frazzled & bedazzled

Sorry you know I had to 🫡

dear sweet soup, i did a sprint for you and you got 376 words. not these 376, cause the ones i wrote i think might need a day or two to rest, but have some other 340-odd words <3

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"He gave you his cowboy hat?"

"I mean, not for forever, I don't think. It's a nice hat."

Josh's head tilts, his eyes screaming mischief, and for the first time tonight, Eddie isn't Buck's biggest concern. "He put his cowboy hat… from his head… onto your head… on the dance floor… in front of aaaaaall those people?"

Buck's adrenaline is crashing, and the only place he wants to break is safely many feet away from him on the dance floor. "Yeah, I guess. What about it?"

Josh lets out a peal of laughter and it ripples through Buck's shoulders, up his neck and out his ears. "Oh my god, you two are useless, I swear."

Buck launches his eyebrow, hoping it communicates better than his mouth would.

"Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck," Josh tuts, "haven't you ever heard of the Cowboy Hat Rule? Weren't you a ranch hand for a while? You didn't ever give a hookup your cowboy hat?"

Memories from Montana wash over Buck's mind. Dusty days and crowded bars, and beautiful women who kept trying to take Buck's hat, but the rancher's voice always echoed. Don't give your hat to just anyone, Evan, he said. Only if you wanna keep whoever's wearing it. "Not really, I guess," Buck finally answers. "Old rancher told me I shouldn't."

"And he was probably right. Giving someone your cowboy hat is sort of like marking your territory. Meant to keep people from taking it, cause those things are expensive, but it's taken on a little more sultry meaning nowadays," Josh says with a wink. "If you get my drift."

But Buck's not catching much of anything. It must read clearly on his face, because Josh takes pity on him.

"It means, you wear the hat—"

"SAVE A HORSE, RIDE A COWBOY."

Josh snorts, the back of Buck's neck starts to sweat, and he moves his hand up to the ridge of the hat on his head.

what would make the core four sauna fic grow? probably finishing my other wips that are big in my brain right now tbh. also, since i think i want to write a little about the recovery process from said scars, this fic will probably need a little more research than i usually care to do for a fic. but maybe she's just like a bulb, like a tulip. the doc says i opened it six months ago. maybe it just needed six months before it was ready to bloom.

also, i did a 20 minute sprint for you. the fic is officially started, thanks to you <3

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"Now this is what I call a workplace perk." Hen sighs deeply, settling her back against the cedar wood panels of a floating sauna, anchored off the Pacific Ocean.

"You said it," Chimney answers around the hissing steam of the sauna stove, avoiding the boiling cloud coming right for his face. "Can't believe Maddie won these in the silent auction at the Gala last week and didn't want to use them."

Hen's head is leaned back against the wood, breathing deep and slow, letting the steam sink into every single part of her body. "She's the best."

"Yeah, and our bodies hurt more than hers."

Hen holds out a fist with her eyes closed and Chim taps against it with one of his own. "Damn right."

The door to their cedar cove opens and a few more pairs of legs shuffle in.

"Close the door," Chim teases, "you're letting all the steam out."

"And you'll make more," Buck tosses back, sitting on a bench, then thinking better of it and lying down flat. It's just the four of them in here for the next two hours, there's no need to save space for strangers.

"No fighting in the sauna or I'm kicking you out."

Eddie chuffs and sits down next to Buck's head. "Catchin' strays already, I see how it is."

Chim scampers up the benches, plopping down next to Hen, resting his feet next to Eddie.

All four of them take a deep breath in and an exhaustive sigh out.

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"Buck," Chim says lazily, "go toss more water on the stove, would you please?"

Buck grunts out a lazy mmhmm and goes to stand up, his body cracking and crunching and popping all the way. He's standing and halfway to the stove before Hen says, "I almost forgot how bad those scars were."

Chim opens his eyes but Eddie's squeeze tighter shut, and Buck slows in his steps, looking down at his leg.

The steam hisses before he responds.

"Yeah, me too."

"It's incredible you've come out as good as you have," Hen continues. "Full mobility, full strength, no permanent loss of muscle tone, no nerve damage—you're a miracle."

oh beloved rain!! the way i'm blushing at you being in my inbox right now, ngl

OKAY SO

❓ - what even is this? tell me about it + 🧖 core four + sauna + scars

this is a fic inspired by @queerstark and the absolute growls we share over the way the 118 get injured all the time and don't seem to have any scars to show for it (except on rare occasions, rare episodes, etc etc). so i had to think of a way to get them mostly naked (hence the sauna) and get them to show off their scars to each other and help them work through the stories.

like, have chimney and buck ever talked about the scar on chimney's stomach from when he got stabbed by doug? have eddie and hen ever talked about getting shot, cause they've both been shot? hen and buck swapping PT stories about their leg injuries? getting to SEE (ish) buck's gnarly scar from being CRUSHED BY A FIRE ENGINE. eddie's been shot four times! that man should have bullet scars!

(and yeah, we gotta sneak that buddie in there somehow, so maybe hen and chim leave and then buck decides that he needs to put eddie's scars in his mouth For Reasons, idk. and then eddie's like "that lichtenberg figure disappeared so fast but don't worry i can recreate it with my tongue" etc etc)

oh hiiiiii!!

so, i have another ask about 🧖 so i'll focus on your 🐠 question:

🌾 what makes this fic grow? what do you need to make it grow? + 🐠 eddie falls asleep at the aquarium

so, my most beloved @queerstark and i were at the odysea aquarium once and they have this rotating aquarium room (and i felt a ROLLERCOASTER of emotions on it, but that's beside the point), and we were sitting in it, learning about the fish, and came up with a whole story about buck, eddie, and chris on their visit to this particular aquarium. and the whole time we were whispering to each other like school children about how eddie makes the same noise as a sea lion when he snores and how much fun they'd have together as a family.

so really, i just need to get back in the groove of it, because we did that thing where we talked the whole thing out, so now it's out, and it's hard to scrape it back in to get it down on the page. but the whole idea is there, we've just gotta carve out some time to do it, i think. really get ourselves back there and remember all of the really sweet, soft things we wrote out loud. plus, we wanted to do it together and not get #divorced, so we each have to finish on what we're working on.