaking it, he pressed Steve’s knuckles to his lips. Blush instantly spread through Steve’s cheeks, and he was shocked to see the other man behave so boldly. Dustin had said that Eddie was never ashamed of who he was, except this was the 80’s where people were much less accepting of gay people than they were in Steve’s time period. Maybe it was because Eddie thought Steve was from Canada that he meant could openly hit on him? Or could play it off as a joke more if he reacted poorly?

“You know, if I knew Dustin had a cousin as cute as you, I’d have started coming over more often,” Eddie teased. “You’re a real vision, sweetheart.”

The blush on Steve’s face grew, uncertain as to why Eddie was making him feel this way. Steve knew that he was attracted to men, but Eddie was so much older than him that it should’ve been creepy, except he guessed Eddie wasn’t currently older than him now as Steve was in the past, but that shouldn’t have mattered. Plus, in the future, Eddie was a married man, so he clearly found someone else, someone from his own time who wasn’t Steve.

“I’m only going to be here for a few weeks,” he insisted, finally remembering to pull his hand back. “Then I don’t think I’ll be back again after that.”

“That’s a shame, but maybe I could visit you?”

“No!” Steve exclaimed, then more calmly, he added, “It’s- Well-”

Thankfully, the door opened, signaling Dustin’s return. The boy was holding several boxes and didn’t seem to notice either of them as he staggered blindly to the work bench on the other side of the garage. He placed the boxes down with a thud before he turned around to see Eddie and Steve standing there. A grin overtook his face as his eyes flickered over them ecstatically, clearly thrilled by their presence.

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Regency AU: This isn't time travel, but is where Steve was raised elsewhere due to him being an omega, but was married off to Eddie when the family hit dire straits. I think you're the Outlander anon, so I'm going to include a passage from both. Outlander takes place in the Georgian Era, though the Regency Era is a part of it albeit briefly.

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Steve sat down on the long, blue couch next to his new husband, trying not to gawk at his surroundings. He’d never been in a place as lavish as this with its high ceilings and crown molding. Burning brightly, the large fireplace illuminated them while shadows played off the space around them, which was fancier than the wooden hearth that they had on the farm. It made him feel out of place, especially in the dress that Eddie forced him to wear.

“I know you don’t remember me. Your parents didn’t either,” Eddie said, reaching over to take Steve’s hand. “I used to work for them as a servant before you presented and were sent to the farm. I made my fortune for you, so we could be together.”

If Steve was being honest, he didn’t remember much of his time back at his parents’ manor since he’d presented so early. He did remember a boy that he would sometimes see trotting behind some of the other servants, but they never spoke, not from what Steve could recall. Still, it wasn’t as if Steve could complain as they were already married due to the agreement to save his parents from bankruptcy, though Steve was starting to suspect that Eddie had a hand in the sudden decline of the Harrington household.

“You’re going to have the life you deserve as a noble omega,” he continued as Steve remained silent. “You’ll be in charge of the staff of the household, who will in turn cater to your every need. Then I hope that soon, you’ll be rounded with my pup and become a mother to them, too. And of course, I’ll make certain to come home and pleasure at night, fill you with my seed like a proper omega like you deserves.”

Eddie then reached up in order to tuck a strand of hair behind Steve’s ear. The action made Steve blush, as no one had ever been so gentle with him. He didn’t know why Eddie went through so much trouble just to make Steve his bride, but it seemed that Eddie had a lot of expectations that Steve didn’t know if he could fulfill.

“I don’t know how to do any of that,” Steve confessed. “I was never taught how to manage a household or- or how to lay with an alpha. I wasn’t raised to be a ‘proper’ omega.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Eddie assured him. “I’ll guide you, get you the best tutors. And as for laying with an alpha, you don’t have worry. You’ll learn.”

“Do I have to learn? Why can’t we get someone else to manage the household? Or I could manage it myself. I’m used to doing chores.”

“No, sweetheart. I know you’re used to it, but it’s not what you deserve. You deserve your birthright, everything that the Harringtons denied you. You’re going to be a proper omega, get rounded as you should, and bear my pups. You were meant to be a mother, the mother of our pups. You’ll see that soon enough.”

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Omega Transmigration: The time travel fic you were actually looking for since it's technically Steve going to a different world with magic since you mentioned a chrysalis, which I thought was neat. But the basics are the same where Steve is forced to marry Eddie since they suspect he is a spy. Though, most it is based on what I'd read off web articles. If I missed the mark then let me know and I can redo it.

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Following Joyce into the hut, Steve took in the odd bits and bobbles that were strewn across the simple wood furniture. Some were crystals while others were glass jars filled with mysterious liquids, but even with those, the small space gave off an air of comfort that Steve hadn’t felt in a home in a long time. It was the opposite of what he’d expected when he’d been told that he would be seeing the wise woman of the clan, as his mind had gone to a cranky old witch who lived in a mysterious hovel, not a kind and welcoming woman.

Eddie and Wayne entered behind them, looking at ease despite their high station amongst the rebels. Their gaze, especially Eddie’s, made Steve feel uneasy, and it was hard to relax, even when Joyce told him to after she showed him to a chair at the back of the hut. Steve tried to ignore them as he sat down, so Joyce could exam him as Wayne had commanded.

“He does have the starting of an omega mating gland,” Joyce said, running finger over Steve’s neck. “But it’s incomplete. Sweetie, did something go wrong with your presentation?”

“No- Well, sort of. My parents didn’t want me to be an omega, so I went on suppressants,” he explained. “That stopped it. I’m basically a beta.”

“You poor dear,” she cooed. “That had to be dreadful.”

“Not really. I was able to become an EMT when I graduated. There haven’t been any poor side effects of stopping it either. Besides, it’s irreversible, so even I had been presenting as an omega, there’s no way to continue the process now.”

At that, Wayne stepped forward, fixing a steely gaze onto Steve. He didn’t know what the older alpha expected when he brought Steve here, as Steve had basically told him that there wasn’t any way to make him into a true omega in the eyes of the clan. There were other ways that Steve could be useful besides mating with his nephew, but from the look on Wayne’s face, he wasn’t willing to consider them.

“If he can’t be tied to the clan, he’ll be put to death,” Wayne huffed, confirming Steve’s suspicions. “No offense, lad, but I’m not going to risk my people if you can’t give me some reassurances.”

“There is a process,” Joyce said. “It’s a little involved, but it should help him continue his presentation, making him into the omega he should be.”

“Involved? We’re fighting a rebellion. We don’t have the supplies for ‘involved’ rituals.”

“Uncle, I know it might waste some resources,” Eddie interjected, “but he’s my true mate and thus will produce strong pups for the clan.”

Wayne snorted but still said, “Fine. If he agrees then you can do the ritual.”

Steve sighed and nodded, signaling that he would go through with the ritual. He didn’t have much choice given that his choice was either this or be put to death. If he was dead then he couldn’t go back to his own time, his own world. Maybe his life hadn’t been the most glamorous or exciting, but it had still been his, and he needed to do what he could to survive until he could go back to it.

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Christmas Knight AU: If you're reading this and haven't seen the Christmas Knight, maybe the best Christmas romance movie ever, then go watch it now to avoid spoilers! It's about a knight who is pushed forward in time by a spell and is sent on a quest that he must complete there.

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While the phone rang, Steve watched Eddie from his hiding place in the kitchen. The other man had his sword out and was experimentally poking at the electronics around the room. He then poked the tv remote, causing it to spring to life and display the home menu which linked to all the different streaming services he could watch from it. Eddie acted as if he hadn’t one previously, which as far as Eddie knew he probably hadn’t due to the amnesia.

“What magic is this!?” Eddie exclaimed, dropping his sword so he could inspect the image closer. “With the press of a button, this box has become aglow with words and pictures!”

“It’s just the home screen of the wireless tv,” Steve explained. “If you hit the red button, you can watch Netflix. Then the one next to that is Prime. I’ve got both, so feel to browse.”

“Net-flicks,” the other man repeated, the word sounding foreign on his tongue.

Before Steve could explain any more, Robin’s voice finally came through as she answered the phone with a quick greeting. Steve held up a finger to signal that he needed a minute, not that Eddie was paying attention as he’d become enthralled with flipping through the selections on Netflix, eyes wide as he watched the trailers of each feature play automatically. It allowed Steve to slip further into the kitchen, where he knew Eddie wouldn’t hear him.

“Robin!” Steve called anxiously. “Robin, I’ve got a huge problem!”

“Steve, calm down,” she replied. “What kind of problem? Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m perfectly fine. The guy I hit with my car? Not so much!”

“Holy shit! You hit someone with your car!? Do we need to hide the body or something!?”

“I didn’t kill him! I- I just gave him a little bit of amnesia.”

“Define ‘a little bit’ for me.”

“He hit his head so hard he has forgotten all about modern technology and now believes that he’s like a knight of King Camelot’s court or something!”

“King Arthur,” Robin corrected. “Camelot is where he lies.”

“Does it really fucking matter!? What do I do!? I said he could stay in my guest room and borrow some clothes until he gets his memories back, but fuck! I hit him with my car!”

On the other end, Robin sighed, clearly just as lost as him as to what to do after inviting the person he ran down with a car to live with him for a while. Even with Steve being so generous, there was a chance the guy would sue the pants off him once he recovered his memories, which would suck, but there didn’t seem to be a right answer. All Steve could really do was be as patient as he could be and hope that made up for the slight brain damage he caused.

#show: stranger things #steddie #my fics #alex answers #wip wednesday #but on a thursday

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laiqualaurelote · 2 years

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Good luck on your Crimmdependence and metaphorical key finding! I’d love to read another Steddie fic by you and I can’t think of an AU right now, but if you’ve got any little plot bunnies, I’m sure they’re golden.

I swear I had an AU idea the other day, but I promptly forgot it again…

The mission was simple: infiltrate the neighborhood, keep an eye on the man at number 37, lay low until something drastic happened, e.g. imminent threat of exposure or assassins.

“It’s too simple,” lamented Steve. “I’m not an invalid, you know. They could have given me something better than babysitting duty.”

“The Chief said you could use a break,” Dustin pointed out over comms. “You basically just spent your last three missions getting beat up.”

“Yeah, but I won those fights.”

“Buddy,” said Dustin patiently, “I hate to break it to you, but you did not.”

This was how Steve and Robin ended up as Mr and Mrs J. Smith in the leafy suburb of Mile Point, Cincinnati. Their house had a white picket fence and everything. It was like a vision Steve might have had of his future in high school, only the last girl he’d entertained that sort of vision with had been Nancy Wheeler, and the last time he’d seen Nancy, she’d nearly shot him in the throat with a sniper rifle. Granted, it was to take out the internationally wanted assassin he’d been grappling with at the time, and she’d apologized later, but it was still awkward.

Nancy was now in Dubai, probably doing some insanely cool mission that involved her having to scale the Burj Khalifa with magnet clamps, or whatever. Everyone, it seemed, had cool missions. Lucas was parachuting into the Amazon and Will was in deep cover as some kind of secret society mole and El was off on yet another of her highly clandestine operations that only former child assassins bred in a lab by evil scientists were eligible for, apparently. And then there was Steve, stuck in Pleasantville pretending to be married to his best friend. He didn’t even know why they had to watch the guy at number 37. All they knew was that the subject’s name was Eddie Munson and that he was in hiding because VECNA was after him.

“If you don’t know anything, you can’t give it up when you get captured and interrogated,” said Dustin, way too cheerfully.

“I wouldn’t give up anything,” protested Steve.

“I would,” said Robin unhelpfully. “I’d sing like my eponymous bird. Don’t tell me anything.”

Their first task was to make contact. They did this by delivering a casserole, like good neighbors should. The casserole had been baked not by Robin, who was as much of a disaster in the kitchen as she was in the field, but by Mrs Byers, before she left with the Chief on a purported vacation to Alaska. “It’s not actually a vacation, is it,” said Steve dubiously to Jonathan, who showed up in the guise of a plumber to deliver the casserole and some more surveillance equipment. “It’s totally a mission. Why else would Murray go with them on vacation?”

“Murray drove them to the airport,” said Jonathan.

“Yeah, and where did he go after that?”

“How should I know?” retorted Jonathan. “Why would I care what Murray’s up to? I’m not obsessed with other people’s missions, unlike some. There’s a tracker in the casserole dish, and you should also see if you can get these planted while you’re over there.” He handed Steve a couple of tiny bugs. “If you need any more supplies, call pizza delivery and ask for Argyle.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Steve wearily. “I know the drill. Tell the kids I said hi.”

“We’re not kids,” said Mike waspishly over comms. “We’re handling your entire comms array, just so you know.”

Steve muted him.

“Well hey there!” cried Steve brightly when their new neighbor opened the door to their aggressively cheerful knocking. “We saw you just moved in across the way, and we thought we’d do the neighborly thing and drop by to say hi. I’m Joe, and this is my wife Mary.”

“We brought this for you,” added Robin, smiling madly like she was in a toothpaste ad.

“I,” said Eddie Munson. He was gaping at them like they were aliens. He was wearing a very questionable sweater vest and kept running a hand through his hair, which meant that he had cut it recently and was not used to having it so short. There were what seemed like the tips of a tattoo peeking out from beneath his sleeve. Robin elbowed Steve, who had been staring, said sweetly, “Mind if I just pop this in your oven?” and sailed right past Eddie into the house.

Steve stuck out a friendly hand. “Didn’t catch your name.”

“It’s also Joe,” said Eddie. His eyes hadn’t left Steve’s face the whole time. “Short for Joseph. What’s yours short for?”

“Um,” said Steve. “Joe…nathan. Johnathan. But, like, you pronounce the first ‘h’.”

“What the fuck,” he heard Jonathan say over comms.

“Hey,” Steve went on, “is that a tattoo?” He took Eddie’s wrist and turned it over. “Are those birds?”

“Um,” said Eddie in what might have been mild panic, but he didn’t pull away. “They’re bats.”

“Cool,” said Steve. “Very cool.”

Eddie was looking up at him, lips slightly parted. Steve could feel his pulse rabbiting under his thumb. Wow, thought Steve wildly, hope this mission doesn’t end up with me having to kill this guy, because that would really suck.

“Hey, honey,” came Robin’s voice from behind them. Eddie yanked his wrist from Steve’s hand like he’d been scalded and pulled his sleeve up in one smooth motion. “So lovely to meet you, Joe. We have just got to have you over some time.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” began Eddie.

“No trouble at all,” fluted Robin, “we’d love to have you, see you around town!” She hooked her arm through Steve’s and led him off.

“Did you plant them?” Steve said when they were out of earshot.

“Of course,” said Robin. “Thanks for the distraction, hubs.”

“No problem.”

“Oh I bet it wasn’t,” said Robin significantly, and that was when Steve realised that it was, in fact, a problem.

Despite this he tried to carry out the rest of the mission in a calm and professional way. This was made difficult by a number of things, like when Billy Hargrove showed up at the supermarket and attempted to kidnap Eddie in the canned foods and cereals aisle.

“Billy?’ spat Max over comms. “Why is Billy there? I’ll take care of Billy.”

“You will do no such thing!” Steve hissed back, barrelling through frozen foods with a laden trolley. He sent it careening into Billy, knocking him into a pyramid of baby formula. Billy’s tranquiliser dart went wide. Eddie, obliviously comparing cereal brands at the other end of the aisle, did not notice it thudding into a box of Captain Crunch. Steve dragged Billy behind a shelf of eggs and pinned him to the supermarket’s dustbunny-riddled floor. Billy grinned up at him, all teeth. “Back for more, Harrington?”

“Dude, I do not want a repeat of Topanga,” muttered Steve. His ribs still throbbed at the memory. “Who are you working for this time?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” said Billy nastily, and then he drove an elbow into Steve’s sternum and flipped them.

Steve almost blacked out when Billy began throttling him. There was a crash, and he blinked up as Max hauled an unconscious Billy off him. She had hit him in the head with a cast-iron frying pan snagged from the cookware discount rack.

“Thanks,” said Steve blearily.

“You’re welcome, loser. Quick, get him in here.” They wrestled Billy into an empty trolley and Max set off pushing it, just as Eddie rounded the corner.

“I heard a noise,” he began, “oh, hey Joe, fancy seeing you here – ” and Steve, in an attempt to distract him from the redhead sprinting for the service exit with her stepbrother-turned-freelance-archnemesis out cold in a trolley, grabbed him by the face and kissed him.

Eddie dropped his basket on Steve’s foot in shock. It was painfully full of canned food, which Steve valiantly ignored. “Oh, fuck it,” he thought he heard Eddie say against his mouth, and then Eddie was kissing him back, hands tangled in Steve’s hair and pressing him precariously against the egg shelf. It was, however, Eddie who broke away to say: “No, no, we can’t.”

“What?” said Steve stupidly.

“Because I’m supposed to – ” Eddie caught himself and visibly changed tack. “Because you’re married, dude.”

“I am?”

Eddie picked up Steve’s hand and ran his thumb over the standard-issue fake wedding ring on Steve’s finger. “Oh,” said Steve, “right, that.”

“Yeah, that,” said Eddie, and then he spun and literally ran away from Steve. He didn’t even pick up his groceries.

So the mission was going pretty badly, actually. And that was even before Henry Creel came to town.

(For the AU prompt game. Partially inspired by this image.)

#stranger things #spy au #secret agent au #steve x eddie #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #dustin henderson #jonathan byers #billy hargrove #max mayfield #ask game

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local-redhead-bookworm · 1 year

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Honestly?? I'm not even sure what to think after s4 ended. I've been racking my brain to come up with something worth mentioning. I see what you mean, though, about the possibility of Billy still being alive 🤞🏼 Vecna left that statement open-ended. And now I know that the tattoos and merch were much more of a tribute to Eddie 😅 also, I love that Max wrote a letter to Steve. I know he complains all the time about being a babysitter, but he truly means so much to them. It was so sweet. And it pisses me off that Neil's bitch ass got off scot free. I hate that they added "he couldn't stick around after you were gone". Sickening. And like you said, it doesn't sit right with me they didn't add Billy to Max's memories. I am loving the girls showing up and showing out. Nancy and Robin at Pennhurst. Suzie being a genius and getting those coordinates. Everything Erica does. Max stepping forward as a decoy (that may have backfired 🥲 I am upset that we went through Dear Billy just to have ep9 happen). I know that the Nina plot was drawn out, but I think it showed development for El. Being able to separate herself from others, to choose her own path. I also loved that she stood up to Angela. As for the last 2 episodes, they were very distressing. I hated that Vecna used the sauna test to torment her, but as someone pointed out earlier, it was a moment the mindflayer had taken over. Both times Billy appeared to her, it was flayed Billy. She was never actually scared of him. I am distraught over Max's plot after this. I am curious about the Vecna and Will connection. But other than that, I'm left kind of stumped. I'd love to hear your thoughts on anything, though

🌸 anon

You and I have a lot of similar thoughts on s4, anon. I haven’t been able to bring myself to rewatch it because of how emotionally distraught it made me, and I don’t have time for another breakdown.

I genuinely despise that the only solution the writers could come up with is “oh Neil couldn’t bear to be around here any longer without you.” In my opinion, it would have made far more sense if his anger had turned on Susan and Max, then Susan had put her foot down and left him.

I wish that more had been done with the girls, honestly. I liked what bits we did get, and Robin’s improv speech at Pennhurst made my theater kid heart so proud. I have some personal nitpicks with Nancy’s treatment of Robin though, don’t love that from her. And as much as I loved Susie, I feel like she’s always just kind of…there? She only shows up twice to deliver information so she feels a lot like a plot device to me. Erica is an absolute sass-master, and episode 9 had me super worried for both her and Lucas.

The Nina Project…had its good elements and bad elements. You’re right, it did develop El and it showed her standing up to Brenner, but it was also clearly insanely triggering for her. Her expression when she wakes up and realizes they’ve buzzed her head again absolutely gutted me. I would have preferred it if Owens had been the only one in charge and if El had had more of a choice. The fact that she was essentially forced to relive a traumatic part of her life didn’t sit right with me, it would have felt more powerful if she’d chosen to confront those memories herself. And I’m glad that she never forgave Brenner, he doesn’t deserve her forgiveness.

I’m so glad she stood up to Angela too. I know violence isn’t the answer and all that, and it was a bit severe, but it certainly felt satisfying seeing Angela get whacked in the face for repeatedly humiliating and picking on El.

I do wonder what the show plans to do with Will’s connection to Vecna, especially since he’s now the only one of his victims to survive. I know they’re going to bring Max back next season, you can tell, but the fact that episode 9 is left as her final opinion on Billy and that she never brings up that she cared and that she realizes now why he was the way he was, it feels like a complete 180 on her character.

Eddie’s pointless death and the absolute butchering of Max’s character made me lose hope in the writing of the show. And don’t even get me started on the wasted potential of the Russia arc! I spent so much of the time before s4 thinking up theories, and I’ve read other folks’ theories and fics that are 100 times better than what actually happened. S4 had some good bits, but I was just so frustrated with it. Obviously if you enjoyed it I’m completely fine with that, I’m just annoyed by the wasted potential.

#answering asks #🌸 anon

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seventeengoingunder-archive · 2 years

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Thoughts on Stranger Things Vol. 2

Not a review or anything - mostly talking about things that annoyed me as is typical for me. Split into just general thoughts on storytelling that are still spoiler-y and also straight up complaining.

GENERAL

I think that introducing side characters and killing them off, while keeping the main characters alive, in the same installment they first appear in isn’t necessarily lazy but you need to have a reason for introducing them in the first place. Especially in speculative fiction - a character can’t be introduced this far along the story to just be there. They’re either instrumental to the plot, or the worldbuilding. Otherwise you’re wasting time that could’ve been spent on expanding any other aspect of the story you’ve set up and disregarded throughout the years, while simultaneously removing any tension and fear regarding the safety of the main characters. And no, main characters don’t have to die for the story to have stakes but if you’re constantly writing in scenes that are meant to give off the impression that a character is about to die and they never do, it starts to feel cheap. And it drags the story down. The audience isn’t concerned, the outcome of the story isn’t affected and we’ve just spent a considerable chunk cutting back and forth between multiple “life or death” situations instead of spending time with the main characters that we’ve thrown to the side for lack of time, which inevitabely happens with big ensemble casts.

SPECIFIC

(also slight Expanse spoilers… but like who cares you’ve either read it or you don’t want to, also I don’t even remember if what I am saying is correct so fake spoilers potentially)

Killing off basically just side characters can be done effectively. The Expanse is one of my favorite Sci-Fi series and for most of the books a new main POV character is introduced and they often are done by that book. But they’re characters that are in the eye of the storm. They’re the inciting incident. They die because the circumstances they’re introduced in aren’t ones you can get out of.

It’s why Chrissy’s storyline was great. We established the villain of this season through it, and she’s a character we sympathise with. There’s a reason it’s a part of the show, it was done well and didn’t completely take over the storyline. On the other hand, so much of this season was spent on Jason and Eddie, and in the end we’re left with both of them dead, seemingly only Dustin having any feelings over it. Which brings up the question of why were most of Lucas’ scene with Jason and why did Lucas feel like an after-thought in them? I assume Jason was meant to be his foil, but Jason ended up being the focus as well.

I don’t appreciate how no thought was spared on how Lucas would feel about his friends abandoning him and villyfying him for wanting to play a sport. Obviously, 80s jock stereotypes and all but depth could’ve been added. We had time to rehash the Nancy - Jonathan - Steve love triangle so there’s no reason why there wouldn’t be time for Lucas to feel an emotion.

I think that spending so much time on those two [Eddie and Jason] for it to have no consequences, and probably not be brought up in the next season is an actual problem with the writing. Now we get into my nitpicking.

I genuinely hate the cop-out of Vecna letting Nancy go for the sake of telling Eleven what he plans to do. Why wouldn’t he do that with Max, since she’s far closer with her than Nancy. He didn’t even have to let her go completely - the first time he got into her head he could’ve showed her the outcome and said something along the lines of “Go on, try and warn them”. We get the villain monologue, and we give our characters more motivation throughout the season. There’d be more stakes because they knew what they fighting for specifically. Warning them of it when it was basically about to happen did nothing. We just watched it twice.

We waste so much time on things that don’t matter that we just speedrun Vecna’s motivations and actual powers, and limitations. While not every SFF element has to be deeply explained, and it is common for the Big Bad to be unkowable then why are we running through his backstory multiple times. Why can’t Eleven beat him more easily with her new powers? She can bring Max from the dead. How powerful is Vecna? How powerful is Eleven? I am bothered.

Also Steve and Nancy letting Max sacrifice herself with no reservations felt very out of character. I understand why they went forward with that plan, but a moment of “No, we’re not doing that” would go a long way.

#stranger things spoilers #it's probably the epic fantasy reader in me that is just very annoyed when things aren'tproperly explored and i know that stranger things #was never going for in-depth worldbuilding and that it's meant to be a fun little story. i know that intellectually #still annoyed though

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halvedmimi · 2 years

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Other in Arms

By @HalvedMimi for @Meduseld

Rating: Teen and up

Relationships: Evan Buckley / Eddie Diaz

Characters: Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley, Edmundo ‘Eddie’ Diaz, Christopher Diaz, Ramon Diaz, Helena Diaz and OC/Plot device Ray Hanes

Summary: Fic written for @Meduseld as part of the @911ficexchange. A fic about Eddie facing the loss of a military friend, and learning just how much of a support system he has – from friends who are basically family to family who are more accepting of him than he is of himself.

Please note - I posted this on AO3 first and forgot to keep a copy of the summary (and the small edits I made to the ending :/ ) which I now cannot see until the official gifting time so I will fix this all up to match when I can. It should be about 6 hrs after this is posted because I’ll be at work until then.

Chapter 1

Eddie stared thoughtlessly out the window as the world streamed past. Buck was driving. Chris was dozing in the back seat. The world seemed calm. But there was nothing calm about having to drop everything and drive to El Paso to attend a funeral. Ray had been a good damned friend. He’d looked out for Eddie from the moment they were loaded into the flight to the Middle East on Eddie’s first tour. It’d been Ray’s third time round and he took Eddie under his wing. Not just on that flight but the whole time. He stayed on tours for longer than Eddie before he finally took a permanent role stateside. He was at a training facility in their home town when a cadet got their first ever live rounds to practice with, dropped the damned thing and shot Ray through the chest. It wasn’t even his training group; he was just walking past. Bullet went in at an angle and managed to pierce both his lungs.

“Hey” Buck’s soft voice pulled Eddie’s thoughts back to the car.

“Hmm?”

“You okay? You’re looking a bit lost.”

“Eyes on the road Buckley,” Eddie joked, “I’m okay.” He added in a moment later. No point putting on too much of a brave face. Buck already knew Eddie was cut up about it and Chris was sleeping.

“We’re about an hour out. Have you told your parents you’re coming down?”

“I’ll tell them after the funeral. My mother gets weird about military mortality rates and I don’t have the headspace to console her about it just yet.”

Buck hummed in acknowledgement and took a candy from the bag in the centre console. Eddie’s took one too and let his thoughts drift back out the window.

Before he knew it, they were pulling up and Buck was acting like they’d arrived. But … they were in a parking lot of small set of apartments. Four low set stucco homes connected in a row.

“Buck, I thought you said you booked something? Are we staying with a friend of yours?”

“No, I just figured you’d need a bit of space so … three hotel rooms are expensive and awkward to book, one three-bedroom AirBnB is easier.”

“We’ve got a whole apartment?”

“Yeah. Full kitchen for me, rails in the bathroom for Chris, space for you.”

Eddie smiled as he got out and stretched. Of course, Buck would have searched for disability accessible accommodation. He went around and got a sleepy Chris out of the car while Buck grabbed their bags.

The apartment was nice. Everything was neutral colours but more beige and stone than white which made it seem warmer. Open plan living and kitchen area then a little hall with two bedrooms on one side. Third bedroom and a family bathroom on the other side. The bedroom at the end of the hall was clearly a kid’s room, two single beds with a choice of planets or stars on the sheets and a set of shelves holding books and basic (easy to sterilise) toys.

They didn’t have anywhere to be until eleven the next morning and it was barely four in the afternoon. They’d stopped off in Phoenix the night before so it had only been a six hour drive. They offered to take Chris to the park but he’d hesitated and said he didn’t need to. Eddie knew his son had energy to burn and was probably dying to do something after two days of driving but he also knew Chris felt guilty about the idea of having fun while Eddie was sad. Eventually they talked him into going for a walk after Eddie pointed out that he really needed to get out and get some fresh air.

It was nice, ambling along the sidewalk in the humidity. The air here felt like home. Buck was leading them somewhere and it really didn’t surprise Eddie to know that Buck would have researched the area. They came up to a large park just two blocks from their place. A good distance really because Chris was starting to struggle.

“Feel a bit stiff?” he asked and Chris hissed a little sound of annoyance and nodded, “Sorry Miho, I should have realised so long in the car would make you uncomfortable. How about we sit under that tree and stretch a bit?”

Chris didn’t really answer, he just started off in the direction Eddie indicated. Chris usually sat with his back against the wall for some of his leg stretches and Eddie thought he’d use the tree trunk as resistance but instead he asked Buck to sit behind him while Eddie took off his shoes and started pushing against his feet. They’d only done the first in a series of stretches on each leg when a child’s voice piped up behind Eddie

“What are they doing to that kid?” Eddie automatically stiffened. He knew it was natural curiosity but at the same time he didn’t like the sometimes cruel and blunt way children could talk about others.

“They’re stretching his legs,” another child replied calmly, “My mum does it for me every day too. Sometimes it hurts but it usually feels really good.”

Eddie looked over his shoulder to see a pair of girls a little younger than Chris, one with a child sized, bright purple walking frame. They both smiled and waved as Eddie looked, but they were looking beyond Eddie. His turning around meant that they could see Chris’ face. Chris waved back and they took that as some kind of sign to head over to them.

“Hi, just starting your stretches?” The girl with the frame asked.

“Uh huh,” Chris replied, slight excitement in his voice, “Wanna stay and hang out for a bit?”

The girl with the frame moved it off to the side a bit and the other one helped her sit on the grass. Apparently, that was a yes. Eddie looked over his son’s head and at a smirking Buck. Making friends as a kid was so easy.

The girls stayed and chatted through all Chris’ stretches then they all moved off to play on the playground together. Eddie shuffled around until his back was the tree trunk and watched his child play.

“Man, your kid’s got charisma.” Buck uttered watching as Chris helped the girl with CP, Marissa, get onto a swing and started pushing. Sarah, the other girl, was already on her own swing.

“Life’s a lot easier at ten.” Eddie mused.

“Still…” Buck argued

“Yeah. He’s kind of great.”

Buck bumped their shoulders together, “Best kid I’ve ever met.”

“Careful, you have a niece.” Eddie teased.

The easy banter was everything he needed right now. He had humidity pressing against his skin, his best friend by his side and a smile on his son’s face. Really, life was pretty good right now despite his reason for being in El Paso.

Eventually the sky started to darken and Chris was getting less steady on his feet even as he continued to try and assist Marissa in moving around the playground. It took some negotiation and the promise to meet back at the park the day after the funeral before Chris was willing to leave his new friends. They hadn’t had a chance to get any groceries so they ordered in and had an early night. Chris crashed easily and Eddie sat out in the little private courtyard letting the humidity and the sound of cicadas soothe him.

Eddie felt like his soul had cracked a little, losing Ray. For years he’d been Eddie’s constant companion. A good friend. A confidant. His only source of comfort. And then he wasn’t. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he even thought about Ray before he got the call. How could he have moved on so easily and without even realising?

“What are you thinking about?” Buck asked as he handed Eddie a fresh beer and took a seat.

“Ray. He took me under his wing from the start of my first tour. Distracted me on bad days with bad jokes. Talked to me like a fucking therapist when I had to see bad things. Stood guard laying cover fire while I amputated a guy’s leg out in the open. No chance of stopping the patient screaming so they all knew where we were but Ray managed to keep us safe….” Eddie took a breath and quietly admitted something he’d never really even talked about before, “When things got really bad, he’d share my cot and help me muffle the crying in his shoulder.”

Bucks hand rested on his forearm and Eddie took a shaky breath and looked up to meet his eyes.

“He sounds like a good friend.”

Eddie nodded, “He kept me sane. Kept me safe. We were family. He was happy when I said I was signing up for a second tour. Even talked about staying stateside when I said I was getting out. Then he realised I was going back to my wife and kid and you could see the excitement fall off his face. Next thing he was talking about another tour; his fifth. It was like he was thinking we’d both get out, share a place together and get some peace. Me already having a family got in the way of that. He never said it but I hurt his feelings. I … I think he maybe loved me.”

“Of course, he did. You said yourself, you were family.” Buck tried to reassure him and somehow missed what Eddie was saying.

“No. I think it was more than that. My second tour, by the end, he was sleeping in my bunk more often than his own. Not because either of us were having a particularly bad time, but because he just liked it there. He liked the comfort. I liked it too. It was good to have something nice when everything else was so horribly harsh. But over time it felt like…”

“He was falling in love?”

Eddie looked up at Buck and his eyes swam. He felt so fucking guilty.

“I didn’t … I never even realised until it was too late. I couldn’t be that for him.” The tears fell and Eddie’s vision was awash.

Buck was pulling him up from the bench and into a tight hug.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not though.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. He needed you and you were there for him. It’s not your fault you’re so lovable,” Buck joked, “Seriously though, if you had cottoned on sooner, what would you have done differently? Cut ties and made him feel bad about it? Stopped looking after him in a war zone?”

Eddie shook his head.

“And he knew you were married from the get-go, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, he had to know where he stood. Even if you did take the whole ‘brother-in-arms’ thing a little more literal than most. But um… did the other soldiers know you guys shared a bed?”

Eddie shrugged, “It’s not that rare really. You do and see horrible things and people need a way to cope. Some people withdraw into themselves and stop interacting. Some develop a sex addiction and will seek out others that are the same. Some freak out and randomly destroy stuff or beat up the first person they see. Some get cuddly. It seemed like the healthiest option to me.”

“I’ve never heard that before.”

“What happens in the warzones stays in the warzones. Makes therapy kind of hard but it’s a solid rule. Half the world’s military marriages would be ruined without it. Even just the cuddling; Shannon would have been so upset.”

“You never cheated on her. Not even when she left you,” Buck chided as he guided them both back onto the bench seat, “She couldn’t be upset with you. I know you don’t believe it but from where I’m sitting you were a good husband.”

Eddie shook his head a little. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I do.” He said it so quiet like he knew Eddie didn’t want to hear but it needed to be said. Eddie didn’t know what he did to deserve a friend with such unwavering belief in him.

Chapter 2

Buck woke to an alarm at seven. Chris would probably be up already and Buck wanted to get to the store before he started getting too hungry. He wandered out of his room to find Chris already at the table.

“Hey Kiddo. Your dad up yet?” He asked

“Nu-uh.” Clearly pre-occupied with something in front of him.

“You want to come to the grocery store with me? Pick out some cereal?”

“There’s already cereal.” Chris announced, pointing at a basket in the corner of the kitchen bench. This side of the bench could be lowered or lifted to your preferred height with a little switch on the edge for wheelchair access. Chris had lowered it down so it sat around Buck’s mid-thigh.

Buck bent down to look in the basket and realised it contained a selection of single serve cereals and jams as well as a half loaf of bread.

“Oh, these people are definitely getting a five-star review.”

“I made toast,” Chris announced and held up the last corner of his proof, “Do you want some?”

“Some of your last bite of toast?”

“No silly. I could make your some new toast.”

“Wait! You’re going to make me breakfast?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, yes please.”

Chris ate his last bit of toast and got up to grab two new pieces of bread. He put them in the toaster then got out a plate and a knife and arranged them on the lowered section of counter top. Clearly Chris was getting a kick out of the ‘child-size’ bench top.

“You can have…. strawberry jam, marmalade, peanut butter or … ketchup?” Chris went through the supplied single serves of condiments, giggling at the last option.

“Hmmm, the ketchup could be interesting,” they both giggled and made grossed out faces, “but I think I’ll play it safe with the peanut butter, thank you.”

“What’s the ketchup for?” Eddie asked as he wandered into the room.

“Toast topping options from the breakfast basket,” Buck explained, “Christopher kindly offered to make me toast.”

“Do you want some, Dad?” Christopher asked as the toaster popped.

“Yes please. But not with ketchup.” Eddie joked.

“You can have marmalade or strawberry jam.” Christopher advised while working on Buck’s peanut butter.

“Oooh strawberry jam please.” Eddie actually looked quite pleased and Buck actively had to stop himself from chuckling at the memory of Eddie announcing that he was “a jam man” during breakfast on shift a while back. He had been so serious and it sounded so ridiculous. Buck couldn’t even articulate why it was so funny to him but he remembered it every time Eddie mentioned any kind of breakfast.

Chris delivered Buck’s plate to the table and headed back to get his dad’s plate ready.

“What did you have on your toast?” Eddie asked Chris as he got himself a cup of coffee.

“I had the blackberry jam.”

“That’s my little jam man.” Eddie murmured as he ruffled his son’s hair.

Bucks heart felt like it was suffocating a moment. The jam man comment was a dad thing. He was a jam man because his son was a little jam man. Buck loved seeing these family moments. His inner child healed a little more each time he noticed the sweet interactions between the these two.

After breakfast and a bit of chat at the table, Buck went out to the grocery store and Chris opted to stay back with his dad. The funeral wasn’t until eleven but they were planning on leaving at ten to make sure they had time to get their bearings once they arrived at the base.

Buck had his suit hanging in his room ready for the day. Still, he wasn’t expecting to come back to find Eddie in his dress uniform. His jacket was over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, hat and gloves sitting on the bench but still… There was Eddie standing around with a glass of water in a crisp dress uniform. Buck closed his eyes and took a deep breath before moving to pass Eddie and put away the groceries.

“You clean up well.” He advised casually without looking at Eddie.

He got a snort in response.

“Where’s your little jam man?” Buck asked, smirk unavoidable. Eddie grinned back.

“He’s getting dressed. You should too.”

Buck nudged the fridge closed and nodded.

“Sure, but first…” Buck gestured for Eddie. Eddie put down his glass and raised an eyebrow, “Come on, before you put on the jacket, let me wrinkle up that shirt.” Buck explained and pulled Eddie into a proper hug. Eddie let go of his breath and sunk into the hug. His jaw quivered a bit against Buck’s shoulder and he squeezed a little tighter before he pulled back. Eddie’s eye shone as he looked somewhere over Buck’s shoulder and nodded a bit.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Buck stood there, hand still on his best friend’s elbow, unwilling to fully step back from him. He hated seeing him in pain like this.

Time hung there a moment, neither moving, before Chris emerged from the hall with frustration on his face and complaints about his belt buckle. Eddie moved to help him and Buck went to get himself ready.

****

They arrived at the military base with twenty minutes to spare before the official start of the ceremony. All the handicapped spots were taken in the car park but Eddie wasn’t surprised. They parked a little further back. Chris was resolute that he could walk when Buck offered to carry him. Eddie put his gloves on before getting out of the car and the hat as soon as he was standing on two feet. Buck watched the disaffected mask slide over his face.

Eddie’s back was straight and there was a rigidity to the way he walked as he led them to the parade ground where the service was being held. Buck recognised it for the coping mechanism it was. Eddie might fall into a mess once the uniform came off but while it was in place, it would hold this man together. Buck held back from putting a comforting hand on his friend’s back and let the wash of routine and ceremony carry him along.

A man in uniform met them near the entrance to the parade ground, sweeping his eyes over the three of them before facing off with Eddie and saluting.

“Specialist Diaz.”

“General” Eddie returned the salute, voice firm but emotionless.

“Military personal are assembling on the East side. Civilians on the West.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“This your eldest?” the General asked nodding at Christopher.

“My only; this is Christopher,” Eddie put a proud hand on his son’s shoulder then nodded at Buck, “And this is Firefighter Buckley of the LAFD. General Davies was my sergeant back in the day.”

Buck exchanged a very firm handshake with the General then Eddie guided them away so the General could direct the next set of people. Eddie took a breath then crouched a little to look Chris in the eye.

“I have to go to the other side to stand with the officers. You go sit up in the bleachers with Buck and I’ll meet you afterwards, okay?”

“Are you going to be okay by yourself?” Chris asked, his hand moving to hold the cuff of his dad’s jacket.

“I’ll be fine while I’m with the others. Might need a big hug later though.”

“Okay.” Chris agreed but he hesitated to move off with Buck. Eddie had nodded his thanks to Buck and was turning to go when Chris rushed him for a hug. He got Eddie awkwardly around the middle, trapping an arm and hitting his legs with the swing of his crutches. Eddie chuckled and moved down on one knee for a proper big hug. He kissed Chris’ hairline and whispered something in his ear. Chris gave him another squeeze then let his dad get up. Eddie gave Buck another look then turned to head towards the East side of the parade ground. As he walked you could see the stiffness an exacting precision take over his form until he was marching across the black top.

Buck realised he and Chris had just stood there and watched Eddie walk all the way across the grounds until Eddie was greeted by the other soldiers and fell into line. Seeing that he had others beside him that greeted him like old friends broke the spell and Buck looked around, guiding Chris to his side. The General caught his eye and gave him a nod that felt like praise for some reason. Buck nodded back then turned to take Christopher up to the bleachers to try a find a section in the shade. They stopped off at a table by the stairs and picked up a program. They had water bottles for sale and Buck got two of those too. Texan heat was something else and Buck had no idea how all those soldiers were going to fare with their full-dress uniforms in this sun.

Buck got them settled and tucked Chris’s crutches down by their feet, hoping to keep them out of the sun so Chris could still use them when they left. The service began at eleven on the dot and was full of long speeches about valour. Raymond Hanes had been an exemplary man. Brave. Kind. Considerate. They were all kind things but said in such a pompous, military way. Buck couldn’t help but feel that this was dragging on forever. Eventually Ray’s mother got up to speak and for the first time Buck was reminded that this was a funeral for a person, not just a solider. She broke down crying at several points and Buck had to swallow a lump in his throat.

He looked down at Chris to see how he was going but Chris wasn’t paying attention to Mrs Hanes. He was staring out toward the rows of soldiers. Buck followed his gaze and found Eddie easily. Even from this distance it was easy to see that he was clenching his jaw. Eddie needed to cry but instead he was stuck in a literal field of pomp and circumstance. Buck, like Christopher, was entranced after that, unable to look away from Eddie as the speeches continued. Both of them jumped when a bugle started up and a group of men, Eddie among them, snapped to attention. They marched to coffin and folded the flag laying over it. The general presented it to the crying parents of Raymond Hanes and then Eddie and the other pallbearers lifted their brother in arms up onto their shoulders. The other soldiers all moved to attention and saluted as the coffin was slowly carried the length of the grounds and placed in a waiting car. Christopher sniffled and lady the row behind handed him a tissue. Buck smiled up at her and noticed her red rimmed eyes.

An announcement was made that family and close friends could join the procession that would lead to the cemetery. Others could wait at the parade grounds for their loved ones or meet them at the wake. The crackle of the PA system cut out and that was the end of it. Some people in the bleachers stood but mainly, it was the officers and the people that were down sitting with the family that moved to walk along behind for the two mile journey to the military cemetery that neighboured the base.

“Do we go too?” Chris asked as he watched the soldiers fall into formation behind the slow moving car.

Buck wasn’t really sure. Eddie would have his fellow soldiers with him at the gravesite. They didn’t need to be there but what happens after they disburse? Will the soldiers walk back here together? Buck looked at his near empty water bottle. He’d been sipping throughout the hour long service. Chris’ was empty as well.

“Let’s find a bathroom, then we’ll get your dad a fresh bottle of water and we’ll go wait outside the cemetery to meet him, okay?”

Buck carried Chris in his arms as they walked out of base, past the carpark and down the road to the entrance of the cemetery. There were a few people gathered there, clearly with the same thought and were waiting for the burial to end. There were two bench seats but they were full of older women so Buck set Chris down and handed back his crutches. He was planning on sitting on the grass in a shady patch but Chris walked straight over to the women on the benches.

“Hi Grandma.” Chris announced as he walked up to one of the women in the middle of the bench.

Buck swallowed whatever he’d been about to say and looked at her. Helena Diaz was right there. Buck hadn’t seen her since Shannon’s funeral but it was definitely her.

“Ch-Christopher, what are you doing here.”

“We came to look after dad for the funeral. He’s in there.” Christopher pointed up the path that led to the grave sites.

Buck stepped forward and offered a hello. “We weren’t expecting to see you ‘til tomorrow. Eddie wanted to get through the funeral before visiting.” He explained.

“So, he was one of the pallbearers?”

Buck nodded and she tapped her collarbone like a comfort gesture.

“I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.” Helena whispered.

“Mr Ray was dad’s friend. He’s really sad now.” Christopher explained and patted his grandmother’s arm. She pulled him up into her lap and kissed his hair.

“Ray was in his squad through both tours. Saved his life a few times from the sounds of it.” Buck explained gently, hoping Helena understood that Eddie was going through it and didn’t need her usual harassment while he was in town.

Helena started sniffling and the women either side of her made comforting gestures and rubbed at her back.

“We’re POMP.” Announced a small blonde woman as she tapped Buck’s arm. He looked at her blankly, “Parents of Military Personal; It’s a support group. We’re all here to support Sandra and Reggie, Raymond’s parents.”

Buck nodded awkwardly and they all lapsed into a strange silence. Christopher looked sweaty and uncomfortable in his grandmother’s clutches but he put up with it. Buck didn’t know how to ask her to let go without being rude so he sent Chris an apologetic look and waited with the women of POMP.

Gunshots rang out, startling everyone. They kept going one after the next in the traditional salute. Christopher whimpered and wiggled off Helena lap to move toward Buck. He knelt down and held Chris’ ears to muffle the sound until it was done.

“It’s okay. They’re shooting into the air to say good bye. There’s no bullets.” Buck explained and wiped the tears out of his eyes.

“Dad’ll be scared.” Chris worried and chewed his lip in the same was Eddie does when he’s concerned.

“We’re right here and we’re going to look after him as soon as we can. He’s going to be okay.” Buck advised, guiding Chris to the shady grass and letting him sit where the breeze could cool him a little. Helena was watching them like a hawk so Buck made a show about cooling Chris down, talking about the refreshing breeze and holding one of the cold water bottles against the back of Chris’ neck.

Time passed and eventually people started coming through the entrance to head back out. The women of POMP stood and talked to some of them, touched hands of others that passed. Two of the women were trying to hand out what looked like religious pamphlets. Buck and Chris waited off to the side.

Eddie spotted them and was already headed straight for them by the time Buck picked him out of the crowd. He avoided the group as it bottle-necked at the benched area, moving behind it and along the tree line to get to where they’d been sitting. He swept Christopher up and held on tight. Chris buried his face in his dad’s neck. Buck spared a glance at Helena and realised she was still looking in the crowd, her back to the person she was looking for.

“Hey.” Eddie greeted him with a one-armed hug while Chris still clung onto his other shoulder. The back of Eddie’s jacket was damp under Buck’s palm. Sweat right through.

“How are you?” Buck asked as he pulled back, keeping eye contact as he grabbed a water bottle from the ground. Eddie put Chris down with a kiss to his hair.

“I’m okay so far. Very ready to take this jacket off,” Eddie explained as he gratefully reached for the water bottle. He finished it off in seconds, “The rules and the uniform are helping to keep my head in the game but this is so many layers.” He explained.

“Grandma’s here.” Chris pointed out as Helena made her way over having finally spotted her son.

Eddie’s face froze a moment before his eyes followed to where Chris was pointing. He’d barely turned around before his mother was in his arms crying on his shoulder.

“Edmundo.”

“Umm?” Eddie’s face had gone strangely blank.

“You mother is a member of a support group called POMP. They came ‘to support Ray’s parents’.” Buck explained as discomfort settled over Eddie’s face.

She pulled back and held each side of his face, staring at him for a prolonged moment before kissing his forehead, “You should have told me you were coming. I would have sat with you.”

“Dad had to stand with the soldiers. Bucky came to sit with me and help Dad drive,” Chris supplied when Eddie took too long to respond, “Dad said we couldn’t tell you ‘til tomorrow because army funerals make you extra sad.”

Helena’s face softened and she pulled Eddie’s head in for more kisses. Buck dutifully pretended not to notice how red Eddie’s face got.

“Well, we’re all here now. You boys will come home and I’ll cook your Papi’s favourite for dinner.” Helena announced.

“Uhh, I have to go to the wake, Ma. The guys tell me there’s going to be barbacoa so… dinner tomorrow instead?”

Helena seemed to remember where they were and agreed before insisting that she would see them at the wake. Buck had a sneaking suspicion she’d had no intention of going to the wake until the moment she said it.

Eddie made their excuses and Buck carried Chris through the crowd again so they could hurry back to the Jeep in peace. Neither mentioned Eddie’s mother during the drive. Eddie barely said anything really.

Chapter 3

They made a quick pit stop back at their place so Eddie could take a cold shower and change into fresh civilian clothes. Buck and Chris said nothing about Eddie’s bloodshot eyes when he emerged from the bathroom, opting to focus on getting back into the Jeep and making their way to the home of Sandra and Reginald Hanes.

The street was packed with cars and Buck had to park almost two streets away. “Popular guy.” Buck mused as he pulled into a spot. Eddie snorted.

“It’s a pretty standard size for a Texas gathering.”

“Huh, the only time I lived in Texas, I was out ranching. Not a lot of time for get-togethers. I guess this is my first Texas social event.”

“What’s ranching?” Chris asked, having already undone his seatbelt and leaning forward to stick his head between the front seats.

“Working as a ranch hand,” Eddie explained before pulling a sarcastic face, “Buck was a cowboy.”

“Cool. Can you teach me to ride a horse?”

Buck smiled and got out of the car, moving to open Chris’ door before answering, “I don’t know that I can still ride a horse. It uses a lot of leg muscles and when you’re out of practice, it really hurts.”

Chris shrugged off the coded ‘no’ and took his crutches from his dad as Buck helped him down. He let that go far too easily and Buck knew it was going to come up again in the future. Probably around Chris’ next birthday.

The house was packed when they arrived. Eddie didn’t even try to enter, he just led them around the side and into the backyard. It was a sizable area. There were more than a few shade trees, and almost no grass because of it. The air was humid and dusty at the same time and there were too many people to allow a breeze to cut through. Buck was out of his element.

They followed Eddie to a table filled with food but bypassed it for the bucket of ice holding an array of canned drinks, both alcoholic and sodas, that sat at the end of the table. He passed Buck a beer and grabbed one for himself and a cola for Chris then led the way to some empty lawn chairs over in the corner of the yard. They took their seats and opened their drinks. They sat there and soaked up the day for a while before Helena found them and pulled up her own lawn chair to ask a never-ending stream of questions about life in LA. Chris, the little empath, answered most of the questions and let Eddie take a pass on the conversation. They’d been there for what felt like an hour but was probably only really twenty minutes before some of Eddie’s military buddies found him. They all pulled up chairs or stood leaning on the backs of friend’s chairs as their little circle grew into a clutch of broad-shouldered men. The talk shifted off Chris and Eddie’s LA life and more onto war stories and personality traits of the man they’d lost.

Helena looked a little annoyed at losing control of the conversation. As time went on, she got more and more horrified at the war stories being told. It was only when she clutched at her necklace in shock of gory story about the mangled remains of the story teller’s arm that Buck realised Chris probably shouldn’t be listening to this. Eddie was enjoying the conversation and throwing in his two cents worth here and there with a dark sense of humour so common in the medical field. That meant it was up to Buck to move Chris away.

Buck got up and put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder as he crossed behind him to encourage Chris to get up.

“Where are you two going?” Eddie asked and the conversation around them stopped. Buck cringed. He’d been hoping to slip away quietly.

“Conversation is getting a little gory. Thought I might take Chris to check out the food. You want anything?”

Eddie shrugged and nodded. Buck knew that to mean, ‘I’ll eat whatever you give me’ so he nodded and helped Chris manoeuvre between the chairs before he had space to hand over the crutches. Chris was still getting a grip on the left one when Buck heard one of the guys make a comment that Eddie had a good boyfriend. Buck didn’t bother to turn around and it didn’t seem like Eddie heard it as he kept talking about elbow sinew. He was pretty sure Helena heard it though, her piercing stare, burning a hole in his back as Buck walked away.

Helena joined them when Buck was fixing a plate and insisted on being the one to take Eddie some food. Buck had a feeling her mother vs girlfriend competitiveness extended to misinterpreted boyfriends. He handed her the plate he’d already filled and nodded at the drinks without being fazed and then moved on to setting up a plate for Chris.

Helena strutted her way across the yard and made a show of handing her son a plate of food, a fork, a napkin and then his drink. Buck spied some kids sitting at a shorter table eating so he set Chris up with them and joined a conversation with the mums standing nearby.

Helena lasted another half an hour sitting by her son and trying to take part in the remembrances of war and a soldier she likely never met, before she excused herself and came over to help watch over Christopher. Chris was happily chatting with the other kids about goodness knows what and completely uninterested in having his grandmother hovering.

Buck could see her hesitation before she came over to sit with him and the mums. Apparently, none of the other POMP members came to the wake. Buck smiled at her and introduced her to the group. Helena wasn’t really his kind of person but it was his job to make Eddie’s day easier and that’s what he was going to do. They sat there talking recipes and play dates for a good while.

The day moved on and the sun lowered, temperatures dropping as the barbacoa was served up. Chris didn’t really need more food but it smelled so good that he asked for a plate anyway. Helena jumped to the task and Buck felt a bit superfluous. Sherry, one of the women he’d been chatting with, gave him a look then said something about his mother-in-law. As in Helena being Buck’s mother-in-law. Buck stared at her for a good long moment before he realised, she was waiting for him to speak.

“She n-not my.. um. Eddie’s straight. He’s widowed. I-I’m just helping out.” He was babbling. This was very awkward.

“Oh. Oh! Oh my god, I’m so sorry. It’s just … his son and you’re so … I just assumed and shouldn’t have and oh god, I am so sorry.”

Buck laughed. At least she was as awkward about it as he was. He waved it off and the other women in the little group giggled a bit now that they had permission.

“It’s fine. Not the first time someone mistook me for Chris’ dad. I guess it does kind of come across a bit confusing.”

“Well, that and … Diaz and Hanes were … very close.” Melissa pointed out with the subtlety of a kick to the face, complete with a wink.

“It’s not really my place to say but as I understand it, they were very good friends. And yes, there may an unspoken offer on the table but Eddie never took him up on it.” Buck explained quietly. He would have liked to tell them to shove it but that would have just caused further gossip. Helena was on her way back over and Buck was hoping to kill this line of questioning before she got back.

“So, tell us then Buck, does that mean you’re single?” asked Donna, a woman with pale red hair and a low-cut dress. At another point in his life, she would have been exactly Buck’s type but now, not so much. Things with Taylor were at a weird impasse and he wasn’t really with her anymore but by the same token, he couldn’t outright say he was single just yet. Not to mention Donna was clearly sporting a wedding ring, already having mentioned a few times that her husband was on deployment.

“It’s a little complicated. My girlfriend is going through some things. I’m giving her a bit of space to sort things out.” Not really the truth but not entirely a lie either.

“Girlfriend?” Helena asked, having returned to hear that last comment.

“Taylor. She’s got, ah, some family stuff going on these days.”

“I don’t remember Eddie ever telling us about her.”

“Well, he wouldn’t really have a reason to. Unless you usually spend your skype chats talking about me?” Buck joked but somehow, he seemed to have pissed off Helena more than usual.

The evening took hold and Buck tried to keep to himself with Helena’s ever growing stink face. Eddie came over to check on Chris and pat his mother’s shoulder. He had a plate of food in his hands and whiskey on his breath but seemed to be holding up well. Buck had seen grief enough times to know Eddie was probably past the crying stage and into the ‘honour the memory’ sort of things. The stories with his fellow soldiers seemed to be exactly what he needed. He made a little sideways motion with his head and Buck got up to follow him to a quiet spot.

“Everything okay?” Eddie asked.

“Fine. I think your mother is annoyed at me and I can’t figure out why. We were doing okay, then she got up to help Chris get dinner and when she came back, she was grumpy,” Buck explained but realised half way through that Eddie didn’t need to be dealing with that today, “I don’t think she was planning on coming to the wake. She’s probably just annoyed that she felt the need to change her plans last minute but it’s good of her to be here for you.”

“What were you talking about before she went to get dinner?”

“Umm, I think it was casseroles and the wonders of slow cookers,” Eddie gave him a weird look and Buck shrugged, stealing a bit of meat on the side of Eddie’s plate, “How are things going with your friends?”

“Good. They’re talking about going to a bar after this. Getting out of the Hanes’ way.”

“Okay. If I take Chris home, are you okay to get a ride share home?”

“Sure”

“I’ll text you the address so you can copy it into the app. Don’t need your drunken texting getting you lost.”

Eddie snorted and deliberately took a large bite of food. He’d never been one for getting completely wasted.

“Come sit with us for a bit before you go?” Eddie invited. Buck looked over to Chris and Helena. Things were taken care of there so Buck grabbed a quick plate of his own and followed Eddie back to the group in the far corner.

Chapter 4

Eddie stumbled into the apartment and carefully shut the door behind him. He’d tried to just pretend to be keeping up with the boys but he still ended up more drunk than he’d been in the past few years. He sat on the floor directly in front of the doorway and spent an embarrassingly long time untying his shoes. He snuck through the house on socked feet, headed for food. His medic brain told him toast would help. He stopped at the table and eyed off the sports drink and bottle of Tylenol. Buck was a better friend than he deserved.

After toast and Tylenol Eddie had a quick shower and found his way to his bedroom. He stared at the bed but he couldn’t bring himself to climb in. Today was the day he said goodbye to Ray. Getting drunk wasn’t a good enough way to honour that. Eddie did an about face and walked across the hall, creaking open Buck’s door. He was asleep; laying on his back with his arm around a pillow at his side. In Eddie’s drunken mind it was the perfect invitation.

He slipped into the room, pulled back the covers and moved the pillow, then tucked himself in against Buck’s side.

“Mmphf.” Buck stirred at the disruption.

Eddie closed his eyes and feigned sleep. Buck moved around a bit and then slowly eased away from him. Eddie’s heart broke a little as Buck climbed out of the bed but he was too embarrassed to do anything but continue to fake slumber.

Buck patted his head a moment then left the room. Eddie lay there mortified until he heard the front door lock, a light got turned out, the exhaust in the bathroom shut off and silence descended on the house. Then Buck was walking back into the room. He moved around a bit then climbed back in bed and lifted Eddie’s head to rest back on his shoulder. The tension melted out of Eddie and he snuggled in.

“G’night Eds.” Buck mumbled. They were both asleep within minutes.

****

Eddie woke feeling like he’d been licking a muppet in his sleep. His head was three times heavier than normal and his own sweat smelled foul. He opened his eyes to see he was in the bed alone. Buck’s bed. He could hear Buck and Chris chatting in the other room. He wanted to sleep for another week and realistically, with Buck taking care of Chris, he could sleep longer. But he knew he had to face his parents today and if he put his head back down, too much of the day would disappear.

He pulled himself out of Buck’s bed and forced himself into the too bright bathroom. The Tylenol was sitting next to his toothbrush with a fresh glass beside it. Buck is god damned angel.

When he was vaguely presentable and decently awake, he shuffled into the living area. There was a plate with pancakes waiting for him with a fresh cup of coffee.

“Buck, I need you to know that you are the best friend I’ve ever had in my whole life.” Eddie announced as he sipped his coffee and eyed the bottle of syrup.

Buck huffed a little laugh, “Back at ya Eds.”

Breakfast made him feel like an actual human being but if asked he still wouldn’t be able to explain how time morphed from hungover pancakes to sitting in his parents living room. Chris was trying to show his Abuelo how to play a game on his switch. Buck was talking to his mother about something at Chris’ school and Eddie finally checked in to his surroundings.

He apologised for being hungover and his mother tsked at him. Buck cut in over whatever she’d been about to say by pointing out that it was an understandable aftermath of a funeral. Eddie watched his mother silently seethe at that comment.

Eddie tried to be more present after that. He talked to his father about the new gazebo that Adriana’s husband helped him build. Then Chris mentioned something about a surfing lesson and his parents began their lecture on how inappropriate it was to have Christopher doing such dangerous things.

“Christopher’s a really strong swimmer. Those lessons probably saved his life when we got caught in the tsunami.” Buck tried to help but it just sent them off on a rant about how unsafe California is and how he should be moving home to be with family. Buck sent him apology eyes from the next seat over.

Eddie got up to make himself another cup of coffee and hoped leaving the room for those two minutes would reset the conversation to something civil. He got back to the sounds of his mother asking about Chris’ diet. She was basically interrogating Buck and Chris both, like she was trying to catch them out in a lie but Buck was answering everything calmly. He stuttered here and there, like he did when unsure but it wasn’t like he didn’t know the answers. He probably just felt like it wasn’t his place to say.

Eddie was at his limit. He hadn’t been hungover like this since his boot camp days; he was tired, his headache was pulsing and he’d just buried a friend yesterday. This visit wasn’t about them or all the things they thought he was doing wrong. It was about Ray.

“I need some air.” He escaped out the back door and into the garden, leaving his coffee on a side table as he went. Much as he loved the humidity, Eddie would kill for a cool breeze right now. He pulled at the neck of his shirt and sat in the new gazebo. His chest was tight. Breath too short. He’d been learning the signs and knew he was one more ounce of pressure away from a panic attack. He wanted to go back in and tell them he was leaving. The comforting thought that if he left the house Buck and Chris would follow him was cancelled out but knowing his parents would too. He never wanted Chris to see him have another attack.

“Dad?” Eddie looked up to see Chris hovering nearby.

“Hey kiddo.” He smiled and took as steady a breath as he could manage.

“Buck wanted to talk to Grandma and Abuelo so he sent me outside to sit with you.” Chris explained.

“Wh-what did Buck need to talk to them about?”

“I don’t know but he looked annoyed.” Chris shrugged.

“Stay here a minute.” Eddie instructed and skulked around to one of the lounge windows. He climbed past the agave in the garden bed and leant against the wall to listen to Buck’s voice.

“… marriage may not have been perfect but you nit-picking everything Shannon did added to her running off. After she left you started in on Eddie. Everything was wrong. You always knew better – you do not get to interrupt me.” There was a squeak from his mother and Buck took a breath before he soldiered on, “He didn’t just go to LA to chase his wife, he went to get out from under your overly critical thumb. You asked him to give up his child! He went to war – saw things that probably scarred his soul - to make sure he could give Chris whatever he needed and you act like that makes him less of a parent? He is a great father and Chris wants for nothing, but you talk to Eddie like he can’t do a single thing right. You are so focused on being Chris’ grandparents that you’ve stopped being Eddie’s parents. Your son just buried a good friend. Any decent parent would hug him and give him some comfort but it’s like you just don’t care. Look, I’m not trying to get angry at you or make you feel bad but you have to know; this behaviour is why he left and if you keep it up, he’ll never come back. Just … just once, could you support him? Please.” A chair scraped on the tiles and there were footsteps. Before Eddie could think to move, Buck walked out the back door. Eddie wasn’t crying, but it was a near miss. Somehow Buck looked guilty, like he was the one getting caught out.

Eddie climbed out of the flower bed and gestured to Chris in the gazebo. They sat either side of Christopher, silence heavy in the air.

“Thank you.” Eddie managed to say it, voice thick with how much it meant to have someone stick up for him like that.

“Sorry. I gu-guess I overstepped a bit there. I just, couldn’t not say it.”

“No, I appreciate it,” He reached around Chris and put a hand on Buck’s shoulder, “You shushed my mother.” He pointed out in awe.

Buck gave him a smile, “How are you doing today?” Chris looked up at Eddie waiting for that answer too. Eddie couldn’t help but smile back at them.

“Little bit seedy, little bit sad, but things are starting to get better.”

Chris gave a triumphant smile and leaned in for a side hug. Buck smiled at him over Chris’ head. They sat out there in the warm breeze for a while until his parents came out. Mum had a pitcher of lemonade and Papi was carrying the glasses.

“We thought you boys might be a little warm without the air conditioning.”

They served up the drinks and sat down on the other side of the gazebo. Papi declared they looked good sitting there together and pulled out his phone to take a photo. Eddie was a little weirded out by the happy family pretence but his mother’s bloodshot eyes said she’d heard Buck. He tucked in beside Chris and let his dad take the photo.

They sat there in heavy silence, sipping on homemade lemonade for a time. Eventually his mother put her glass down and slapped her hands down on her knees.

“I’m sorry Edmundo. I have been overly critical. We have been overly critical of your parenting. I guess, I just like to be in control,” Papi snorted at that and she slapped him playfully on the knee, “and when I’m not in control I like to pretend I am anyway. It comes out in bossiness and disparaging comments about anyone else’s decisions. I honestly didn’t realise how far I’d gone but Buck pointed out that I was going too far and not being a supportive parent. Baby boy, I am so sorry.” Eddie sat stunned at his sniffling mother. He had never once witnessed her apologise for her behaviour.

“Th-thank you.” Eddie went over and gave her a hug. Papi joining in a moment later.

They enjoyed their lemonade out in the gazebo then went back inside for lunch. They talked easily, his parents asking about things in his life, not just Christopher’s. It was nice. It was really, really nice. So much so that when it came time to leave for Chris’ playdate in the park, he invited them along.

“Helena, love, you go with Buck and Chris. Edmundo and I will catch up in a bit,” Papi declared and held Eddie back a little, “There’s something I want to talk to you about.” He explained.

Two hours ago, this would have filled Eddie with dread. The fear in Buck eyes said he was expecting Eddie to get dragged across the coals for letting Buck say what he did but Eddie knew his father. This wasn’t his foreboding voice. He gave Buck a reassuring smile and helped them pack up Chris’ things into the Jeep. When he’d waved them off, he turned back to his father who guided him into his den.

Papi started searching though drawers until he found something in a worn velvet box and came to sit down with Eddie.

“I did some research when Chris started talking about Buck and we began to realise. I’ve talked to your Abuela about it and she said you weren’t ready for it yet, but today showed me that maybe you are ready for it,” He handed Eddie the box with an expectant look on his face. Eddie was not sure what he was expecting but his late Abuelo’s gold watch wasn’t it, “You know I always intended to leave this to you in my will but… well, I just thought it might be a nice gesture if you could use it for… you know. When you’re ready.”

Eddie ran his finger over the face of the watch. He always knew it was a family heirloom and he’d get it one day with the expectation that he would hand it down to Christopher. He never expected to get it while his dad was alive to hand it to him.

“I don’t understand. What does Buck have to do with it?”

“Well, I did some research and apparently a watch is as good as a ring in these situations and well, I just thought it would be nice to let him know the family are in full support. Of course, if you’d rather use something else that’s fine but I thought you should take the watch with you now so you had the option when the time was right.”

“What time? Use it for what?”

“To propose to Buck. You are going to propose right?”

Eddie looked at his father like he was staring into an alternate reality. Propose. To Buck. …

“I – I don’t, I mean … we’re not…” Eddie was at a loss. This was such a nice gesture. And for Buck who always felt so unwelcome in his family to be offered a spot in someone else’s… but they’re not like that. Some part of him told Eddie to explain that he’s never dated a man; that his papi had it all wrong. But he couldn’t bring himself to say that. Buck was family. He’d be an amazing step parent.

“It’s not like that,” Eddie tried to clarify, voice thick with an emotion he couldn’t even understand, “He’s my best friend.”

“Exactly! All the best couples say they married their best friend. That’s not something you let pass you by Edmundo.”

“Papi, you don’t understand; we’re not dating. He’s just my friend.”

“Psht! ‘Just’ my eye. That man went to bat for you against your own mother.”

“Papi listen! I’ve never dated a man. Buck is here as my friend. A very, very good friend but just my friend!” Eddie’s heart was racing now. He didn’t like saying these things. He certainly didn’t like repeating them. Buck is so much more than a friend but that doesn’t mean he’d ever settle for a man like Eddie.

“Edmundo, I’m not a fool,” Papi admonished and patted Eddie’s cheek, “It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t done in the past. What matters is how you feel right now. And I checked his Facebook profile – it says he dates women and men. Even if you haven’t started dating yet, you shouldn’t deny yourself that kind of love forever. I can see it when he looks at you. When he takes care of your baby. When he fights for you. I see it on both your faces. You do whatever you want in your own time, but take the watch home with you. Keep it as an option in case you find yourself ready to use it, yes?”

Eddie sat there gaping like a fish. He had never thought about what his father would say if he dated a man. After Ray, he’d been very careful not to let his thoughts stray down that path. But whatever he had thought possible, it certainly hadn’t been this. The Facebook profile was new information too. He knew Buck had an extensive and varied platoon of exes; He’d never known for sure that they weren’t all women. There may have been some casual comments that he’d been too chicken to ask for clarification on but Eddie could honestly say he never knew for sure.

“Do you need a minute?” Papi asked.

“I need a whiskey.”

“It can’t be that much of a surprise.” Papi joked.

“That my Latino father is encouraging his straight son to propose to a male best friend? It’s certainly not what I expected.”

“Eddie, Miho, just because you’ve never dated a man doesn’t mean I believe you’ve never looked at one. You used to have a crush on Prince Eric from the mermaid movie.”

“I was nine. He was cool. I wanted a dog, and a boat … and a mermaid girlfriend. It wasn’t a crush.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Eddie needed to reassess his entire life. He looked down at the watch again. With a twist of stomach nerves, he put it away in his jacket pocket. His Papi smiled at him like he was proud.

Eddie’s head was in a haze the whole time they were at the park. Mum was being overly cautious with every piece of play equipment Chris touched. Buck was standing around chatting to Marissa’s mother and Papi was running around like a loon playing with the kids.

Eventually they went back to his parent’s house and had dinner. Adriana bought her family over and Eddie tried his best to keep up with the gossip his now sixteen-year-old niece was spouting about drama including a bunch of people he’d never heard of. Apparently, everyone else was keeping up and even Buck was getting into the story like it was truly epic. Eddie just couldn’t follow it though. He let them think it was from the hangover but, in all honesty, that had mostly passed. The reality was, his mind was stuck on the watch that was burning a hole in his jacket pocket. Eddie could feel the weight of it from across the room.

He'd never tried to picture his life with a male partner. The thought may have come up here and there but he never pursued it. All his thoughts of the future did include Buck but he’d never really considered how Buck would fit into it all. It was never Buck with a partner or Buck with kids of his own. It was always just Buck there with them.

The evening went by in a whirlwind and ended with Eddie apologising for not being more fun as they said their goodbyes. It wasn’t until Buck was buckling Chris into the car and out of earshot that it hit him. His niece, Izzy, added a “good luck” and a wink to her good bye and it dawned on Eddie that every member of his family knew about the watch and why he got it early. He looked them all in the eye and they all looked back with encouraging faces. Adriana even tapped the pocket that was bulging out in the shape of the watch box.

He stood there, gaping at his family. He knew it wasn’t the fifties anymore but he was shocked to think his father was so indiscrete. And earlier, he said he’d talked to Abuela about it. She’d said he wasn’t ready yet, like she was expecting the same outcome as the rest of them.

“You’re all…?”

“Whatever you want, whenever you’re ready.” Papi reminded him. Adriana cuddled into Papi’s side and grinned at Eddie.

“Yeah.” She agreed. It was one word but with that look in her face and that tone in her voice that she would use when she was being a proud big sister. She wanted this for him because she believed it would make him happy. They all did. Eddied looked up at the sky a moment. This week had been an emotional rollercoaster and apparently his family was a full loop-the-loop.

“Well, … I guess I’ll just do whatever I want then.” Eddie decided. He threw them all a mischievous grin and turned to strut off to the Jeep. He didn’t have to fall in love with Buck and get married. He just had to do whatever he wanted whenever he was ready. And if Buck turned out to be a part of that, it was nice to know his family was cool with it.

Chapter 5

Once Chris was tucked into bed, Eddie and Buck sat out in the courtyard. They didn’t chat or feel the need to fill the silence. They just sat for about an hour absorbing the night.

“So… you’ve been a little out of it since your dad kept you back to talk. Is everything okay?” Buck asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, he just gave me something. My Abuelo’s watch. Dad was going to leave it to me in his will but, he decided I should have it now.” Eddie explained with a weird tone to his voice.

“Cool. So, is that a good thing?”

“Yeah,” Eddie seemed genuine but the weird tone remained, “his reasoning was just really unexpected.”

Buck didn’t ask but he raised his eyebrows and waited.

“He thought I might want to use it instead of an engagement ring when I decide to get remarried.”

“Remarried? Does he think you’re still with Ana?” He had Buck’s full attention now.

“No. Pretty sure Ana would have wanted a diamond ring, not a men’s watch.”

“I don’t get it. Who’s he expecting you to propose to?”

“You,” Buck froze mid breath and stared at Eddie like a deer in the headlights, “He knows we’re not dating and that I’ve never dated a guy. But he also says your Facebook lists you as bisexual so ‘there’s hope’. He said ‘all the best couples say they married their best friend’ and he’s right in saying you’d be a wonderful step father. He just wants me to keep my mind open to the idea. Apparently, he’s been thinking about it ever since Chris started mentioning you on their Skype chats so probably for a couple of years now. He talked Abuela about it.” Eddie shrugged and took a sip of his beer.

Buck’s mind was reeling. Eddie made it sound like he didn’t know Buck was bi but also that he was very straight. Still the way he said this, like he was nervous. Buck’s mind started tingling with something that felt very much like hope.

“H-he thinks I’d be a good stepdad?”

“Of course, you would. You pretty much already are.” Eddie confirmed like it was some casual fact.

“I…” Buck stared out into the darkness with a hand on his stomach where he was twisting up with feelings.

Eddie patted his shoulder. “Sorry. You weren’t expecting that. I wasn’t either. It’s why I’ve been so dazed all afternoon.”

“Does Chris know?”

“I don’t think so but the rest of my family does. When you were putting Chris in the car, they all wished me luck. Izzy winked at me.” Eddie shook his head at the memory.

“That explains the looks she was giving me over dinner. She called me Tio at one point and I just thought she got mixed up.” It also explained why Helena looked so relieved when she mentioned Taylor and Buck had explained that he was single but had used Taylor to deflect Donna’s advances at the wake.

“Does it bother you?” Eddie sounded nervous and Buck wanted to laugh in his face.

“No. No-one’s family has ever wanted to keep me before. It’s nice. Kinda sad that it won’t happen.” Buck took a sip of his beer. Eddie looked weirdly put out by Buck saying it wouldn’t happen.

They lapsed into silence again. Buck peeling at his beer label. Eddie staring at the pavers. For the first time in a long time Buck let himself think about it. If he got to live with them, sleep in Eddie’s bed and help Chris with homework. If they could kiss good night and hold hands at the grocery store. The butterflies in his stomach turned into a little fluttering tornado.

Eventually they turned into for the night but when Eddie went to get into bed, Buck walked into his room.

“You made my sheets smell like whiskey sweat. I’m sleeping in here.” He announced and walked around to the far side of the bed without waiting for permission.

Eddie hesitated. He looked at his jacket nervously and Buck followed his eyes to the bulge in the pocket. It must be the watch. But Eddie shrugged off whatever he was thinking and moved to the bed. They got into bed and laid side by side.

“This is weird. Can we cuddle?” Buck whispered into the dark.

“You’d be okay with that?” Eddie was a little surprised.

“I like cuddles. And your hair smells nice … when you’re not drunk.” He goaded.

Eddied chuckled a little and moved over to sleep under Buck’s arm.

When they woke the next morning, they both lay there, aware that the other was awake but neither of them letting go. They snuggled there so long that Chris came looking for them and ended up climbing in to join them.

****

Buck thought back to the El Paso trip and smiled a little. It had caused a shift in their friendship that slowly snowballed over time. Buck started getting included more in Chris’ Skype calls with his family. Eddie was more affectionate here and there. Buck had officially ended things with Taylor. Eddie had casually admitted that he may have had a thing for a Disney prince when he was a kid.

When Buck was at their house to hang out, there was a lot more cuddling after Chris was sent to bed. And eventually, about six months after El Paso, Eddie finally kissed him. They took things slow and cautious, terrified they’d mess this up but so far it was working out. Things were better than life had ever been for Buck.

Now here he was nearly another full year after their first kiss, going on an actual date to a fancy restaurant on Valentines Day. Chris was coming too because before they were boyfriends, they were family.

The food was fantastic. The sweet looks of couples smiling at their little family filled Buck’s heart and honestly, he didn’t think his life could be any more complete. But then, just before desert was served Chris bounced in his seat and Eddie took a deep breath and that was all the warning Buck got before a worn velvet box was placed in front of him.

Buck eyed them both with wide eyes and opened it up. There sat a beautiful gold watch. A question and an invitation into something he’d wanted his whole life. Eddie didn’t even get to say the words before Buck was nodding and tears blurring his vision of the man in front of him.

“My dads just got engaged!” Chris announced to the whole restaurant with a giant grin on his face.

#mimi writes #fic #911ficexchange #9-1-1 #Buddie Fic #Long Fic #11000words #it's been a long while #please be gentle

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babytortie · 3 years

Text

unexpected

unexpected. ❘ stanley uris x reader.

a/n: this was requested by anon - love ur recent stanley fic! was wondering if you’re cool with doing a smut for him? (aged up of course!) if you’re comfortable, could you make the reader more dominant in bed/stanley being more submissive? perhaps and enemies to lovers, hate sex type. other than that, any plot line is just fine.

* hope this lives up to your expectations! tyty for requesting this one.

summary: in which stanley and reader argue worse than richie runs his trashmouth. after burning some pent-up tension one day, the two take a turn for the better and become more than just enemies.

warnings: s m u t. some fluff at end. <3

contains: enemies to lovers, degrading, hair tugging, harsh kisses w/ slight blood, mild orgasm denial, praises, rough and unprotected sex.

* all characters ( including reader ) of the loser's club are 18+ in this one-shot.

~ 3.4k words.

you twirled a strand of hair between your fingers, a magazine placed on your lap, and beverly's head rested on your shoulder, looking at the pages with you.

it was the summer and the group was all back home on break from college. the loser's wanted to hang out and all eight of you were at bill's house right now. on various couch cushions and seats in the living room. his parents were away for the night and the seven brought clothes to stay at his just in case it got a bit late.

"oh, do you think he's hotter? or him?" bev asked, leaning in closer to point at the page. it was some magazine about the hottest actors of the year, achievement wise. though some hot men that were in it was currently grabbing beverly's, well, and your attention too. you glanced down at the page, slightly comparing both actors and voiced, "definitely him."

the guys overheard this and rolled their eyes. they were taking turns playing on bill’s newest nintendo sixty-four. on the floor below you, sat the four a few feet away, this was because they wanted to be scooted closer to the television. even though it was perfectly fine to put their backs against the couch. typical males.

you worried for their eyesight, especially richie’s, since right now he and bill were battling on some game you didn’t know the name of while being too close to the screen. eddie was on a chair next to the couch and sat by you, wheezing as he watched how close of a tie it was between them. mike and stanley were sitting on the floor with them on either side, cheering on who they wanted to win.

this was while ben sat on the other side of bev and read some book that just came out earlier this week. a quarter of ben’s focus was on his hand. it was resting on beverly’s thigh and drawing small, mindless shapes in content. the two were newly dating after pinning on each other for forever.

"i think we should play would you rather!" mike turned his head and suggested after hearing your conversation with the red head. bill had just died on the game causing richie to jump up and cheer while blowing out the other three's ear drums.

ben closed his book and sat up straighter. he took a glimpse over at beverly to see what her decision was. eddie hesitantly agreed when you and bev nodded. “s-sure!” bill got up and pulled stan with him.

one weekend about four years ago when the denbrough’s were home and bill had the group of losers over, they noticed how you all squished on the seats in the living room. surprising bill with an extra couch a month after this, they were able to successfully squeeze it into the room and push it against the other wall.

the four others started to pile on the other couch a few feet away from the three of you and eddie who still sat on the single chair next to you. beverly pulled her head up and leaned over to whisper in your ear, “be nice to stanley please.”

knowing it wasn’t funny, looking at her anyway with a confused expression, you lied. "stanley who?" she immediately turned her neck back at you, probably receiving some whiplash and raised an eyebrow to challenge you.

"i'm serious y/n." beverly laughed dryly. you sighed and replied a short agreeable response. “alright bev, as long as he doesn’t start it, then i won’t do anything.” after, you zipped your lips and threw an imaginary lock in the direction behind eddie.

she smiled at you in thanks and then you two turned towards the room, noticing everyone was ready. “b-being as it w-was mike’s id-dea, he can g-go first.” bill announced while glancing around the room.

mike nodded and turned to the one who still wore coke-bottle glasses years later. “richie, would you rather never wear underwear again or never wear socks again?”

ben and bill stifled a laugh, already knowing what his response was going to be. eddie rolled his eyes as richie answered, “underwear since i go commando sometimes anyway.”

you put your finger in your mouth, pretending that you were about to throw up and mike shook his head at richie. you turned to your right and left, seeing eddie’s and beverly’s disgusted faces.

”okay, eddie spaghetti.” he paused. the seven of you looked at eds, who had already put his hand over his face in annoyance. you and beverly laughed when the shorter boy muttered, “here we go.” richie smirked and continued. “would you rather, accidently send a nude to your boss or your parents? and by parents i mean your mom and i.”

he rolled his eyes, “absolutely not richie. my mom would never get with you and i would die of embarrassment if it were sonia. she’d probably kidnap and lock me in my old room, never to be seen again. probably boss.”

eddie turned to you after the group cackled of laughter, especially richie at the response he was given. the two of you currently shared a science class together in college and the asthmatic based some of his question off of this. "alright y/n, would u rather hook up with one of football players or with mr. jackson down at the science lab?”

you placed the palm of your hand on your cheek, into a thinking position and replied. "well, i kind of answered that question at last weekend’s party?" beverly jumped up at this and gasped. "no way! with which one?"

"i don’t kiss and tell." you smirked. the others gagged at that. “ah okay, i see. that’s where you went when we couldn’t find you again.” ben commented. stanley had been a bit quiet during the conversation and decided to speak up. adding to this, while looking at you pointedly. "you kind of just did tell and admitted at the fact that you sucked off some guy.”

you weren’t usually the type to get flustered during conversations like this. instead owning it as if you weren’t bothered. this helped you avoid any teasing or any richie’s usual jokes. "at least i'm getting some!" muttering in stanley’s direction.

"i swear if you guys argue for one more minute, i'm going to shoot myself. go y/n. it’s your turn." mike spoke up in between you and stanley, trying to get the game rolling again.

you smiled, feeling a little eager at the next question. you looked at the curly haired sitting across the room from you. the others groaned knowing you were about to pick on him in some kind of way. "uris. for the rest of your sex life, would you rather be the top or bottom?”

he blinked in your direction, probably wanting to smack you for the inappropriate question. “depends, is it with anyone specific?” you looked down sheepishly, then back up. is this a trick question? i mean sometimes you did find stanley a little bit too attractive. “do you want it to be?” deciding to quip back with equal attitude, you asked.

the group looked between the two of you while waiting for a response from uris. the tension was so thick that it could be cut with a knife. letting out a scoff in return, he looked at you in the eyes and glared. speaking in a low tone, you almost didn’t hear him. "uh, i don’t know.”

"what do you mean? you don’t know?" richie snickered.

bill, beverly, ben, and mike started to get the picture together. eddie figured it out just a second before them, when you burst out giggling. before you could stop from helping yourself, you let out a harsh jab. “oh shit, that explains why you’re always so uptight! maybe you should unbutton some of that polo? might help so you aren’t choking on all that innocence."

that only made matters worse, the last pin in place to set him off. stanley angrily spewed some words under his breath. only catching your name, you figured it was most likely something badly about you. quickly getting up from his spot, his curls bounced up and down when he rushed upstairs to one of the bedrooms.

the others watched him disappear from the top step sadly and looked back at you with the look. you had the decency to look a bit guilty, an awkward grimace on your face. "uh, why are you all looking at me like that?"

eddie leaned over to elbow you and gave his puppy dog eyes in pleading. you sighed but started getting up anyway. you laced your hands together in front of your stomach, nerves a bit jittery at being in a room alone with him. "well, to state my case we were all having that kind of discussion! if he wasn't such a prude..." you trailed off.

ben got up, patting your shoulder. "we all know this but stanley is sensitive about these kinds of things. go apologize while we're on break now and we’ll get some drinks going."

you nodded and turned back around, starting towards the stairs and walked up slowly. richie decided this was a good time to be the loud trashmouth that he is and shouted. "it was nice knowing you, y/n!"

shaking your head, you reached the last step and rounded the corner. hearing a slap noise, you assumed tozier was probably getting hit on the back of his head. a moment later a "beep beep" came from mike and you let out a small laugh in relief that they had your back against the loud mouth.

strolling down the hallway, you spotted the second guest bedroom door closed and decided to knock on it. stan heard a faint knock and got up from the bed to open it, seeing y/n he groaned. "oh, it's just you."

you ignored his disappointed comment and bit your lip. looking up and down to observe his new look. he must have just changed. wearing a regular light blue t-shirt and grey sweats. you shook your head and looked up to see his grin, catching you in the act of checking him out.

rolling your eyes in response, like he usually did and walking around him, you closed the bedroom door shut after stepping inside. you grabbed a handful of stanley’s shirt and pushed him against the back of the door. more like he allowed you to do this but you were definitely in control of the situation.

you leaned in towards him and swiped the back of your thumb over his bottom lip to test his reaction. when he didn’t swat your hand away, you went on the tip of your toes and brushed his lips against yours.

stanley gasped into your mouth and deciding to use this as an opportunity, you placed the tip of your tongue on the bottom of his lip. right before you could actually do this, he apparently read your mind and left his mouth open purposely. you wanted to slap him.

nonetheless, he allowed you total access. surprising him on purpose, you shoved your tongue in his mouth. wishfully thinking about how you wanted to somehow choke him with it. he grabbed both sides of your shoulders and scooted you closer, clashing his teeth with yours. not wanting to let up the control he tried to grab, you grasped the back of his neck tightly and felt light-headed. sensing wetness pooling between your thighs from enjoying this too much, you cursed to yourself.

a small moan escaped out from your lips and as if it was his fault, you nipped his bottom lip. you tried to quickly get rid the thought of ever giving into stanley uris. he hissed sharply, tasting slight blood from the nick. uris mumbled. "bitch."

this angered you more. pulling away from his lips, you put on a fake smile. moving in a bit closer to mess with the collar of his shirt, you tugged on it roughly, your face still close with his. "ready to not be a virgin anymore, virgin?" you retorted.

he smirked, "as long as i'm not one anymore, i don't care who it's with. even someone like you." he emphasized in a nasty tone. you pulled the shirt up over his head and uttered out. "shut the hell up." stan hummed happily after his shirt was pulled up to see that you were glaring from his reply. the two of you heard loud steps down the hall by the stairs, so you placed a finger over his mouth.

after a moment later, you heard what you assumed was someone in the bathroom, closing door the shut. letting out a breath not realizing you were holding it, stanley took this as a distraction to slip your finger into his mouth. you gasped, eyes widening, "what the hell!"

pulling your hand back, you spoke and stared in his eyes to let him know just how serious you were. "here's how it's going to go if you want to get laid, uris. we're doing this my way. don't play around anymore and definitely don’t talk too much so i can picture literally anyone other than you."

stanley looked into your eyes, searching for any hints of a lie from your remark. when he saw your eyes looking clearly back into his, he sighed in defeat. not letting it show, he grinned nastily. ”fine by me, y/l/n.”

"now, bird-boy are you sure you can handle this?" you stated more than questioned, an eyebrow quirked up. you held onto the top of his sweats with an eyebrow quirked up. he clenched his jaw, gritting his teeth together so hard he hoped they wouldn't crack. "fuck you y/n."

“no, that’s what i’ll be doing to you.” disagreeing and putting your palm over him. “what do we have here?” you asked out loud, in general all snarky. he let out an annoyed noise when he felt you tease fingertips across his hard length. so, in retaliation, he grabbed your wrist and pushed the palm of your hand harder onto him.

you gasped at how big he was. you tried to cover the surprise, a ‘tsk, tsk’ falling from your lips. not letting go quickly enough stanley noticed this and smirked at you. frowning, you murmured. "ever heard of patience? such a bad boy."

uris let out a small, quiet groan from feeling your hands come off of him. which was something you caught and figured having teased him enough, you put your hands around the waistband of his pants. tugging them off along with his boxers. afterwards you pushed him down onto the bed and before he could do anything, you quickly made work of your shirt. pulling it over your head and unclipping your bra as well.

he put a hand through his curls, smoothing them out from the fall when he fell into the comforter. watching you, he could feel himself hardening painfully. he felt needy and done with the wait. pulling your wrist closer he pleaded. “come on, hurry. please y/n.”

”fine, you’ve waited long enough like a good little boy.” stanley flushed at your approving compliment and tried to hide it, looking down. you saw this when you moved to sit on top of him and smiled. grabbing his chin lightly, you tilted his head back up. while looking into his light brown eyes, you held his wrist and tugged his hand so it laid over on top your breast.

stanley’s breath hitched and you moved inwards toward his neck. your warm breath was touching his skin, feeling cheeks reddening more. uris felt, palmed, and squeezed a little as you sucked small hickeys on his neck. not to dark but enough to be just visible if one were close up.

kissing his cheek and tilting back up, he dropped his hand and you happened to see his cheeks and neck all red. the quick switch of his attitude still shocked you to the core. ”are you sorry for calling me a bad name, baby?” he ignored your comment like a brat and kissed the inside of your wrist. you melted a little in his touch before going back to the task at hand.

you slowly let out of his grasp to unbuckle the belt and unbutton your shorts. you shimmied out of them and wanting to hurry up, you just moved your panties to the side and out of the way. pumping him a few times, you started to align him to your center. before you moved down onto him, you placed your hand on his cheeks in a sweet gesture and silently asked for reassurance. he nodded and you slowly slid down into him, both of you letting out small moans. “feel so good.” you muttered.

stilled for a moment, you let yourself adjust to his length and him to the feel. your hips went back up and you moved in forward, kissing him again. it slowly turned into a sloppy make out when you slammed your hips back down again. his tongue shoved in your mouth when you gasped in pleasure. after you found a rhythm you babbled on and on about how stanley was doing so good for you.

"i need you to put your fingers on my clit and rub." you said softly but still in a demanding tone. directing his hand exactly where you wanted it, you nodded when he looked at you again. his fingers moved quickly, drawing out an orgasm that you felt nearing.

lacing your fingers through his curly hair. stanley let out a loud moan as you tugged the locks. "now for the sake of you being able to cum, i'm going to ask again. are you sorry my baby boy?" he really didn't want to have to see the satisfactory in your face if he apologized. though, after a small moment went by, he realized that you weren't joking.

he let out a small, almost incoherent whine. pleading you with his big hazel eyes, "i-i'm sorry y/n. so sorry, c-can i cum please?" stanley would have never thought he'd be the submissive type but he found himself melting at your praises, quite easily. he liked letting you have some control and for once being able to sit back.

you smirked at him and let go. patting his cheek in almost a mocking way. "awe such a good boy but i think you can wait another minute." his eyes widened and you placed your hands back up onto his chest, steadying your balance before moving your hips back up and down repeatedly and harshly against his. he moaned when you kept going back down on his cock. feeling his pelvis right up against your very sensitive bundle of nerves, you squirmed.

stanley smirked, feeling you tighten around him. knowing you were close was a relief. constantly feeling so good on him made him hard and straining inside of you. tears prickling in the back of his eyes and wanting to cum so badly was difficult. uris felt not wanting to disobey you was more important as he patiently waited. pushing harder on your clit is what caused you to unravel, tightening completely around him. "oh fuck! s-such a good boy. cum with me now."

he came so hard, the hardest ever. which wasn't much to go off on, from the obvious conversation before. feeling euphoria, you rode through your high and his, milking every last drop of cum. you started to feel shaky. before your hips gave out, you placed one last kiss on his slightly darkening hickey.

after you fell on the bed next to him, he pulled you close. you turned your head in his embrace, eyes widening. you knew without a doubt they looked like they were probably about to fall out of the sockets. assuming even bigger eyes then richie's usual ones due to his glasses.

uris pursed his lips, kissing the top of your forehead before he could overthink it. “we need to talk. y/n/n." you tried to open your mouth, but closed it again. stanley used your nickname, he has never used it before. you were in disbelief, frozen, and unable to say a word. he rescued you and spoke up again. "you know i don't hate you, right?"

you swallowed feeling like a brick was falling from your shoulders and nodded. "i don't hate you either stan. this is not what i was expecting though to make up." you giggled causing him to chime in. the awkwardness was finally settled but you paused and asked nervously. "do you think we're worse than eddie and richie?"

he shook his head, not even needing to think on it and responded sweetly. "no, we're okay now and i have a feeling that richie will tease eddie even after we're all dead."

you laughed together once more, agreeing with stan’s opinion which would probably be a proven fact one day. "that's true. poor eddie!" snuggling closer into his back and finally, truly feeling at peace.

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dragynkeep · 3 years

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I view miles writing racism arc as good fact is even someone who was oppressed past can become an oppressor /racist. Look at megatron They portrayed the violent white fang how they ought to be portrayed Adam and sienna were both short sighted compared to ghira siennas rhetoric led to white fang becoming what it was its deterioration going well Adam was a child slave that is an explanation not an excuse or justification for his actions the notion he can’t become an oppressor is bs

What is it with people running into my inbox to tell me that the storyline that most of the FNDM now agrees was trash is actually good? You’re not convincing me, fam, especially when these plot points are just wrong.

Here’s a link from someone I follow who also puts this into good words, and I’m adding more from the viewpoint as both a POC and someone who’s people are still facing extreme oppression from the government and the citizens.

No, the racism arc was not good for a lot of reasons, and it wasn’t just on Miles’ head that it was so bad. That goes to all the writers of the show, with Kiersi and Eddy at least coming after the bulk of it and so not having anything to do with how the racism was handled from V1 - V6.

The White Fang being a civil rights organisation that was pushed to terrorism isn’t a bad idea in and of itself. There have been many organisations that have gone down that path for equality, and it’s not just because of racism. But the problem is that the White Fang is the only civil rights group in RWBY. Not just for pro-Faunus, but for all of that topic.

No other Faunus rights groups, no anti Faunus hate groups, nothing. The only thing that is against the Faunus for being Faunus is the SDC, and in the end it was Jacques’ abuse of Weiss and her family that was given more than the fact that his company enslaved and branded an oppressed minority while the kingdom did nothing to stop it. No mention went to how, because the SDC made such a monopoly on Dust, the thing that the kingdoms and humanity need to protect itself from the Grimm, they had the wealth and power to put themselves about the law until Weiss brought it down.

Adam being branded and enslaved as a child is the reason he became a violent, racist terrorist to begin with. The SDC and the lack of action from all the kingdoms were why the White Fang became a thing in the first place, and they’re inability to stop oppressing the Faunus even when they peacefully asked for their rights pushed Sienna to go more aggressive routes. If they don’t listen to us when we ask, we’ll demand it.

All their methods were deeply flawed, but only Ghira was shown in the right. The same leader who was such a pushover that he got himself shot because, rather than fight back to defend himself and the people following his lead, including teenagers since Ilia was there, stood up from cover and just begged the racist humans to stop shooting them. The same leader who scolded the soldier who saved his life because Adam killed the human to do so, the same human who had no reservations about killing them first.

Attacking first is not the way, but lying down and meekly asking for rights is just as bad. Minorities are allowed to defend themselves, they’re allowed to be ANGRY because they’re being hated for who they are. If the humans attack first, the Faunus are justified to hitting back, but Ghira didn’t think so. That mentality isn’t just stupid, it’s dangerous.

Adding onto the fact that Ghira lives in a mansion, protected by private guard, and in an ethnostate with no humans to hurt him, it makes his demands that people just sit there and politely ask the humans even worse. It’s easy to preach peace and love when you’re not in direct firing line, and Ghira can easily take himself out of it.

Ilia can’t, Sienna can’t, Adam can’t. These Faunus are demonised because they chose violence after being pushed and told by the man who was supposed to fight for them that they were wrong for lashing back. Sienna is the worst because she was actually able to think in a more grey area, compared to Adam’s black and Ghira’s white. She could compromise and didn’t believe in needless violence, like the Fall of Beacon.

It’s not fear that was earning their rights, it was the show of force, that the Faunus won’t be pushed around and can fight back. Blind pacifism is just as damaging as blind fanaticism.

#rwby #rwde #adam taurus #sienna khan #ghira belladonna #answered #luke.txt #Anonymous

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luxshine · 3 years

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Supernatural and the Dark Tower... Or how some writers are better gods than others.

The Dark Tower, by Stephen King, has a very interesting take on endings at the end of the seven book long journey Roland the Gunslinger took to reach the title Dark Tower. I was going to write it all but it’s about two pages long, and if you haven’t read the books it may not make much sense. However, the main take is that there is no such thing as happy endings, but there are endings that are happy enough. That the ending he gave us, with Roland reaching the tower, and Susannah meeting Eddie and Jake in Central Park is one of those, and that if we, his Constant Readers, go on reading the last pages of the Coda, we will be “disappointed, perhaps even heartbroken”. That “Endings are heartless. Ending is just another word for goodbye.”

I keep thinking about those lines when I think of Supernatural’s 15x19 and 15x20.

15x19 is not a perfect ending. I mean, we’re still missing people, Jack saying he’ll be hands off is not really nice, and Cas is still in the Empty. BUT we have hope. The Brothers are free. And just as we can imagine (And King tells us it might happen) how Susannah and Eddy and Jake may meet a dog version of Oy (If you’ve read the books, it makes sense. If not, well, just trust me that it is a happy situation), we can picture Dean hitting the books, and he and Sam finding a way to get Castiel back, human or angelic depending on your preferred tea, and Sam reuniting with Eileen. And afterwards? Well, you decide. Whatever happens, we still have hope.

It’s not Happily Ever After, but as King says, it’s good enough. We could’ve stopped there and pick our own ending. But of course, there’s still 15x20. And when we saw it, we were certainly disappointed, even if we weren’t heartbroken (I was, but I digress)

Just as King warned us not to keep going in the Dark Tower Coda, someone should’ve warned us not to keep going to the end of Supernatural. And here, doing a full circle on the meta, I warn you that if you keep reading, I will go on spoilers for The Dark Tower AND Supernatural (Of course, if you got to Supernatural 15x20 and are heartbroken over it… you probably remember what happened in seasons 4, 5 and 9 so … those wouldn’t be spoilers)

If you’re still with me, I am sorry, I am about to go on a long, long diatribe about how the Dark Tower is an amazing meta tale, even if the end made me cry in public for the first time in years while reading a book. And how Supernatural, by accident or by intent, tried to do the same and kind of went the wrong way in Albuquerque when it could’ve been a lot better.

Yes, Supernatural could’ve been better than a Stephen King book, and that coming from me is high, HIGH praise.

See, The Dark Tower is a tale about well, a lot of things, but in the axis, in the tower, so to speak, is a tale about tales. About stories and how we relate to fiction and about how we, the readers, relate to fiction. Of course, this is REALLY subtextual, since the actual story is about a sort of medieval cowboy traveling across dimensions to save the axis of existence.

It’s a complicated series of books.

In any case, around book 6, Roland, our cowboy, ends up in the real world. Our real world. And he meets Stephen King, OUR Stephen King (Well, a douchier version of King, to be fair), who upon being confronted by his own characters has a big ego boost and declares himself a god.

Pretty much like Chuck did back in the Monster at the End of the Book, except that there, he changed his mind pretty quickly and went back to his “meek prophet” disguise. King didn’t, by the way, and Roland left that world even LESS impressed than the Winchesters with their own author.

Now, we all know that at the End of season 5, it so happened that Chuck WAS God, and we got confirmation back in season 9 when he still liked fan fiction and his characters, apparently, until he went all megalomaniac “I am a God and I can destroy you if you don’t follow my plot”… thing is? King did the opposite.

See, The characters had to go back to the real world to save King from a drunk truck driver that ran over him in real life. In the book, one of the characters even sacrifices himself for it. But now, King is no longer so full of himself that he thinks he’s a god and he deserves said sacrifice. He admits he, as a writer, is only telling the story that the real god, in this case Gan, lets him see. He only has keys to peek through doors of reality, and what he writes, is what he sees. Not what he wants, not what he thinks is better, but what the CHARACTERS want.

So yeah, the opposite of Chuck.

But then, The Dark Tower goes a bit further. Once again, comparing ends, the End of Supernatural left us empty because it WAS a Goodbye. A bad one too as it left us with absolute no hope (except for those fix it fics where Dean goes and finds out why his angel is ghosting him in Heaven, for fucks sake, and Sam’s blurry face wife is Eileen, but those are FICS. Not the story). The story ends with Sam and Dean dead, in a Heaven that may be as well Earth-lite as far as we know, but we have no real way of knowing if it’s not just a bigger version of the original “repeat your happy memories ad nauseaum”

No change, no free will. No to be Continued, no hope of a better life. Just… End. Bye. Nothing more to see.

The end to the Dark Tower is equally heartbreaking ,but at the same time, a bit more hopeful.

Because in that universe, characters whose stories end? If they keep going, they go back to the beginning. Not to the beginning of time, or of their lives but to the Beginning of THEIR Story. For one brief moment they know this is happening, that they’re back in that first opening sentence, that they will have to suffer through all of it again UNCHANGING and all the joy will happen, but also all the sadness. All the tragedy. And then they forget. And the story starts again, because the story is a book, and a book can only have one plot, one ending, and re-reading it won’t change what happened.

Roland cries and begs for mercy, but the Tower is unmoving and he goes back. We, the Readers, go Back.

EXCEPT

There’s a tiny, small change from the “beginning” we read now, to the beginning we read in the first book. We’re told that the time we read was not the first time, that Roland has done this a thousand times before. But this time, we went with him, so he gets a small change, a tiny thing, but big because, in Roland subconscious, may mean that this time, the story will be different. So we’re left with a tiny bit of hope, despite how badly we were crushed seconds before.

And Supernatural could’ve given us that. Not the same of course, not with Dean or Sam (Let’s be honest, it would’ve been probably Sam, given how much the writer’s room loved him) waking up in the pilot, Remembering all that happened, and knowing that they can’t really change it because it was already written, but then noticing they already have the Colt, or Ruby’s knife. Or perhaps they have the key to the bunker and a map already. That would’ve been too close to comfort for plagiarism so nope.

BUT

We could’ve ended with Billie closing one of her books and telling Dean, the Dean from season 12, that that COULD be how his story ends, and that he now has the choice to make his own ending, that he can either go against Chuck or convince Chuck his ending was crap.

We could’ve ended with Sam convincing Chuck that there’s another road to the ending he wants, as long as he lets them go on. He may be bored of the characters now, but he can always wait for a bit.

With Chuck giving the reins of his world to Becky and the fangirls, really closing on the whole “death of the author” and not ruining a character that, prior to season 15, the fandom loved.

With a thousand of ways that left both the meta world intact, and our hearts hurt, but not broken. Not angry.

(And that is not touching on the usual misogyny, racism, and heteronormative that the ending insisted on reinforcing)

Supernatural could’ve ended with a bang, and become an absolute legend. Instead, it ended with a whimper, and as a cautionary tale.

There’s no such thing as a happy ending, said King. But we could have had a Hopeful one.

#anti supernatural finale #dean deserved better #sam deserved better #castiel deserved better #eileen deserved better #they all deserved better #stephen king #meta #what could've been #what should have been #and no #it has nothing to do with shipping

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rallamajoop · 3 years

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...and the unironic joys of better living through chemistry

How do I love Venom: The Hunger, let me count the ways…

It’s by far the shippiest Venom/Eddie story to come out of the character’s heyday. It’s the only story of the era to treat Venom’s violent wild-animal instincts not as an immutable fact, but as something that can be managed. It pulls off an aesthetic like nothing else that was being done at the time.

And then there’s the way it says, Does the world around you seem sinister and foreboding? Do you lie awake at night contemplating metaphorical oceans of despair? Well shit, son – have you considered you may be suffering from a mundane neurochemical imbalance, and a round of the right meds could clear that right up for you?

It does all this without breaking the atmosphere, without a whiff that our story has been interrupted for a Very Special Message about mental health.

In the near-decade since I was first prescribed anti-depressants, I don’t think I’ve read another story that lands the message “Sometimes, it’s not you, it’s just your brain chemistry,” so well.

Fair warning: if you have not read The Hunger, I am about to spoil every major plot point. If you have, well, maybe I can still give you a new appreciation for a few details you might have missed.

It’s a strange book, whatever else you take from it. It’s almost the only thing either author or artist contributed to the Venom canon, and it’s so different stylistically and tonally from the 90′s Venom norm that it feels like a tale from some noir-elseworlds setting instead of 616 canon. When you take risks that big with a property, you leave yourself precious little landing space between 'unmitigated triumph’ and ‘abject failure’: if this book hadn’t absolutely nailed it, I’d be dismissing it as edgy, OOC dreck. Fortunately, if The Hunger is nothing else, it is a story that $&#@ing commits – to basically everything it does.

Now, I'm not going to tell you Venom: The Hunger is a story about overcoming depression, because I don't know whether author Len Kaminski even thought about it that way while working on it. There's always space for other readings, and this one take is not gospel. That said: holy shit is this thing unsubtle with its metaphors. And with that in mind, let’s start by talking a little about Kaminski’s take on Eddie himself.

As I may have mentioned before, I like to divide 90′s Eddie into two broad personas: the Meathead, and the Hobo.

Kaminski’s Eddie nominally belongs in the angsty, long-haired Hobo incarnation, but that’s a bit of a simplification: this version certainly has plenty of angst and plenty of hair to his name – but nowhere, not even at his lowest ebb, does he doubt that he and his Other are meant for each other, which is usually Hobo!Eddie’s primary existential quandary.

He’s also taken up narrating his own life like a hardboiled PI.

So that’s... novel.

The only other time Eddie’s sounded like this is, er, in that one other Venom one-shot Kaminski penned (Seed of Darkness, a prequel that sadly isn’t in The Hunger’s league), so I think we can safely file it under authorial ticks.

Then again, Hobo!Eddie’s always been one melodramatic SOB, so maybe this is just how he’d sound after learning to channel his angst into his poetry. You can’t argue it fits the aesthetic, anyway.

We’d also be remiss not to mention Ed Halsted’s art, which I can only describe as gothic-meets-noir-meets-H.R.-Giger. Never before or since has the alien symbiote looked this alien: twisted with Xenompoph-like ridges and veins.

But Halsted doesn’t treat Venom to all that extra detail in every panel. Instead, the distortion tends to appear when the symbiote is separated from Eddie or out of control – and I doubt you need me to walk you through the symbolic importance of that creative decision. More importantly, Halsted’s art provides exactly the class of visuals that Kaminski’s story needs.

Did I mention this is a horror story? You might be surprised how few Venom stories really fit that genre, but if all those adjectives about Halsted’s style above didn’t clue you in, this is one of them.

Anyway, with that much context covered, let’s get into the main narrative of this thing.

As our first issue opens, Eddie’s world has become a dark and foreboding place. He’s not sleeping, though he mostly brushes this off. (Fun fact: trouble sleeping is one of those under-appreciated symptoms of depression. Additional fun fact: the first doctor ever to suggest I might be suffering from depression was actually a sleep specialist. You can guess how that appointment was going.)

Just to set our scene, here’s all of page 1.

Eddie’s narration has plenty of (ha) venom for his surroundings, but the visuals are here to back him up: panels from Eddie’s POV are edged in twisted, fleshy borders and drained of colour, the people rendered as creepy, goblin-like creatures. A couple of later scenes go even further to contrast Eddie-vision with what everyone else is seeing:

As depictions of depression go this is a little on the nose, but then, you don’t read a comic about a brain-eating alien parasite looking for subtlety, do you?

Eddie doesn’t see himself as depressed, of course. As far as he’s concerned, he’s seeing the world’s true face: it’s everyone else who’s deluding themselves. He’s still got his symbiote, so he’s happy. He’s yet to hit that all-important breaking point where something he can’t brush off goes irrevocably wrong.

But he’s also starting to experience these weird... cravings.

He just can’t put a name to exactly what he’s craving until a routine bar fight with a couple of thugs takes a turn for the horrific.

(I include this panel partly to point out even in The Hunger, the goriest of all 90′s Venom titles, you’re still not going to see brains getting eaten in any graphic detail. We don’t need to to get the horror of the moment across. The 90′s were a more innocent time.)

Eddie himself is horrified when he comes back to himself and realises what he’s done.

Or rather, what his symbiote’s just made him do.

Kaminski doesn’t keep us in suspense about why, though. Eddie may have just done something horrific, but there’s a reason, and it’s as mundane as a vitamin deficiency. He’s bonded to an alien creature, after all, and his symbiote is craving a nutrient which just happens to be found in human brains. And if Eddie can’t or won’t help it meet that need, it’ll do so alone.

Now, giving us that explanation so quickly is an interesting creative decision: this is a horror story, and horror lives in what we don’t know. Wouldn’t it be all the more horrifying had the symbiote been unable to explain what’s going on, leaving Eddie without the first real clue as to where this monstrous new hunger had come from?

The Hunger doesn’t take that route though, and I love it. Eddie isn’t a monster, this isn’t his fault: he has a fucking condition, and wallowing in his own moral failings is going to get him nowhere. You might as well try to cure scurvy or rickets with positive thinking. Just like depression can make you feel like an utter failure at the most basic parts of being human, and all the affirmations in the world won’t fix it when it’s fundamentally your brain chemistry that’s the problem. Or like addicts aren’t weak-willed for struggling not to relapse, they’re dealing with genuine chemical dependency – or even like how someone who’s trans isn’t at fault for being unable to reconcile themselves to the bodies and the hormones they were born with by pure force of trying. Free will is more than an illusion, but we’re all messy, biological organisms underneath, and your own brain and biochemistry can and will fuck you over in a hundred wildly different ways for as many wildly different reasons and it’s not your fault.

We aren’t monsters. But if we do, sometimes, find ourselves identifying with the monster, there might be a reason for that.

(Ahem)

I’m just saying, that’s fucking powerful, and we need more stories that say it.

Anyway, in case you missed it during that tangent, issue #1 closes with the symbiote having torn Eddie’s heart in two itself free to go hunting brains without him.

I’m trying not to get too sidetracked at this point talking about Kaminski’s take on the symbiote itself. Suffice to say there are broadly two schools of thought on how it ought to function while separated from its host: the traditional ambulatory-slime-puddle version, and the more recently popular alternative where anything-you-can-do-with-a-host-you-can-also-do-without-one. I’m not much of a fan of the latter, personally: if your symbiote doesn’t actually need a host, I feel you’ve sort of missed the point. (The movie takes the route of saying symbiotes can’t even process Earth’s atmosphere without a host, which is a great new idea that appears nowhere in the comics, and I love it. Hosts or GTFO, baby!)

Kaminski has his own take, and I can only wish it had caught on. Without Eddie, the symbiote becomes an ever-shifting insectoid-tentacle-snake-monstrosity, driven by an animalistic hunger. It’s many things, but it’s never humanoid.

If you absolutely must have your symbiote operating minus a host, I feel this is the way to do it: semi-feral, shapeless and completely alien (uncontrollable violence and cravings for brains to be added to taste).

Issue #2 comes to us primarily through the perspective of the mild-mannered Dr. Thaddeus Paine of the Innsmouth Hills Sanitarium (yes, really).

Yeah, he’s not fooling anyone. Meet our official villain! He joins our story after Eddie is picked up by the police and handed off to the nearest available institution, on account of how completely sane and rational he’s been acting.

Naturally, Dr. Paine soon has copious notes on Eddie’s ‘crazy’ story about his psychic link to a brain-eating alien monster. Fortunately for Eddie, Paine also runs some tests and makes an interesting discovery.

Congratulations, Venom: the ‘vitamin’ you were missing officially has a name!

Finding the right meds isn’t always this easy. I got lucky – the first ones my psych put me on worked pretty well – but I have plenty of friends who weren't so lucky. In fact, the treatment for Eddie's problems is so straightforward it arguably has more in common with, say, endocrine disorders like thyroid conditions or Addison’s disease, which differ from clinical depression but present many similar symptoms (but can sadly be just as much of a bitch to get correctly diagnosed – please do read author Maggie Stiefvater’s account of the latter when you get the chance, because forget Venom, that is a horror story).

‘True’ depression remains much less well understood by medicine, either in its causes or how to effectively treat it. But simply having a name for what was wrong with me made so much difference, and that’s an experience I imagine anyone who’s dealt with any long undiagnosed medical condition could relate to. It put my life in context in a way nothing else had in years.

(I can’t speak to the accuracy of the way phenethylamine is portrayed in this comic – a quick google suggests there may be some real debate that phenethylamine deficiencies have been overlooked as a contributor to clinical depression, but having no medical background, that one’s well beyond me. Either way, scientific accuracy really doesn’t matter in this context – it’s how it works in-universe for story purposes that we should pay attention to.)

Since this issue is mostly from Paine’s POV, we don’t get Eddie’s reaction to having a healthy amount of phenethylamine sloshing around in his brain again, just the assurance that treatment appears to be ‘completely successful’.

He’s still a paranoid, hostile bastard though. Meds can turn your life around, but they won’t make you not you.

But even if Eddie’s feeling better, he’s still psychically linked to someone who isn’t. Symbiote-vision still comes through drained of colour and edged in viscera.

That’s the thing about meds: they won’t solve all your problems overnight. If you’ve been depressed for a while, there are good odds you have problems stacking up. But working meds can be a godsend when it comes to getting you into a space where you can deal with your problems again, whether said problems are doing-your-laundry or all the way into not-giving-up-completely-and-just-accepting-you’ll-die-alone-on-the-street.

For Eddie, ‘dealing with his problems’ begins with stealing a keycard and busting out of the asylum.

Of course, that’s the easy part. How do you solve a problem like a feral symbiote? Like any good 90′s comic book protagonist, Eddie tackles it by putting on his big-boy camouflage pants and kitting himself out with weapons and pouches while quoting “If you live something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down.”

We can add this to the list of things I love about this comic. Even if The Hunger is a weirdly-stylistic tract about depression at heart, it’s also still a goddamn 90′s Venom comic, and not ashamed to be.

We’re into issue #3 now, and back to hearing the story from Eddie’s POV.

Eddie is very much aware that his symbiote has murdered innocent people while they’ve been separated. Even if this is the result of extreme circumstances, there’s a good case to be made that the symbiote is too dangerous to be allowed to live. Plenty of heroes would treat it like a rabid dog at this point.

But Eddie isn’t a hero, he’s a mess of a character and an anti-hero at best, so we don’t have to hold him to the same standard. He’s well aware his symbiote may be too far gone to save, that he may have to put it down – but that’s only his backup plan. He wants to help it. He wants it back. He’s down in that sewer with screamers and a flamethrower because he knows all his symbiote’s weaknesses, but he’s also carrying a large jar of black-market synthesised phenethylamine, because if he can just get close enough...

Depression can’t make you a literal monster, but it can make you an asshole. Miserable to be around, lacking even the energy to care who else you’re hurting. The depression doesn’t excuse that, but it makes everything harder, and it’s that much easier to sink back into your spiral when everyone around you has given up. It can make you think everyone around has given up even if that isn’t true.

So to have Eddie here say, in effect, I don’t care how many people you’ve eaten, I know it wasn’t your fault. I still love you. You’re still worth fighting for – god, does that get me right in the id.

There’s still a whole issue left at this point – we’ve still got to deal with our real villain, Dr. Paine, who we’ve just learned is into eating brains himself and torturing his patients recreationally, and who wants to capture the symbiote for his own purposes. There’s the scene where Eddie and his symbiote finally bond again, and Venom beats up all Paine’s goons while singing David Bowie because like I said, this is still a 90′s superhero comic and this is what Venom does.

But for our purposes, I'm going to skip to the penultimate page of the story, because the way it mirrors our opening page is really lovely.

Remember that shot of Eddie dealing with a beggar back at the beginning of the story, thinking about how these people would 'get their despair all over you'? Here he is again, cheerfully forking over the last dollar in his pocket to the next man to ask him for change. For all the gothic atmosphere and gore, it’s moments like this that make The Hunger easily one of the most positive, uplifting Venom stories ever written. Funny, that. (I could probably write a whole other essay on sympathy for the homeless as a recurring motif in Venom stories, but that... well, whole other essay and all that.)

What’s Eddie learned from this experience? Don’t take your symbiote for granted. Is ‘symbiote’ a metaphor for mental health here, is paying attention to its needs an allegory for paying attention to your own? I still don’t know how literally Kaminski meant us to take this, but it’s a lovely note to end on no matter how you parse it.

At the end of the day, The Hunger isn’t flawless. The conflict with Paine ends on a thematic but slightly unsatisfying note. Eddie makes much of his symbiote's loneliness and desire for union, but when the two of them are finally reunited, the only reaction comes from Eddie's side. In fact, the symbiote seems to have no response to being able to return to Eddie at all, and that’s an omission that bugs me.

But Kaminski is more interested than any other writer of the era in the truly alien nature of the symbiote, in its relationship with Eddie from Eddie’s side, and though plenty of others talk about the symbiote's love/hate relationship with Spider-man, no-one else had the guts to portray their relationship this much like a romance.

And Venom: The Hunger is no less interesting in the context of Len Kaminski’s other work. You don't have to look far into his Marvel and DC credits to pick up that the guy has a real thing for monsters. (“All of my favourite characters are outlaws, misfits, anti-heroes,” he says, in one of the very few interviews I could find with him, “I wouldn't know what to do with Superman.”) He's written for vampires, werewolves, victims of mad science, and all of three at once, littering his work with biochemistry-themed technobabble, melodramatic monologues, gratuitous pop-culture references, and protagonists who must learn to embrace their inner demons. So The Hunger represents more than a few of his favourite running themes.

For our context, his more notable other work includes Children of the Beast, in which a werewolf must make peace between his human and animalistic sides, and The Creeper, in which a journalist must make peace with the crazy super-powered alter-ego sharing his body. In fact, The Creeper and The Hunger share so much DNA (including an evil doctor posing as a respected psychiatrist who uses hypnosis on our hero while he's trapped in a mental institution) that it’s quite the achievement that they still feel like such very distinct entities beyond that point.

The human alter-egos of both werewolf and Creeper even use prescription meds while wrestling with their respective dark sides. The difference, in both cases, is that these are stories where meds play their traditional fictional role – and that's a role that could be as easily filled by illegal drugs or alcohol without making any substantive difference. You see, if a protagonist is using them, it's a sign of unwillingness to tackle their 'real' problems. Even among work by the same author in the same genre, The Hunger represents an outlier. And that's just a little disappointing – at least to me.

In real life, of course, prescription meds are no magical cure-all elixir. Depression meds that work for one person may not work for another, or may not keep working in the longer term. Everyone has heard stories about quack doctors who prescribe them to the wrong patients for the wrong reasons, about lives ruined by addictions to prescription painkillers, or the supposedly-damning statistics about how poorly SSRI's perform in rigorous clinical trials. The proper way to treat depression is obviously with lifestyle and therapy. People will still airily dismiss medications that we all know previous generations got along just fine without, or suggest that figures like Van Gogh would never have created great art if they hadn't been mad enough to slice off an ear. I mean, the fact you think you need those bogus mediations is probably the best possible sign of just how broken you are, right? Who do you think you’re kidding?

Our popular fiction loves stories about manly men who bury their trauma under a gruff, anti-social exterior and come back swinging at the world that broke them, bravely refusing even painkillers that might dull their manly reflexes. Other genres make space for broken people confronting their demons in grand moments of catharsis, finally breaking down into tears when someone gets through to make them face their problems. "I could barely make it out of bed in the mornings until I found a doctor who started me on this new prescription" is not only wildly counter to the accepted social narrative, it's a hard thing to know how to dramatise.

Even other Venom comics have been guilty of this.

Believe me, I recognise all of this, and just how much progress we've made in the last few decades. But I haven't the slightest doubt that for so many vulnerable people, the stigma against prescription medications does infinitely more harm than those same meds could ever do. And just having the right to externalise my problems into it's not you, it's your brain chemistry, may have helped me more than the meds themselves.

(And again, no, being prescribed SSRI's didn't fix me overnight, but I honestly don't know if all the talk therapy and tearful conversations with family members in the world could've got me as far as I've come without them.)

I love Venom: The Hunger. It's no-one's idea of high art, but it doesn’t need to be. There is a whole other post’s worth of things I love about it that I’ve already cut out this one as pointless tangents, and that may actually be it’s biggest drawback as a go-to example: I fully recognise that I would not be making this post if The Hunger hadn't also also grabbed me as a great bit of Venom canon, being the massive fan and shipper that I am. Other people who are just as desperate as me for more stories with the same core theme, but not into weird 90's comics about needy goo aliens, probably won't get nearly as much out of it as I have.

But if it sounds anything like your jam, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

If nothing else, it proves that you can make a viscerally satisfying story out of a message that shockingly unconventional. And you may even have people still discovering it and falling in love with it 25 years after the fact.

#Venom: The Hunger #Venom #depression #SSRIs #Symbrock #Venom meta #meta #Venom comics #Len Kaminski

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warriordreamer95 · 4 years

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RWBY Volume 7 Crew Commentary Notes!

All credit goes to Sweetfable over on Reddit! Sweet, if you’re on Tumblr and have already posted this or want to, let me know and I’ll take this down!

Chapter 1

Featuring Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna.

Miles says he was hoping people didn’t figure out Atlas was a floating city in the sky before they got there. Even in World of Remnant, they were very careful with how they worded things to avoid spoiling this fact.

A large portion of ep 1 was intended to be in V6

Originally it was going to end with Penny being revealed, dealing with the Grimm, and ending on “Salutations”

Almost everything up until the Penny moment was how it was going to be in V6. For production and story reasons they decided to end V6 with just seeing Atlas.

Mantle is a little more Blade Runner and utilitarian looking, while Atlas was made to look like it was created by Apple. Two different futuristic looks.

When making the four kingdoms, they compared it to parts of the real world. Atlas and Mantle were two different versions of America

The drunk guy (Drunk Mann) we see insulting Blake is based off of Joel Mann and the other is Dustin Matthew (Grape-kun).

We saw Pietro (his hand) for the first time in Volume 3. They didn’t want to make him too similar to Dr. Weller from gen:LOCK, and so they made him to be like a ‘big’ kid. It’s where Penny gets a lot of her attitude from.

Kerry wants to do a show with all the old RWBY characters

V8 was harder to write than V7

It was a challenge in this episode to make it clear that Atlas is a new place for some characters, but a familiar one for several others, but that the Atlas in V7 is a different one than what they remember.

They try to theme the grimm to the location. So Grimm from Atlas are those that are from the Ice Age.

Miles compare Grimm to Pokemon. Some will pop up in every region, while others are region specific.

They had a lot of discussion surrounding what they wanted Penny 2.0 to look like. They considered giving her a conflict of her being a clone or not having her memories, but ultimately with the amount of stuff that needed to happen this volume they felt that it wouldn’t have been able to be done well.

Chapter 2

Featuring Kerry, Conner (director), and Kiersi

Forest became a fan-favorite

This episode was tricky to write because it was getting close to being an exposition dump

They had to balance movement and how much the characters can emote (especially when characters lie this episode)

Ironwood’s office shifting to present his plan was a cool idea + it was another way to stay in the room without having things get boring

Really wanted team RWBY to feel like they were on the right path and had something to follow. Establishing the trust theme early on.

Qrow and Ironwood’s relationship is super interesting to Kerry, and he wishes they could have explored it more. Conner pushed for Qrow’s hand to be lower in the hug scene (lol)

Conner jokes that he also proposed Ironwood should propose to Oscar when kneeling

Ironwood giving the relic back was his biggest sign of trust

They comment about how positively Penny states ‘it’ll be just like Beacon again!’ when she got destroyed there in V3

Kerry calls Watts ‘Daddy Long Legs’

Chapter 3

Featuring Kerry and Miles

They were confused when they saw people on Reddit and Tumblr think that this volume would have a shopping montage

Team RWBY jumping out of a plane is a callback to landing strategies and to see how far they have come since V1

The crew thought everyone would love Jaune’s new haircut, and was shocked when everyone immediately hated it. Miles wanted to see Jaune grow up a bit, so he liked the change.

They wanted team RWBY to start acting like and learning from professional huntsman

Miles wanted Atlas to feel like the Beacon days at first, and first came up with the idea that some Atlas academy professors would teach them. But that evolved into mentors, which eventually became Atlas’s best of the best.

The Ace-Ops are not only fun characters, but also foils to some of our main characters to help move their stories along

The Ace-Ops having five members + a team name not based on a color was very intentional. It was to show that Ironwood doesn’t care about Oz’s rules and would rather have an efficient team.

Eddy came up with the name Ace-Ops. Each member is based off an Aesop fable.

The mine scene has us seeing the SDC logo everywhere. Adam, as a terrible of a person as he was, when he was younger, was arguing with someone at a SDC place and the other person grabbed a brand and gave him his scar. So seeing the logo all over the mine was very intentional to put that in the forefront of Blake’s mind, and Yang notices

The fight with the Centinel grimm was originally supposed to be a bit longer and there was going to be an alpha variant of the centinel (which they imply we will see in the future)

Some characters got more upgrades than others. Weiss is already perfect, so she didn’t need any changes. Miles was excited that they were able to give Ren heavy rounds to shoot with. Ren has his father’s dagger on his arm

Many things that seem like retcons are actually not, and instead is just Kerry and Miles learning how to tell a story while simultaneously telling a story. So things were not always explained well early on.

Qrow and Clover were an interesting couple of characters, Miles says. For a long time Qrow was the guy that worked best alone (compared to Shadow the Hedgehog) and wanted him to interact with people that aren't his nieces and their friends. Clover was made to be a total bro and like Captain America- who always makes luck puns. He constantly feels like he is in an action movie because things always go right for him, so he doesn’t need to look where he’s about the jump. Which ultimately leads to someone who relies too much on their semblance. He rides the line of confidence vs arrogance. Clover is kind of person that Qrow always wanted to be. At the beginning of their friendship, Qrow doesn’t really like Clover and finds him irritating. But eventually it evolved into friendship, and later tragedy.

They left RWBY out of the battle of the Ace Ops vs the Geist to showcase how they didn’t need RWBY to get things done. It was their moment to shine

Wanted to give a sense in these first few episodes that, maybe everything will work out okay

Spoiler alert: It won’t

Chapter 4

Featuring Paula (co-director), Dustin (co-director), Eddy Rivas, Kerry Shawcross

Wanted a chance for the characters to breathe a bit before bigger things went down

Kerry loves the lighting in the first scene. They referenced how lighting looks in the tundra

The first draft of the scene where Ironwood is giving orders originally happened in his office

From V5 they learned it’s great to be efficient with sets but they can fatigue the audience and the crew

Originally the celebration wasn’t going to be in Amity, and instead it was going to be in Atlas’s version of an auditorium.

The ship Jacques arrives in is the same one Winter arrives from in V3. It’s a Schnee company ship

Paula thought it was important that Blake hold Weiss’s hand and be the first to stand by her side when Jaques is yelling at Weiss since Blake knows what it is like to be in an abusive relationship. Ruby and Yang didn’t even really know a father would talk like that to his daughter.

They were excited to write Penny and Winter’s ‘mirror-destiny’, which they laid some of the foundation for this episode

Qrow talking to Ruby was barely on the outline for the episode, but it was on their wish list if they had time to get it in.

Dustin says ‘fatherly’ when describing the moment and Kerry is like, ‘you just opened up a whole can of worms’

Eddy loves the ‘Jim’ gag when referring to Jaune.

Watt’s entrance was a difficult shot to execute properly because of the door.

Chapter 5

Featuring Conner, Eddy, and Kerry

They originally weren’t sure about having a montage in this episode

The penguins we see for a moment were possibly going to be grimm penguins

Kerry wants RT to sell the cards Clover has, and Eddy thinks it’s funny he would have cards with him emblem on them.

They liked having the moment of Clover and Qrow in the middle of this episode to show that Qrow is now becoming a mentee of sorts.

Adding in the Robin encounter was a late addition to the outline. She wasn’t going to be introduced until Chapter 6 during her rally

But they wanted to put the two factions head to head earlier on.

It was also the first moment of Clover being a bit duplicitous.

The plot line of tying the supplies through Robin’s storyline was a late addition while writing

Weiss vs Winter with summoning is a callback to V3C4 with them training together

Weiss being able to sit on hard-light (a block) is something Kerry was unsure about at first

Originally Weiss and Winter going to see Fria was going to be Winter getting an alert from Ironwood and having to leave, and Weiss following her suspiciously. But it worked better as Winter revealing a secret while Weiss was still keeping one

Chapter 6

Featuring Paula, Kiersi, Miles, Eddy, and Kerry

Eddy is the one who came up with the idea for the middle part of the season while he had a really bad fever

Originally Tyrian was going to make it look like a bunch of Atlas soldiers fired on civilians in Mantle. Then Eddie thought it should frame RWBY, but ultimately they went with framing Penny.

Nobody has ever offered Penny a fist bump before, so she wanted to do it perfectly

An old draft had the team and Ironwood doing an investigation at this warehouse post-massacre

There was also no montage in C5, just them sitting around a table talking about what they did

Miles also mentions there was going to be a scene in C3 with Marrow trying to bond with Blake about being a Faunus, and also about him specifically being a Faunus in Atlas who is a part of Atlas’s military team. But that episode was so packed they wanted to move it to C6, but then that episode also became too packed. But they plan to get to it in future volumes

They wanted to show how much the Happy Huntresses care about each other and about Mantle

They also originally did not want to have anything political in this season. But the more iterations they did, they felt it was the best course of action to do that with the story.

They wanted to give the heroes a high personal moment with Renora kissing right before things went down

Penny was not used to fighting sneaky enemies, so that is how Tyrian got the upper hand

While they don’t usually check back up on extras, things turned out that we kept seeing Drunk Mann and Grape-kun throughout the season to represent the city of Mantle

Chapter 7

Featuring Conner, Kiersi, Miles, Eddy, and Kerry

Fiona’s semblance was originally going to be Torchwick’s semblance, and it was called Deep Pockets. But they never found a moment for him to use it. So they decided he could be a great example of how some people don’t unlock their semblances

Originally some of C7 was meant for C4 where they found out earlier that Tyrian was involved with things

Miles wrote the description we got of Tyrian’s past (Salem first contacting Tyrian), and it was one of his favorite things to write.

Qrow looking at Clover when he is willing to go with Ironwood’s plan was meant to show some distance growing between the two

We were going to get more of Ren explaining why he was feeling the way he was and agreeing with Ironwood, but ultimately they are pushing it to next volume

Originally Blake and Yang were going to directly reference Adam when they had their talk, but they later figured out how to reference him indirectly

The arm robot Pietro has in his office was originally going to have more of a character like the robotic arm Tony Stark has

They tried hard to get Maria more scenes, but there was often no room for it

Miles realizes he was dumb to suggest that Pietro cover Watt’s face with his thumb while looking at a picture since they already did that with Raven in V3

The lady in the photograph with black hair is not Cinder’s mom (which was apparently a fan theory)

Robin encountering the Bees was a late edition to the outline. But it gave every member of RWBY a moment

They wanted the vault in the Academy to feel similar to the one in Haven but not a direct copy

Miles believes that if Ironwood would allow himself to be more vulnerable more often things would’ve gone differently

The invitation to the Schnee manor was originally going to be to a news conference

Chapter 8

Featuring Dustin, Miles, and Kerry

They didn’t specify what the hood ornament on the car would be, so Dustin was happy when it came back as a velociraptor, which references a raptor Monty Oum would put in photos with RWBY characters

Fans have guessed what direction they are going with Whitley. He starts off as a jerk, but Miles implies that is going to change. It is also an easy way to remind the audience of how the elite act

At the table, Jacques’s chair is bigger than everyone else's

Miles wrote the gag of JNR sabotaging Whitley’s conversation with Weiss and expected it to take only a few seconds, but as more people worked on it the longer it got

The stack of food was taller than Dustin expected it to be, and they even had to scale it back because it was going to be even taller

Another power move of Jacques is to only give a few people wine, as well as not giving Penny any food

Willow was originally going to be in the intro

A joke was made about Salem being Jaune’s sister in the V6 intro before everyone knew who she was

None of the writers expected Penny and Winter to have such a bond this volume initially

Miles wanted to portray when Weiss is talking to Willow that she doesn’t really know how to act around an adult with such an adult issue. Since Weiss is quite young (Miles compared it to him having to help an adult with an adult issue when he was 13)

Chapter 9

Featuring Paula (director), Kiersi, Eddy, and Kerry

It was difficult to keep the shots interesting in the dining room

We see Grape-kun and Drunk Mann again this episode

In earlier chapters they made sure to have an orange glow to represent the heating in Mantle since they knew it would be turned off in chapter 8

They wanted to showcase that Ironwood was starting to have doubts, which would later be clearly seen in episode 11

The foot soldiers (AKs) that the Grimm are able to overwhelm in only a few seconds were meant to represent that Atlas wouldn’t provide them with much defense against Grimm because they don’t care enough

Every storyline was coming together in this episode, and it’s tricky to make a setup episode like this not seem like filler

Ruby and Oscar’s awkward interaction came from them both ‘riding the high’ of the moment where it seems like they each have great plans that will go well.

Oscar is starting to tap into some of Ozpin’s memories, as alluded to when he mentions how Atlas is held to a higher standard

Terry the grimm being hit by a fireball (part of a plane I believe) was a call back to Jurassic Park

They struggled a long time with where to put the Neo reveal

Chapter 10

Featuring Conner, Dustin, Kiersi, and Kerry

They felt that if they showed a lot in the first scene of the episode, they wouldn’t have to saturate the background with other fires and crowds.

The shot of Weiss’s knight being summoned and overshadowing Marrow is setting up their fight in C12

When seeing the shots of the enemies infiltrating the kingdom, they didn’t know if they wanted to show Neo and Cinder or Tyrian and Watts first. But they went with Neo and Cinder because it would show that they thought their cover was blown, when it would really be about the other two.

The place Neo and Cinder are staying at is an Atlas ‘high-life’ apartment

They always knew Elm would have a rocket launcher/bazooka, but never got the time needed to show it until now

They had to restructure Mantle a bit to allow the huge elephant to fit in the streets

The main characters working with the Ace Ops in this episode was to make it so things hurt so much more after events in the following one

All the background characters apparently have little backstories as they made sure they didn’t appear in two places at the same time

Ironwood jumps down a ridiculous number of feet to meet Watts. They had to cheat to not make that so obvious as well as say this is animation logic so people working on the shot would stop questioning how he could possibly make it.

Chapter 11

Featuring Kerry, Paula, and Miles

Originally a gravity biome in Amity was going to appear in V3C5. It was going to be Sun and Neptune vs Pyrrha and Nora. It was written, boarded, and ready to go but they realized there wasn’t time for it

This was a hard episode to write. A lot of stuff that needed to happen, and happen in a specific way

Watt’s gun was inspired a 20-shot revolver Kerry saw on Reddit

Ironwood losing another hand represents him losing another part of his humanity (possibly confirming he lost his one organic arm)

The first cut of this episode was 23 minutes and was deemed too long so they had to scale back, but they still felt they kept in everything that was needed to make the episode great

Initially the Tyrian vs Qrow, Robyn, and Clover fight was going to be a chase that turns into a fight that turns into another chase. And Qrow is the only one that could keep up with Tyrian since he can transform into a bird. Qrow would land in front of Tyrian and say ‘that’s enough’ and Tyrian would ask, ‘are you able to talk when you’re a bird or do you have to wait until you’re a person to throw your one-liners?’ (Tyrian asking the real questions here) Tyrian’s lack of self-preservation would be shown even more. He would have run down an alley packed with Grimm and would just trust that he could’ve made it through

The fight with Tyrian was initially going to be more of a Tyrian vs Qrow fight, but Miles loves that they made it a 3 v 1 so it could show off Tyrian’s exceptional skill

The fight was also a callback to the first Tyrian vs Qrow fight, where Ruby tried to be good back up for Qrow but was ineffective. But instead this time have Robyn and Clover be effective and more experienced teammates

Clover is defense, Qrow is offense, and Robyn is picking away at Tyrian with her long-ranged weapon

There was going to be more discussion of where Oscar was at the end of the episode, as well as a whole bit where the Ace Ops and the kids land and they get a hand-written note saying they’ve been compromised instead of getting it via scroll, but it turned out to be too much

The scene of Ironwood talking to RWBY and his turn to being against them was the most important scene in the episode, and something everything in the season had to build up to

Miles said it was about time the two sides met face to face with RWBY meeting Salem

They wanted to make Ironwood’s progression into villainy subtle and make sense

Salem made things personal for Ironwood, so he felt like he had to come up with a solution

They wanted more Cinder and Neo in the volume but had to cut back. But to compensate they had to be instrumental to the collapse of Ironwood (Miles first said collapse of Atlas so wonder if he slipped up)

Chapter 12

Featuring Dustin, Conner, Kiersi, Eddy, and Kerry

They wanted to have a false sense of resolution in the previous episode just to blow everything up here

Eddy handled the Ace Ops vs RWBY and Winter scenes while Kiersi handled the rest

Kerry learned from V5 that having everyone in one room for a fight doesn’t work well

Eddy is a big Weiss stan

Clover has no idea who he’s up against with Tyrian, and thinks of Qrow as the big threat, as well as Tyrian manipulating Qrow

Clover saw both Qrow and Tyrian on the wrong side of the law, so he felt like he had to fight both of them no matter what

They made sure team RWBY can’t just stomp on the Ace Ops, but still show their teamwork. Plus the lack of Clover being there didn’t allow for the team to have a ‘cheat code’

This is another episode they had to trim down in length

Cinder was always going to lay waste to the medical facility and attack Winter

They also wanted to do a Qrow vs Tyrian reprisal

Kerry said he loves Clover

It was crazy for Qrow to meet someone that was a genuinely good person

Chapter 13

Featuring Miles, Kerry, and Eddy

The Neo vs ORNJ fight could have been shorter

At one point they wanted to show Cinder using maiden magic to bring some dead AKs (Atlesian-Knight) back to life to fight Penny (was going to be some sort of puppet joke).

But Miles realized that Cinder could just blow up the room and bust through the walls

Ren is struggling with some heavy emotional stuff that is not resolved at all this volume, but it is hinted there will be a lot more for him next volume.

The writers knew a lot of people wouldn’t be happy with Ren’s attitude this volume. But he still cares about Nora, even if he doesn’t always communicate it well

Miles cried during the voice over session of Fria’s scenes for this episode

They had a lot of talks about how the maiden power would be transferred. They debated if Penny would have to kill Fria.

Originally one pod was going to be broken, with the one with Fria being in tact. But because Penny is a robot, she could ‘remote-interface in’ and get the powers. But that still felt like stealing, and they didn’t want to go that route.

Oscar has matured so much in his role (joking call him Farm Man)

Ironwood is still expecting Oz to show up. He still really wants that guidance

Ironwood arguing with Oscar was the finale scene they wrote this episode

Ironwood feels that he is backed into a corner and is doing the only sensible thing.

Winter was waiting to be the Winter Maiden her whole life, but in a split second she gives it all up

There was one line in Oz’s monologue they were struggling with for a whole day

They loved the idea of ending the volume on almost an identical shot from where they started

Neo’s look after Cinder takes the relic and doesn’t thank Neo for getting it is setting up some things for V8 (probably a betrayal)

Oz came back at that moment because he heard what Oscar said to Ironwood and that made him brave enough to return

Miles reveals that the Grimm whale is based on Monstro from Pinocchio

It is once again said that Volume 8 is the hardest one they had to write so far. Miles seems super excited about it

Volume 8 was made with some fan-input in mind (since it was still being written by the time V7 ended), but Volume 9 will be the first one written in a vacuum

#RWBY #RWBY Volume 7

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simpbur · 3 years

Note

hello! i would like ur 40 song wiblur playlist

anon thank you so much for asking <333 while it would’ve been easier to just drop the link i have so many thoughts about everything so i explained why every single song has its spot on this list which was IMMENSELY fun for me

(also: if anyone does want the link i can provide both apple music and spotify but if u would like the apple music link i’d rather it be through dms or an ask off anon that i can make private!)

another also: i bolded all the songs for ease of perusing if you don’t want the director’s commentary and bolded + italicized the ones that i think fit Very Well

another another also: wrote the second bit of this on my laptop and the keyboard is p funky so if there are any typos or things that do not make sense i will try to fix them asap haha

saint bernard by lincoln: this is one of those like. Dream SMP Songs that i added because it fits into so many different relationships and plot lines and arcs but i think there’s some connection to c!wlbur somewhere out there. idk i asked my friend and he said to add it so this one goes out to him

amnesia was her name by lemon demon: ghostbur song ghostbur song! mostly comes from this lovely animatic

o valencia! by the decemberists: okay this is one of those songs that only really has one lyric that fits but is an absolutely banger so it’s here anyway. you’ll also notice a trend of quasi love songs that i relate to c!wilbur’s perception of l’manburg and i think this song shows this in a really cool way, esp with the chorus (‘and i swear to the stars i’ll burn this whole city down’ is The Line)

achilles come down by gang of youths: another one of those Dream SMP Songs. i think this fits better with c!tommy but i like it too much to remove it. this is a somewhat common trend with the earlier songs on this playlist (i’ve been building this thing since january, for reference)

brave as a noun by ajj: another Dream SMP Song. i think certain verses fit better than others when it comes to wilbur’s character but that ones that work really work

harness your hopes by pavement: a song that is one here for vibes alone. i have no idea what these lyrics mean. all i know is that i heard it, thought of c!wilbur, and put it on the playlist. thank you all for being here

evelyn evelyn by evelyn evelyn: sad-ist made this a tommy and tubbo song (as she should) so it’s validity on this playlist is questionable but folks used to compare it to wilbur and tommy’s relationship during the pogtopia arc and i think some points were made there

the execution of all things by rilo kiley: i’m so excited to get here because this was the first song i put on the playlist that i think really works and i thumb nailed an animatic for the last verse and november 16th so! i think it’s a good l’manburg song and the last verse has some good ghostbur lines (‘and lately you’re all alone with nothing left but sleep/but sleep never comes to you, it’s the guilt and forever wakefulness of the weak’)

i’m just your problem from adventure time: this ones a bit tricky since at is my favorite show of all time and i cannot detach this song from its in-show context very well but there is a very cool animatic with this song that landed it a spot on the playlist

man burning by josh ritter: almost became an animatic but the audio i wanted to use (which i recorded at a josh ritter concert and it’s just him and his guitar and there’s echo and it’s very haunting and pretty) has my stepbrother singing in the background and i could not edit it out so. that will probably not happen. but anyways the only hole i would pick in this song is that it’s mostly about self sabotage which isn’t really applicable but i think the imagery is cool

mamma mia by abba: here me out. here me out. this is another song that fits so well and i have spent so many hours thinking about this and somewhere there is a note on my phone explaining how every single line relates to c!wilbur’s entire arc from founding l’manburg to the resurrection (made when we thought gbur was going to get resurrected in january) and just. the metaphorical ‘you’ is l’manburg does this make any sense (another almost animatic except now that wilbur’s actually back it might become an actual animatic)

the other side of paradise by glass animals: no idea why this is here other than being a Dream SMP Song. it’s good tho

infinitesimal by mother mother: they saaaaay it stared with a big bang but they saaaaaaaay it came out of a small thing latelyyyyy i’ve been feeling like a big bang You Know

curses by the crane wives: had a thing drawn out for this song showing the comparisons between c!wilbur and c!niki because of the chorus and i think the last two lyrics of said chorus are the best thing about this one

lonely eyes by the front bottoms: gotta admit that i have no idea how this song got on here but i’ve come to associate it with ghostbur based on vibes alone. it’s a friendly song he’s a friendly ghost it works. the other tfb song coming up fits a bit better methinks

king of new orleans by better than ezra: not to put better than ezra on my c!wilbur playlist but like. something about the whole ‘tasing something up to let it fall’ motif makes me think

get me away from here, i’m dying by belle and sebastian: another almost animatic song (there’s a trend here). not only does the story told in this song work i like the lines ‘play me a song to set me free/nobody writes them like they used to so it may as well be me’ in relation to my l’manburg

montgomery forever by the front bottoms: certain bits and pieces of this song fit so well, specifically the chorus and those bits in the last two choruses Yeah (’montgomery forever and ever and ever and now they’re blowing it up/(x2)/as you started laughing and crying and trying to explain how all you want to do is leave’)

don’t look back in anger by oasis: out of all my almost animatic songs, this one got the furthest. the animatic, which I got pretty far in thumbnailing, was about wilbur and tommy and kind of drawing comparisons between their characters, also about the revolution in general. maybe i’ll finish that animatic one day idk

snow by ricky montgomery: i wish i had a link for this so bad but!! saw art on twitter!! with the lyric ‘bury me six feet in snow’!! and went ahfsdjfk!!

burning pile by mother mother: a Dream SMP Song. also a jam there’s no real specific connection for this one but i think it could fit in a couple of ways

rounds by the oh hellos: in the same position as snow except it was on tumblr..... @ whoever made this comic i saw these lyrics in your brain is massive and your art is incredible

lovely by mt. eddy: on here for vibes alone. there’s something in the lyrical content too, but my thoughts in that regard are not very fleshed out

adventures in solitude by the new pornographers: ah yes..... the song that prompted this all...... this is a beautiful and incredibly well written song and if you’re going to listen to any song off of this playlist i’d encourage you to listen to this one. it’s place of here is mostly cause of the chorus but the imagery in the verses could all represent a part of c!wilbur and i’d love to explore that more

caught in the middle by paramore: obligatory paramore song. i think it got on here because limbo = ‘middle’ but i’m not quite sure. on the verge of being deleted if i can find a better pmore song

delicate by damien rice: one of the oddest songs on this list and i am well aware that it sticks out like a sore thumb. a song that’s on here pretty much because of one lyric, which is ‘and why’d you sing hallelujah/if it means nothing to you’ which i related to both eret’s betrayal and how my l’manburg is hallelujah yknow

bang! by ajr: almost animatic song. i think we all know what the bang is here

somewhere only we know by lily allen: ik i said don’t look back in anger has the most potential to get made into an animatic but this song might actually take it place. on par with adventures in solitude in terms of how pretty of a song it is, and probably even moreso. it’s kind of turned into a ghostbur song in my head, and makes me cry like an infant child every time i hear it

a pearl by mitski: i cannot defend this song’s place on here past the line ‘it’s just that i fell in love with a war and nobody told me it ended’

eight by sleeping at last: the official c!wilbur song needs a spot on here <3 if i can dig up the clip of cc!wilbur talking about this song in relation to his character i’ll add it but until then yeah <3

always by rilo kiley: no idea why this is on here but it fits well!! could not tell you why!! banger!!

celebration guns by stars: it’s a hauntingly beautiful song about war, and kind of one of those that necessarily isn’t about wilbur but moreso his place in the story? idk how to explain it but yes

passerine by the oh hellos: it’s. it’s from the . the fic. yeah h

oh, you are the roots that sleep beneath my feet and hold the earth in place by bright eyes: added this after the real resurrection and i think it’s because fo the imagery? also the last verse

we are beautiful, we are doomed by los campesinos!: all i have to say is ‘i cannot emphasize enough that my body/is a badly designed, poorly put together vessel/harboring these diminishing, so called vital organs/i hope my heart goes first, i hope my heart goes first!’ has always made me think of pogtopia era wilbur :(

dead weight by jack stauber: no real connection other than eret played this song during a break during the ghostbur’s january ‘resurrection’ and i heard it and went :0

point me at lost lands by tired pony: gives me season on l’manburg vibes..... i love how free and passionate it sounds and that's p much the only reason it’s on this list haha

ghosting by mother mother: added this five seconds ago because i could not BELIEVE it was not on here. ghostbur song. mans sang it on that one stream with the reverb and everything. the lyrics ‘i will be kind and i’ll be sweet/if you stop staring straight through me’ hit particularly hard back when everyone thought that ghostbur was actually wilbur in disguise

#oh man. oh man #this was so fun ty anon #i'll do some spell checking after i write my english paper but for now take this #wooo boy #also if i interpreted canon wrong i do apologize i am here to have fun and think about fictional character #anon #ask

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writefightandflightclub · 4 years

Text

Violent Delights: Chapter 6

Pairing: First Order!Poe x reader

Author’s note: This is different to the other chapters, but I hope you like it! I’ll probably fix typos tomorrow. I’m impatient.

Summary: This definitely answers that KEY QUESTION I left hanging at the end of Chapter 5! If you’re new to this story, there are MAJOR SPOILERS under the cut, so please do read the other chapters first (series masterlist here). Even if you’ve been following, you may want to recap Chapter 5 first!

Song inspo: Oh, in my ears / My blood is just roaring / When he's the only one I've ever wanted / I suppose that's just the way it is / Just to think this could be / The last time I hold you, hold you / Ever again / Oh, I don't think I'll ever sleep till / Morning. (Nicole Aitken, The Way It Is)

Warnings: 18+ only, dark fic. This is nowhere near as dark as the preceding chapters but still some warnings: OOC!Poe, FO!Poe, Violence inc: injuries! shooting! Explicit language. Mentions of: torture / sex / death / poison! Let me know if I missed any others.

Taglist: @aussiefangirlwolfy, @localashe, @fictionalcharactersownme, @a-somehow-functioning-dumbass, @itsamedeemoney, @woakiees @tintinwrites@jyn-z-solo @spaghetti-666 @kittyofalltrades @planetpoes (TAGLIST OPEN- let me know if you wish to be added / removed)

Word Count: 6K. Yikes.

GIF by @solorenskywalker

It hurts you. Somehow, it hurts you.

And yet, you are solidified in place, no wound observable.

The moment slows almost to a halt as you register the shot.

Dameron is hit.

The blast hits first. Then, shock, pain, and anger strike all at once, eddying between you and the Commander like the swell of a vicious storm, the air charged and practically humming. At first, his rage at this insulting wound sunk into his flesh is so vital that an immediate hope blooms in your chest; how can he be fatally hurt if he seems so alive? Then; something alien surfaces in his eyes. Something which looks a lot like fear. He delivers an agonised moan, already sounding hollowed out, and your fleeting hope wanes with him.

He unfists his hands from your clothing as he moves to clutch his shoulder in agony. He is cleaved from you and you are split in two, in every figurative way possible. You are ruptured by the blast like a fault line snaking beneath an ocean. This boiling rage is subdued only by the heavy, cooling sea of grief with threatens to depress you down on to your knees. You are torn, the desire to erupt in retaliation on behalf of your “enemy” in stark opposition to your need to sink with your lover. You want to fall to the floor with him. To your knees. To hold him. No question. But if you try and help him, Barret might shoot you too.

The indecision burns you.

It hurts you, this shot.

But it hurts Dameron more.

The commander groans, creaks beneath the weight of this pain. It presses down on him and his body curls in on itself as he creeps further towards a colourless exit, the knives in his eyes blunted. There is no vivid, crimson tide of blood to warn you of death incoming. Not this time. This is death pouncing from the long grass like a whip crack. The predator no-one saw coming.

The commander’s face contorts in a rendition of agony, his face almost beautiful with it. But this is not the kind of pain he has made his friend. This is pain without pleasure. And, since you can’t reach out to him, pain without comfort.

The cruellest pain of all.

“No. No. No.” you repeat -almost inaudibly- as Dameron sinks to his knees. You feel like he’s sinking into the depths of a cold, dark sea. Sinking out of reach.

His dark, tempestuous eyes are directed up at you, teeth gritted, lips sucked thin as agony grips him. On his knees like this, he could easily appear like a beast defeated; defanged and declawed. But there is some fight left in his eyes yet. Enough for him to try and spur you into action. “Time to go, Rebel. You fly, he guns, understand?”

You don’t understand. How can you comprehend leaving him like this?

His voice is shot with gravel, full of holes, but it still speaks its way into the depths of you. “Now. Go!, he insists, his voice winding its way around your bones and pulling you into motion, as if he holds the reins in the palm of his hand. As if he can bend you to his will, even now.

He has been dragging you to him all this time and now he urges you to leave, as if he’s unaware of the strength it will take to release yourself from his orbit; from his gravity. But staying isn’t helping him. In fact, it’s worse than that, you’re a danger to him every second you’re still on this ship. You know too much. He needs you gone from his sky.

You obey reluctantly, giving him the smallest of nods, letting your trembling fingertips drag ever so gently, subtly along his jaw as you turn towards the TIE. You move with strings still on you, dragging you back to him and making each step feel like you are wading through mud.

Progressing towards the craft, you are vaguely aware of Barret barking at you, calling you in to the interior of the fighter. You clamber up the ladder and into the tight cockpit just as Troopers swarm into the hangar, the blaster shots bouncing off the ship’s exterior. Your shaking hands hover above the ignition controls, ready to punch it. Instead, you wait. You wait until you are assured that the Troopers have made their way over to the vicinity of the Commander. You wait until the last possible second.

With a final glance through the transparisteel windshield, you look down at his now stilled form on the ground below you. His crown of pitch-dark curls and his uniform-clad body splayed out -helpless- over the cold floor. You don’t know if it was a killing shot. Without a crimson tide of blood, you can’t tell if Dameron’s still alive. But you do know that you have to go, regardless. With a sharp growl of regret, of anguish, you boost the ship out of the swiftly closing gap in the hangar doors. Just in the nick of time.

And so, you fly.

You fly with a pounding heart, blood raging in your ears. You fly, so enraged with your passenger that you are tempted to crash the ship just to make him pay. But there is nothing around you. No ground, no sky. Nothing to cling on to. Just a loss. An emptiness. Just space. You fly away from him, like a satellite released from its orbit. Equally lost and purposeless in the endless dark.

From out of the darkness, the thought of the Resistance base should be calling out to you right now like a beacon. A beacon inviting you home, now that you are finally free. But you’ve never before had to escape somewhere you wanted to be and return to somewhere you were no longer sure you belonged. The thought of retuning to base with Barret suddenly seems incomprehensible. And so, when you’re clear of the fleet, you don’t know what else to do except keep flying. No destination in mind, except away.

Flying. Simply flying away, is all you try to focus on. But all you can think about is turning the blasted ship back around. Flying toward him. Following those strings the commander has tied on to you which extend across space, drawing you back to him.

But you know that’s untenable. You fly, and it’s likely a good thing that the Order is in chaos, that the chain of command is interrupted. Otherwise, you’re not sure how -or if- you’d manage to lose the pursuing fleet. Not in your current state of fury. Not with Barret’s meagre attempt at gunning, through intermittent groans of pain.

Somehow, you shake them regardless. As the remaining TIEs abandon pursuit, you hear Barret breathe a sigh of relief from the gunner position behind you. The reminder of Barret’s presence is enough to make your hands tighten so hard on the controls that your fingernails dig crescents into your palms. To make your chest tighten.

Then: “They track these things. Did you disable the tracker?” he asks you.

You are loathe to acknowledge him. Even so, you fiddle with the dash until you’re satisfied that the Order can no longer trace you. You cut the strings leading back to him and you feel that you’ve just cut a lifeline. That suddenly you’re lost to liminal space, in-between anywhere and anyone you’ve ever considered home. Still ruptured in two. The feeling sets a hollowness in the pit of you, like you are a ripe fruit which has been scooped out by a cool spoon.

“Affirmative. Plotting a course to base.” You confirm in monotone, all emotion scrubbed from your voice.

“I can’t believe I got such a lucky shot at that bastard.” Barret continues, his voice sickeningly jovial and full of relief.

You feel like you might throw-up.

“Don’t speak. Save your strength.” You say curtly, inordinately thankful that you are back-to-back in the TIE. At least you don’t have to look at him. At least he can’t look at you – can’t get a read on the emotions you would be incapable of obscuring right now.

Still, as you programme your course you feel like his eyes are roving over you, all the same. You feel like he’s poking around inside you, wondering what’s wrong with you. You can imagine the gears in his brain working in an attempt to figure out why your reactions seem off, to unearth whatever happened to you on that ship. Whatever tortures you may have been subjected to. You can imagine him retrospectively register the bite marks on your neck, the cuts to your hands. The blood on your face and clothing. You practically feel his thought process creep over you in the cockpit like a cold chill.

“What happened to you?” Barret asks then, ever so softly, his voice heavy with the implication of imagined atrocities.

“It’s not my blood. It’s Hux’s. I killed him.” You say, hoping to deflect from exactly what happened to you on that ship.

Barret hoots with laughter, and the sound jarrs you. You hear his hand slapping against his thigh in celebration. “Wow, we really fucked the Order over today, partner. Hux and Dameron dead!” Barret reaches behind him to squeeze your shoulder and you flinch away as if you are afraid of his touch; as if you don’t deserve it; as if he disgusts you. Perhaps all of those things.

“You don’t know that Dameron’s dead.” You bite off without thinking, molten tears of rage threatening at the corner of your eyes. The break in your voice is giving too much away. Emotion floods the cracks in your words like tributaries joining the churn of an unstoppable river. You can’t choke back the sob which follows.

Barret’s voice softens so much that you want to wring his neck to choke the pity out of it. “Did Dameron... hurt you?”. That’s why he thinks you’re crying, then? Because you can’t be certain that the commander’s dead, and surely you must want him dead for the terrible, unspeakable things he enacted upon you?

The truth might be even more unspeakable. The truth that you’re a traitor. The truth that you’d sell your soul to have the commander do those things to you all over again. To have him fuck you and hurt you and hold you. The truth that, yes, he did hurt you, buy you liked it. Barret doesn’t understand that you’re wretched with a crushing and unexpected grief at the thought that it may never happen again. Not since Barret did what you should have had the sense to do all that time ago. Not since Barret shot the commander.

You hope Barret doesn’t notice the course of the ship waver as your hands slip on the controls. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The close air of the TIE is suddenly thick with a loaded silence as the ship shudders back along its trajectory. As you regain control of yourself and the craft.

Barret, however, does not relent for long. “Do you think when we get back to base we’ll be welcomed as heroes?” The question simply makes your stomach turn. You refuse to pluck at the question while it hangs there, ripe, and so it becomes a rotten thing in the air between you. You feel that chill creep over you again, as if Barret is reaching inside of you, panning for your secrets. No escape within the confines of this ship.

You think back to the last time you were confined with Barret. It seems so long ago that you hunkered in that stakeout room, tracking that shipment and thirsting hard for the commander. The commander who had consumed you with just one bite. Now, mere days later, your partner seems like a stranger and your enemy seems like your lover. You indulged your appetite for that tempting, delicious darkness; you were willingly suckered into Dameron’s honeyed trap. And now that you have been given a taste, you should feel sated. But the truth is you would gladly open your mouth and drink more of that darkness down. You’d drink it until you were spoiled and loathsome with it.

The most disconcerting aspect of these tumultuous events is how little you know yourself. What you are capable of. What you crave and how far you will wade in to the darkness to get it. You know these are your mistakes, your weaknesses to atone for. You know that despite what you’re feeling now, Barret doesn’t deserve your hate. A part of you still knows that. Knows that, objectively, he’s simply a good guy who shot a bad man. That objectively, you should still be on his side. You know you owe it to him to take him home. At the very least.

An older, softer part of you resurfaces as you hear Barret grunting behind you with a fresh wave of pain. It’s likely that the initial burst of adrenaline is wearing off and he is beginning to suffer.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’ll be ok. My stomach is hurting like a bitch, though.”

In all the chaos, you’d given little thought to the extent of his injuries, until now. So, next, you ask a question you’re not sure you truly want an answer to. “What happened to you, Barret?”

There is a beat. He replies in a small voice. “The kinda stuff our training tried to prepare us to resist.” His answer is vague but loaded. That’s enough. That’s enough to understand what they’d subjected him to. Guilt flares in the pit of you, knowing that while he was being tortured, you were indulging your darker whims. Knowing how much you were enjoying yourself while he suffered. Enjoying yourself at his expense, when you could have been trying to get him out of there.

So, you still can feel guilt, then? You still know that, on some level, it was wrong. Maybe there is something of the Rebel left in you, somewhere. Buried under the landslide of darkness. But you know there is little chance of that part of you clawing itself out when your next thought is of the commander. When your whole body clenches around the memory of him, clings on to it. You think of how he can torture you in an entirely different way, until you’re begging for mercy. A part of you feels you’d raze everything you ever loved to the ground for a chance to beg him again.

Still, you’re curious. You’re curious whether your commander was involved in Barret’s torture. Perhaps so that you can weigh precisely how much you should loathe yourself. “Troopers, or one of the higher-ups?” you ask, trying to keep your voice level, void of feeling.

“Troopers mainly. Some droids, doctors…” Barret trails off, remembering. “Though, it’s funny, really. Dameron came to my room this morning. Told me -don’t worry- it would all be over for me today. Guess the joke’s on him. The bastard.” Barret’s voice sounds darker, more malicious than you’ve ever heard it.

“He came to your room? This morning?” Something about that doesn’t sit quite right with you, leaves you uneasy. Dameron doesn’t do anything much unless there’s something in it for him, you’re learning. Maybe the games he has been playing aren’t quite over yet. Is it wrong to relish that thought?

“He visited a couple of times. To mindfuck me, from what I can gather. Yesterday he tried to make me swallow some horrible lies about you. To make me think I was alone, I guess- to get some intel out of me. Today… well, he brought me my daily rations and told me it was all over. Well, fuck him, he’s dead.”

Panic flutters in your stomach. You try to remain steady on the flight controls, to calm your breathing. You know Barret doesn’t fully appreciate the implications of his words. Of the commander’s actions. But you might.

You have two burning questions you need answers to.

The first: How much did Dameron tell Barret?

The second: What did he feed him?

Your mind pores over any detail of Barret you can remember from the escape to establish which question is most pressing. You hark back to the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the glassiness of his infuriatingly concerned eyes. The way he was clutching at his stomach. More than being injured; Barret looked ill.

Realisation strikes you, and if you didn’t feel guilty before, you sure as hell do now. You can’t be sure, of course. But somehow you know. You’d bet that the commander had fed Barret some juicy, ripe, red fruit.

Bile rises in your throat, but you force yourself to gloss over your voice with a kind tone. To paint your face with a soft, reassuring smile. “Why don’t you try and get some rest, huh? You’ve been through it.” Your passenger hums, considering your proposition. “If I divert the power from the interior electrics into the thrusters, I can get us back to base a little faster than expected. If you don’t mind flying in the dark?”

Flying in the dark is all you’ve been doing ever since the commander hit your life and turned it upside down, like a hurricane. Ans it turns out you’re still caught in his wake. You can’t tell if you’re soaring or if you’re about to crash and burn.

“Yeah.” Barret reaches a hand around to squeeze your arm again and it is like a hand rising out of a grave. His hand is cold. You resist the urge to flinch away, despite the chill it sends down your spine. “Oh, and, partner? Thank you for rescuing me.”

You bite your lips between your teeth. You’re not sure if that statement could possibly be further from the truth of what happened. Hadn’t you doomed him, right from the start? From that first bite the commander took of you? A throwaway “You don’t need to thank me.” is all you can muster.

Barret curls himself in his chair and you are grateful to fly on in silence. Now that the affront of him is over, you suddenly realise how tense you are, how the emotions wracking you are beginning to take their toll. You can’t explain how it was more comforting to be in the arms of your enemy than trapped in the confines of this ship with someone you’d let down so badly. You owe it to Barret to try and make part of this right.

Don’t you?

An alternative option niggles at you, hiding somewhere beyond protocol, beyond the rules and conventions and obligations. Then you think that, perhaps, it’s a good thing for Barret that you can’t be sure if Dameron’s dead, after all. Because if you knew that he was, you don’t think you could find the compassion or strength to try to bring your partner home. You think you might seek retribution, in the end.

Regardless, you fly. You try and allow the darkness of the cockpit to swallow you. As if Barret is not sitting there, as if Dameron never marked you. You try and push it all down, but the commander did mark you. He’s branded you as his. He’d told you “don’t forget you’re mine”, and now his words are wrapped around your bones. His words will be buried with you. And every time you try and escape, your thoughts orbit back to him. His mouth swallowing your hot core, his hands delivering delicious tortures, his cock pumping into you. Most of all: those dark eyes, like shadowed planets you would kill to be marooned on again.

Left to the dark and the dark alone, your thoughts are consumed by him. That is, until you reach your destination, and swing your craft around in the air to bring her in for touch down. Until you approach base and spot that something isn’t right. Until you see the thick pillars of smoke billowing into the air.

“No. No. No.” You plead to no-one in particular, your protestations and erratic flying drawing Barret abruptly from his sleep.

You land harshly on the runway, avoiding blast holes and charred ground, and scramble hurriedly from the ship. Your feet relentlessly pound the tarmac until you’re in the centre of it all, scanning the scene around you with eyes wide.

No-one comes running to greet you or shoot at you. No-one is left. You look around you, surveying for damages. Surveying for bodies, you realise. That the X-wings and larger crafts are gone from the hangar provides some immediate comfort. Signs of a likely evacuation. Then, your eyes pick out the remains of familiar munitions, the tell-tale shell of a downed and lightly smoking TIE fighter.

The strike was committed by the Order. While you were taken. You shake your head in disbelief. It can’t possibly be a coincidence -not after everything that has happened. That means the Order somehow found out the location of the base while you were captive… but you hadn’t…

Oh. Oh.

You put the pieces together and turn back to Barret in disbelief. He has now come to stand several paces from you on the runway. Laughably, you know you must look betrayed when your eyes meet his. In one hand he grips a blaster and the other hand waves around defensively. No, he doesn’t look well. Now that you’re truly seeing him, he doesn’t look well at all. A sheen of sweat covers Barret’s face, his eyes red-rimmed, tears seeding at the corners. He instantly recognises the accusation in your eyes, in your stance.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” he professes, voice trembling. “I wasn’t strong enough. I hoped we’d make it back before the Order could put the intel to use. Or that we’d disrupted their plans. That maybe no-one would need to know.”.

“You sold the base out?” you spit with utter disgust, looking Barret over like he’s scum.

Apparently, neither of you were returning to base as heroes after all.

He meets your question with silence, which says it all.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” You are yelling now. “You let the Resistance down! You betrayed them!”

You’re so angry that it feels like your blood is boiling beneath your skin. Your breath is ragged, your thoughts swirling. You feel darkness crowding at the edges of you. You feel like you are sucking it up through your fingertips, draining your surroundings of it. Feeling it course through you, like the hum of static before a storm. Barret betrayed the Resistance. He did this. And you’re so angry that you can’t see straight.

You are devoid of any sympathy or empathy for him. You’re so angry at him, of course, because you’re angry at yourself. If you can berate him for being a traitor you will take it, if it makes what you did seem to pale into insignificance.

Instinctually, although you are stood some distance away, you lift your arm as if you could simply reach out and choke Barret. Make him pay for his weakness. Your arm extended towards him, you have the desperate urge to just close your grip and crush. “I wish I could just…”

You are as shocked as Barret when he physically clasps his throat and starts wheezing, his eyes wide and afraid. It shocks you enough for you to drop your arm and physically step back from him. You shrink back from the look he’s giving you as he processes what just happened, raising his blaster arm unsteadily toward you. He looks at you questioningly. He looks at you as if he’s looking at a stranger.

All you can do is look back at him. You look Barret dead in the eyes, and you must reveal just too much. Because, if it’s possible, Barret pales even further, his eyes swimming with disbelief.

“It’s true, isn’t it? I’m not the only one who let down the Resistance, am I?” His voice is so thick with disgust that you can’t bring yourself to keep looking at him. To keep facing what you did.

“The things Dameron told me yesterday. They’re true.”

“What?” you say weakly, a pitiful attempt to backtrack, but you already know it’s futile. You’ve been found out. And you might be a traitor but you’re not a liar.

“You fucked the enemy.” Barret spits. “While I was being tortured in that cell. You could have stopped this.” He yells, gesturing around to the scene of devastation which envelops you. And, in his anger he overdoes it - ends up clutching his stomach in evident pain.

There is nothing you can say. No protestation you can muster. You had been angry and ashamed at yourself, but when confronted with it, you find a small, absurd part of you which is proud of it. Which has no desire to deny it. To apologise for it. Barret may have caved in to weakness, but you found power on that ship. Whilst he may dish out judgement, with the commander you had found understanding. Affinity.

Barret’s blaster wavered with the fresh burst of pain but now he has it pointed back at you, trained intently on you. “I didn’t want to believe Dameron. I didn’t at first.”, he bites off, chewing on his words. “But I promised him that if it was true, I’d kill you both myself. I picked your bastard boyfriend off earlier- so I guess I just need to make good on the other half of my promise, eh, traitor?”

You’re getting sick of this righteous bastard already. Hadn’t he been weak? Hadn’t he caved too? Maybe all rebels were simply hypocrites.Maybe the Order were on to something.

Then, of all the things you should say or ask right now, the next question out of your mouth is entirely self-indulgent. “What did he say?” you ask slowly, stringing out your words. In no rush. You have all the time in the world. Unlike your partner.

“What?!” Barret replies in utter confusion.

“What did he say when you promised to kill me? Because given that he poisoned you I don’t think he was too happy with you about something.” You know it’s wrong, that it’s too cruel, but you can’t help that your eyes flash with a perverse kind of satisfaction as you watch the realisation play over Barret’s face.

Is that why? Is that why the commander has poisoned your fellow rebel? To protect you? Because he threatened you? Oh, how a part of you hopes that’s true.

His blaster arm wavers again, and Barret is so weak of body and wrapped up in turmoil that you are able to walk towards him and take the blaster easily, gently from his hand. You look into his eyes, your voice steely, suddenly not feeling worthless or ashamed at all. Not anymore. Maybe you were cut out for these games, after all. “You don’t look so hot, Barret. So maybe we agree that we both made some mistakes on that ship, yes?” Barret considers your words carefully and then nods, and it acts as a meanwhile truce of sorts. You keep your tone impartial. “I’d suggest that if you want me to help you, you should take a seat. Before you drop. I’ll see if there’s anything left of the med bay.”

“You’re going to help me?” Barret looks at you in confusion.

“Yes, I’m going to help you. I’m not a monster.”

The way he looks at you in response signals that he thinks otherwise. You huff out a breath, perturbed by the condemnation. And so, for the second time that day, you aren’t able to offer comfort to someone in need. Instead, you sling Barret’s blaster on to your belt and jog towards the med bay. Barret’s only hope is that there are some shots left which haven’t been blown-up or cleared-out.

You move as fast as you’re able, gathering whatever supplies you can, but by the time you return, Barret is lying still on the runway.

You are too late.

Barret is the third body you’ve had lying at your feet that day. Three enemies, in the end. One of whom was a lover, and one of whom was a friend.

Despite what Barret had done, you feel no satisfaction in his fate. You sigh deeply and turn your head into your shoulder. You don’t look. You try not to look. All you can do is drag him into the hangar and cover him over, paying final respects to the fallen Resistance member.

Now, you are truly alone.

Feeling somewhat numb, you wander around base, confirming there are no signs of life left at all. Passing collapsed buildings, smoking craters, and remnants of devastation. You act on autopilot, and before you know where you’re walking to, you’ve reached the canteen, picking up some remaining rations and stuffing your face. Then, before you realise it, you’ve meandered across base and stand at the spot where your quarters should be.

All that’s left is a shell.

Suddenly, it’s as if you dropped the bombs yourself. As if you’ve intentionally obliterated everything you used to know and used to be beyond all recognition. You pick through the rubble, try to leaf through the ashes, but nothing at all remains. Still nothing to cling on to.

In your wandering, your quest for solace of some kind, the next place you find yourself is General Leia’s room. Hers remains intact. You find it empty, but her presence is there in all the tiny details. The uniform hanging up by the small closet, the table covered in datapads and holo equipment. Her comb and tumbler of water on the nightstand.

You dearly hope that she’s safe.

Being as quiet as possible, as if she’s sleeping there and you might disturb her, you perch yourself on the edge of her bed, grabbing her blanket and tugging it around your shoulders. You let yourself dwell on all the ways you’ve let her down, the ways you may yet break her heart, and you will the grief to hit you. But it doesn’t. You feel like you should be primed to lie down and cry, letting sobs wrack you. But there’s nothing. Only numbness. Perhaps, deep down, you feel you don’t deserve Leia’s comfort. Perhaps, deep down, you’re not truly sorry. Perhaps you are still too ruptured to start healing. Perhaps all of these things.

At least, sitting still allows the exhaustion to hit you. Still, you don’t feel like you could sleep. You feel restless. A lost celestial object with no course and no orbit. A dark, unlit moon. So, you continue your wandering, digging out some fresh clothes and taking a shower, the cool water sluicing Hux’s blood away. It circles down the drain in a crimson vortex. You redress and rewrap Leia’s blanket around your shoulders.

Without knowing where exactly you’re headed next, you find your feet gravitating towards the TIE fighter, which you half-landed and half-crashed into the tarmac.

Of course.

It’s the closest you can be to him right now.

You clamber inside, the snug cockpit encasing you. And then, finally, the rush of feelings hits you. You remember the Troopers swarming around his still form and it’s as if a vice clamps down on your chest. You imagine the chaos on the ship, the discovery of General Hux, washed up on that crimson tide of blood. You remember how it felt to kill him, and then to have the commander exalt you and kiss you and rail into you. You picture how it should have gone; General Dameron sitting coolly, smugly on the bridge. Taking Hux’s place, knowing exactly what he’d done. What you’d done. Sitting there as calm and devastating as the eye of a storm.

You screw your eyes shut tight against the thought you know will follow.

Is he alive?

And, as you close your eyes, various thoughts and faces eddy through the blackness, coming and receding like waves. As you focus in on each of them, in turn, it is as if you are slipping into a current, or a hyper stream; as if you can follow the tide which might lead you to them. One thought begins to jump out at you, tugging at you like a riptide, causing your mind to drift towards it.

Leia?

You reach out with your mind, searching for her energy. You can’t explain it, but you feel that maybe you can establish where they’ve evacuated to.

At least you think that’s where your heart is reaching out to. But wait; it’s not Leia. It’s something connected, but something darker.

Kylo.

Your eyes shoot open in fright and you startle in your seat. For a moment, it’s as if you have linked to him, as if his face is blinking in front of you. He looks just as surprised as you feel. You recoil in terror. For a good while, you sit motionless in the cold shell of the TIE, as if Kylo is a creature hunting you and any small movement might allow him to pounce. You don’t know how long you sit there, heart racing, and your fingernails digging into your knees threatening to draw blood.

You just touched something so deeply dark. Something frightening. Something you are not quite ready to face.

You don’t know how much time passes, but you sit there, practically frozen, until a blue light begins to blink on the dashboard of the TIE. Your curiosity overriding your fear, you press the button. It’s a holo, patching through.

A cool, rich voice resounds through the cockpit of the TIE.

“It’s General Dameron here.”

Your relief is palpable – a fluttering in your chest. A smile which begins in the pit of you and blooms through your whole body. You hold your breath until you’re sure you can believe what you’re seeing. Your eyes pore over the holo, trying to establish where he is, how he is. He looks as though he may be patched up and lying in a med bay.

“Maybe you thought you could run or hide from me, Rebel, but Kylo -the space bloodhound- tells me he found you.” He looks off to the side of him. “You don’t mind if I call you that, do you, Supreme Leader?”

His voice is still full of holes, shot through with gravel. But he’s alive. You’re sure you can see the hint of a shark smile spread over his features. He dips his head slightly towards the camera droid at that moment, lowering his voice just a touch, his eyes narrowing. Unconsciously you lean in toward the transmission. “So, Killer. As you know, Hux is dead, and you’re responsible.” He leans in even further and even through the holo his intense eyes bore into you. “But I’m very much alive. So, I just needed you to know...” he exhales a breath and bites his bottom lip as if his next thought amuses him. “...that I’m gonna be coming for you.”

Whether his statement is a threat or a promise, you can’t be sure. However, you know that the games are far from over. Whilst tomorrow you may need to figure out your next move, for now, you finally feel like you could cry and you could sleep.

You lean back in the pilot’s chair and allow yourself a deep, relieving breath. And yet again, you can’t hold back your own resplendent shark smile.

You press the button to reverse the transmission before sending a message back to General Dameron.

“Bring it on, General Dameron. I’m ready for you.”

He’s alive.

It’s not over yet.

As much as you would like to run back to him, you know now, more than ever, that you have to return home to the Resistance - to see if it’s still where your heart is. Or whether you have any heart left at all. Then, if you happen to discover that your heart does belong to the darkness after all, at least you know the darkness is coming for you. And at least then, you will truly know that you are ready for it.

You lean back in the seat and close your eyes, allowing your relief to wrap around you -like a blanket- as the darkness holds you and rocks you to sleep.

To be continued (Chapter SEVEN coming soon!)

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