PG-13, m/m
Crazy Eddie's Private Journals: Tomorrow
By Tiriel
"Lawn gnomes? You're telling me that I had lawn gnomes? And you didn't figure out that it wasn't really me? That alone should have tipped you off, man, not to mention the fact that I'd quit fighting. You know I'd never give up, Foster. No matter what."
After giving Cade the chance he needed to escape from the latest Gua mindfuck (and we won't go into how worried about him I was while he was still in there) and filling him in on what I'd heard, I put myself to the next important task--making him feel better. After he did a classic spit take on Uncle Eddie's Hacker's Brew, I got him some aspirin and put him to bed.
"Stay," he'd said, so I had. He'd zonked out in a matter of minutes, asleep in my arms, both of us still mostly dressed. I'd dozed for a while, myself. Now, after a few hours' sleep, he was awake, feeling better, and telling me the whole story.
"Yes, Eddie. Lawn gnomes and plants that you talked to like they were your children. Glasses, a beard, no earring, and you'd buried the trailer in your yard and given up."
"Geez. At least the Gua put me in there this time, but the least they could do is get me right. That's character assassination. I hate lawn gnomes. They're so...perky. Like great big ceramic Smurfs. So, the first thing you did is find me, huh?" I smiled a bit at that.
"Soon as I could. I talked you into helping--you were kind of a hard sell--but then we got caught. They executed me."
"Executed you? No daring escape? No 11th hour rescue from me?"
He began squeezing the life out of one corner of the blanket. I knew a bad part of the story was coming up, although what would be worse than his execution, I didn't know.
"No. I didn't tell you they were going to kill me. Didn't want to do a big goodbye scene. Truth is, I didn't want to see your face when you found out. I thought I'd seen you for the last time and that you were going to go off and dig up the book, restart the resistance, but I was wrong. You showed up at my execution, all right, but it was to gloat, not to save me. You'd been working with them all along to find the Nostradamus book. Got me to 'remind' you of the location. They took away the last thing, the last person I believed in, and then they killed me. Or they were in the process of doing it. I'm not sure. That's about when I came to. Heard them talking about their computer problems, knew it had to be you. So I got out of there."
"Oh, man. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. You didn't really sell out. It was just one of their tricks."
"No, I mean for giving you a hard time about not knowing it was all a fake. That wasn't your fault. They were messing with your brain, trying to keep you from figuring it out." I squeezed his arm.
After a moment, he spoke again. "You're right, you know. He looked like you and talked like you, but I know you'd never do the things he did. Give up, betray me, or own lawn gnomes." I saw the beginning of a smile on his face. Then a cold knot formed in my gut, and my mouth worked entirely on its own for a while.
"So, uh, they used me to get to you, then?"
"Yeah, I guess they did."
"And it worked. You gave them the location of the book." I swallowed, my mouth already dry from the words I suddenly knew I was going to say.
"You know I did. But I thought you said you'd moved it, left them a fake. What's wrong?"
I sat up and pulled away from him. "Then maybe we should end this. Us. I don't want to be the reason we lose this war. You've got to be able to keep your eye on the prize and not worry about me."
"Eddie--" He sat up and reached out to touch my shoulder. I jerked away.
"No. I mean it. What if they really do, I don't know, brainwash me or-or replace me with a GenTech duplicate, use our relationship to gain your trust? What then? I won't be responsible for something like that."
"Eddie, listen to me. It would have been the same. It would have been exactly the same, even if things hadn't changed between us. Before you became my lover, you were my best friend, my partner, my ally. You still are. You want to end all of that? Because that's what it would take for me not to trust you. Not to care. I don't even know where the real book is now, won't unless you tell me. Yes, you probably are my most vulnerable spot, my biggest weakness. But you're also my greatest strength. If it's what you really want, I'll have to respect that. But if it's just you being noble... I don't want to lose you."
It was one of his out-of-nowhere speeches, the ones that just pour out of him sometimes. I've always thought they're kind of sexy. And God, his voice when he said that...I just melted inside. It's not like I really wanted to break it off. I just thought that maybe, you know, it would be for the best. He was telling me that I was wrong. So I gave in. I was not a hard sell.
"Okay," I said, "Fine. I'll leave the noble self-sacrifice to you. You're better at it anyway. But I'll have to give you some more paranoia lessons. You didn't even check to see if that fake me was human."
"Eddie, you got yourself a deal." He smiled at me. It's getting to be kind of a habit with him. I like that.
"I love you, Foster."
"I love you, too, Eddie. Thanks for getting me out of there."
"No problemo. Anytime. I'm just sorry it took so long. How you feeling now?"
"It's okay. And I'm feeling a lot better. But I think there's one more thing that would help."
"What's that? More aspirin? Some more of my famous Hacker's Brew? Name it and it's yours."
"You," he said, and reached for me again. This time I didn't pull away. He kissed me, we engaged in a little "sexual healing," and then we got some more rest. There's a long road ahead of us, and we're going to travel it together.
-More later, Eddie
-Actually, on second thought, maybe not. I think I'll close out my journal files, for a while, at least. I started this to think through the stuff there was no way in hell I could talk to him about, and these days, there really isn't anything I can't talk to him about. Not much point in a private journal if there's somebody you don't need to hide anything from. Hell, maybe I'll even show these to him someday.
Eddie
A note from Tiriel--That's right, folks. For the moment, at least, I'm calling this the end of the series. I didn't originally plan to stop here, and I reserve the right to change my mind later on, but right now this just seems like a good place to stop. I hope you've had as much fun reading these as I've had writing them. Eddie has a pretty strong "voice," and he's delighted, surprised, amused, and even shocked me along the way. Thanks for coming along for the ride.