Angst because I’ve been watching criminal minds
You don’t understand what’s happening at first.
At least, you were willfully pretending you didn’t.
Eddie’s weight is still in your arms, warm and heavy in the way he has always been. His skin hasn’t gone cold. His breath hasn’t stopped. Nothing about him feels like someone slipping away. Someone dying. If anything, he looks like he’s just worn himself out again, another reckless stunt at practice, another game gone too long.
His eyes are barely open, unfocused, but still tracking you in these small, stubborn flickers of someone who can’t seem to keep focus.
Death in stories is sharp and clean. A single moment you can point to. But this… this is slow. Cruel in its softness. He isn’t gone cold, his breathing didn’t stop when he’d dropped to the ground.
There was no dramatic swelling music like in the movies, only the sounds of Eddie’s haggard breathing, wet and painful, and the muffled sounds of Dustin and yourself crying.
He was still here.
You press your hand to his cheek, and he leans into it. His skin is hot, more so than usual, and alive. His curls stick to his forehead, slick with sweat and blood, and you keep brushing them back because your brain refuses to accept that this is the last time you’ll ever do it. A habit of comfort for both of you.
He was still right here.
“Eddie,” you whisper, because anything louder might break him, break you. “Hey. Stay with me. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Right?”
He gives you the smallest smile. Barely there. A twitch at the corner of his mouth. A smile that speaks of someone so bone deep tired that it’s all they can muster.
His fingers grip weakly in your shirt, not purposeful, not dramatic, just instinct for you, for comfort. You hold his hand against your chest, trying to anchor him, and if you were honest, yourself as well, trying to keep him here by sheer force of will.
If you held him tight enough, he wouldn’t leave. Couldn’t leave.
The movies had one thing right. In these moments, everything was quiet, though you’re unsure if the world has gone silent or you’d simply lost focus on everything but the warmth seeping into your clothes and out of Eddie.
His breathing stutters. It doesn’t stop — just falters. His chest rises again, but shallow. The breath he was trying so desperately to take catching halfway as his body begins to wane.
You can feel his heartbeat under your palm, still fighting, still refusing to give up. That seems worse somehow. The way his body keeps trying. The way it doesn’t understand that it’s losing as the strong thud fades into a distant whisper.
“I didn’t run.” he murmurs, voice soft and frayed.
“I know,” you affirm, forehead pressed to his. “You didn’t. You were-“
You don’t finish. Not because you can’t, but because the chance is taken before the words can form.
You feel it in slow motion. The way his grip loosens, but doesn’t fully let go. The way his chest rises less each time. The way his eyes stop trying to focus on you.
He exhales, long and slow, and something in you goes with it. His eyes flutter, but don’t close. His body stays warm. His limbs stay loose. He looks like he’s drifting off, like he’s fighting falling asleep during a late night movie. You keep waiting for the moment, the final breath, the stillness that feels so final, but it doesn’t come. He just… fades.
And you feel something snap, break inside, as Eddie Munson, warm, soft, pliable, heartbreakingly alive in every way except the one that matters, slips out of your hands so slowly you almost miss the exact second he’s gone.
