You had gotten so used to his nightly presence that when you woke up one night and you were alone, you sat up in a panic. This wasn’t like him. He was always sitting there in the corner, watching over you. You climbed out of bed and went to the window, frantically looking out into your neighbourhood in hopes of catching a glimpse of him in the moonlight.
But nothing.
You weren’t sure how long you stayed there, your eyes sweeping the familiar streets, but by the time your brain was able to focus on something other than your stalker, the morning sunlight was just starting to peek into your apartment.
“Shit,” You sighed, an exhausted yawn ripping itself from your lips.
"How can you act like nothing happened?" + buddie if it inspires u <3333
Hi, April! Indeed it did inspire (just took a hot second to get all the details and i hope you like it) 💖🫶
What happens to them after? Buck had asked Dr. Salazar. They just go back to their same old lives? Go back to being the same old people?
Some do.
When he was in her office, posing that question, he doesn’t even consciously know if he had Eddie’s experience in mind. Well, one of Eddie’s experiences.
The soul shifting instance of Eddie falling in the middle of the street like a ragdoll. Not to mention the others. Eddie being buried alive under forty feet of earth. Eddie being trapped in a burning house, surrounded by fire on all sides.
Buck’s had his fair share of near misses, they all have. So why does Eddie’s nonchalance bother him so much now? Is it because this time Buck actually died? For ‘three minutes and seventeen seconds’, Eddie corrected Chief Williams. He previously told Buck ‘you think you’re expendable, but you’re wrong’.
One time Buck asks what death was like for Eddie, and he answers as casually as if Buck asked about his day.
Then I thought ‘this is it’. This is the last moment of my life. He shrugged. Then I woke up in the hospital.
Buck barges through the front door. No knocking, no checking if Eddie has company. He finds him folding towels at the dining room table, humming to himself.
“Hey, Buck. Wasn’t expecting you… today.” Eddie trails off as he notices Buck’s demeanor.
“How can you act like nothing happened?”
“Excuse me?” Eddie pinches his brows together in that way that Buck knows he’s flipping through a mental rolodex of recent memories. “Is this about the casserole last week? Because of the-”
“What? What about the- you know what? Nevermind, that’s not why I’m here.” Buck folds his arms across his chest, adding, “But we’ll come back to that.”
Eddie nods slowly, hand drifting to the laundry basket to pick up the next towel. “So, why are you here?”
“Because, Eddie. You told me I wasn’t expendable. You made me Christopher’s legal guardian if something happens to you.” He sniffs, angry that his emotions are choosing now to break loose, after weeks of feeling numb. “For Christ’s sake, you knew exactly how long I was dead.”
The assertion makes Eddie flinch, makes him stare a hole into the floor, astutely avoiding Buck’s gaze.
“But you- you never wanna talk about it. Not when it comes to you.”
“Maybe,” Eddie’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, he cocks his head in annoyance, and Buck knows he’s onto something. He’s struck a nerve. “Maybe, because there’s nothing to talk about.”
“Oh no? Y- you get shot down in Afghanistan, buried alive, shot again in LA, have a fucking breakdown and there’s nothing to talk about?” Buck steps forward, standing directly in front of his best friend, forcing him to look up. “Okay, well what about Chris needing therapy after the tsunami? Huh? What about going to dispatch because – you thought – Chris didn’t want you to be a firefighter anymore? Hell, that eventually got you to patch things up with your old man. But all those other things? Just another day in the life of Eddie Diaz. No need to stick around, folks, nothing happening here.”
“Christopher is different, Buck. He’s my son.”
“And you’re my best friend. My partner.” My person, he doesn’t say, wiping away the tears rolling down his cheeks. “Doesn’t that mean anything? We’re all just supposed to deal with it if it’s you, and pretend to live our same old lives?”
Eddie purses his lips, backs away. He doesn’t even look in Buck’s direction when he says, “Please leave.”
Buck freezes. “What?”
“Get out, Buck. Before I do say something and we both regret it.”
He could fight back, keep prodding at the singular bruise spread across both of them. He wants to, wants Eddie to yell and scream. Something. Anything. In the end Buck isn’t sure why he doesn’t. All he knows is that in the space of a breath all the fight leaves him. All the fire and outrage deflates, making him feel emptier than before.
When he reaches the front door, Eddie still won’t look at him. So he listens and turns the handle, walks over the threshold. He keeps going until he reaches the jeep, until he’s sitting in the driver’s seat, until he’s several streets away and sure no one will see him. Then he crumbles. He falls apart, wracked with sobs he knows will leave his body hollow and aching later.
And he wonders- should he have kept pretending, too?
Over the next couple of weeks the two of you fell into a routine. You would fall asleep alone and wake sometime in the night to find him watching you, always shrouded in shadows, tensed like he was prepared to defend you at the slightest provocation. It made you feel safe and you found that you were sleeping better than you had in years, even though you were constantly waking up in the middle of the night.
Sometimes you would talk to him, give him a little run down of your day, complain about your coworkers, tell him about your friends. He would occasionally grunt or give a one word answer to show he was listening, but otherwise he didn’t speak much. Other times the two of you would sit there in silence, just enjoying each other’s presence.
He put his drink down on the table and jumped up, grabbing his stuff before high tailing it out of his loft. He jogged down the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevator, and raced to his Jeep.
The entire drive to Eddie’s Buck tried to think of what to say. The problem was that he didn’t know exactly what he had said last night, so he wasn’t sure how much Eddie knew. Did he know about Buck’s feelings for him? Was that why he was upset? Then of course came the question: was he upset because Buck didn’t remember or because Buck had those kinds of feelings for him? He wished he was more confident that it was the former, but the part of him that worried, that had kept it a secret all this time was convinced it would be the latter.
Arriving at Eddie’s house Buck put his Jeep and let out a deep sigh. He could do this. He could go ask Eddie about last night. He could. With a decisive nod, Buck got out of the Jeep and walked to Eddie’s front door. He debated for a second on whether or not to use his key before deciding that he should be as normal as possible. No need to start acting weird just because he might have given away his secret feelings to his best friend.
Why…why was it unlocked? Eddie knew that he had checked to make sure it was locked this morning before he left for his shift. He always did.
“That’s weird,” He mumbled, putting down his beer and going to the door. He opened it and took a look outside but nothing seemed to be amiss so he closed it again and locked it. He stood there for a moment, wracking his brain for a moment he might have missed this morning, when he might have left the door unlocked, but there was nothing. He knew it was locked.
He sighed as he unlocked his front door, rolling his neck and wincing as it cracked. He dropped his duffle on the floor near the entrance and vowed to come back later to deal with it. He made his way to the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge, cracking it open and savouring the cool liquid as he took a big sip. Eddie was about to grab his phone to order something for dinner when something caught his eye.
Ten days, twelve hours, and fifty two minutes. That’s how long he and Clarke had been broken up and he wasn’t doing well. Quite honestly, he felt numb. All he could think about was Clarke saying, “This isn’t working out,” over and over again. All he could think about was everything he should have said, how he should have fought harder and asked to work things out. Bellamy knew that Clarke was the love of his life, he was sure of it. So the thought that he was going to spend the rest of his life without her? Harrowing.
He still couldn’t quite believe it. They had been so good, so solid. The six months they dated were the best of Bellamy’s life. Even that last month when they hardly saw each other because their work schedules put them on opposite shifts, even when they fought after long days when exhaustion pushed you to snap over things that wouldn’t normally bother you. He’d take fighting with Clarke over not having her in his life. Without her he felt empty. Bellamy assumed that that feeling would lessen as the days, the months, the years went by, but he didn’t want it to. He liked the pain, it reminded him that it had been real.
So, that’s where he was. It was Friday night and he was sitting on his couch, staring at pictures on his phone of him and Clarke, wishing that things had gone differently.
😱 stiles didn't know they were dating
Derek was the first one to speak. “Excuse me,” He mumbled, avoiding eye contact with everyone as he slipped out of the house as fast as he could without seeming desperate, taking off towards the woods. He was going to run until he couldn’t anymore. Maybe then the painful ache in his chest would disappear.
“Derek!” Cora called after him, but he ignored her.
He pushed his body forward as he felt the shift coming on and soon it was four paws hitting the ground instead of two feet. He ran and ran, pushing himself further and further, trying to outrun the gaping wound in his heart.
How could he have been so foolish?
Eventually he came upon a clearing, a place he used to go when he was young and his family was still alive. It was his favourite spot of the preserve, always quiet.
He collapsed on the grass, huffing out a breath as he swiped at his chest, trying to make the ache go away, whining when it didn’t. He couldn’t help it, he threw his head back and howled, an agonized, miserable sound.
Eventually the howl tapered off and he was left whimpering, distressed, devastated, and alone.
