#nymwrites

like a river runs

56.8k | read on ao3

"You look exactly the same," Eddie says with tears in his eyes. "How is that even possible?" "I don't know," Buck says, his thumb swiping across Eddie's knuckles. "I don't understand it." He may be the same, but looking at Eddie, Buck can see the years on him. His hair is a bit different, the creases by the corners of his eyes just a bit deeper. There's a new scar on his right hand that Buck hasn't seen before. He'd know these hands blind, but it takes him a moment to notice it still. His fingers brush over it once, and then again before he actually looks down and sees the thin golden band wrapped around Eddie's ring finger. Then he just—stares at it, stupidly, for a second. Before Eddie pulls his hands back, and leaves Buck's hanging empty in the space between them. "You're married," he says.

((thank you friend!! i love estinien and have about 5000 headcanons for him so here ya go))

Estinien

- Ultimate Tsundere™: especially when flirting with you

- Blushes very easily and very obviously but will deny it until his last breath

- Loves having his hair brushed through/played with, loves laying his head on your lap as you run your fingers through his hair

epilogue, 644 words read on ao3 | read from the beginning

It's a Thursday when he finds it. One of those regular, unremarkable sort of days that you may not even recall specifically to look back on, just something that fades into the background of your life. Eddie is in the kitchen cooking while Buck moves some things around in the bedroom closet—their bedroom closet—to free up some space, and it's all new and familiar at the same time. 

It’s three weeks to the day since he and Eddie found each other again, on the porch in the rain, all broken pieces and jagged edges, but somehow cut perfectly for one another all the same. Coming back together felt as much like coming home as anything could. He's still got that little bead of anxiety in his chest telling him it could still disappear at any moment, Eddie could still change his mind, but he's doing his best not to listen to it.

Something falls to the floor at his feet with a soft thud as he pulls a box from the shelf, dislodged by his rummaging. He looks down and his stomach leaps—resting there on the carpet is a little velvet box, midnight blue. He just stares at it for a moment. Then he sets the box he’s holding down on top of the dresser and bends over to pick it up.

It’s soft in his hand, and has a bit of weight to it. He turns it over once, then perches on the edge of the bed and opens it up. Inside is a beautiful silver ring with tiny crystals inlaid all along the centre that sparkle in the light. He swipes his thumb across the top, and it’s cold to the touch. 

“Oh,” Eddie says. Buck looks up to find him standing in the doorway, staring at the little box in his hand. 

"Was this…?" Buck starts.

"Yeah," he says.

"You kept it?"

“I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it, you know? It was supposed to be our forever.”

“Hm.” Buck nods and looks at the ring again. Our forever. Somehow it’s within reach again. He takes a deep breath. “Ask me,” he says.

chapter 10 of 10, 3.3k read on ao3 | read from the beginning

It's dark when Eddie wakes again, in part because of the heavy grey clouds that have rolled in, shrouding the blue sky in their own misery. He stays where he is for a few minutes, taking stock of all the pieces of his ruined life. Pieces that he broke.

He should have known it would end this way. Hindsight is a hell of a thing. 

But no amount of wishing will undo what's been done, so eventually he stands, and makes his way back to the scorched earth of the rest of the house. There's still a light glowing in the main room at the end of the hall.

"You're still here," Eddie says quietly.

Tess lifts her head, red rimmed eyes carving into him. "I didn't want to leave it like that."

They look at each other for a long moment.

“So it's over then, huh? Just like that.”

"Eddie, it was over the day that plane landed. We both knew it, I just didn't want to admit it.” She stands, glancing away, and she looks… different. Exhausted. “You were staying because you thought you were supposed to, and I was staying because… I was hoping you’d choose me in the end, I guess. We were kidding ourselves."

She hugs herself and bites at her cheek, just like she always does when she's trying not to cry. He wraps his own arms around himself to keep them from reaching out to her. 

"I was never gonna be your first choice, Eddie. I mean, he was dead and he still came first half the time.” She laughs humourlessly. “And I ignored it before because I thought you loved me, but—I don't know. Maybe you never did.”

chapter 9 of 10, 6.8k read on ao3 | read from the beginning

“Do you think fruit loops have different flavours, or do they all taste the same?” Chimney asks, a box of the colourful cereal in his hand.

“I don't think I've had a fruit loop since I was seven,” Buck responds.

“That explains a lot about you.” Chim puts the cereal in the cart and moves on. 

“Weren't we here to pick up dinner?” 

“I'm just getting the essentials.”

“Uh-huh. Ooh get—” he gestures at the shelf.

“Hot Cheetos,” Chim finishes for him. “I like the way you think.”

Chimney throws a bag into the cart and continues on.

(“Get hot Cheetos,” Buck said, pointing from behind the cart. 

“We're just here to get what we need,” said Eddie. It was one of those days where they realized after a long week that they had absolutely nothing to throw together into a meal.

“We need them,” Buck said. Eddie gave him a look. “Seriously. Essential to my survival.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and picked up a bag. “Alright, well, if it'll keep you from dying on me.”

“Aw, he loves me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don't push it. What do you want for dinner?”)

“What do you want for dinner?” Chim says.

“Hm? Oh, uh, whatever.”

That’s about as deep as the conversation goes for as long as they’re shopping. It's so mundane, but somehow exactly the sort of thing that keeps him missing the past.

It takes them another hour before they're finally at the checkout. 

“Oh, hang on,” Chimney says, glancing back towards the store. “You go ahead and grab this stuff, I’ll catch up. Forgot to get butter.” Then he disappears back into the aisles of food.

The man at the register is an older fellow, reading glasses on the tip of his nose as he pages through a magazine, the cover of which is sporting some overly edited photo of a plane with the headline: ‘Time Travel or Resurrection? The True Story Behind the Mystery of Flight 242’. Buck rolls his eyes and starts unloading his basket onto the counter.

The man peers over his glasses at him, then slowly folds his magazine over and sets it down to start scanning his items. 

"You know that plane that went missing?" he says, tapping on the article with two fingers.

"What?" Buck says sharply, almost dropping his wallet.

The man chuckles, either oblivious to or unbothered by Buck's tone. "'Course, everyone in the world knows about it by now. They're still writing about it. Hard to find anything more exciting than that to report on, I guess.” He pauses. “Jumping five years into the future, isn't that crazy?"

"Yeah. Crazy."

"I wonder what it would be like to time travel."

"I bet it sucks,” Buck says, snatching the bags of groceries and walking out without looking back.

chapter 4 of 10, 6.9k read on ao3 | read from the beginning

It's been four days now since the plane landed, three since Buck had agreed to have dinner with Eddie and his wife, and about two minutes since he'd realized he has absolutely nothing to wear. Somehow it hadn't occurred to him until now that the only clothes he has left are the ones he carried with him on vacation—not exactly the kind of thing he'd choose for an evening like this. 

He looks dejectedly at the pile of clothing strewn around him from where he’s sitting on the floor, pulls a t-shirt out of the mix and tosses it back down. It’s a pathetic little collection, but it’s all he has. Somewhere in the mess is one of Eddie’s shirts, thrown into the suitcase in part because it’s a nice colour and it looks good on him, and in smaller, secret part because it felt like being close to Eddie even from an ocean away. Now it just feels like sadness in the shape of a cotton-blend t-shirt.  

With a heavy sigh he flops over backwards and stares up at the ceiling. Things sometimes seem more manageable from the floor—if only because you can’t get any lower—but after a few minutes he finds his life is just as fucked as it was when he was sitting upright. Maybe I’ll just lie here forever, he decides—though he figures Maddie might want her floor back someday. 

He thinks about texting Eddie to call the whole thing off, like he’s almost done a dozen times since he agreed to it, then texts Hen instead.

11:06 a.m. [Buck]: are you busy today

11:08 a.m. [Hen]: no, whats up?

[Buck]: my entire wardrobe is vacation outfits now I’m stuck in an indefinite state of ‘guy who is going to the beach’ I can't live like this

[Hen]: so you want to go shopping

[Buck]: 🙏 also can you pick me up I don't have a car :(

chapter 2 of 10, 8.1k read on ao3 | read from the beginning

Since getting off that plane, Buck has learned three things. One, he doesn't have a car anymore, or much of anything at all. Turns out when you're dead for five years, people sell or get rid of most of what you owned. It's not that he was particularly attached to any of it (though he did love that Jeep), it's just a little upsetting to find out that everything that's yours now fits into the suitcase you carried home. 

Two, despite the leap through time, he's still jet lagged. Some fucking luck that is. He spent most of the night clicking through conspiracy theories and news articles from years ago (the former citing aliens as the most likely cause of disappearance, the latter mostly assuming they went down somewhere over the Atlantic and were never recovered), and the rest of it lying in Maddie and Chim’s guest bedroom and staring at the ceiling, wondering why the universe was hell bent on ruining his life at every turn. Which is selfish, because it kind of ruined the lives of everyone else on that plane too, but whatever. It feels personal.

And three, his favourite little coffee shop closed three years ago. Maybe that doesn't sit super high on the 'List of Things That Suck Right Now', but, you know. It doesn’t not suck. 

Oh yeah, and Eddie is married. To someone else. Four things. Four miserable facts that he’s gathered about the world he’s come home to. 

It's enough to make him want to disappear again.

Chimney let him borrow his car for a while, after a bit of a lighthearted debate about whether his license would still be valid (it's probably not, but he'll take his chances for today), so now Buck is on his way over to what used to be his home, to see what pieces of his life Eddie decided were worth keeping. 

He tries to put the radio on for the drive, but every song that comes on is something he's never heard before, and it just makes him feel more out of place. He turns it off and drives in silence.

The route is still familiar—there are a few new businesses and homes that he hasn't seen before, but mostly it looks the same—and it leaves room for his mind to wander. 

He mostly thinks of Christopher. So much older now than when Buck saw him last, almost an adult, and Buck missed it all.

He wonders what Chris is like now; whether he's still interested in space and science, or if he's instead found a passion for something new, if he's thought about college, if he's started dating, if he's got a new favourite movie or favourite song or favourite colour. He wonders if he still likes chocolate chips in his pancakes. 

In his mind Chris is still that little boy that hugged him goodbye at the airport. He'll be taller now. 

Buck grips the wheel a bit tighter and takes the final turn, pulling up in front of the house a moment later. It looks almost the same as when he left it. The front garden is a bit sparse, but Eddie was never great with plant care, so it doesn't surprise him. 

Taking a breath, he grabs the bag he’d brought from the passenger seat and starts the trek up the driveway. Inches and miles away from home.