okay, made up fic title: I'm in a new hell (every time) tell me everything!
Ohhhh, ok, So. My first instinct is Time Loop™️ BUT I am also a reincarnation fiend and that fits more what I’m thinking. Especially if I include the mystery ‘tell me everything’ 😅
Actively in my Teddie feels atm, and I’m thinking they first meet in the 15-1600s (in the most magical dragon era au kinda way) Eddie’s a knight and Tommy’s a painter. They meet when Tommy is commissioned for a royal portrait. Secret trysts and rendezvous ensue. Eddie is sent off to defend the kingdom with a good chunk of the knights. He makes it home but just barely. Hanging by a thread, Tommy (who knows Eddie doesn’t believe in such things) goes for a last ditch effort ritual to make sure they find each other in the next lifetime. He makes a small mark under Eddie’s left eye so he’ll recognize him.
Eddie (who would roll his eyes if he wasn’t knocking on death’s door) pledges to find Tommy, too, because it’s important to him.
After Eddie’s death, Tommy spends the rest of his life capturing as much as he can in his paintings, determined to tell his love everything when they meet again.
It’s a few centuries later when they meet up, the two of them inexplicably drawn to each other. Neither one can explain why, they just know the other one is Important. One day Tommy notices the small mark under Eddie’s eye. Drawn to touch it, he remembers their pact. (I do not know how Eddie buys into this but he does.) He weeps listening to Tommy talk about the paintings and the short life they shared.
And so it goes through the ages. Every iteration it takes a little less time before they reconnect. They share stories about different lands and cultures, wives and children, careers. They lament about the how they haven’t managed to share a real life together. How they find one another only to be forced into the shadows, risking everything because they can’t stay apart.
The next iteration finds them in the canonical timeline. They don’t recognize each other until after the madness of the cruise ship rescue. Maybe it’s a Muay Thai session or working on the Chevelle when they’re flooded with the sense of ‘It’s you’.
They realize that this time they could actually make a life together. A real life that they wouldn’t have to hide from anyone. So they do. They life a full, rich life spent loving and growing old together. One morning they’re discovered in their bed, holding hands, having moved to the next iteration together.
(Side quest: in full circle fashion, one day they’re at the art museum with their granddaughter. In the Medieval wing, she points to a portrait excitedly. “Abuelo! Abuelo! It’s you!” Stunned, they stare at the painting that does indeed look like Eddie. A little younger, holding a sword with a royal crest. In the corner is an illegible, but familiar, signature. And to the right is a plaque: Wait for me. 1500s. Thomas Kinnard. Portrait of a young knight believed to be a close friend or lover.)
