Glory to the Spoons!

🌾 + eddie accidentally comes out to everyone else besides buck

And if you already answered that emoji may I change it to ⏳

🌾- okay, so, full disclosure, this whole fic is me trying to make the 'eddie knows (and doesn't tell buck)' concept, which i am not particularly a fan of, work in a way that's satisfying to me, and a little bit playing off of everyone else finding out about the el paso job before buck did. the driving force of this is eddie's instinct to freeze in emotionally difficult situations - he really does INTEND to tell buck, but he keeps stalling, and for various reasons everyone else finds out first. and of course, the second half of this is that he's in love with buck, which is the big reason he's been stalling on telling him - he can't let the truth about his sexuality spill without letting EVERYTHING spill.

what i need to make it grow at this point is just the filler to the climax - i already have the ending written, i just have to get them there, lol.

⏳- a little snippet for you:

"I'm surprised," Hen says, smiling at him. It's warm, affectionate, no sting to it at all. "I would have expected Buck to have dragged you out for terrible rainbow shots to celebrate. Where is he, anyway?" Eddie freezes, guilty and obvious.

🌾- i mean i have yapped about this A LOT, but this is something that appealed to me about buddie in part because they ARE at this point platonic friends; this unnamed thing between them remains unnamed, the desire isn't acknowledged or necessarily even conscious, so for them the latent feelings actually make it almost more of a violation than it otherwise would be. it's a stew of forced intimacy and self-sacrifice and trauma with a layer of sexuality/feelings realization that makes it worse, not better, because it forces this latent desire into the realm of something they both have to deal with while also making it a live grenade.

i'm primarily interested in the aftermath between them; the actual assault happens in flashbacks and the present day is much more buck grappling with his horror and guilt and trauma from it while he and eddie try to find their way back to being okay (in general, and with each other). definitely some non-therapist approved coping mechanisms happening, lol. the central question for this is, essentially, how do you have a relationship with the most important person in your life after something like this.

⏳- a bit of early aftermath buck for u!

He dries off without turning the light on, wraps the towel around his waist and slips across the hallway to his bedroom, which is also dim in the gloaming. The edges of the furniture are soft, shadowed. He drops the towel over the back of the chair and dresses quickly in the first clothes he can pull out of the top drawer: sweatpants, a thin, stretched-out t-shirt. He swipes his wet hair out of his face, avoiding his own reflection in the mirror on the back of the closet door—just an indistinct outline of a man, gray on gray, features blurred.

🌾- what makes this fic grow/what do i need to make it grow: this was one that was originally just kind of an extrapolation on the existing violation of having someone squatting in his attic, feeling untethered and off balance in this place that was supposed to be home. it's set early on in s9, when all of their relationships are still displaced, no one is talking to each other, no one has really dealt with their grief yet, and while i don't think buck is a runner the way some of the characters are, he's got this experience of having been sort of rootless, not holding onto anyone tight enough that losing them hurts like this does. so what happens if he steps through a doorway and finds himself in a peaceful place where nothing hurts?

the downside of that is that right now this is like 85% vibes and minimal plot, so i'm still trying to nail down how i ultimately want it to play out in the practical sense. i know the emotional resolution i want, but the brick and mortar of getting there is still coming along. in some ways, this is the twin to my rose garden fic with eddie - they're both finding themselves by stepping outside of their usual lives.

⏳- another little paragraph for you:

He wakes in his bed, blankets kicked to the floor, sheets twisted around his ankles. The dream still echoes in his mind, that impossible sense of peace. He doesn't want to open his eyes, doesn't want it to fade, but his alarm is blaring and there's breakfast to make, coffee to brew, another day to face. Blindly, he fumbles for his phone and turns the alarm off. In the sudden silence that follows, he swears he can hear the sound of waves crashing on the shore, but it fades when he finally opens his eyes.

lolllllll thank you!

🐄: the trope i am milking for the post-apocalypse fic is kind of the classic 'single parent traveling the devastated ruins with a vulnerable child seeking a place where they hope (without any real proof) they'll be safe'. in the particulars it's inspired more by octavia butler's parable of the sower than anything else, but it hits a lot of those beats that we see in similar types of fiction. trope-wise it's a 'strangers to reluctant allies to friends to lovers' fic for buddie, with a heavy dose of mutual self-sacrifice. also eddie holds buck at gunpoint when they first meet (it's a misunderstanding).

⌛: :D this is actually the first i've written of this fic recently, so have a paragraph just for you - eddie and chris approach civilization, or something like it:

The town is surrounded by tall chain-link fences, the single gate guarded. It's a few miles off the highway, down a long off-ramp of cracked asphalt with summer weeds growing up through it. Eddie sets Chris down to walk for a while, letting his back adjust to the weight of his pack alone. They're in good company, and the mood is calm as they come to the gates. The street beyond is in better condition, the houses clustered together, a little suburban hamlet in better days. Goats wander the cracked pavement, tearing contentedly at the yellowed grass, and clotheslines flap in the hot breeze. It's hard not to let his guard down, but he keeps Chris close as they approach.

happy WIP wednesday thursday! @exhuastedpigeon tagged me - thank you! this is a different one than i've seen before. drop an emoji and a WIP in my inbox if you're interested!

🌾 - what makes this fic grow? What do you need to make it grow? 🐄 - what trope do you feel like you're milking in this particular fic? ⏳ - spend some time on the fic, this could be editing, or writing, or making a mood board (or social media post 🫣) 🔏 - have you experienced writer's block on this fic? Is it over or are you still trying to unlock it? 🚜 - write something completely unrelated to any of the WIPs but related to the emoji the tractor dropped off. 💩 - what do you like least about this WIP?

the fics i am working on (or at least trying to) right now:

buddie fuck or die fic

interdimensional portal in buck's new house

eddie accidentally comes out to everyone else besides buck

post apocalypse