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Objects in the Mirror

Summary:

The voice had always been around, Eddie remembers it, like a stream of consciousness that babbled incoherently to the point where Eddie just tuned it out. 

But then the voice started speaking directly to him. Conversing like he was a whole person standing right in front of him. Like he could see what was happening around Eddie.

Eddie shook his head. No one was talking to him, and Eddie most certainly was not talking back.

He wouldn’t talk to the boy in his head ever again. There was no boy in his head. 

Notes:

bold+ italics: words spoken out loud or heard by the person not physically there
regular italics: thoughts of the POV character, cannot be heard
regular quotations: words spoken out loud by the POV character and can be heard by the person not there

In other words, they can only hear when they speak out loud, they cannot hear each other's thoughts.

Chapter 1: closer than they appear

Chapter Text

 

12 Years Old: Buck

 

It all started during Buck's little league baseball game when he'd been slammed in the back of his head with a flying bat.

Buck face planted in the fake grass and dirt mound, head exploding with a white hot pain that blacked out his entire vision.

Edmundo! Not in the Lord's house. Get off the ground now!

Honey, call 911!

Buck got knocked out cold. When he opened his eyes again, he was in the hospital. Six stitches in the back of his head and the worst most painful headache he had ever experienced in his entire 12 years of life.

Suck it up, Eddie. Men don't cry over headaches.

Buck hears it about a week after the bat to the back of his head. At first, he thinks someone else is in his room with him, but when he looks there's no one there. The voice sounded like an older man, but it didn't sound like Buck's dad at all. This voice had a slight bit of an accent to it that Buck couldn't recognize. And the voice said a name Buck didn’t know either.

Eddie. Buck's pretty sure that's the name he heard, but he doesn't know anyone named Eddie, so he pretty much just ignores it.

He finishes the year out in his little league team and then his mom forces him to quit.

"It's too dangerous, Evan. You're lucky I even let you finish the season in the first place. It's the devil's game!"

Buck doesn't want to quit baseball. It's fun and it makes him some of the first friends he has. And Buck likes the exercise. Running around, jumping and sliding, hitting the ball so hard it goes flying. Seeing the looks on the other teams faces. It makes Buck feel good, gives him a sense of purpose for a time. But his mom said no, and his dad wasn't willing to pay the fee for him to continue anyway, so Buck has no choice but to quit.

In his room, he sits on his bed and stares at his blank wall. He decides that if his mom isn't gonna let him play sports then he may as well go somewhere where he knew even his mom wouldn't worry--the library.

When Buck walks in, he doesn't know where to start. He goes to the kids section where the librarian points him but those books are too kiddy for him. He liked picture books as much as the next guy, but he wanted to read something interesting.

Up the stairs and to the right is the world travel section. Buck goes there and pulls out a book on the top 100 countries a person should visit before they die.

Buck makes a list in his head. He wants to visit Mexico, Australia, Malaysia, South Korea, India and Greenland. And then he adds another 30 countries to his list and vows that he'll visit all of them someday. 

He gets lost, staring at the beautiful picture of a temple in Tibet, and zones out. 

Suddenly he's not focusing on the monks in the picture anymore, but instead he's staring out at a long stretch of dirt road, and the hot sun is beating down on him. It smells like burnt rubber and he looks down to see himself sat on a bike. There's a ramp in front of him and Buck's heart pounds. He's about to jump off it.

Come on, Eddie, do it. Chicken!

Eddie's not a chicken, whoever he is. Buck knows he's not. He feels it in the way his gloves tighten against the handles and the speed of which he kicks off the ground, with no time to talk himself out of it. And then, Buck is being launched through the air, the blue sky the only thing above him he can see. His stomach lurches like his mom had gone too fast over a hilly road--only worse.

Buck is falling through the air.

The bike hits the ground after Buck does. There’s a sickening snap of his arm.

"AHH!" Buck is knocked over backwards at the searing pain. He bursts into tears, clutching his arm and draws the attention of every passerby in the vicinity. Someone rushes over to him, asking questions about what happened but Buck can't think about anything other than the blinding pain in his arm.

"My arm--" Buck grits. "I think--I think it's broken."

The librarian checks out his arm, and that's when Buck finally sees his arm right in front of his own eyes, healthy and in-tact

Buck promptly gets kicked out of the library.

He walks home with tears streaming down his face, clutching his not-broken arm to his chest. His mom asks what happened when he walks into the house with a red face and puffy eyes. Buck forces himself to not react to the throbbing pain in his arm and instead says, "I read a really sad book."

His mom seems swayed by this. "It wasn't one of those magic books right? You know what I've told you and your sister about those kinds of books. They're blasphemous."

Buck shakes his head. "No. I didn't read any books like that, mom. I promise."

"Good." She turns away. "Dinner will be ready in two hours. Please make sure your sister joins us this time."

Buck heads up to his room and lays down on his bed, clutching his arm. With his eyes squeezed shut, Buck forces himself to breath, to hold still, to focus on anything other than the pain.

His eyes fly open. He's in a room that's not his own and there's a woman standing in front of him.

I cannot believe you would be so irresponsible! Your abuela is coming to visit tomorrow and now we have to take you to the hospital.

I'm sorry, mama .

The voice belongs to someone else, but it sounds like it's coming from Buck. The woman in front of him had short bob-like brown hair--she looked nothing like Buck's mom with her white blonde hair always pulled back into a bun. 

The woman leaves and Buck is alone in a room he doesn't recognize. He looks down and finds there's a cast on his arm.

Stupid, stupid! His hand comes up and thunks him on the head twice--hard.

"Ow!" Buck whines. "Will you stop that?!"

He hears a gasp that's not his own.

Who said that? the voice asks. The room spins, like he's searching for something.

"I did!" Buck huffs. "Stop spinning! My arm already hurts and now you're making me dizzy."

His vision stops spinning. Instead he's looking down at a bed that isn't his.

Sorry? the voice says. 

Buck sighs, leaning back down until he's fully flat on his bed, face up. 

"Who are you?" Buck asks, not really expecting an answer and yet it comes anyway.

Eddie. Who are you?

The vision fades and Buck is back to looking at his boring white ceiling.

"I'm Buck," he says aloud. Somehow, this time, Buck knows that no one hears him.

 

*

 

16 Years Old: Eddie

 

Eddie sits at his desk in school. They’re learning a new lesson in precalculus but Eddie isn’t really paying attention. He’s thinking about his after school job at the tire shop, and if it’s going to interfere with baseball try-outs this afternoon. 

It was a catch-22. If he wanted to play baseball, he needed money to pay for everything--his uniform, equipment, fare for away-games--and to do that he needed his job. But the hours he worked changed, and sometimes ran right through the hours Eddie knew were usually practice time. If he pointed this out to Victor, the owner of the store, he doubted the older man would care to help Eddie rearrange his schedule to fit in baseball.

“You should be focusing on work, Eddie,” his mom had said. “You said you wanted to go to college. You should be saving up for that, not for baseball.”

Eddie did want to go to college. He had started up his own savings for that as well--it was why he’d been picking up so many extra shifts at the store. He had to double the hours he worked if he wanted to save for school later and have enough for baseball now.

Soon enough the bell rings and school is finished for the day. He makes his way out to the field, and then on to the baseball diamond behind it. He hears a beep coming from his backpack and slides out his second hand nokia flip phone to check if Victor had called. He had, and left a voicemail saying that Eddie wasn’t needed until later this evening.

He nearly whooped with joy. That left him enough time to try out, go home and change and eat all before Victor needed him.

The coach of their school’s baseball team, to put it lightly, didn’t really care about baseball all that much. He was there because all the teachers needed to be in charge of at least one extra curricular activity, and all the easy ones had been claimed already.

So really, it was the senior varsity players who ran try-outs and practices for everyone. They were the ones Eddie had to impress. They would pass the names of the people they thought worthy on to the coach and the coach would approve it without even a second glance. 

The captain of the team was Jason McNamara. He was way too tall for a high schooler, with broad shoulders and blonde hair and blue eyes. His nose and cheeks were covered in freckles from the sun. 

He had no time for nonsense.

Eddie made sure that he did everything he could to catch the senior’s eyes--especially Jason. During warm-ups, Eddie ran fast but didn’t sprint. He kept his stamina up, enough to keep up with everyone else, maybe even enough to show off a little bit, but not enough to be cocky. The varsity seniors were famous for their arrogance. They were the only winning sports team in their school, even without a coach’s help, and they knew it. If Eddie dared to try and show up any of them, as a sophomore, he’d never get anywhere near the team.

They split up the teams, mixing the people who were trying out with the seniors on varsity. Eddie found himself up to bat right after Jason who’s made it all the way home.

The boy turns around, and suddenly his entire head is engulfed in sunlight. Eddie stares as the captain takes off his cap, his hair flowing in the wind, his cheeks pink. 

The bat Eddie’s handed slips through his fingers and he scrambles to catch it before it hits the ground.

To Eddie’s absolute horror, Jason sees him fumble. He raises an eyebrow at Eddie, but then an amused smile comes over his face. If Eddie wasn’t already frozen, he would probably freeze over again at that action alone.

Jason pats Eddie’s arm twice as he walks by. “Good luck,” he says kindly.

Eddie blinks, and then blinks again two more times. 

Somehow he gets his body to line up on the home plate. The bat raises in the air and the ball is flying forward towards him but Eddie doesn’t see it coming.

Swing!

It’s not Eddie’s own voice, but the force behind it is enough to throw Eddie into action. He swings the bat, just as the voice had instructed, and the ball cracks against the wood. The ball goes flying and Eddie just stands there watching it.

Run, Eddie! The voice calls again, and Eddie is helpless but to follow again. He kicks into a run, and he hears chanting, but it’s not coming from the dugout or the stands, it’s coming from inside his head.

GO EDDIE! GO EDDIE! RUN RUN RUN! GO EDDIE GO!

Eddie’s legs pump faster, as he passes first base and on to second.

Watch out!

“Shit!” Eddie curses as a kid on the opposing team lunges for him with the ball. Eddie dodges him with a jump and then zooms past second base, the voice’s cheers loud and boisterous in Eddie’s ears. His heart is pumping with adrenaline, with excitement, and he throws himself farther. Finally feeling his feet connecting with ground, his mind back on earth, Eddie sprints past third and is almost home.

GO GO GO GO GO GO!!!

Eddie slides into home and now the cheers aren’t just coming from inside his head, but the people in the dugouts, the other tryouts and some of the spectators in the stand were cheering too. 

You did it! The voice whoops. You did it, Eddie! Yes!

“Thank you,” Eddie says, panting as he hunches over on his knees. 

Evan! Stop that racket right this instant!

Shoot--! Sorry dad!

The voice disappears.

As he strides back into the dugout, people are clapping him on the back, telling him how great a play that was. Eddie smiles and tells them all thanks too. He sits and watches with the others as tryouts continue. 

Some moments his eyes slide back to Jason, watching the older boy as he passes along instructions, criticisms and encouragements. Eddie thinks he’s being inconspicuous, but the second Jason’s eyes glide over to meet Eddie’s, he’s turning away so fast and acting like he hadn’t even been interested in the first place. Because he wasn’t interested. Meaning, he was interested in the game. And that was it.

After tryouts, in the locker room, Eddie showers off the sweat and stands by his locker. Looking in the mirror, he’s reminded of the voice in his head.

Evan? 

It didn’t make any sense to Eddie. The voice had always been around, Eddie remembers it, but for so long he just assumed the voice was his own. Like a stream of consciousness that babbled incoherently to the point where Eddie just tuned it out. 

But then the voice started speaking directly to him. Conversing like he was a whole person standing right in front of him. Like he could see what was happening around Eddie.

It freaked him out, made him shake and sweat whenever he thought too much about it. Sometimes if he dwelled on it, he could feel the phantom touch of people’s hands on him when Eddie was completely alone. Or sometimes he’d be in a good mood, and suddenly a sadness so deep and consuming would engulf him out of nowhere.

Eddie shook his head. There wasn’t anybody inside his head. No one was talking to him, and Eddie most certainly was not talking back.

He wouldn’t talk to the boy in his head ever again. There was no boy in his head. 

He was sixteen years old for Christ’s sake. He was way too old for imaginary friends.

“Good game today.”

Eddie whips around and nearly trips and slams into his own locker, but a hand comes out and captures Eddie’s shoulder, catching him before he falls over.

Jason gives a small laugh and Eddie’s face burns with embarrassment. Soon enough Jason takes his hand away and Eddie burns for other reasons.

“You good?” Jason asks.

Eddie clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. Thanks. You also had a good game today.” He tries to smile, to make it less awkward.

Jason raises an eyebrow. “Of course. I’m the captain for a reason.”

Eddie snorts with a dorky laugh that immediately makes him cringe on the inside. “Yeah, I know. Uh. Sorry. I just meant--”

Something softens on Jason’s face. “No worries, Diaz.”

Oh shit he knows Eddie’s name. Or...his last name?

“You impressed me out there,” Jason continues, and then his hand is back on Eddie’s shoulder and his heart nearly beats its way up and out of Eddie’s throat.

Eddie finds himself leaning into his touch without even noticing.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Jason says and pulls away again so that Eddie realizes how close the two of them were standing. 

Jason takes another step back, looking Eddie up and down, and something not unlike fire ants breaks out over every inch of Eddie’s skin. It prickles at the back of his neck.

“Welcome to the team, Diaz,” Jason says with a smirk. Then he winks and suddenly the tingles up his spine turn into ice.

Jason leaves, and Eddie stands alone in the locker room, looking down at his shoes like he’d just had a bucket of ice water poured over him.

He stares at the door where Jason just left. 

The senior wanted Eddie on the team. He’d touched Eddie, smirked at him, winked

Eddie’s not stupid, he knows what that means. He also knew that being like that on a baseball team, on any team, wasn’t right. No, this was a locker room and a field and guys weren’t supposed to. 

Eddie liked girls. There was Lydia Maraschino in third period who stared at him constantly. She had a nice rack, Eddie’s friends pointed it out a lot, and spoke about how lucky he was to have attention from a girl like Lydia. Eddie thought she was hot, she had dark hair and thick thighs. She looked nothing like the guys on the baseball team, and for that Eddie was thankful. He was thankful he could focus on Lydia’s tits and not on the tight baseball uniforms with straining shoulder blades. The uniforms that didn’t accentuate any muscles in the legs or the thighs or the glutes. There was nothing to look at there. 

Welcome to the team. It rings in Eddie’s head. He made it, he should feel excited. But now all he was feeling was anxious. Would he have to be looking over his shoulder constantly? Wondering if someone was looking at him, or--or wondering if he was going to get caught looking?

No. No, Eddie couldn’t do this. It would be too much. If he asked his mom and dad to come to any of his games, they would see. They would be able to tell right away what Jason was, and if Eddie was on the same team as him, they would think he was too.

The next day, Eddie walks past the entrance to the locker rooms and spots his name on the roster for Junior Varsity.

He quits the team before he even starts.