So Our Fears can Become One (or: the Fanon to Canon Reality Show)

So, we have to start again — for the last time, I hope. Once I finish telling you our story, we will leave this all behind and move on for good. But I need to clarify some things first, just so you all know: my friend is innocent, and she shouldn’t be judged by your perfect hearts before this story ends.

The Fanon to Canon Reality Show was my idea at first. My best friend is still too pure to see the way things are; she’s perfect in every possible way, including in what she can’t see, but perfection aside, telling her my plans would have ruined everything. So I did everything on my own, I take responsibility for that — every bit of chaos, every broken heart, and every tear dropped, that’s all on me.

Buck and Eddie, though — that was her fault. I wasn’t expecting them to unexpectedly appear during the worst night of my life. I wasn’t expecting them to join us, or to help us the way they did… I didn’t expect them to be that messy, that perfectly cute, charming mess. They sealed the deal for me; if I’m being honest, from the moment I saw them for the first time, part of me already knew they would be essential to break the cycle. Even after Camelot, all of the couples of our reality show, Jayce, and Glinda… Hell, don’t even get me started on Glinda. The truth is that even after all these people came, I knew that Buck and Eddie were the ones who would change everything.

And they did.

But first things first. I need to tell this in a way you can understand. Now that I clarified that my friend is innocent of all my sins, I can tell you our story.

Let’s start with the night Death almost caught me.

***

Crickets sing and darkness falls upon the farm, but the grass touching his skin is still warm. Not the warmth of going home on a snowy day. No, he feels the warmth that only comes when a thing ends, when you end the thing, when the thing ends you. Maybe something’s ending; maybe something has already ended. He wouldn’t know the answer; it’s still too warm in his dreams and it would be a waste to wake up and leave all that warmness behind to face a cold, conscious life.

Dream a little dream with me, buddie, he whispers to himself. There’s laughter in his dream; there’s a golden light and a road filled with the most vivid green colors, the most beautiful yellow flowers… They are going somewhere somewhere and they will do something something about all those feelings together together just like this and everything in life will be so simple.

I fear I might be dying, he hears his friend whispering. But he shakes his head in denial. That was such an absurd thing for a beautiful person to say on a beautiful afternoon.

Such mischievous thoughts in this head of yours. Fear not, my beautiful friend. You won’t die on my watch.

He takes his friend’s hands and shakes them. Let’s do this together then.

Holding hands like this?

Holding hands like this, so our fears can become one. And as one, they will understand the beauty of living in companionship and leave us alone… Alone together!

And then there’s laughter again, and the road is all golden once more.

You have such a way with words, my dear friend. Let’s go then; my courage will be your courage, my bravery will be your bravery, and I offer you all my fears so they can become one with those you hide from yourself.

And the man is amazed because he doesn’t have a way with words. Not like his friend, his beautiful friend. And they hold hands, even if the dream is weird, even if the road gets too dark, even if the warmth gives place to this midnight drizzle and the ground becomes too hard and uncomfortable and the dream starts feeling like a nightmare…

***

“Buck? Can you hear me?”

No.

“Buck!”

Don’t do this to me.

“Buck, wake up! Wake up!"

Please, don’t.

It’s midnight dark, and it’s cold inside his mind. Buck is freezing when his eyes open, Eddie’s face close enough so Buck can feel his breath. It smells like strawberry bubble gum. He seems worried, his hair disheveled, his hands scratching his head…

“Eddie?” Now he sees. They are outside on what seems to be a farm. There’s a dirt road nearby, and they are standing on a pasture as big as the woods that guard it. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember…” his brown eyes looking as beautiful as the night around them. “Do you?”

“No… Oh, my head hurts.”

It’s hard to see anything amid the darkness. Buck stands up, his body shaking. His body. He’s noticing this now; there’s something weird about his body…

“Eddie.”

“Uhm.”

“I think there’s something weird with my body…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but it’s like there’s this newfound but at the same time ancient pain beneath his skin.

“Do you think someone put drugs on our drinks?”

“Maybe,” yet there’s no sign of anything alive in that wilderness. As he makes his first moves in that world, Buck feels hunger like never before.

“Buck.”

“Eddie.”

“I… feel weird too,” his body shaking as the words come out of his mouth. “I think I get you”, and as Buck watches his beautiful friend rubbing his hands, a little thought is suddenly born; once born, the little thought crosses his mind as if it’s been always there.

“It’s like… I’m feeling things for the first time. I don’t know how that could make sense, but…” Buck’s not listening anymore. The only thing crossing his mind is the idea of holding Eddie in his arms and not letting him go until he’s warm again.

“That’s it. I feel real.”

Eddie seems impressed with what he just said, shaking his head like he made a major discovery. That’s when Buck wakes up from his astonishment, yapping right away.

“Yeah, I think you’re right. I feel weirdly real too.”

They start walking after Buck suggests they should take the road and wait for anyone to appear while they try to find any sign of life. They walk in silence, feeling that weird realness, one they have yet to understand, falling upon them. It takes a moment, but then the realness is not a problem anymore for Eddie, ‘cause now he remembers.

“Buck… We weren’t drinking last night,” he says horrified. “No, we were playing games with Chris… Oh my gosh, Christopher.”

Now Buck is scared as well, panicking as much as Eddie.

“Do you think…?”

“I don’t know, Buck. I don’t know what is happening. I don’t know where we are and if my son is safe.”

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, Eddie. We have to stay calm…” Buck says while looking about to go crazy. “Look, there’s light at the end of the road.”

Eddie sees it too. The light comes from what seems to be a pink house standing in the middle of nowhere. Two shadows stand in front of it — that should be two people, he thinks.

“We should go there. Maybe we can borrow a phone and discover what is happening.” Buck nods in agreement, and then they start running towards the light. Eddie is the first to notice the yellow flowers covering the road. Once they start approaching the shadows, it becomes clear that they are both women lying on the ground. No, one is kneeling holding the laid down body of the other.

“Strange thing. Have you noticed that the house is not pink? It’s green… No, not green. Emerald, I think? How weird. I was sure it was pink a moment ago… Have you noticed this, Eddie?”

“I wasn’t paying attention, Buck, sorry. Do you think those women —” he points to the house “are fine?” 

“I think we’re about to find out. I guess they are; we would know if something was wron…”

Then a horrified scream cuts the night.

***

Eddie and Buck don’t arrive in time to save Edwina. But they arrive just in time to watch as she vanishes in thin air. Eddie looks at Buck, then at the other woman on the ground, then at Buck again. Buck is almost speechless, mumbling incomprehensible things. Barbara is kneeling, filled with despair. She doesn’t seem to notice the firefighters.

“Madam! Are you okay?” Eddie shouts as they run.

“We heard someone screaming!” Buck is as worried as his friend, still too stunned to think logically.

The woman babbles something they can’t hear. Eddie attempts to get closer to her. She must be in her 60s, wearing her blonde hair in a bun and dressed in a yellow blazer. They watch as she slowly stands on her feet, glancing foggy eyes at them.

“I was just… We were just talking. I don’t know. Sorry, I don’t know you… Unless it was her. Would she invite you to our party? Beautiful men to beautiful ladies, that would make sense. But it doesn’t seem like her, no. Sorry again. I need to go back,” she says as she shakes her head in denial and leaves to enter the house.

“Madam! Wait! We need to talk!” Buck shouts, ready to follow the woman. Eddie holds his shoulder, trying to get his attention.

“Wait, Buck! Do you think we should follow her?” He sounds a bit… Distressed? Maybe it's the fear in his voice.

“I don't think we have a choice. I mean —” Buck gets closer to Eddie, saying this last part lower. “You saw that too… Right? The woman that was there, and then she wasn’t.”

“I think we might have used something last night, Buck. That would explain the memory loss and the hallucinations we shared. And don't look at me with that face — we were distant from that lady, we might have imagined everything, considering we are dehydrated, sleep deprived, and…”

“Oh, don't you start! Eddie, listen,” but then Buck’s whispering gets too low and confusing. Eddie gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Hey, hey! You don't need to whisper to me, okay? No one can hear us here! We’re in the middle of nowhere, and your face is so close to mine that —” That’s when he once again realizes the fortress of a man that Buck is. He notices how big his friend's hands are, how tight his muscles look inside those clothes, and how beautiful those eyes look in the middle of that… Oh no. Eddie blushes. He takes his hand off his friend's shoulder immediately.

“What?” Buck is blushing too. Eddie is running his hands through his own hair, looking nervous.

“Forget it. This night has been so weird, I just… I just need to sleep, man. Look, I think we should find a phone and call Bobby. What about this?” Eddie says while avoiding Buck’s eyes.

Buck nods in agreement.

“I think we should enter the house and see if that woman is okay. Then we use her phone and call for help. But I’m gonna need you with me, Eddie.” Now it’s Buck who puts his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “It's okay to be afraid. I’m afraid too, you know?”

“Fear? No, I’m not… I just don't think we should enter her house the way we are, drugged and wasted!” Eddie barely disguises it when he replies. He knows they didn't do drugs, he knows something’s off, but it's so hard to accept things sometimes. The truth is that his body feels weird, and his mind feels even weirder. He isn't ready to go full firefighter mode yet — not when the woman didn't appear to be in any danger, not when she looked like a mirage or something absolutely unreal. What if she doesn't exist? But there’s a worse possibility: what if she does exist, and the woman who vanished also existed one day? Buck is right — he's scared.

“Please?” Buck is waiting for an answer. “I need someone to have my back, you know. In case that old lady attacks me or something.”

Eddie smiles. It's stronger than him. He isn't ready, and he isn't feeling well, and reality is shaping to become such a strange thing, and yet he isn't alone. Someone has his back — Buck is right there for him.

When Eddie opens his mouth to answer, there's a part of him who wants to say “If you have my back, I have yours. That's our deal, Buck. And you're right, we need to use her phone. Of course we have no other option but to enter her house. Sorry for being weird today, I don't know what did bite me, you know? Let's do this together!”

What comes out of his mouth, though, is a lot less verbal. “I will always have your back, Buck. Let's enter this house!”

And they move into the house.

***

The house itself isn't important. It's beautiful inside — there's so much life filling it: loads of paper, pictures everywhere, green and brown furniture, and candles in the middle of a dining table with two untouched dishes. But none of this matters for now; we’ll circle back to it in a bit.

What matters is that Buck is the last one to enter the house. And while Eddie investigates the other room, a Christmas decoration on the door catches his attention — a little thing that is shining bright.

“Oh, what is this? Oh, oh, oh, wait…” The decoration in question is a group of three mistletoes filled with green and red lights — and most importantly, photos of Eddie, Christopher, and Buck. Together, smiling, in a collection of moments that no one could have filmed.

Buck stares at their pictures astonished, his heart racing, his mouth dry. What on Earth…? He takes the photos off the decoration, and when he’s ready to go back to Eddie to show him the pics, he sees a figure through the window.

There’s a Thing standing still outside the house. Buck’s heart accelerates as his vision starts to identify the figure amidst the darkness. It’s someone with the height of a grown, tall human wearing a costume, a dirty costume, the whiteness covered in mud and grass. The head of the costume is the only thing not covered in dirt, and it shows the happy face of a rabbit: shiny blue eyes, pink ears and nose, and a nice smile with little teeth showing. The Thing is waiting in silence, at a certain distance but not too far. Then it tilts its head, looking directly at Buck, and it waves its hands very slowly to him.

“What the hell…” When Buck is about to go outside to talk to the White Rabbit, Eddie calls him using an urgent tone.

“Buck! You need to see this!” Buck is distracted for a second, turning back to Eddie’s direction, and when he returns to the window, the Rabbit is gone.

“Maybe Eddie was right and we are both nuts,” Buck thinks.

“Come, Buck! Quick!” Buck decides it’s better to forget the Rabbit. Strange things happen all the time, right? But the photos are important; Buck needs to show them to Eddie.

“I’m almost there, Eddie!” Buck then enters the living room, and nothing could’ve prepared him for what is about to happen. An old television is tuned to what seems to be a broadcast show. Eddie is standing in front of the TV, shaking his head in dismay.

“...but I wouldn’t do that. You’re on blood thinners.”

Buck can’t believe his eyes.

“I'd still take you.”

The television shows two men having a conversation.

“You think so?”

A conversation that Eddie remembers very well. A conversation that wasn’t in any way recorded. And yet…

“I know!”

“Buck… Look…” Eddie points to the screen, and Buck is still in denial about what he sees. Buck and Eddie are the two men having a conversation on television. And they are having this conversation in Eddie’s kitchen, following a tough moment that happened… Years ago.

(Buck gets closer to Eddie.)

There are pictures of them being used for decoration. Someone vanished in thin air, the lady with her disappeared, and we're not even bringing up the creepy Rabbit thing.

“You wanna go for the title?”

But most importantly, Buck and Eddie are on television.

“Buck… I have a feeling we're not in L.A anymore!”