sorry to rant i’mjust saying i would hate to be a writer making queer media these days cause i’d be putting my characters through conflicts and story elements and my fellow queer 20somethings would start calling me homophobic just because they decided to make my story into their safe space

Empty Houses / Empty Stomachs

Sources: Kitty Horrorshow, "Anatomy" 🏚 Josh Quissy 🏚 Wikipedia (Abandonment - Legal) 🏚 Ashe Vernon, "Love Disorders and Other Heartaches" 🏚 @/churchrummagesale 🏚 Kitty Horrorshow, Anatomy (Transcribed by @/a-missing-ache) 🏚 Kitty Horrorshow, Anatomy 🏚 @/churchrummagesale 🏚 Wikipedia (Desire) 🏚@/churchrummagesale 🏚 Wikipedia (Hunger - Physiology) 🏚 Wikipedia (Desire) 🏚Emma Rebholz, “No Good Bloodsuckers" from The Misanthropy 🏚 @/zegalba

they just don't make content like this anywhere else

do you know who else is gay? my mutuals

YOUR PAST AND MINE ARE PARALLEL LINES

misha collins says hey sorry about your rights being taken away but don’t cry. castiel is gay, ok? and you know what? ok.

i hope you have a very vampiric and homosexual pride month

Like I’m a gay Eddie truther but his journey as a queer man isn’t voided just cause he dates a woman who can’t act

btw buck and eddie could literally get married to women and i'd still be buddie truthing whilst blasting moral of the story by ashe

Oliver for A Book Of - read his interview here + order the magazine

Eddie is a big enough person that he can admit he's being difficult. He feels like a dick, okay? A nurse's job is difficult enough without a stubborn firefighter wriggling away from their relentless offers of pain medication, and he feels truly terrible about making it ten times worse.

But his team, his family, all came way too close to death today. And what did Eddie do? Lie there like a fucking damsel in distress just waiting for Buck to come rescue him.

Hell, even Hen performed a rope rescue whilst heavily concussed. Eddie was about one tenth of the muscle power behind lifting the slab of concrete off Bobby, that's it.

And, look, maybe that's not a good enough reason to snap at the very nice nurse pursing her lips into a smile for him. But Athena had dropped him down on the closest bench when they'd arrived, and everybody else was being dealt with because their injuries were more serious, and Eddie's alone. He's alone, and he has no idea what's happening to his friends, and no one will tell him anything.

The curtain hooks squeak as a dusty figure slips into his little nook in the corner of the Emergency Room, and something coiled tight in his chest loosens into warm relief when he meets their eyes.

"Hey, heard you were being difficult." Buck quirks an eyebrow at him, and Eddie can see the way his mouth twitches as it desperately tries to fight off a smile.

"I'm not being difficult," Eddie insists because maybe he's not as big of a person as he thought he was. The nurse shoots him a dirty look, and he withers under the attention. "Okay, maybe a little."

Buck huffs a laugh as he drags a spare stool over to the bedside unoccupied by the needle-wielding nurse, collapsing into it with a poorly hidden grimace. His eyes flick around Eddie's face for a moment, and Eddie swallows thickly at the attention, suddenly afraid Buck might see something on him that Eddie can barely see himself - that tends to be how they work.

(Its a lot that he's choosing not to see. Or, well, its impossible not to see, but Eddie has never cared to look too closely, never cared to take a step back and look at the whole picture.

The magnitude of it terrifies him because what he can't see he can feel. The loosened coil in his chest that had turned taut at Buck's grimace, the way the throbbing in his ribcage had eased up ever so slightly when Buck's voice had crackled through his radio, the leap of something behind his sternum when Buck's hand had found his in the chaos.

And the details of it that Eddie has spent hours staring at just for them all to blur together into an answer he's never dared read. The spot on the couch that always sits empty on Christopher's other side, the cookies Christopher's teacher had complimented him for at pick-up, the cartoon heart tucked away in the box at the bottom of the closet with all of Christopher's old drawings.

God, part of him hopes Buck reads it all right then and there, puts them both out of the misery and drags the answer out into the daylight.)

"Take the meds, Eddie," Buck murmurs gently. There's something on Buck's face, something Eddie wants to read into, something Eddie wants to find an answer in. "Please."

"Buck..."

"I saw how much pain you were in, Eds." Buck shakes his head, shoulders hunching tight with tension. He looks smaller under the fluorescent hospital lights, not the competent saviour of his team, but the little kid terrified of losing his family. "I saw it."

Eddie doesn't need to read that answer, hears it instead. Hears the: I saw the pain this time, let me fix it like I couldn't then. Hears the: I see you whether you like it or not.

"I heard it," Buck whispers. Eddie isn't sure whether or not he's meant to hear that, but then Buck is turning blazing eyes on him. "I heard it when I pulled you out, Eddie, and it killed me because I was the one making it worse."

"No, Buck." Eddie shakes his head in disbelief. "You saved me. You saved everyone."

"Please, just..." Buck drops his head with a sigh. "Let the nurse give you the meds, so she can get the hell away from you."

"Do you know anything about the others yet?" Eddie asks, too afraid of the raw quality of Buck's voice to worry about his own. Buck squints at him before his face softens.

"Hen's CT came back clear. She just pushed herself too much. Karen's already drafted up a screentime allowance for when she gets to take her home in a couple of hours." Eddie takes a deep breath, swallows down the fear that had gripped him when Hen had thrown up. Buck shuffles a little closer, the wheels of the stool squeaking with the movement. "Bobby's X-ray says his ankle's only sprained, shoulder's only dislocated. But they're keeping him overnight to keep an eye on any complications in his chest. Just in case." Another deep breath, another relief, another lingering fear. "The rebar missed everything important in Chim, but they're still in surgery patching him up, pumping him full of all the fluids he lost." Eddie exhales, a long, deep thing that makes his eyes water with gratitude. "Everyone's okay, Eddie," Buck reassures him.

Eddie turns to look at him fully then, examining Buck in a way he hadn't been able to at the bridge what with the pain, the fear, and Buck running around putting out whatever metaphorical fires combusted as they popped up. The right side of his face is caked in a paste of blood and dust that makes Eddie's stomach turn worse than the pain in his chest.

Before he can think it through, Eddie reaches up to cup Buck's jaw, swiping his thumb over the stubbled skin just under the lacerations.

"What about you?" he rasps, suddenly exhausted. Buck blinks lazily at him, blue eyes startlingly clear when they meet Eddie's, a small smile shifting the skin under his palm.

"Just some cuts and bruises," Buck tells him. "Nothing you need to worry about."

"If I promise to let you stick me with the drugs without bitching," Eddie turns to the sharp-eyed nurse, "will you let me clean and patch him up?"

"Deal." The nurse sighs heavily like its the best news she's heard all week and stabs him with the needle before he can even draw his next breath.

"Ow," he mumbles under his breath.

"Deserved it." Buck snorts.

The nurse slips through the curtain, gone just long enough for the meds to warm his veins, the pain fading into an aching hum under his skin. She returns with a box of wipes and an array of gauzes that Eddie accepts both gratefully and apologetically.

"I'm fine," Buck insists, but he makes no move to resist when Eddie tenderly cups his left cheek and reaches up to clean the right.

"Mhm." Eddie grits his teeth as inconspicuously as he can when the movement tugs uncomfortably at his ribs, unwilling to let Buck use his pain as an excuse to not be looked after. "They check you for concussion?"

"Yes, dad." Buck rolls his eyes, and Eddie tries not to think about the way Buck refers to him as dad with Christopher. Something must show on his face because Buck reaches out to touch gentle fingers to the medallion resting against his chest. Eddie's eyes sting with fresh tears. "I'll drive you home when Chim's out of surgery."

"Okay." Eddie uses the clean side of the wipe to clear Buck's face of dust. "Does Chris know about..."

"Yeah." Buck nods. "Told him we'd be a little late, but that we're both okay. He's gonna be gentle when he hugs you."

"Just as long as I get a hug, you know?" Eddie laughs wetly, dropping his head back against the wall. His eyes roll back to Buck. "Thank you."

Eddie doesn't know what magic words will erase the lingering tension in Buck's frame, but he knows without a shadow of a doubt that Christopher will because Chris always knows just how to save Buck. Has saved him over and over again.

My best friend's daughter...

Eddie grabs Buck's hand where it had dropped onto the edge of the mattress and squeezes once. Buck squeezes back twice in return. Neither of them knows what it means. Not yet.

For now, they just sit together and wait.

ALT

bring them here to shelter in your soft-structured parking lot

of familiar longing | original poem for @poemsbybuddie poetry event
10. pining & 11. anticipation

tagging random mutuals who didn't agree to be on my taglist (which i don't have)

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