Work Text:
When Chris first finds the camera in the attic, it feels like a punch to the gut. He'd forgotten about it, hidden it away after–
He gets the film developed into a dvd and watches it on his tv.
The first few minutes are short, shaky views of a parking lot, the inside of a car, a kitchen and living room in El Paso.
It cuts suddenly to a nightclub, strobing lights, barely dressed bodies fill the screen. He swears he sees a flash of a man who looks just like his history teacher when he was eleven.
Then the camera turns towards his father.
Eddie's wearing the same shirt Chris ever saw him in. He has his mustache, the god awful one that Chris wouldn't stop making fun of, the one he shaved off right before their trip.
He doesn't look very happy, sweaty shirt clinging to his back, arms moving wildly.
Chris pauses the video. Eddie's eyes look dead, his face pale.
He turns the tv off, shoves the dvd back in its case and tries not to think of it again.
He has the same dream for a week.
Chris stands in the middle of a nightclub. At first he isn't sure why he's there.
Then he sees Eddie halfway across the room. He fights to get there, loose elbows knocking into his sides, unsteady feet nudging his crutches.
Chris makes it there eventually, watching his father sway and spin erratically. He pitches forward, wrapping his arms around his dad.
Eddie fights him a little bit, like he doesn't know who he is. He's never seen him at this age.
Chris has this moment in the dream, where he flows out of himself and watches as he flickers between himself now and his eleven year old body.
He always wakes up before Eddie can hug him back. On the seventh morning, he puts the dvd back in.
The first shot Chris films is shaky, half tilted to the side because he wasn't watching through the lens.
Eddie dances, quite terribly, in their tiny hotel room while Chris groans in pretend disgust, "What is that?"
"These are my dance moves."
"They're embarrassing," Chris laughs.
Eddie walks out on the balcony. "You're embarrassing."
"I just turned eleven, and you're... a hundred and thirty, turning a hundred and thirty-one in two days."
Chris turns the camera on himself. Eddie scoffs and rolls his eyes. "I'm pretty sure I'm turning just thirty, but go on."
Eddie stands in the doorway, moving a towel from one chair to the other, Chris recording him through the door.
"What'd you do for your eleventh birthday?" Chris asks as he zooms in on Eddie's face.
Eddie gives the camera a look. He knows Chris is recording. Eddie regrets giving it to him a little bit.
The last minute is in the airport, Chris waving goodbye at departures.
"I love you."
Chris keeps his hand up high, blowing a kiss with the other. "Love you."
"Bye."
Chris disappears around the corner, a flight attendant leading him to his gate.
The bus ride from the airport to their hotel is long, the sun setting far before they get there.
Chris spends most of the ride with his head on Eddie's shoulder, watching him watch the window.
The hotel is quiet when they get there, and no one's at the front desk. Eddie rings the bell on the counter for a solid minute, but no one comes.
He heads towards the stairs. "I'll be right back."
"Okay."
Chris flips through some magazine that was sitting on a table. He can feel Eddie turning around. "I'm fine."
Eddie disappears up the stairs. Chris hears some clattering so he puts the magazine down. Eddie comes back a moment later. "Someone's coming."
Chris rubs at his face tiredly. Eddie knocks his shoulder lightly.
"Time for bed?"
"No," Chris protests.
Chris falls asleep on their one bed within five minutes of getting in.
Eddie calls the front desk, trying to explain as quietly as he can that he booked two beds, paid for two beds. All the girl can tell him is that he'll get a partial refund on that front.
He doesn't want a refund. He doesn't need one.
He doesn't slam the receiver down, but it's a near thing.
Eddie takes Chris' shoes off slowly, difficult with the cast on his right hand, the one he won't tell anyone how he got.
He tucks the half of the blanket Chris isn't sleeping on over him.
Eddie rustles around in the dark until he finds the pack of cigarettes he hid in his luggage. He's been trying to quit, but there's not much a point in trying anymore.
He slips out onto the balcony and snaps two matches before he lights one, his cast making most movement clumsily and uncoordinated.
Chris snores softly in the bed.
He wakes up to a blinding light because Eddie didn't close the blinds, his father's back right next to him, and loud clanging from below.
They spend their morning at the pool, listening to even more clanging as they apparently renovate part of the hotel.
Eddie wipes sunscreen on his back with one hand.
"Sorry about the noise," Eddie says earnestly, like he's the one causing it.
Chris shrugs, he doesn't mind it.
"How're things at home?" Eddie asks.
"What do you mean?"
"You and your mom. You guys getting along?"
Chris shrugs again. "Yeah. I guess."
"Good."
Eddie and Shannon divorced years ago. Eddie wasn't glad for it, not exactly, would've done anything to keep their falling apart relationship together, but it felt like a weight had been lifted off him, even with the shame that replaced it.
He spots a young boy across the pool with his parents.
"Why don't you go introduce yourself?"
Chris glances up then gives him a look. "He's a kid."
Eddie raises an eyebrow. "So are you."
"Not that young. Why don't you go introduce yourself?"
Eddie scoffs in offense. "Them? They're old. I'm not that old, am I?"
Eddie records Chris playing in the pool on the cheap camera he bought years ago.
It was supposed to record Chris' first words, first steps, first everything, but he wasn't there, stuck halfway across the world in Afghanistan while the camera collected dust in a box.
- - -
"You want a big ice cream?" Eddie asks from behind the camera.
"Yeah. Bigger than my head."
"That's impossible. You have a massive head."
Chris taps him in the shin with one of his crutches. "You done?"
"What?" Eddie laughs.
"That's rude."
"It's just a fact." Eddie shrugs.
"Your head's bigger than mine."
Eddie zooms in on Chris's face. "I would disagree. Look, it takes up the whole frame."
They go in the freezing ocean. Eddie does handstands to entertain him, and throws him over the waves before they crash.
Eddie watches some early shots of film after Chris falls asleep that night.
Chris must be five or six, at the El Paso zoo, pointing at some lion or panda off screen.
"Daddy, look!" Chris shouted, pointing his chubby finger at the animal.
Eddie rewinds the film.
"Daddy, look!"
He rewinds it again.
"Daddy, look!"
Eddie turns the camera off, shoves it somewhere to the side, and tries to sleep, head nearly hanging off the bed.
A dog barks and howls in the far distance.
Eddie doesn't get to sleep until well after three am.
They find pay phones, and Chris wants to call his mom because their data plan apparently doesn't cover international calls.
Eddie hands him a stack of quarters that he pulled from somewhere, and disappears into the phone booth next to him.
"Hello?"
Eddie's silent for a moment. He dialed in the number from heart.
"Hey. It's Eddie."
"Eddie!" Buck exclaims. Eddie catches himself before he smiles stupidly. "How's it going?"
"Good." Chris waves at Eddie. "The best. How're you?"
"Fine. I'm making lesson plans right now."
Eddie's watched Buck make lesson plans before, sat next to him on the couch late into the night and bit his tongue so he wouldn't point out that middle schoolers are little shit heads who don't listen to their teacher.
"It's summer."
"I miss you."
"I–" Eddie chokes on the lump that's formed in his throat. "I miss you too."
It feels like a confession, and it doesn't feel right saying it here, so out in the open.
Chris thumps on the glass. "Mom wants to talk to you!"
"Shit. Sorry, Buck, I gotta go."
"That's okay. Talk later?"
"The phone at the hotel's broken. I'll text you?"
"Yeah," Buck says softly. Eddie feels this weird pressure behind his eyes. "Bye. I love you."
It's not the first time he's said it, but it still feels like a punch to the gut.
"I–" It gets lodged in Eddie's throat.
"I know."
"Bye." Eddie slams the phone down before Buck can answer.
They play pool with some twenty something's.
Eddie remembers being their age. He remembers turning eighteen, feeling this sickening coldness wash over him, soon to be replaced by panic when Shannon came to him a few months later, holding a pregnancy test.
Eddie remembers nineteen, signing up for the army, getting enough time off to see is son be born, then back to it.
Eddie remembers twenty, twenty one, sand and dirt in his mouth, a picture clutched in his hand as he bled.
It's going well, Chris breaking and setting them up to be stripes, when one of the boys says, "So what's your brother's name?"
"Chris," Eddie says absentmindedly before he can think. "I'm his dad though."
Eddie wonders how old he looks. Cleary not old enough to have an almost teenage son.
He doesn't feel young. His bones hurt, knees crack when he stands, back groans when he sits. His mind feels old, like an eighty year old who's lived a good, full life and is ready to go.
They win, thanks to Chris, because Eddie keeps getting distracted, thinking, I shouldn't be this old.
Eddie buys an underwater camera. He does so much as blink at the price.
Chris takes pictures of him in the pool. Eddie doesn't smile for them, can't bring his face to move. He's always hated smiling for photos, it felt fake and wrong.
"I like that we have the same sky," Chris says, head resting on Eddie's chest as they lounge on a deck chair, eyes flickering across the clouds.
"What do you mean?"
"Even when we're not in the same place, I can look up at the sun, and you can look up too, and it's the same sun, so it's like we're together."
Eddie swallows thickly. When did Chris get so smart? He didn't get that from him.
Chris points up at hang gliders. "Can we do that?"
"Absolutely not."
"Because you're afraid of heights?"
Eddie's never been scared of heights, per se, more just what he could do with it. He's always hated zip lining, ferris wheels, tall buildings, because what if he just... let go?
"Were you talking to Ana?"
Chris dragged him to some sort of talent show/karaoke to the hotel next door. Now he'll spend who knows how long listening to drunks singing whatever hit pop song is hitting top ten on the radio.
Ana Flores was Christopher's teacher, huh, Eddie had a type.
He liked her. She was good for Chris.
"We broke up. Remember?"
"Aw. I liked her."
"Mmm-hmm," Eddie hums. "Me too."
It feels like ash on his tongue.
A group of resort workers get on stage and start doing the macarena. A waiter at the next table over is asking for room numbers.
"Did you bring your wallet, Chris?"
Eddie grabs a roll from the bread basket and hands it to Chris. "When I say, we're going to throw this at the stage and run. Now! Quick, run!"
They throw their rolls at the stage, which does nothing but bring more attention to themselves. They run– well, Eddie does a brisk jog while Chris goes as fast as he can on his crutches, which isn't very fast.
Eddie soaks his cast in a bucket he found in a cleaning supplies closet.
"Did it hurt?" Chris asks.
He cuts at the cast with scissors he got at the front desk.
"When I broke my wrist?"
"Mmhmm."
"I don't know," Eddie says honestly. He doesn't remember much from that night. "I didn't think it was broken, never broken anything before."
"I've never broken anything before."
"Hmm. Better not."
Chris flips through a magazine he stole from the hotel next door. "How come you and Mom say 'love you'? You're not together, so why do you say it?"
"Well..." Eddie doesn't know if he was ever in love with Shannon. But why wouldn't he be? Shouldn't a man love his wife, be in love with her? "You say it to Abuelo, Bisabuela, your tias."
"But they're family."
"Your mother is family." Not that Eddie's parents ever acted like that.
Eddie nicks the side of his forearm. He watches the blood drip down into the bucket.
"How's the book?"
Chris hastily swaps the magazine out for the book he's supposed to be reading for English class next year. What a scam, summer reading.
"Yeah. It's hard to understand though."
Three drops of blood fall to the water in quick succession. He should stop the bleeding, cover it with a towel, tissue, something.
"You should stick with it. You might like it."
"What does municipal mean?"
Eddie stirs the water, brings up a dripping hand to wipe the blood away.
They go on some boat diving excursion. Chris jumps clumsily into the water.
"That's not a dive!" Eddie teases from the boat.
"Yeah-huh!" Chris argues. He knows it wasn't.
Eddie tosses Chris his goggles then dives in himself. He surfaces and doggy paddles to Chris.
"Where're your googles?"
"What?"
"Christopher, stop messing around."
"I'm not!"
Eddie sees the googles rapidly sinking. He sighs and dives down.
No matter how hard he swims, he can't catch up.
The googles sink into the darkness.
Chris watches as Eddie struggles to pull his wet suit on. His arm that had the cast is comically paler than the rest of his body.
"I didn't see you throw it."
Eddie barely looks up, trying not to give up on the wet suit entirely. "Throw what?"
"The goggles. I know they were expensive."
They weren't. Not really. At least Eddie thinks they weren't. Money doesn't matter much to him anymore.
Chris lowers his head so it's resting against Eddie's shoulder. Eddie wraps his arm around him.
"It's okay, mijo. Can you go get the camera? It's in the bag."
"My name is Christopher Diaz, reporting live from... I don't know the name of this boat. We went on this scuba diving thing, and there was this sea horse and it like wrapped around my finger, and the instructor person– I don't know– yeah, instructor put an octopus on my head. A real life octopus on my head!"
The camera angle is bad, too zoomed, showing only a portion of Chris' face.
"Right now Da– I mean, Edmundo Diaz is away on some scuba diving thing, I think. I can't remember. He doesn't have a diving licenses. But he'll be fine. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye-bye."
Chris zooms into in the ocean.
"Bye-bye!"
Eddie tries to show Chris how to shuffle cards. He watches with a vague disinterest.
"When does school start?"
"Thursday."
"Next week? So soon. Who's your teacher?"
"Mr. Buckley."
Eddie's chest feels like it's sinking in."
"Isn't that the one from Pennsylvania?" Eddie says, stupidly, before he can stop himself.
Chris makes a face– sometimes, Eddie worries he'll see through all his bullshit one day. He sits up. "How– No, why do you know that?"
He met Buck at Chris' last parent-teachers meeting. Eddie got lost and Buck helped him find the room, then they ended up talking so long that Eddie missed the whole thing anyway.
Buck took him out to dinner a week later. They ended up in Buck's loft after, and Eddie let him fuck him with the lights turned off.
He told himself that it was so Buck wouldn't see his blush after admitting he'd never been with a man before, but Eddie knew it was so he could pretend it wasn't a man above him, fucking him hard into the mattress and making him come the hardest he ever had.
Eddie went to confession the next morning, awkwardly talked his way out of breakfast with some flimsy errand that needed running. He told the priest that he fell for temptation. Eddie hadn't meant to enjoy the sex, but he had.
They're not dating or anything though.
(But they'll go out to dinner, or the movies, or whatever new thing Buck wants to try, and end up at Buck's loft– never Eddie's place– and have sex on Buck's stupidly soft bed, or couch, or kitchen counter.
And Eddie will call him baby, but only if it's after midnight with Buck's chest pressed against his back.
Buck will text that he misses him, or a picture of some animal that reminds him of Eddie.
Eddie will drip toothpaste down his chin while Buck watches him brush his teeth from the closed toilet lid while he tries joke after joke to make him laugh.
Buck will make him dinner no matter how late Eddie gets back from his shift, and give him recommendations on where to take Chris on the weekends he has him, and bite his tongue before he can ask to meet him.
Eddie will flip over on his stomach in the morning so Buck can trace patterns on his back, and he'll pretend he can't feel Buck Diaz and Eddie Buckley burned into his skin.
And Eddie had a dream one night, Buck's chest pressed against his back, snoring in his ear, where his false womb became heavy with their child, and when she was born, she came out silent, her tan skin grey, blonde curls flat, and the birthmark above her eye pale.
Eddie woke with this heavy, guilty ache in his chest, for his inability to bear the fruit, and for dragging Buck into his incapable body and mind, into his shame and sin.)
But– Well.
Eddie Diaz isn't gay.
"Met him last parent-teacher night," he simplifies. "Is he supposed to be good."
I met him at parent-teacher night, then I fell in love with him, son, but I'm not gay so I'm not sure what to do all these feelings in me.
"Hmm," Chris hums, and Eddie has this panicky feeling fill his stomach at the idea that he doesn't believe him. That he knows his father is a dirty liar. "I guess so."
Chris lies on the bed, ignoring the comment about his shoes on the pillow, while Eddie brushes his teeth.
"You okay in there?"
Chris stares up at the ceiling, looks down to his upside down father. "I don't know. I guess. I just feel... tired or something."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know," Chris says again with an eye roll. "Don't you ever feel like... you've had a whole amazing day, and when you come home you're tired and your bones down work. They're tired, and everything is just tired. Like you're sinking."
Eddie spits the last of his toothpaste out, wipes his face. He nods, doesn't dare to look at himself in the mirror.
"I don't know. It's weird."
He did this. He's poisoned his child.
"Well..." Eddie nearly chokes. "We're here to have fun, okay?"
He spits at his reflection. He can't stand the sight of himself.
"Ready?"
His voice doesn't sound like his own.
The spit still covers the mirror in the morning. Eddie sits, tucked in the corner, in the bathroom right before the sun rises, a damp towel over his head.
Eddie gets on his hands a knees to trace the patterns of a rug. It's mesmerizing to him, for some reason.
Chris watches him, leaned back against a stack of rugs in a room filled with rugs.
"You like it? The guy was telling me that each carpet tells a different story."
The rug salesman comes back with what Eddie thinks is two small cups of tea.
"Tesekkur ederim," Chris says clumsily. He sips at the tea.
"How much is this one?"
"This one is 45 million Turkish lira."
"Ah. And what's that in US? Sorry."
"$1000."
"Ah."
Eddie sips at his tea. He shouldn't buy this. It's far too expensive.
The man moves rugs from one stack to another.
Eddie goes back to the rug store while Chris goes off to play pool with the two boys from earlier.
He sits on a bench and stares at the rug.
It's dark blue, and maroon, and there's yellows and greens, and intricate patterns he keeps following.
The man comes back with his card and receipt.
"Thanks."
Eddie barely looks at him as he walks away.
He lies down on the rug. Traces patterns with his finger as he stares up at the ceiling.
Chris pans the camera across the room. They got the second bed some time this morning.
"Here's Dad's tiny winy bed, and this giant one's mine. Wait, how do I zoom?"
Eddie takes the camera and zooms in on Chris' face.
"Okay, okay, okay!"
Chris takes the camera back.
Eddie dances, quite terribly, in their tiny hotel room while Chris groans in pretend disgust, "What is that?"
"These are my dance moves."
"They're embarrassing," Chris laughs.
Eddie walks out on the balcony. "You're embarrassing."
"I just turned eleven, and you're... a hundred and thirty, turning a hundred and thirty-one in two days."
Chris turns the camera on himself. Eddie scoffs and rolls his eyes. "I'm pretty sure I'm turning just thirty, but go on."
Eddie stands in the doorway, moving a towel from one chair to the other, Chris recording him through the door.
"What'd you do for your eleventh birthday?" Chris asks as he zooms in on Eddie's face.
Eddie barely remembers being eleven. Only has flashes of moments of twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
All he knows is his eleventh birthday is when the dread of getting older set in. Not in the, oh, I miss childhood way, but in a sort of desperate feeling in his gut like, I'm not supposed to be here.
Eddie never wanted to get older. Never wanted to see graduation, adulthood, anything beyond it.
Shannon was pregnant by Eddie's eighteenth birthday. He couldn't leave his child fatherless.
"Hello? What did you think you would be doing now?"
Eddie gives the camera a look. He knows Chris is recording. Eddie regrets giving it to him a little bit.
"C'mon, Chris, turn it off now, okay?"
Chris tilts the camera down, pretends to hit some buttons.
"Okay. It's off."
"I can see the red light," Eddie deadpans.
Chris smiles guilty. "That's just... 'cause it's still on."
"Mmhmm."
Chris turns the camera so it's facing him. "Look, it's not even on you anymore."
Eddie turns the tv off. "Dad!" Chris whines.
Eddie sits on the bed. Chris pretends to zoom a camera in his face while he sits next to him.
"So. What did you do for your eleventh birthday?"
"My parents forgot my birthday actually. My sisters and Abuela didn't though. They took me to the store so I could pick something out."
His parents never admitted to forgetting his birthday, but Eddie knew the moment his sisters rushed him out of the house that morning, and the look his abuela kept giving his father.
"What did you get?"
Eddie chuckles. "A toy phone. It was red."
"Good choice."
"Thank you."
Eddie stares out the balcony, lies back in the bed.
Eddie teaches Chris Conquian on the balcony, watches the drunks down below when it isn't his turn.
Eddie carries him in when he gets tired.
"Think you'll ever move back to El Paso?" Chris asks.
Eddie almost flinches at the question. "No."
"Why?"
He thinks Chris thinks that he only moved to LA for him, he did at first, but getting out of El Paso, out of Texas felt like a weight off his chest.
It felt like a caged bird finally being free, but it never learned how to fly.
"It's all in the past. Sometimes, when you leave where you're from, you don't totally belong there. I never did feel like I belonged there."
"LA feels like home."
"That's good." Eddie's not sure what LA is to him. It's where his son is. It's where Buck– "But you never know where you might end up."
Eddie brushes Chris' hair back, willing him to sleep. "You can be whoever you want to be. You have time."
Eddie watches his son sleep, tucks the blanket over him. He kisses his forehead.
The night club is dark.
Chris can barely see his father between the flashes of light.
Eddie wakes up early. Before the sun, the dogs, the cars in their way to work, after the final drunks have made their way back.
He doesn't know why, but he goes out onto the balcony.
He's not sure he has the balance, but he climbs up anyway, feet spread on the railing.
Eddie opens his arms wide, spreading his fingers against the air. He could fall, cascading down to his death at this height.
His heart thumps at the realization, sending heavy blood flowing through his veins. The feeling that comes with that thought settles warm in his stomach, like he had swallowed part of the sun.
The wind whips his shirt back, flows through his fingers.
Eddie throws Chris into the pool when he refuses to go in.
They play water polo with some strange men.
Chris doesn't do much but hang onto his father's back, tries to drag him backwards into the water when he has the chance.
"My darling–"
Chris drags him to the karaoke again. Fortunately, or unfortunately in Eddie's eyes, they go late enough no one's checking room numbers anymore.
"–I hunger for your touch. A long, lonely time. And time goes by so slowly. And time can do so much. Are you still mine? I need your love. I..."
"Are you excited for tommorow?" Chris asks.
"Yeah," Eddie lies. He's never looked forward to something less.
"Are we all having fun, guys?"
Eddie fake cheers, nudges Chris' side. "Yeah, Chris is having fun!"
"Can we have a big round of applause for Chris and Eddie?"
"Oh. You didn't sign us up, did you?"
"Of course I did!" Chris says cheerily. "We sing it every year!"
"You're a bit old for it." Eddie usually wants anything but Chris getting old, to stay his perfect baby forever.
"C'mon, Dad, that guy was like sixty."
"Okay, let it go. He'll move on in a second."
He doesn't know why the idea of karaoke terrifies him so much. Maybe if he was drunk– but then again, Eddie does a lot of things under the guise of being drunk.
He used to like ballroom dancing. That's a bit the same, isn't it? Performing for people. But that's what he hated about ballroom dancing, how competitive it became. How his parents made it.
"Dad–"
"I'm not up for it okay?"
"They just want to hear us," Chris argues. Eddie almost misses the days Chris was too shy to even look at strangers. "We're on vacation, we're supposed to be having fun."
"Christopher, I'm not doing it, okay?"
The music starts playing. People start clapping to the beat.
Chris sighs and storms up to stage.
"Oh, life is bigger. It's bigger than you, and you are not me. The lengths that I will go to. The distance in your eyes. Oh, no, I've said too much. I set it up."
Eddie feels bad, horrible really. He should be up there, but he can't get his feet to move.
"That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight, losing my religion."
He sips at his beer. He knows people are looking at him.
"Trying to keep up with you. And I don't know if I can do it. Oh, no, I've said too much. I haven't said enough. I thought that I heard you laughing."
Chris comes back, sits down, barely looks at him.
"You could get singing lessons if you want to learn to sing."
"You telling me I can't sing?"
"No." Eddie sighs. "Anyone can learn if they put in the work."
"Stop doing that," Chris snaps quietly.
"Doing what?"
"Offering to pay for something when I know you don't have the money."
Eddie tries to argue, but he's got nothing. He was strapped for cash before this trip. Quit dispatch right before they left.
"C'mon, let's call it an early night."
Eddie gets up, starts to walk away.
"No. I'm staying down here."
Eddie sighs, turns around. He could stay with him, but that might just piss Chris off more.
"See you upstairs?"
He trusts his son, knows he knows the way back. Chris doesn't look at him.
"Christopher."
Chris nods sarcastically.
"But not too long."
Eddie watches the camera footage. He snaps it closed after a couple minutes.
He gets up and walks out of their room.
He walks down some street, ignores the stray dogs and couples walking back from their dinner.
He picks up a half smoked cigarette from off the ground.
Chris knocks on the door to their room.
No one answers.
He wanders around the lower levels, watches two guys makeout in a doorway.
Eddie stumbles down the beach. His black shirt and pants blend into the dark, dark ocean.
He walks into the water, disappears into the dark.
The waves crash heavily over his chest.
Sand fills his shoes, his socks.
His jeans are heavy.
His nose and mouth full of salt.
Chris falls asleep in the lobby.
A worker finds him and walks him to their room, gives him a spare key.
Eddie's naked back is the first thing he sees.
He tucks a blanket over his father and goes out on the balcony.
Chris has the rug Eddie bought, rubs his feet over it when he can't sleep at night.
"Happy birthday, Chris."
The baby cries in the other room.
Chris gets up. "I'll get him."
Eddie gets up twenty minutes before their day trip leaves. It goes to... somewhere. Buck had told him they should go.
He half sleeps on the bus, forehead resting on the cool glass.
Chris steals his sunglasses.
"Happy birthday, Dad."
Eddie smiles. It doesn't feel right on his face.
"Thanks, mijo."
Chris copies his movements as they get off the bus and wander around.
He does fake yoga moves until Chris can't keep up.
His sisters used to do the same thing to him.
Eddie doesn't think anything he does is worth copying.
They go in some clay/mud bath. Eddie can't remember which it was.
He dumps the mud clay over Chris' chest and back until he pushes him away.
"What happened to your shoulder?"
He's got a scrape over his shoulder. Parts of his back, thigh too.
"Don't know."
Might've been the waves. He can't remember. All he knows is he walked into the water last night, woke up in bed.
"Sorry I passed out in your bed," Eddie says awkwardly. He was mortified when he woke up.
Chris shrugs. "It's fine. I didn't have a key though."
"How'd you get in?" Eddie asks in a panic.
"Front desk."
Eddie feels like a right asshole. Maybe his parents were right. He's not meant to be a father. He can't take care of anyone, barely himself most days.
"I'm so sorry, Chris." Eddie can't stand himself anymore. "Yesterday was..."
"It's fine," Chris says. "It's no big deal."
"No, it is a big deal. I'm sorry, okay?"
Chris pulls up a big clump of mud clay, rubs it over Eddie's arm.
"I'm sorry."
Eddie leans over. Chris plops down a huge chunk of clay over his back. He bites back a groan of pain, he deserves it.
They swim out to some floating buoy. Eddie pulls him up by the armpits.
"Y'know, I want you to know you can talk to me about anything. As you get older."
Eddie's not sure why he's saying this. He doesn't know how much time he's got left in him, but he'll try for his son.
"Parties. Girls." Eddie nudges Chris' shoulder.
"Dad!" he groans.
"I know. Just... Just remember, okay?"
They wander through some sort of ruins, or something, an amphitheater maybe.
Eddie doesn't know. Buck would know.
He climbs up the stairs, Chris and everyone else at the bottom.
The beginning of Happy Birthday echos it's way up to him.
He's always hated sitting in front of a cake, his whole family singing until he blows out the candles, watching him like a hawk, like they were waiting for his painted smile to smear.
Eddie liked the moment after he blows the candles out, when he doesn't make a wish and it goes dark because the lights are turned off.
But the lights always come back on, blinding him for a moment, and his sisters ask what he wished for, and Eddie has to put on a coy smile, and they'll guess and he'll pretend to accidentally react so they'll think they got it right.
"Happy birthday to you!"
He shouldn't be here.
"Happy birthday to you!"
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here.
"Happy birthday, dear Eddie!"
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here.
"Happy birthday to you!"
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here.
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here.
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here.
His son watches him, a huge grin on his face as all the strangers around him smile and laugh, charmed by his love for his father.
Eddie feels this endless pit in his gut.
He never wanted to see eighteen.
Now here he is. Thirty years old, still stuck where he's always been.
With his son, his perfect son, staring up at him like Eddie could carry the whole world up on his shoulders.
Eddie hunches over. The wind from the open door is cold on his bare back.
He can't stop crying. Why is he crying? He doesn't want to cry. Why can't he make it stop?
It feels like a faceless, armless hand is ripping and ripping vital organs from his chest.
They're defective, Eddie knows this, but he still needs them.
Does he?
His shoulder and back ache.
He sounds like a wounded animal, choking on the blood of prey.
A lonely green float drifts across the empty pool.
Water rushes down the slides.
Eddie pushes Chris into the ocean, dives in after him.
Crickets chirp loudly at the amphitheater.
Chris watches Eddie watching the waves crashing at their feet.
The sun hangs low, red and golden in the horizon.
Eddie digs his spoon into Chris' ice cream.
"That's mine!" Chris protests, hitting Eddie's spoon with his own. "You should've gotten your own."
"I just wanted a taste," Eddie says innocently.
"Dad," Chris deadpans. "That was like half of it."
A man wanders up to their table, polaroid camera in hand. "Photo?"
"How much?" Eddie asks. He's low on money, surely, but it's for Chris.
Chris should have a photo of the two of them. He deserves to remember this. Remember him.
"50,000 lira."
Eddie has no idea what that is in US dollars, but hands it over anyway.
He walks to the other side of the table, crouches next to Chris' chair, does bunny ears behind his head.
"Tesekkur ederim," Eddie says, grabs the photo.
He leaves the photo on the table, watches Chris eat his ice cream.
"Did you have a good vacation?"
"The best," Chris says around a mouthful of ice cream. "I wish we could've stayed for longer."
"Me too."
He wishes he could stay longer.
The photo develops, corner tucked under Eddie's elbow.
"Why don't we just stay?"
Eddie's face does something weird. Chris will be fine without him, Chris will be fine without him, Chris will be fine without him.
"What do you mean?"
"Forever. We could just stay here."
"Um."
"Can't live in hotels forever," Chris says for him. "You can have the wafer."
"Oh, thank you very much."
It tastes like ash on his tongue.
Eddie starts to dance as they pass the hotel bar.
"Last night. Time for a dance!" he declares.
"I don't dance," Chris protests.
Eddie backs up into the crowd, putting on his most embarrassing dad moves.
"What was that?"
"Dad, you're so embarrassing."
"This is embarrassing?"
Eddie spins and spins, disappears into the crowd.
Chris can't find him through the strobe lights, the sweaty drunks that block him.
"C'mon!" Eddie exclaims, pulling at Chris' hand.
He pulls him into the dance.
The crowd thins. It's just them now. Chris screams, begs for him to stop.
Eddie keeps spinning, doesn't even look at him.
Eddie spins him.
Chris wraps his arms around him. Eddie fights him. They sway side to side while Chris tries to get him to stop.
Eddie holds him close to his chest, lifting him up and spinning them slowly.
"Can't we give ourselves one more chance?"
Eddie stops fighting him. His hair sweaty and face clammy against Chris' shoulder.
Chris pushes him away jokingly.
"Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love–"
Eddie throws his hands up dramatically, swings to the beat. Chris laughs at him.
"–Cause love's such an old fashioned word, and love dares you to dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night–"
Eddie steps back, stares at him. His face is pale, eyes unfocused and dead.
He falls backwards into the darkness. Chris watches, flickering between ages.
"–And love dares you to change your way, of caring about ourselves–"
Eddie holds Chris' face in his hands, smiles down at him.
He spins him in circles.
"–This is our last dance. This is our last dance–"
Chris turns. There's nothing left to see.
"–This is ourselves–"
The camera is zoomed in on fluorescent lights and departure signs.
"Okay, bye-bye!" Chris says off camera.
"Safe travels."
Chris walks off, disappears around a corner for a moment.
"I don't need a babysitter, y'know."
Eddie almost chastises him for being rude. He chuckles instead.
Chris appears from behind a wall, looping back in forth in line.
He waves at the camera, disappears behind another wall, waves again.
"I love you," Eddie calls out.
Chris keeps his hand up high, blowing a kiss with the other. "Love you."
"Bye."
Chris disappears around the corner, a flight attendant leading him to his gate.
Eddie was flying to El Paso, Chris to LA. He told Chris he needed to do something before he could come back.
The video stops then, grainy and shaky on Chris as he waves goodbye.
Chris' arm is resting on the back of the couch, he looks down at the video camera.
The baby gurgles in the next room.
Eddie turns the camera off, a heavy feeling in his gut. Like he's just tied a weight around his ankles and jumped down into endless water.
It's freeing, this feeling.
He tucks the camera away into his backpack.
Eddie walks down the empty hallway.
The door clangs shut behind him.
"–Under pressure."