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reddielibrary · 5 years

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Still The One

Secret Santa: Katie | @kaspbrak-eddie

Gift for: Elmo | @ellomello16

Special Message: Merry Christmas to the sweetest member of the fandom! I hope you enjoy this lil fic and I hope you have a good day, ily ♡♡

Word count: 6,789

*click title to read on AO3

Richie Tozier had never considered himself to be a wildly successful person. In school, he’d always been above average but had never been the top of his class, putting little to no effort into homework and exams but still managing to maintain mostly A’s and B’s. It may have been impressive, sure, but he had never been exemplary, and he prided himself in that. The slight apathy he felt for his schoolwork still yielded the same outcome that most of his friends and peers could only barely achieve through long, arduous hours of intense reading, writing, revising, re-revising. He didn’t bat an eye at assignments his classmates lost countless hours of sleep over. School had always come easily to him, as most things did. He was an incredibly charming man, never failing to make even the most stuck-up assholes crack a laugh every once in a while.

Humans he had never taken issue with, he felt most comfortable in social situations and threw himself into them head-first every opportunity he had. Meaningful human interaction, on the other hand, deep, personal, one-on-one connections, well that was one of the few items on the list of things in life that made Richie uneasy. And he had a string of failed relationships to show for it, one that was longer than a suburban mother of six’s grocery list. Richie had simply never been able to connect with anyone on that profound, meaningful level that everyone talks about--that his partners talked about feeling with him. He had simply always felt like there was something missing, something not right. It felt as if something--or someone--was pulling him away, but if there was one thing he was sure of, Richie Tozier knew that he had never been in love.

Eddie Kaspbrak, on the other hand, had. Countless times. He fell easily, and when he did, he fell hard. Lamentably, he had a nasty habit of falling for people who could not even come close to reciprocating the love he gave--the absolute, irrevocable adoration that could only come from someone who aimed to please. The household Eddie had grown up in had been built around his mother’s intense, all-consuming need to be needed. Eddie had never known her as a rational person, although he supposed she probably had been at some point in her life. To Eddie, she was overbearing, almost dictatorial. Everything he did had to be passed through her first, and she approved of almost nothing. After years and years of the constant hounding, the unremittant whining and worrying, Eddie had learned that it was easier to just let her have her way, and he’d carried with him this skill of always striving to please. And he was damn good at it. It affected every part of his life as an adult, relationships with friends, with significant others, but most importantly, it made him incredibly good at his job.

He was passionate about his career--he threw every part of himself into his work, and he loved it. Although the work was unceasing, exhausting, it was a good outlet for his energy, especially when the same tendencies that made him great at his job had a propensity to affect his relationships negatively. Everyone he’d ever dated had had one of two problems with him--either Eddie was too clingy, fell in love far too quickly and let it overtake his entire personality, often morphing it completely to become more appealing to his partner. That, or they fought with him constantly about being work-obsessed, stating that he spent too much time away, or even when he was home, that he was distant, thinking about work; they complained about his going above and beyond to be the best, never supporting him the way he needed. By the time he was in his late twenties, Eddie had decided that he was done with relationships. He was exhausted and completely fed up with pouring his endless love and energy into people who didn’t champion his goals and applaud him for reaching them. In his memory, he had never had someone like that, someone who he could be himself with, someone who wanted him to be his very best. And he assumed he probably never would.

It was a Wednesday morning when Richie had gotten the call at 7:45, jolting him awake abruptly from a deep, heavy sleep. He groaned and patted around blindly for the phone on his nightstand, brushing his sleep-kinked, floppy hair out of his face as he did so. “Tozier here,” he grumbled into the phone, his voice thick and deep.

“Rich! It’s me! Get your ass out of bed, you lazy piece of shit!”

Still half asleep, Richie groaned, “The fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m just kiddin’ buddy. But seriously. Great show last night, you were fuckin’ hilarious!”

“Yeah, Steven. You always say that. That’s what you’re supposed to say, you’re my manager.”

“Yeah yeah.” Richie’s manager, who doubled as his best (read: only) friend, pushed on, ignoring Richie’s humility, “So the guy from SNL called back finally. You’re golden, baby. They want you to come out next week to audition.”

Richie’s eyes shot wide open, he was definitely awake now. He scrambled for his laptop on the floor by his bed as he replied, “Steve-O are you serious? If you’re fucking with me right now I’m gonna drive to your house and murder you.” He opened his laptop hurriedly to check his email, first reaching over to the bedside table to grab his glasses, sliding the thick, bulky lenses over his eyes to bring the world back into focus. Once he got his email pulled up, he desperately refreshed the browser, clicking the ‘get mail’ button incessantly.

“Bro, I can hear you clicking from here. Relax, I haven’t sent you anything yet. I’ll get it to you once I put everything together, I literally just got off the phone with the guy.”

Richie sighed. “Steven, you really are a genius. It’s happening!”

“It’s not me, Rich, it’s all you. And I always told you it would, have I ever lied to you before?”

Richie chuckled, rubbing at his eyes, pushing his glasses up to his forehead, still in disbelief, “Stevia, baby, you lie to me all the time.”

“Hush now. You know when I do it’s just for your own good. Alright, well, I’ll let you get back to sleep… Or back to whoever is in your bed right now.”

Richie mock gasped, “Are you accusing me of having premarital sex? You know I’m waiting until marriage, Steven, sorry to disappoint you.”

“Oh shut up, Richie. Goodbyeee...” He dragged out the last syllable as he audibly pulled the phone away from his face and hung up, his voice trailing off as the microphone was drawn further and further away from his mouth. A few minutes later, just as Richie was succumbing back to sleep, his phone vibrated with an email containing his itinerary.

Eddie sighed as he lay down on a cot in the on-call room of the hospital he’d worked in for almost four years now. He was halfway through another long shift, it was almost 6:00 am, but he could at least take comfort in the fact that it was just a twelve-hour rather than a twenty-four. Eddie had always had a penchant for medicine, even when he was young. Growing up with a mother whose every waking moment was dedicated to her only son, Eddie had been the target of her constant and unrelenting care. Although all of the illnesses she was sure Eddie suffered from had turned out to be fake, the excessive doctor visits as a child had made him extremely comfortable in hospitals and outpatient centers. As he’d grown older, he’d taken comfort in understanding his “illnesses,” and in doing so, he had begun to understand the source of them. He’d never been a slow kid--neither mentally nor physically--and at the ripe age of eleven, he’d realized just how his mother’s protection had hurt him, and he had vowed to leave her the very second he was able.

The only support system he’d had as a kid had been the friends he had made, who, after he’d left town for college, he had forgotten more and more about every single day. He was unsure if it was due to the influx of new information and experiences or something else, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t conjure up any of their faces in his memory, not even a single name. There was something there, he knew, something--someone--tugging at him. Something that panged in his stomach every time he walked past someone on the street with dark, frizzy hair, something he couldn’t put his finger on. There was the day in college he’d gotten reading glasses, and that night just as he was turning the light out, the sight of the frames laying on his bedside table gave him the strongest sense of déjà vu he’d ever experienced in his life, so much so that he had felt light-headed for a few seconds before regaining his composure. He had not slept well that night, dreaming of his childhood, blotchy and blurry, the only clear parts he could pick out in his head were a pair of impossibly thick glasses, beat-up black sneakers, scraped knees, and popsicles melting in the sweltering summer sun.

He’d been awoken by a panic attack in the early hours of that morning, something that rarely happened anymore, only when he had these dreams. These confusing, disorienting dreams. They were trying to tell him something, that he was sure of, but after years of having them, he was resigned to the fact that he’d never figure it out.

As he curled up in the cot in the on-call room to take a quick nap he thought of these dreams, hoping against hope that someday soon he’d understand what they meant.

As Richie boarded the plane at LAX at 5:00 am, he was so jittery that he could barely stand still. Most of it was from the four cups of coffee he’d already downed that morning in the Uber to the airport, but the rest was from nerves. He was nervous about the SNL audition, sure, but he was also nervous about something that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Something that was in New York. Something he couldn’t remember. He shook his head quickly to rid the thought as he flashed the cute, young flight attendant a small smile, pushing his glasses up and turning to look down the long airplane cabin and find his seat.

He didn’t get much done on the flight, too distracted to think straight, his mind running a million miles an hour. Immediately after he sat down he pulled his laptop out of his backpack, searching for the hours of SNL footage he’d downloaded to watch on the way in hopes it would ease his nerves. He lost himself in the footage, even laughing out loud at some points. He’d lost track of time, but about halfway through the first episode he’d started, he felt a tap on his shoulder and pulled his bulky headphones off, knocking his glasses askew. Fixing them quickly, he looked up.

“Sir, we’re taking off. You have to put that away until the pilot gives us the go-ahead to get large electronics back out.”

Richie nodded and hastily shut his laptop, stuffing it in his bag and slouching down in his seat, looking out the window as the plane taxied the runway slowly. The take-off was excruciating, his seatmate asked him to stop bouncing his leg at least four times, having to speak up over the mechanical, monotonous roar of the engines. He apologized profusely each time, only to be asked again a few minutes later, not even having noticed that he’d started again. Once the electronics light above him lit up, he grabbed his laptop again and tried to relax, doing breathing exercises he’d learned from a school counselor while he was in college to try and ease his anxiety. It worked somewhat, and the five-hour flight raced by quickly. Once they’d landed, he rushed through the airport carelessly, almost mowing down a few toddlers on his way to the exit; airports always made him uneasy, too many people, he always felt overstimulated. As he made it to the arrivals area and found the driver he was told would be waiting for him, he broke into a near sprint, running up to the unexpecting man out of breath. “Hey,” he took a heaving breath and gestured in between the sign and himself, “That’s… That’s me. I’m Tozier.”

“Hello, Mr. Tozier. Pleasure to--”

“Just call me Richie. Please.”

The man nodded solemnly, “You got it, Richie. And is that the only bag you brought? I was told you’d have a suitca--”

“Oh, fuck!” Richie exclaimed in a hushed yell. “Be right back!” He took off, loping through the crowded baggage claim area, his backpack swinging behind him.

Richie managed to find the baggage carousel fairly quickly, and his bag was--by some fucking miracle--one of the first up. He grabbed it and rushed back to the driver, who was chuckling quietly to himself. He unzipped the suitcase to retrieve his winter coat--something he hadn’t needed in years since he’d moved to California. “You ready to go now?” The driver asked kindly after Richie had thrown the old, worn coat over his shoulders and zipped it up tight.

Richie nodded and extended the handle on his beat-up suitcase to wheel it behind him. The ride to the hotel Richie’s manager had booked for him took about an hour and a half. The hotel was in the middle of the city and traffic was, as always, an unbelievable nightmare. By the time they arrived there, it was just after noon, and Richie was starving. The car pulled up to the curb and waited as Richie paid and pulled his suitcase from the trunk. He shot the driver a two-fingered wave and turned around. Right into a shorter man, a man who looked to be around his age. He donned a set of blue scrubs shrouded by a thick parka that went down to his knees, his chestnut hair was tousled and frizzy under the hood, the guy looked exhausted. “Hey, can you fucking watch where you’re walking? Fucking touris--” His voice was cut off as he looked up to glare at Richie, and all of the breath left his lungs. “Do-- Do I know you?” His eyes went soft as he let the hood fall off the back of his head, looking up at Richie, his gaze tracking quickly back and forth over his face.

“I don’t… uh. Maybe? You look kinda familiar…” Richie trailed off, pulling his suitcase in closer to his legs in order to avoid the looks of antipathy from passerby.

“Sorry, you just…” the guy shoved his gloved hands in his pockets nervously and took a deep breath, his exhale condensing in the air in front of his cheeks, flushed from the cold. “You look like someone I used to know… I think. I don’t know. Sorry, have a nice day,” he said as he quickly turned on his heel and hurried off down the street.

Well that was fucking weird, Richie thought to himself, I could have sworn I… He shook his head to clear the thought from it, he needed to focus. As he checked into the hotel, he couldn’t help but be slightly absent, his mind running circles, distressing over the audition, but also blindsided by the strange interaction on the street.

Eddie huffed as he replaced his hood on his head, tucking his chin into the jacket so that as much of his skin was shielded from the cold as possible. You’ve gotta fuckin’ stop with this, Eddie. The dreams… they don’t mean anything. He’s just a dude in glasses. Nobody. Focus. Forget about it. He sighed, quickly weaving through the slow walkers on the sidewalk and darting down into the subway tunnel, taking the stairs two at a time, grateful for a break from the incessant wind. When he got home and went to sleep, he had the same dream as always, but this time it was clearer than it had ever been.

The audition went fine, not as well as he’d hoped, but Richie wasn’t worried about it, he enjoyed his job in California; although Los Angeles did seem a bit lonely sometimes. He was glad to be heading back to Maine for the week to spend Christmas with his parents, who he hadn’t seen in over ten years, always too busy building his career to make it back home. This was the first year since he left for college that he was finally able to take a few days off and be home again. He thought about his childhood as he packed up his hotel room from his quick, three-day stay, pondered why he could remember hardly any details from that period of his life at all--not even the name of his best friend.

He’d run around with a bunch of kids in those years, but there was just one. He knew there was always just one. The one that he wanted to spend all of his time with, the only one he still had any semblance of a memory of: band-aids, tears, cheeks flushed a darker red than Richie had ever seen in anyone--or had ever seen since. The one thing he remembered from his childhood, clear as a bell: the tinkling, warm laugh that echoed from his friend’s freckled, pink lips. The laugh he’d spent his entire childhood and adolescence doing anything and everything to elicit. The reason he still enjoyed making people laugh, why he’d made a career of it. He smiled to himself as he puttered around the room, his mind distracted by all manner of things, the man from the other day all but forgotten.

He gave one last look around to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything then rolled his suitcase out the door behind him. The drive to the airport was slower this time than it had been three days before; snow began to fall about halfway through the drive, covering the city in a layer of pristine, sparkling powder. Richie watched out the window as the car blazed past skyscraper after skyscraper, his breath fogging up the window.

By the time he got dropped off at the airport, the snow hadn’t stopped, in fact, it hadn’t slowed at all. It looked as though there was a large possibility of his flight being grounded for the night, although he’d been refreshing his email every five minutes for the entire duration of the car ride, checking for news from the airline as well as from SNL. No news yet, so he strolled on in and through security quickly. He grabbed his backpack and tennis shoes from the scanner after they came out and sat in a nearby chair to put them back on. As he was slipping his second shoe on, a body plopped down next to him to do the same, dropping a pair of suede ankle boots on the tile floor with a loud slap. Richie could overhear him talking with someone on the phone frantically and snuck a peek up at the man. He was pressing his iPhone between his shoulder and his ear tightly, rambling so quick Richie wasn’t sure how he could get a breath between the words.

“I know, Ma.”

“Yes, I checked, it looks like it’s still going out.”

“It’s really not that bad, I pr--”

“Well, the news always exaggerates, you know th--”

“Yes, I’ll tell the pilot to be careful. Sure.”

“Mhm-- Yeah. Bye, Mom.”

He sighed loudly as he hung up the phone, dropping it onto the seat next to him then bending over to put his shoes back on. He chuckled quietly, “Sorry if you overheard any of that…” he said as he fiddled with the hems of his jeans, folding them just so and tucking them back under the tongue of his shoes, tying them up with the thin laces. He smiled over at Richie, who was still bent over working on the same shoe he had been when the other man had sat down.

“Hey… you’re that dude from the other day, aren’t you?” Richie asked quietly.

The guy screwed up his face, sitting back up. Richie followed, and he watched as realization fell over his features. “Oh my god, yeah. I’m sorry about that, I was just off a twelve-hour shift and…” he blushed and tried to flatten the hair on the back of his head, just long enough to show a slight curl. “And I was tired. But I’m Eddie.”

“Richie. Pleased to meet you, Eddie. Where ya headed?”

Eddie stood up, beckoning Richie to follow. “Bangor. You?” He asked, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“No shit? Same.”

“Oh that’s weird… I’d definitely peg you for a west coast type of guy.”

Richie laughed, warm, loud, “Ah, yeah. I’ve lived there for almost ten years. Born and raised in Maine though, baby,” he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose as his laughter yielded a snort.

“Don’t call me baby,” Eddie snapped. He’d always hated being called baby, although no one he’d ever dated had used the pet name; it stemmed from something else. It wasn’t his mother, as she favored more cushy pet names for him: Eddie-bear, muffin, sweetheart. Someone else had called him baby, had used it so many times. Why couldn’t he remember? The only thing he had left of the name were the feelings attached to it: the pain, the sorrow, the grief.

Richie put up his hands defensively, “Sorry ‘bout that, it’s a habit.” He checked his watch, there were still two hours until the flight was due to start boarding. “You on the same flight as me? The 4:45 one?” Eddie simply nodded in response, looking over at him with warm eyes. “Wanna get some food? I’m fucking starving.”

Eddie, in turn, checked his phone for the time and shrugged. “Sure, what did you have in mind?”

“Well I don’t know about you, but dat Chili’s 2go really hits the spot pre-flight, it’s an absolute delicacy.” Eddie laughed, a sound that made Richie’s head spin, made his heart ache. He beamed, “Letsa go!”

Eddie shot him a smirk, “You know Chili’s doesn’t serve Italian food, right?”

“It does if you order the spaghetti,” Richie quipped with a laugh.

After wandering around for ten minutes only to discover--to Richie’s utter dismay--that there was, in fact, no Chili’s 2go in their terminal, they settled for a little bar that wasn’t too busy, sitting down in a corner booth in the warm, dimly lit restaurant. When the waitress came over, Eddie immediately ordered “the biggest glass of red wine you guys are allowed to serve.” As she walked away, Richie’s eyebrows shot up at him, above his glasses and into the mess of his hair.

Eddie shrugged, “I fuckin’ hate flying. Plus, it’s an airport, everyone is allowed to drink here at any time of the day, right?”

Richie chuckled, “If I got drunk I’d spend the entirety of the flight trying to get you to let me blow you in the tiny airplane bathroom.”

Eddie’s mouth hung open in horror, “God, that’s fucking disgusting. Is everyone like this in California? Do you guys not have germs there?”

Richie winked, “Sorry.”

“So, anyway, what were you doing in New York?”

“Well, uh, actually… I was auditioning for SNL,” Richie said nonchalantly, looking down at his water glass and taking a small sip of it through the straw.

Eddie raised his eyebrows, his eyes twinkling in the soft light of the restaurant. “That’s cool, what the hell?”

Richie shrugged. “I do a lot of stand up in LA, my agent knows a guy who knows a guy.”

“That’s so fucking cool.”

Richie nodded, “It was terrifying though. Did you know they don’t laugh when you audition? Like at all. They’re not supposed to.”

“God, count me out. I can’t even make old people laugh. And they don’t have the internet, they don’t see any jokes.”

Richie smiled, “Maybe that’s ‘cause they’re just distracted by how cute you are.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie replied, stifling a grin as his cheeks turned a dark, warm rouge. Richie’s heart nearly stopped beating at the sight.

They finished their meal with more expository conversation and slightly less dirty talk, although it was admittedly not much better. Eddie’s cheeks slightly flushed from the wine, Richie’s cheeks sore from smiling, they wandered to their gate quietly. “Well, we’ve still got like an hour…” Eddie yawned as he checked his boarding pass, looking around at the gate numbers ahead of them. “Ah! Over there,” he said, pointing to a sign that read 35, the area underneath already had some people milling around it.

They found a set of chairs that was as secluded as you can really get in an airport and they both sat down, depositing their bags and coats on the chairs on either side of them. After a few seconds, Eddie looked over and nudged Richie, who was rustling around in his backpack. “Will you. Uh. Would you watch my stuff if I nap for a little? I can’t sleep on planes, but I’m fucking exhausted.”

Richie nodded, zipping up his backpack after having retrieved a book from it. “Sure thing, sweet cheeks.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, “Don’t… call me…” he was interrupted by another yawn, this one bigger than the last. “Whatever.” He pulled his knees up in front of him in the chair and reached for his coat, covering himself in it completely; only his head poked out above the thick fur that lined the hood. “Wake me up before they start boarding, I’m in the first boarding group.”

“Damn, how’d you swing that?”

He looked up at Richie, his eyes already half-closed with sleep yet still somehow managing to shoot daggers, “Printed off my boarding pass in a timely manner.”

Richie raised his eyebrows, “Well alright, just call me out for poor time management.”

Eddie nestled further into his coat, closing his eyes completely, “Mhm. Night, Rich.”

Richie’s heart soared at the pet name, his stomach fluttering with warmth. He smiled to himself as he looked over at Eddie, already breathing evenly next to him.

After about forty-five minutes, Richie was abruptly pulled from his book by an announcement over the loudspeaker that their flight would be delayed by at least an hour. He folded down the corner of his page and set his book aside, turning to look at his still fast-asleep neighbor. His voice low, he placed a hand on Eddie’s shoulder softly.

“Hey. Eddie,” he whispered, pressing his fingertips lightly into Eddie’s arm.

Eddie stirred, but not enough to move or even open his eyes, “Mmm?” He grumbled, curling up under his coat even more than he already was.

Richie kept his voice at a whisper, “Flight’s delayed. Another hour.”

Eddie murmured some sleep sounds, balling his fists up in the fur of his coat and wrapping it around his sides. “Good. Hndhdon’t wanna,” he let out a long, deep exhale, “dohnwandjsee my mom ahneeway.”

Richie chuckled, “That’s okay, Eds.”

Eddie, almost fully back asleep now, leaned over the armrest separating them and rested his head on Richie’s shoulder, nestling his cheek into the soft material of Richie’s baseball tee.

“Dohncallmeethat,” he whispered on an exhale, and his next intake of breath was a sleep-gurgled almost-snore. It was Richie’s turn to blush, he stifled a smile as he recovered his book and opened it back up.

After another hour, Eddie began slowly to wake back up, his eyes fluttering and a yawn breaking his lips apart as he sat up, sloughing off the coat, now too hot under its insulation. He looked at Richie, his cheeks flushed slightly from the warmth and the sleep. “Uh. Sorry for… I didn’t realize… That I’d been sleeping on you… How long was I out?”

“Like two hours,” Richie replied, a grin on his face. “I bet they start boarding soon, the snow stopped a bit ago.”

Eddie attempted to keep another yawn at bay, “Thank god. My mom is gonna have a fucking conniption.”

“Yeah, you said something about her while you slept,” Richie said, looking down to make eye contact with Eddie.

His eyes flew open wide, panic on his face. “Fuck. What did I talk about? I have weird dreams a lot… Didn’t realize I talked during them. That’s.” He paused, running a hand through the hair that was kinked on one side from being pressed against Richie’s shoulder. “That’s great.”

“Oh, not much. You just said you didn’t wanna see her.”

Eddie looked relieved. “Oh. Well yeah, that’s not untrue. She’s… A lot.”

“Sounded like it. From what I overheard when you were talking to her on the phone earlier…” Richie trailed off, the PA system in their gate had turned on, a bored-sounding woman began to drone out their flight information.

“Boarding for flight XF56G to Bangor will start in the next twenty minutes, sorry for the delay.”

“Where’s your seat?” Richie asked, still looking at Eddie, now rifling through his coat pockets for his boarding pass.

“12G,” he replied, neatly refolding his boarding pass and tucking it into his pants pocket.

Richie hastily retrieved his, folded and nestled into the back of the book he’d been reading. “Dang it, I’m 23B.”

Eddie smiled snarkily, “What I get for being on time.”

Richie glowered over at him, “Whatever, a flight’s a flight. Sucks no matter what.”

Eddie shrugged, “I guess you’re right. Well, it’s been fun, thanks for not stealing my shit while I slept.”

“All I had to do was sit here and watch you look pretty,” Richie replied. “Wasn’t too hard of a task.”

“I swear to go--” Eddie started, but was interrupted by the call for boarding group A, of which he was a part. “Well, maybe we could, uh…” He cleared his throat as he stood up, folding his coat over his forearm neatly. “Maybe we could get drinks or something while we’re in town, I’m only about twenty-five minutes outside of Bangor… God knows I’ll need the alcohol.”

Richie smiled. “Me too, maybe we could meet in the middle. Now go, or you’re gonna forfeit your precious group A standing. Find you after the flight.”

Eddie nodded, turning around and hastily pushing past strollers and bags and masses of people to make his way to the desk, turning around to shoot Richie one last grin before he disappeared behind the door.

The flight was quick, not even two hours. Richie spent most of it reading and attempting to sleep, although neither was going very well at all. He was continually interrupted by snippets of memories, playing in his head like snapshots; popping up and disappearing like old, faded polaroids. Things from his childhood he’d since completely wiped from his mind; at first, it was his parents, yelling at him for breaking his glasses, praising him for his A averages, worrying at him for something that to him was still a cloudy and nameless entity in his head. A relationship, maybe, but he hadn’t dated anyone in high school. Hadn’t he?

Then came his friends; the treasure trove of memories that opened up the moment he began to recall them was immense, it was endless. Summers spent swimming at the quarry, the years when time had had no illusion of significance, no meaning at all. The group of them roving the entire town on their bikes as if they owned the damn place, building the clubhouse in the barrens, hiding out from their bullies there. He was abruptly ambushed by memories of those boys, the bullies who’d made his and his friends’ lives living hell until one by one they’d moved all out of Derry. These memories he’d packed so far away he wondered if he’d been paying the bills for the storage space these had taken up, they surely had not been in his head all this time.

He remembered his friends one by one, Bill first. Bill. He hadn’t had a name in years, hadn’t thought about his friends since he’d moved, every attempt had ended with him left more confused, with more details forgotten. God, had he adored Bill. The leader, the coolest one of all of them by leaps and bounds. Bill’s power over them had been unmatched, they had all loved him, stutter and all. He then remembered Beverly, cooler than Bill by all standards but their own for no discernible reason. He recalled her beauty, but more than that he recalled her biting wit, her fierce loyalty, her courage. He remembered the others too, nearly all at once. Stan, Mike, Ben, their faces came up in his mind as if he was looking at photos, as if he was watching the greatest hits of his life. They came crashing into the forefront of his mind like a shattered stained-glass window being reassembled in front of his eyes.

Just as the plane began its final descent, more memories came to the surface, ripping through the others almost violently, overtaking all of his other thoughts like brushfire and flooding his mind with nothing but Eddie Eddie Eddie. Cute cute cute. How he could have forgotten him he had not the slightest notion, but those years with Eddie came rushing back, and suddenly it was all he could do not to pass out. They came over him in a deluge, swarming in his head like bees and making him light-headed. Little Eddie Kaspbrak, little in stature but never in character. His friend with the asthma that had turned out to be nothing but a bad case of worrying. His friend who had carefully and meticulously cleaned up and bandaged his knee that one day he’d fallen from the back of Bill’s bike, the only one of them able to stay calm and level-headed through all of the blood, all of the pain. His friend with the too short shorts and the too big t-shirts. His best friend. The love of his life.

Richie felt the plane land, hard and fast, felt his seat underneath his legs jostle him around as they made a bouncy impact with the ground, the movement slowing down as they taxied to the gate. He was pulled from the cavern of his thoughts, he looked up and around the plane, searching for that warm brown head of hair he’d just spent so many years without. It had been ten years, but the next five minutes were due to be the longest of his life. The moment the plane stopped moving, Richie unbuckled and jumped up, joined by some of the other overeager passengers. And Eddie. Richie caught sight of the button nose as the man turned his head, his eyes desperately searching the overcrowded cabin for the boy he’d been in love with since before he even knew what love was. The smile that was on Eddie’s face, his eyes brimming with tears, communicated exactly what they were both feeling. The rush of emotions, the inability to wait five minutes even though they’d waited years already. Richie just stared back, unaware of what his face looked like, although he supposed he probably looked like a damn slack-jawed idiot.

They held eye contact until Eddie’s seatmate exited the aisle and followed the line of passengers off the plane. Eddie tore his eyes away and reluctantly followed, flashing an uneasy, impatient smile before he moved. Richie waited patiently--as patiently as he could, although patience had never been his strong suit. When it was finally his turn, Richie moved anxiously off the plane, following the mass of people in front of him who apparently felt that it was okay to walk as slow as physically possible. On the jet bridge, he began to bob and weave through bodies, trying not to push anyone but nearly mowing down a few old ladies, hobbling at an astoundingly low speed through the wide tunnel. The moment he stepped off, his eyes found Eddie, who was waiting patiently for him, bag and coat in hand. Eddie smiled as Richie approached, dropping his belongings on the floor to reach out to him. Their bodies collided solidly, Richie also cast his bag away, their things in a messy heap on the dirty airport floor.

Richie looked down, looked closer this time than he had before. “Eds.” He fixed his glasses on his face, as if unsure whether or not his eyes were betraying him. “Eddie.”

Eddie nodded, tears welling in his eyes. “Richie,” he whispered.

Richie reached his free hand to cup Eddie’s cheek, letting his thumb swipe softly back and forth across his high cheekbone, still as littered with freckles as it had been when they were fourteen. Richie could feel his eyes wetting as well and blinked a few times, refusing to tear his eyes away from Eddie’s, they were still the same warm, hazel brown with flecks of gray. Richie could feel Eddie staring back up at him, boring holes into his own crystal blue eyes, cast into an almost clear aqua by the brilliant afternoon sunlight reflecting off the snow outside, magnified by the thick lenses that sat in front of them. As they looked at each other for the first time in over ten years--really looked at each other--Richie could feel every single memory of them crashing over him like a tidal wave, crushing him and building him back up again, and he could see the hurricane raging on behind Eddie’s eyes as well. He remembered the long glances, the soft touches, the warm, summer sun reflecting off the water, shining on their wet hair and their wet arms, coaxing freckles out of hiding. The bitter winters, those memories still dominated by warmth, the campfires, the backseat of Richie’s truck with the heater all the way up, the two of them wrapped up under blankets in the same bed. The hot breaths and lingering touches, tingling, warm skin covered with goosebumps. The warmth coming to a crescendo, a blaze that had destroyed everything in its path, igniting their lives and incinerating everything within reach. The fight that had ended it all, and the cold that it had left behind. Replaced again with only longing glances out the back of car windows, driving opposite directions across the country.

Richie watched as Eddie lost his battle with the tears in his eyes, letting a sob escape his chest, beaming up at Richie as the tears began to fell. “It’s been… God, it’s been so long, Rich. So fucking long. And how did we-- how did we not...”

“I don’t know… It doesn’t matter though. Because we’re here. And we remember. And… I never told you when we were younger because I was seventeen and a fucking idiot. But I love you, Eddie. I have since the moment I met you, and… I don’t think I stopped, even while I couldn’t remember you.”

Eddie smiled, laughing through the tears. “I love you too.” Just then, Eddie’s phone began to ring in his pocket, vibrating between them. He pulled it out hastily, sighing at the screen and pressing it up to his ear. “Mom. I just landed, calm down. I’ll be there soon.”

“Yes, I--”

“No, it’s fine, I can--”

Richie chuckled softly to himself as he watched Eddie’s brow furrow, and he reached in his pocket to retrieve his own phone. He read through the few texts he’d missed, deciding to deal with them at a later time. He took a deep breath as he opened his email, refreshing it slowly, ready to see nothing. When it finally loaded, there were two messages. Both from his manager. With shaking fingers, he opened the first one. His eyes pored over the screen, barely reading the words, attempting to absorb the contents of the entire paragraph at once. He scrolled to the bottom quickly, not really retaining any of the text at the top. When he got to the last line, it said this: “I know you’ll have scrolled through this whole thing and not read any of it. So, here’s the deal…”

He looked up at Eddie, who’d just hung up his phone in frustration. Eddie’s eyes went soft when he caught sight of Richie’s face. “What’s up?”

“I did it, Eddie,” he said, exhaling a short, relieved laugh. “I got the job.”

#reddie #secret santa event #kaspbrak-eddie

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plaidamoosette · 5 years

Text

From the Darkness- Part 2

Eddie Brock/Venom x Reader

Credit to the Owners of the Gif, and Marvel for the characters of Venom and Eddie Brock.

Outline: You’re an investigative reporter. You’ve been living in the shadow of everyone else for too long. Every lead you’ve gotten was always turned down or rejected, only to pop up under the bylines of another reporter. Mainly Eddie Brock. But that would change. You’ve caught wind of a lead, something too big to ignore. But as you follow the trail of bodies to your target, will you get too caught up in your story? Maybe some things are not meant to come out from the darkness.

Warnings: um, none yet, mentions of violence and murder, adult words. I know nothing about investigative reporting so... I’m winging it! Gang violence? And just my writing errors.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading and supporting, let me know how you like it, and if you wanna be tagged! Please be patient, the next chapter will be more exciting!

Word Count: 3500+

Part 1 ��

“Ah, Miss (Y/N), ain’t seen you ‘round here in a long time,” a blonde-haired man chirps from behind a desk, smiling at you as you push the large door open, entering the San Francisco Police Department.

“Jake, it’s nice to see you too,” you smile, taking his hand for a firm shake.

“Now, I know you didn’t come all the way over here to flirt with me,” he jokes, winking at you, and you shake your head.

“How’s your boyfriend, Jake?” The man shakes his hand in the air, and laughs breathily.

“Still open to a threesome.”

“Okay! And on that note, let’s change the subject!” Your cheeks flush instantly, earning you another laugh. “I need to ask you for a big favor.”

“Is it for another case?” He asks, standing up and guiding you around to the back of the precinct.

“Yes. And... it may possibly be a little... illegal.” You fidget with your fingers, and he nods, taking you to the desk where his boyfriend, Adam, was seated.

“Detective Kane,” you hold out a hand, and the man in question slaps a folder shut to jump up and snatch you into a hug.

“(Y/N)! Where have you been? I need you to help get me another big case, like the last one!” He jokes, and you smile.

“I think I have just the thing. But, let’s talk privately, okay?” You look around, and he vigorously bobs his head.

“Of course, sweetheart, anything you need. Come one, we’ll go talk in one of the interrogation rooms,” with that, the pair of them lead you to a cold room, motioning for you to sit at the steel table. The chair was icy, and goosebumps immediately rippled across your skin.

“Sorry, it makes the suspects uneasy, better for interrogation,” Adam apologizes, and you gesture that you were fine.

You quickly whip out your notepad and your phone to record, adjusting your position so you were more comfortable in the hard chair. You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, and click the pen.

“So... I need to know everything you have on the creature that has been leaving bodies all around the city.” You jump in, a look of shock taking over Adam’s face.

“Wow, okay, we’re gettin’ right into it, I see,” he chuckles, and then rises from his chair. “I’ll go get the case file.”

“What do you know about it, Jake?” You ask the blond, and he shrugs, resting his chin in his palm.

“Not much. He’s kind of hard to track- but we do know that he kills mostly mercenaries. About five months ago is when he appeared-- killed a bunch of mercs, and a few SWAT members. Ate some of their heads too. The coroner said that whatever did it, it wasn’t human. The teeth marks indicate something that resembles a lion, snake, or-- as he joked-- a freaking dragon.”

“Is there any connection to Life Foundation?” At this, Jake frowns.

“No, why would you think so?”

“Well, Carlton Drake returns with some form of ‘special evidence’ with one of his rockets, and then six months later was shut down because of illegal human experimentation. There was rumors that he was killing people with a parasite, and one of them got loose... not soon after, bodies start showing up. Can’t be just a coincidence, right?” You defend, and Jake looks down.

“I never really thought of that, I suppose,” he mumbles, and then a manilla folder smacks onto the table in front of you.

“That’s all we got on this thing.” Adam states, returning to his seat, and you eagerly open it up.

First, you see paper-clipped papers, holding a passport photo, with a coroner’s report sheet for multiple victims, all mercenaries. Then, you find a series of witness reports, and a very grainy photo of what looks like a vaguely human-shaped inky mass.

“That’s the monster?” You ask, trying to make out its face.

“Yeah. That was taken on the security camera from the outside of the Network Tower. Apparently, it climbed the top, broke into office 4210, and then when it came down, it was confronted by the SWAT... before it got away.” Adam informs you, his voice echoing off the concrete walls, you eyes trained on the image.

“Wait-- 4210? That’s my bosses office... I remember hearing about his windows being broken, but I never heard a reason why... why would it break into the Network Tower? What about the cameras inside the buildings, I know they’re there.”

“SWAT used Tear Gas and smoke grenades, gassed the place out before the cameras could pick anything up.”

This causes your brows to furrow. That places had cameras that could see every angle-- so how is it that they completely missed a creature that’s about the size of a Tahoe? It didn’t make sense.

“Thank you, Adam... I’m guessing I can’t keep this?” You raise a brow, and he purses his lips.

“Sorry sweetheart, no can do.”

You nod your head, and quickly scribble down as much of the info as you could. “Thanks, I’ll keep in touch.”

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N), you helped me bring down the Morales gang. That was the biggest case I ever worked on, and it bumped me up to Detective. If you ever need anything, you can always call me.”

You smile, and rise to your feet to hug him... and then you get an idea.

“You just gave me a great idea!” You squeal, and squeeze the both of them once more before rushing out the door. “Thank’s a ton!”

Okay, so... maybe this wasn’t the best idea. You bite down on your lip once more, before slowly removing yourself from your car. You were sitting in the vacant parking lot of a long-abandoned warehouse, about ten miles outside of San Francisco. Your palms began to perspire, and your heart jumped up a few beats.

Walking up to the door, you clench a fist and knock as hard as you can on the large, industrial steel surface.

knock-knock-knock...knock-knock....knock-knock-knock

There is a brief pause, before the door slides open with a loud creak, and a pistol is pointing at your face. You put your hands up, and smile nervously.

“I’m here to see Little.” You pant, eyes trained on the weapon. The gangster in front of you shifts on his feet before speaking.

“And who’re you?” He grunts, golden teeth glinting in the sunlight.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N). He owes me a favor.” You announce yourself, and his eyes go wide.

“Oh shit,” he huffs, and then tucks the gun into the waistline of his jeans. “Come on in.”

You release a breath, and nod, following the thug into the rusty warehouse. You travel down a few decrepit hallways, and he holds back a tattered black tarp for you, showing you into the center of the building.

All around you, rows and rows of tables lined the room, full of lab equipment, weapons, and more, each attended to by ruffed up looking gangsters, who all stopped to stare at you.

“Hey Little-- you got a visitor.” The man announces, nodding towards you as a large man slowly turns around.

He quickly cracks a smile when his eyes land on your face.

“Well, shit-- never thought I’d actually see you again.” The man’s deep voice bellows, and he lumbers over to you, towering over your frame.

Little was the exact opposite. He stood at a ginormous 6′10, and probably weighed about 400 pounds-- of pure muscle. He was pretty dark skinned, but had striking blue eyes, and he and was the leader of the Neches Gang. You had no clue why people called him Little. He was anything but.

“Follow me, we can talk in private,” he grumbles, placing a beefy hand between your shoulders and guiding you away, carefully steering you into a small office space.

He settles into the chair, which looked like it was about to break. He clasps his hands on the desk, and leans forward.

“What can I do for you, (Y/N)?” Little was eye-level with you, despite the fact that you were still standing.

“I’m working on a story and... I need to get a hold of some security footage.” You straighten your back, standing tall. You needed to look strong. It would impress him.

“That may take a while... where from?”

“Well, I’m looking for a creature... he looks like this-” you pull out your phone, and open the photo you took of the one from the SFPD Precinct, “it was first spotted around an apartment complex... it left a trail of bodies. Mercenaries. Although, I don’t know who their last employer was. It... also broke into the place I work... the Network Tower... but somehow this was the only image that could be found from it. I don’t believe that. That tower is crawling with security cameras, there had to have been something that saw it. Could you find it for me?”

“That’s a lot to ask for...” Little mumbles, his hot stare boring into your eyes. You had to struggle to hold your ground, and not look away. “...but after what you did for me... consider it done. I’ve got some strings I can pull.”

You sigh in relief and flash him a smile. “Thank you, Little. This story... it’s going to be my big break.”

“That’s what you said when I helped you take down my rival gang. What happened with that?”

“My editor...”

“I can take care of him for you too, if you’d like,” Little jokes, and you laugh.

“As nice as that would be, I wanna prove him wrong myself. I’m going to rub this in his face when I get the story published. Just... get me that footage?”

“(Y/N), I owe you a lifetime worth of favors. Because of you, my business has flourished, and I just took on some more warehouses... if you hadn’t exposed the Morales, and helped the police take them down, my Gang would be dead. So thank you. I’ll call you when I’ve got it.”

“Thank you, Little.”

The two of you exchange numbers, and hand shakes, and he quickly ushers you out, thanking you again, before sliding the door shut behind you, leaving you alone outside.

When you investigated the Morales Gang, you quickly uncovered a large underground empire, and managed to expose it to the police in time for them to get taken down.

And although it was a huge deal, your editor basically drowned your story with others. Eddie Brock’s article on Drake got more publicity, and found popularity among the little people. And although you won a few awards from your paper, not very many people recognized your name. After all, it was just another case of gang-related violence. Not exactly a record-breaker.

But if you could bring to light the monster that was plaguing the city-- no one would miss it. If there’s one thing you’ve discovered during your time as a journalist, it’s that people are obsessed with the macabre. They’ll scramble to hear any bits of juicy gossip, to learn more about serial killers and murder.

Society has always been fascinated by gory deaths, and have even romanticized it in films and books. If you could tap into that, by revealing the inky monster to the civilians of San Francisco, then you could really get your name out there. Maybe even go national.

At least, that’s what you had always dreamed of. You wanted to become a big name, part of you wanted to because there weren’t very many big female names in the journalist world-- but you were going to change that. The other part just wanted to prove that you amounted to something. Despite what your family could ever say, you were going to make a name for yourself.

In the meantime, you were going to busy yourself with investigating the witnesses that were listed in the file you’d read at the SFPD. Then, your final stop would be the Network Tower.

When you were finished with the final interrogation, you found peaceful solitude in your car.

Some of the people were rude and slammed the door in your face-- others complained about the damage that had been done to their property from the beast, and others were still just in shock.

Overall, you didn’t really get much.

Apparently, a man was being chased by a few Tahoe’s, and even drones. Although, many of the drones had exploded. The man was riding a bike wildly through the streets of San Francisco, but if this was true, there would have been a police report of the car-chase in the file you read at the Department.

Some of the names that you had in your list were no longer living at their recorded addresses, and others refused to talk to you.

There was something in the back of your mind that sent off the warning bells. Something about this wasn’t right. Something was... off. Everything seemed too... clean.

Someone had to have cleaned up their mess, enough so that they couldn’t be traced. Which only drove you more mad with curiosity. You stashed your notebook in your coat pocket, and then wove through the heavy traffic, heading back towards the Network Tower.

When you arrived, you managed to find a decent parking space. But, as you were entering the building, a man stepped in your way.

“Ah, (Y/N), I was actually about to call you--” Eddie Brock stopped you with a hand, and you had to stop yourself from rolling your eyes.

“Call me for what?” You hoped you didn’t sound rude, you had some important business you needed to get to.

“Well, I.. uh, we- I mean, I was wanting to ask you if you... would like to join me for dinner tonight, so we could talk about the Kasady story... I know Jack can be an ass sometimes, and he’s kept you in the sidelines but... I wanna ask you to be my partner. For this story, I mean. And, I thought we could talk over dinner.”

As usual, Eddie was sweating, beads of perspiration budding along his hairline the minute he opened his mouth towards you. You stood shocked for a moment, blinking, before responding.

“Um... sure... yeah... tonight?” You breath, and he smiles crookedly.

“Well, it is almost seven, I was hoping... now, if you’d like.”

“Oh, uh... yeah... sure. Can I just...” you pause, and then shake your head as a plan formed. “Sounds great! Let’s go.”

“Great, I’ve got a lot to go over with you,” Eddie chatters on, insisting that he drive the two of you to the restaurant, and you laugh, following him to his car.

After you place you order with the waitress, you hand her back her menu, before gazing back at Eddie.

He’d taken you to a small diner, not too fancy or shabby. The place smelled like fresh burgers, and an actual jukebox was playing in the background, but the place was packed to the brim with other guests as they chattered about in low tones.

“So, I was going over some notes, and realized that I was missing a few things-” you hold up a hand, before Eddie could continue, a question burning in your mind.

“Before we start, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, yeah, anything (Y/N).” Eddie halts, waiting patiently.

“Um... remember when Jack’s office was broken into? And something broke into the Tower?” Your voice was growing higher as you spoke.

“Uh... vaguely, why?” Eddie clenches his jaw, shifting in his seat.

“I’ve just heard a few things... the Network kept that pretty quiet... what exactly happened?”

Eddies eyes flit around the building before he leans forward for a moment. “I heard someone was working on a story, and an active shooter got in there... had the SWAT called on him and everything. They kept it pretty tight cause the Network needed to protect the writer’s identity and everything.”

That didn’t make sense though... If that was true, there would be plenty of security footage on the shooter, and there would be a different police report... was Eddie lying?

“Okay, thank you.” You clench your jaw, and Eddie nods, leaning back in his seat.

“So, back to Kasady,” and with that, he continues with his proposition, asking you to recall details that he had missed during the interview.

Although, you had to fight to keep your attention on him. You mind kept wandering to the series of questions that were popping into your head. Why was Eddie lying? What really happened at the Network?

Sure, you were just another writer for the Network, you know you’re not anything big, but for something like that, you should have been in the loop about information of an actual active shooter. You know your editor Jack had many enemies... but would he really lose the possibility for more money by keeping a lid on a story like someone breaking into the Network to come after him?

Your head was spinning in confusion, and really you just wanted to be home so you could take a minute to process it all.

“I know you’re not that into this... I’m sorry for dragging you out here.” Eddie stops talking, and you snap back into focus. You instantly feel bad when you spot his saddened eyes.

“What? No! I’m interested, I just... I’m sorry, I’ve got a lot on my mind.” You defend, and then smile apologetically.

“Are you working on another story?” Eddie thanks the waitress as she sets down your meals, and you nod.

“Its... it means a lot to me, and I want to make sure I’ve got it perfect before I hand it to our Editor... it’s just that... it’s pretty big. A lot of information to sort through.”

“Even bigger than having an exclusive interview with the most notorious serial killer of this millennia?” Eddie smirks, and you nod. “Oh... well... do you need any help?”

“No. I need to do this on my own,” you busy yourself with your burger, and he shrugs.

“I understand that... a writer’s gotta do what they gotta do... this is a risky business, and there’s a lot of competition... I admire you for staying around as long as you have, and how dedicated you are to your stories.” Eddie praises you, and you couldn’t help the rush of heat to your cheeks.

“Uh... thank you. I didn’t know that that meant much. To you, I mean.” You don’t look up at him.

“I’m hurt!” He pretends to hold his heart, and you let out a small laugh. “It’s my job to be observant. I know you’re a great writer. I’ve always been in your corner. Besides, we’ve been partners for a while now.”

“Thank you. That... means a lot. Coming from you, that is. Eddie Brock, the man who brought down the Life Foundation, and exposed the crimes of Carleton Drake.” You speak around a mouthful of burger, and he chuckles, shaking his head.

“And you, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), who brought down the Morales Gang.” Eddie practically shovels the fries into his mouth.

“Not very many people know about that, though.” You shrug, picking at your food.

“And that’s for the better. A gang like that will hold a grudge, and the gangsters may be mostly imprisoned-- but they still have connections. Having your name kept anonymous is for the better. It’s pretty ballsy, going after something like that. Not very many reporters would.” Eddie pokes your hand, and you nod.

“I know... Still, I worked so hard for that, I made a difference... and yet, I’m still scrambling for scraps, fighting for a story that will help me... help me to... I don’t know.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve always had this dream of being an awesome reporter, with a full blown biography and books, maybe even one day running my own paper or something... But it’s like the stories I get are all just small things. I write them, and I’ve brought down corrupted mayors, brought light to dark deals and shady deaths, even uncovered that guy who was unlawfully evicting homes to make an underground casino... but I’m still not... known.”

“Why do you seek recognition so much?” You couldn’t find the strength to look Eddie Brock in the eyes. His voice was soft, hushed, you could barely hear him over the clamor of the diner.

Why did you? Eddie was forcing you to think about things that you preferred to keep buried. This was a side of you that you preferred for Eddie to not see.

“What about you? What made you wanna be a journalist?” You quickly divert his attention, and he sighs, leaning back in his seat.

“I’ve always loved writing,” he shrugs, and then takes a bite of his burger, practically swallowing half of the whole thing. “Plus, its good pay, I’m damn good, and... I like bringing the truth to the people. The hard truths, even if they don’t wanna hear it. The people have a right to know, we can’t live in the dark with certain things anymore.”

He swallows hard, and you nod, your heart slowing down. You appreciated that he didn’t press the matter anymore, although you could see the glint in his eyes, the need, the desire that every reporter had, the urge to ask you for more information. But you weren’t ready for that, and he must’ve known. Maybe, he could even relate. All you could say was thank you.

“Thank you for the food, Eddie. Although... I’m really... speechless to see you put away two whole burgers away like that... are you gonna get sick?” You poke his wrist after he careens back in his booth, belly expanded, puffing his cheeks full of air, sighing contentedly.

“I eat for two.” He gives a crooked grin, and you share a laugh with him, shaking your head.

“The Network doesn’t need its best writer dying early from high cholesterol,” you shake your head, and then slide the empty plate away from yourself, grabbing your sweating glass, and slowly sipping away at the water.

“Thank you. It’s nice to hear some praise, but... you need to praise yourself a little more, okay? You’re not going to get far if you hate yourself.”

“Okay, Dr. Phil,” you joke, and he glares playfully before rising to his feet, dropping a wad of cash onto the table top. He didn’t even wait for a ticket before practically pulling you out of the diner.

Once you were safely back in front of your parked vehicle, you turn to face Eddie.

“Thanks again for the food, and the ride... and the advice.” You twist the keys around on your keyring, and he smiles, his soft eyes crinkling at the edges.

“Of course, (Y/N). Anytime, really, it’s no problem. Honestly... I just didn’t want to be alone tonight. But, hey, I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t worry about my story, focus on your own, okay? I’ll let you proofread mine tomorrow, to make sure your notes are all correct.” Eddie stuffs his hands into his pockets, and you nod before unlocking your car.

“Tomorrow then.”

With that, Eddie waves goodbye once more before slinking off to his own car, practically flying out of the garage. Something makes your stomach churn a little.

Eddie was nice and all, but you had to stay focused. Flesh out this story, and then you could... deal with Eddie. You take a deep breath and start the car, anxiously waiting for a chance to review everything you had gathered.

Taglist:

@lowkeyofsassguard @daddy-hardy @lunamusamelark @randomshizzles101 @marydragneell @smilexcaptainx @ashisthresh @crazyminnesotagirl @nicimixerxoxo @coffee-burglar

#venom #venom x reader #eddie brock #eddie brock x reader #eddie brock/venom x reader #eddie #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #x reader #marvel fanfiction

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the-constant-project · 5 years

Text

Interview with a Magical Girl

What was my childhood like?

I don’t remember much of my childhood. Not due to it being bad or something overtly traumatic, it was just average (Upon discussing stuff with my therapist, I have since learnt this is not true in the slightest.). I was neither particularly skilled academically or physically, though I soon learnt later in life that this was due to how my brain worked. A smart little awkward cookie who just couldn’t handle the pre-packaged Baked Goods that was expected of all younglings. I was bright, devoured what I read and caught my interest, but it didn’t suit what the Adults expected, and thus I was branded an outcast. The interest in cephalopods definitely didn’t help with my peers either, atleast not until my 20s. Eventually the growth hormones kicked in (Fuck being a teenager. Those who miss those days are either incredibly delusional, or they lucked out during their teenage years. Lucky sods.), and changes wracked my form. Some grew interested in the other sex, others were interested in the same but kept quiet about it. Whereas I......just wasn’t interested. There were times when desire would flood my body, but I was lucky that I had read about what hormones could do to me, so I understood what I was feeling would only be temporary. The few who truly did spark something, recoiled from me upon learning so, due to either them having only been faking friendship with my for whatever reason teenagers do so, or preferred us being friends. I was fine with the latter, it was nice knowing how I could interact with them. It was the former that started the process of breaking me, of learning the difference between being a person, and being an object. And it was the loss of all of them at the end of my final high school year that started the cracks in my psyche. I had spent my formative years making myself into someone they all liked, actively avoiding the things that, upon reflection, would define my adult life. The realization I had wasted my formative years on people who had been happy to drop me once they didn’t have to deal with me.............hurt. I had denied myself, and torn myself into the wrong shapes, and it had not been enough for them. I don’t remember the couple of years between High School ending, and starting my stagnant job. I just remember the hate, the rage, the pain and the anguish. Its still there, buried deep. I have long since accepted those parts of me. Those parts of me help when something tries to break me again.

You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned my family. My mother is a good woman, who has had the world repeatedly try and beat her down and break her. It succeeded, but she refused what it gave her and fought her way back to something resembling normalcy. Atleast, as close as she can manage. My siblings.....I resent them for how they were growing up, but I’ve since come to terms with them and we enjoy a nice peace between us. Not living in the same house helps a lot. We won’t speak of the man who put me in a hospital. He’s lucky my mother and I still, for some unknown and most likely fucking stupid reason, allow him to stay in our lives.

My stagnant job was just that.....stagnant. I was one of their better employees. But I was neither Good Enough(tm), nor did I perform the needlessly complicated social rituals needed to bypass the Good Enough(tm) necessity required for getting promoted.

I was secluded, but it helped me start healing. But it stagnated at some point, and I became stuck in a rut, unable to leave.

It wasn’t until my Ikō-ki came that my life truly started.

************ Whats an Ikō-ki, you ask? I’m not sure myself, to be honest. I was alone in my tiny apartment, my own little stagnant marble of reality, when it just appeared with a flickering of the light, a strange dark metallic rod, eldritch tendrils of energy keeping it afloat. The ‘head’ of rod is vaguely bulbous, with 8 undulating bands forming the patterns along its length. Heh, it just occurs to me, but it kind of looks like someone had attached a small octopus to a rod (This is how I knew it was mine.) It called itself an Ikō-ki. The strange mind voice it uses to talk to me is a strange blend of my masculine voice and a Japanese accent I’ve never had, and if it weren’t for the fact I hated how the words sound when they come out of my mouth, I would call it a soothing voice.

They seem to help transition small pools of stagnation, based on the stories it has shown me. My Ikō-ki (I can’t help but claim it as Mine) has shown me multiple stories: a princess become a prince and bring ruin to their prosperous yet corrupt state; a young boy became the Belle of the town and helped reunite the warring clans within falling in love with each of their heirs and tying their futures to one another; an adult who claimed bloody retribution on those who had claimed their body against their will. But those are the Phantasmal stories, the ones meant to bring hope to those who have fallen to despair, to give them the motivation to rise above the masses or to sink deep into their minds and bring forth a new dawn for those who follow their darker paths.

But that was not meant to be my Story, atleast, that is my hope. I want my story to be a stopover, like the smaller stories of local heroes and vigilantes, of those who guard the dreams and become the nightmare that nightmares fear within the dreamscape, those who sleep the wakeless dream and help heal the minds of their peers, of those whose only job is to look after their Ikō-ki until it comes time for it to move on. I’m getting off track. My mind can’t help but wander when I think about my Ikō-ki.

My Ikō-ki is a strange magical artefact that most likely either originates from Japan, or spent enough time there that it has permanently affected its.....mind? I’m still not sure how its ‘mind’ works. My Ikō-ki definitely has its own mind, since while we share tastes and opinions; it has since developed its own opinions and tastes, which I find fascinating. The small few others we’ve encountered have ranged from nothing more than inanimate magical objects, to semi-autonomous drone-like constructs, to full-fledged sentient beings. They seem to specifically be attracted to women, since I have yet to see any we’ve encountered with a masculine form. But considering they make us physically transform when we use them, I can’t trust what I see, I can only take the words of the strangers who are in similar situations to me. ........did I not mention I can transform? From the sounds of it, My Ikō-ki was surprised at how accepting I was of the concept. I had grown up watching cartoons of girls being able to transform into magical warriors, so this was just my childhood dream coming true.

My new form.......is too much for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, I love the design of my outfit. The cephalopodan dress is the stuff of eldritch nightmares, all dark blues, greens and browns, endless flowing in non-existent currents, the great red Mantle headpiece towering above me, 4 larges tendrils wrapped together like hair, ready to flare up and be used if needed.. The ammonoid shield stands tall and impassable, its eternal spiral unyielding to any. The strange spraying creature on my right wrist, at time filled with a viscous ink that flows through air as if underwater, yet capable of delivering a highly venomous bite to anyone who isn’t me if they venture to close (This strange symbiote seems to share a link with me, since I’ve recently learnt that, if threatened outside of my magical girl form, my bite can be just as venomous). But as with the strange curves of all cephalopods, my own body becomes much fuller, curves appearing where I typically lacked them. While gorgeous, it’s not my thing. I prefer being on the ‘less filled out’ side of the body spectrum. Though if the only downside to my form is that its curvier than I like, and I get a awesome cephalopod aesthetic as the positive, I’ll take that deal. I’ve seen some of the lingerie others have been saddled with. What do I do with this form?

.......just watch it move and react. Its more cephalopodan than human, and its fascinating watching the eldritch form just.....move. There are times I go exploring the city, and stopping some of the worse crimes if I stumble upon them. But exploring the dreamscape is what I mainly do. Redirecting the mental eddies and currents around me, helping keep their lives just that little bit less miserable. .......I once tried to probe into That Man’s thoughts, to see why he put me into the hospital. I couldn’t handle what I found, and now I fear to dive into anyone else’s mind. If I’m a Magical Girl, who do I fight? Thats a hard question. In theory, The Decline. The literal concept of humanity falling into entropy. But as My Ikō-ki has shown me, The Decline just haven’t been active lately. My Ikō-ki is of the belief that we’ll see a resurgence in the next few years, given the state of the world’s political climate. But at the moment, I’ve mainly been ‘fighting’ other Magical Girls I’ve encountered. Not to the death or anything. Only some of the newer girls try that, due to a rise in darker media. But those of us with experience quickly weeded out those thoughts. At most, We spar and train. As I said, supposedly The Decline is coming, and someone needs to be ready. I’m hoping my shift will be over by then, but it can’t hurt to keep the others who have an active interest in protecting the world on their toes. Also helps keep me fit and in top form, when some of the more ‘morally straight laced’ Girls come and ‘hunt me’.

Why do I get hunted?

Because I have the Power, yet I don’t do anything obvious with it. Plus, as you can tell from looking at me, they ‘normal’ girls consider me an aberration. I once asked My Ikō-ki if Magical Girls were inherently good. He told me that each magical Girl is different, and we all walk different paths. Most walk the lighter paths, and some are consumed by that light. I walk one of the newer paths. Because it is new-ish, and isn’t inclined towards ‘The Light’, they get it into their heads that theres something wrong with me, and I should be purged to allow my Ikō-ki to pass on. Its not their fault. Society has taught them to fear the alien and the unknown, and one of our baser instincts is to fear what hide in the Dark. But thats why I walk the Darker path. I shall shield those outside of the Dark from their own fears. Luckily, I haven’t had to kill any of them. I almost did once, when I learnt my symbiotic sprayer could bite. The problem with young creatures with venomous bites, is that they don’t know how to regulate their venom. That girl was lucky the Medical Girl was nearby. Five more minutes and her lungs would’ve been paralyzed. *************

#magical girl #Its been a while since I wrote anything #This also hasn't been well edited since I wanted to just release it before heading to bed #I miss being able to write like this

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: In Miami, a Museum Attempts to Bring Teens and Cops Together Over Art

Art Detectives with Lawrence Weiner’s “OUT OF SIGHT” (2016) (photo by and courtesy Amanda Bradley)

MIAMI — Near the entrance to the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Lawrence Weiner’s piece “OUT OF SIGHT” spreads across the floor like hopscotch, bold-faced text where the numbers would be: “IMAGINED THINGS CAN BE ALTERED TO SUIT,” “SPIT INTO THE WIND HOPE FOR THE BEST,” “THE DESTINATION IS STRAIGHT ON.” There’s an identical work next to it, in Spanish; Weiner frequently speaks to the demographics of the cities in which his work is showcased. Last month, at the launch of PAMM’s new educational initiative, Art Detectives, “OUT OF SIGHT” — usually coolly examined from above, or treaded on lightly by passersby — became an indoor playground game, children and Miami-Dade County Police officers hopping across its squares.

“How did things change from the space where you were — to the space you’re on now?” asked Loni Johnson, a PAMM teaching artist. One student, who’d hopped from “ASSUMING A POSITION” to “ONE CAN ONLY IMAGINE THE POWERS THAT BE,” replied: “That square represented not knowing what I had in mind yet, not knowing what I wanted. Now I have more of an idea, more of an imagination.” Reflecting on the latter square, Officer Eddy Smith related, too. “I have certain powers, given my uniform,” he admitted, “when I’m conducting traffic, or with the people I’m interacting with.” It was strange to watch the children interacting with the police (and amusing to watch the police jump from square to square), but situational gawkiness eventually gave way to acceptance of the unusual setup, and they were able to simply be together.

Art Detectives was developed in partnership with the Miami-Dade Police Department, Breakthrough Miami — an academic enrichment program dedicated to middle school students from underserved communities — and Links Inc. Greater Miami Chapter, a volunteer organization providing services to women, the elderly, and youths. Every cycle takes place over three sessions (on Fridays and Saturdays), presided over by PAMM teaching artists and educational staff from each program. This particular cycle ended March 4; the second started March 11, and there are three more to come, the first of which begins June 16. (The participating students are selected “at the discretion of site leadership,” explained Breakthrough’s Senior Site Director Webber Charles in a video about the project.)

In the first session, several police officers and 50 students from Breakthrough Miami meet at a Breakthrough site classroom where, said Charles, “they’ll approach the project strictly on instinct. They’re given images and words, magazine cutouts and other materials, and they create a collage alongside the officers.” The two groups discuss the process, providing kids the impetus — hopefully — to discuss why they might’ve selected a particular image or word and how that speaks, more largely, to their feelings about police. As Charles explained, “Before they make their collages, the assignment is couched in a conversation about law enforcement and their role in the community.”

Prior to this meeting, said Adrienne Chadwick, PAMM’s Deputy Director of Education, “police officers and community members fill out a preliminary attitudinal survey from the Journal of Juvenile Justices about their experiences and perceptions of police and youth interaction. At the end of the program, they’ll fill out a post-survey to determine if there have been any changes in perception.”

The second sessions take place in the museum, where PAMM teaching artists guide the students and police through a few exhibitions, asking questions to prompt reflection and encourage sharing. The third and final sessions take place back in the classroom, where both groups discuss what they’ve learned and, more importantly, how they feel.

Art Detectives with Jesús Rafael Soto’s “Penetrable BBL Blue 2/8” (photo by Amanda Bradley)

As an arts demographic, teenagers often play second fiddle to younger children, too old to qualify for free entry to museums or to partake in “kid-friendly” workshops. In response to this oversight, there’s recently been a widespread push to make art museums more engaging for adolescents. In addition to Art Detectives, programs targeted at this overlooked age group include the Failure Lab at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Open Art Space at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Youth Insights program at the Whitney Museum, the Teen Creative Agency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Wariyaa program at Minneapolis’s Mill City Museum, organized by the Minnesota Historical Society in response to the trial of three Somali-American young adults convicted of attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State (some of these were recently profiled in-depth by Alina Tugend for the New York Times).

In its utilization of art to address challenging issues like inclusivity, race, and critical theory, Art Detectives is in line with other museum-based programs intent on engaging teenagers. But it seems to be one of very few art programs in the US — maybe the only one — bridging the police-community divide specifically.

The program’s long-term effects are unforeseeable, especially given the myriad and objectively horrifying issues plaguing the Miami-Dade Police Department. “The police are adults, and adults are inherently less able to experience transformations of thought or paradigm shifts of what is acceptable,” Charles told Hyperallergic. “Unfortunately, when we’re talking about adults going through training that’s inherently adversary to the students they’re working with, it can be harder to move the needle.”

Miami-Dade officers have a reputation. In 2014, following a chase by Miami Beach Police officers, 18-year-old Israel “Reefa” Hernandez was killed. Hernandez had just been caught tagging a shuttered McDonald’s; an officer shot a taser at the boy’s chest. Witnesses reportedly saw the cops high-fiving and laughing at Hernandez’s fallen body, and new evidence suggests they may have chased him with guns drawn. But when the officer responsible wasn’t charged, David Ovalle at the Miami Herald posited that it was unsurprising — wholly expected, even.

In 2011, during Memorial Day Weekend in South Beach, 22-year-old Raymond Herisse was killed — and four bystanders wounded — when police, in response to Herisse’s reckless driving, fired over 110 bullets at his car. He’d already stopped driving. It took four years for courts to ultimately decide no charges would be filed. Herisse was one of seven black men killed in police shootings in Miami over a span for eight months.

In 2013, a new effort was launched to monitor the Miami-Dade Police Department, following an investigation by the US Justice Department, which included research on the aforementioned seven shootings and 26 others. This federal monitoring agreement was ratified last year, though the monitor is former Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor, whose officers “engaged in a notable campaign to arrest black residents disproportionately while riding bicycles.” In Miami, there are plenty of reasons to fear the police, particularly if you’re young and black or brown.

Art Detectives hopes to humanize each group for the other, transforming teens from troublesome bodies into true, curious individuals and the police from threatening and potentially lethal figures to grownups with hearts. And while it’s great both groups will get to think critically about contemporary art, “the art is just a medium by which we’re talking about more serious issues,” said Charles at Breakthrough. “It’s tertiary to a larger discussion.”

Charles is also quick to address the challenges of creating new conceptual lenses through which the groups can view each other — instead, the program’s organizers hope to dismantle or weaken some of the old dialogue. “The students will have the opportunity to assess police officers in a new context,” he said. “I don’t think we should expect expect anything in terms of building up — the program is successful if we deconstruct some of the misconceptions about what it means to be a student in some of Miami’s neighborhoods and, similarly, what it means to be a police officer in Miami-Dade County.”

The dismantling of narratives that police have internalized about community youth — and vice versa — is a nationwide, generations-long challenge. Shifts of this magnitude are slow. The significance of Art Detectives is its ability to enable the coexistence of two groups that are generally averse to each other in an unfamiliar context mostly stripped of power dynamics — and those that are inherent kept in check by virtue of the setting and the educators (here, the officers, like children, must raise their hands to speak). These kinds of small-scale efforts to open up dialogue are important precisely because, in the fight to cultivate empathy, everything begins at a small scale.

Art Detectives at work (photo by Amanda Bradley)

At the museum, the children and police were sectioned off into three groups led by teaching artists (in addition to Johnson, there’s Chire Regans and Susan Del Conte) to examine several artworks, Weiner’s “OUT OF SIGHT” included. They were encouraged to consider why an artist might’ve chosen a particular color or composition, the larger messages of each piece, how each made them personally react or feel. The dark tones and “brick-like” shapes of Sean Scully’s “Wall of Light, Rain,” for example, inspired students to discuss home, shelter, and community; one alluded to fortitude. One police officer, seemingly inspired, did the same.

I asked Officer Smith about his experience: “I feel the youths are here to express how they feel, and I’m beginning to accept how they feel,” he said. “Sharing, sitting, talking with them, I’m hoping they have a better understanding of us — that we’re here to help and serve and protect the community. Like them, we have families, we hurt, we cry.”

He was sincere, and there’s nothing not lovely about this. But what about the police’s perception of the youths? That’s a little more challenging, for a number of reasons. Many of the police officers involved in Art Detectives already work in community policing, and are naturally more sensitive to the concerns of students. “I go to career days, or help lead park talks, where we go to parks and discuss our careers and try to connect with the kids,” Smith explained. “When you first come up to a youth, they think they did something wrong, and they’re terrified. If you start sharing, giving them something, they’ll realize you care.”

Officer Mercy Rodriguez, who works in the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Neighborhood Resource Unit and is a principal contact for the Art Detectives project, added, “That’s our base foundation: we work with schools, at different community housing. We love the community, and we love to interact with children. This program is not necessarily youth-related or police-related. There’s another common goal, which is looking at art. That in itself helps us to humanize the badge.”

Most of the officers participating in Art Detectives, like most of the students, are black, and many of the aforementioned police misconduct cases — the kind that got the Justice Department concerned about what, exactly, is going on in Miami — revolved around the actions of cops who were not black. This is not a deliberate choice, according to Rodriguez: “This is what we do: we’re all diverse officers, no matter our background, our ethnicity, our race.” Lieutenant Elton Lee, another officer working with the program, explained that while the officers are mostly selected randomly, “we do select them based on their positive interaction with youths.”

None of this is necessarily problematic. But if it were required that every police officer handling cases involving youths had experience in dealing with them positively already, maybe the situation in Miami would be different. The goal here is to create a new conduit through which different members of a community can be together and hear each other. To that end, the questions posed by the PAMM teaching artists are meant to foster empathetic communication, shedding light on commonalities.

“With the expertise of the PAMM staff, who are phenomenal, they can eke out some of the issues and common threads between the two parties as it relates to their interactions with the art,” said Charles. “That’s what we’re looking for: those magical moments where, serendipitously, a cop and a student have a similar story or find out they come from the same community. That can move them forward. It’s an opportunity to enable some of these moments to happen, naturally and organically.”

When this did happen, the cops and students laughed at and piggybacked off each other’s responses to the work on view. At the end of the three-hour museum encounter, Johnson instructed the two groups to create a communal manifesto: “Write what you feel the purpose of this program is, and what you’ve learned.” In the resulting texts, there were plenty of references to the art at PAMM, and the art of living: “To learn about how art is not just paintings, but decisions in life,” wrote one student. Another added, surprisingly and beautifully: “We learned about art, and that Earth is also art. It has beauty and needs to be taken care of by humans, because Earth is a living thing.”

But if these impromptu manifestos are any indication, the modest goals of Art Detectives — to share and hold space in a neutral setting conducive to fostering empathy — are slowly coming to fruition. Here’s more of what the kids and police had to say:

We can take the purpose of this program and apply it to our community after it’s over. I hope we can create a safe space for everyone involved to continue to express themselves. This program is about being open-minded, and putting yourself in other perspectives. The purpose of this program is to learn to have compassion for all members of the community. Love equals art; art equals love.

For these encounters to keep happening, maybe art can continue to serve as a common experience that facilitates conversations between members of a community who are too often, brutally, at odds. As the participation of PAMM and its teaching artists proves key, perhaps museums in other cities with similarly polarized relations between citizens and police can adapt this model, emphasizing mutual understanding and the power of listening. It’s easy to be skeptical of this kind of progress, but it’s harder still to do the work.

Participants in the Pérez Art Museum Miami’s Art Detectives program (photo by Amanda Bradley)

The post In Miami, a Museum Attempts to Bring Teens and Cops Together Over Art appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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