"And then I fought a Wignow because it was trying to steal my boots while I was sleeping. So I made sure to defeat it, and since I couldn't get back to sleep, I just kept on making my way through the area of the forest I was in. I'm getting closer to the desert. I've heard there are other kings of Wignows out there, and I want to see if they also like boots," Chris said.

"That sounds like a fun game," Eddie said. He hadn't thought much of the school having Chris play a game during a class, but he wasn't about questioning what it was about since Chris was engaged with the game and coming up with stories beyond what happened in the game. What was probably the whole point of it was the stories that Chris made up about the game. Of course, a boot-stealing sapient bush wasn't exactly something that was high on Eddie's list of things.

Eddie laid the plate down with Chris' dinner to see that Chris had his drawing notebook on the table. He picked that up and looked at the bush with eyes that Chris had drawn. It looked very much like a bush with eyes and what looked like normal shoes of elves in a lot of stories.

"Is this a Wignow?"

"Yes, it is. I want to see the Desert Wignow a lot, but I need to finish up more quests in the game. Since we don't have to follow certain things in the class and just complete quests at our leisure, can I play it on your laptop?"

"My laptop? Not your tablet?"

"My keyboard hasn't come in for the tablet, and I need the keyboard."

"I'll have to look to see if the game can be played on my laptop. I'll check that out later."

"Oh, it will. It runs on Buck's laptop. He's been having fun playing as well."

Eddie stopped and looked at the notebook again before he laid it down away from where dinner could get onto it. He didn't realize Buck would be willing to play games outside of work. Maybe Eddie would like the game. He filed away the name because Chris had said it a few times. He would have to check it out to see when it was a good idea for Chris to play it. Maybe it was something that the three of them could play together some weekends.

Chris changed the topic to his history homework that he had going.

Eddie listened to Chris prattle on about school and asked questions to make sure that Chris knew he was engaged. He remembered when the note had gone home about playing the game and the fee to use it. Eddie had assumed that it was software and such, but instead, it seemed like it was something that could be played anywhere. Eddie knew he had the login information somewhere as it had needed Chris' email to do it, and the school hadn't wanted to assume that the parents would want the school email for the kids used; Eddie had agreed that Chris could use the one that he had for emailing with his cousins. Eddie checked it pretty regularly, and he had seen a few emails from the game. He hadn't paid much attention to them since the school was monitoring usage, and there was no kind of feature that allowed adults just randomly to message kids.

Maybe it was something that Buck understood better, and it was why Buck was playing with him.

"Can I read in my room?" Chris asked after he helped put the dishes in the dishwasher.

"Sure. You don't want to watch an episode?"

"No, I want to relax. Today was a lot."

"Chris?"

"There was a lot of noise all day everywhere."

"Ah, okay. Then, yes, go and read. You can turn on the radio if it gets too silent."

Chris nodded, and he headed to the back of the house. Eddie picked up his phone to see that Buck had messaged that he was on his way over to drop something off for them for breakfast in the morning. Just to make sure that they didn't have to cook anything. Eddie rolled his eyes, but he went to take the deadbolt and bar off the door so that Buck had an easier time getting inside the place. Eddie grabbed his laptop and Chris' tablet and put them into the living room.

Buck arrived ten minutes later, being quiet as he came inside. Eddie raised an eyebrow at him.

"Chris said school was a lot when I talked to him earlier. I figured he was in his room getting some quiet time. His keyboard came in."

"Good timing...what is this game he plays?"

"The writing game?"

"Writing game? It's a writing game about bushes stealing boots?"

"Oh, Eds." Buck started to laugh and laid down three boxes on the coffee table before making Eddie scoot over. He opened the first box and handed over the foldable keyboard that came out to full-sized when it was open to allow Chris to keep up on his keyboarding skills. "Did you not really read over the sheet?"

"I read the short version at the bottom because I assumed it was some kind of learning game. Then, I thought it was being used to spark imagination. He writes?"

"He uses it for homework and sometimes for writing little stories about his Dust Warrior," Buck said.

"Dust Warrior?"

Buck launched into a description of the game.

"So there is this person, a Dust Warrior, who is setting off to save Oge-Mai Valley from the Dust, which at the base of it corrupts everything around it. Some people worship the Dust, and there are those who fear it. There is a whole mess of monsters with different hit counts and timers to have to get a certain number of words in a certain time. There is armor that you get that helps you write fewer words or gives you more time to defeat monsters. I really liked the idea of it, and I wanted to be able to talk to him about it, so I joined up. You get free time to try it, and then you have to subscribe. That's the fee you paid. The school used it and loaded up the subscription time for the rest of the year for the kids, along with a few extras to buy a few clothing items to have some fun looking different from each other. I didn't follow that part too much."

"So you are writing to play along with him? Is it some kind of MMO?"

"Yes, and no. You are running around on your own. The only time that it seems that things happen between characters is during events, but it's about the number of things done, not teaming up and fighting the exact same thing at the same time. There is not a lot of crossover stuff. It's an RPG that you write to kill monsters, but your path is your own. I started it with a few ideas about things and have been doing a lot of writing on it. Journals about my day, then little stories I might want to expand on one day. It's a lot of fun. I didn't know that one could gamify writing, but the kids in Chris' class are loving it. Most are writing fan fiction of themselves doing weird stuff inside of the game, but the teacher is making sure that things are safe."

Buck handed over his laptop, which was open to a screen in the game. Eddie saw that no monster was going at the time, and BUck was in a place called Gansu Watering Hole, which looked like a desert.

"It costs coins to move from region to region, but I'm flush with them, so don't worry about it costing me too much. I'll get his writing bag set up."

"Writing bag?" Eddie asked.

Buck pulled out a red bag with many pockets. It was big enough to carry Chris' tablet, the new keyboard, and a few other things.

"He wants to go to the coffee shop this weekend and set up and write like a real writer. So I told him I would get him a cool writing bag so he doesn't have to carry his backpack. He also wants to carry a notebook, which will make his tablet and keyboard safer. It will also fit into his backpack with other things for him to use at school during his free period if he wants to keep writing or work on homework. It should also fit that laptop you're looking at getting him, but with the keyboard, he might not want the laptop, or this waiting stuff might stick, and he might want a laptop to have more writer stuff on it."

Eddie nodded, and he looked at the game again. He opened up the list of monsters and played around there for a few minutes to get a feel for the game. He then opened up a file that was evidently Buck's writing that wasn't a journal entry. He wasn't going to invade his privacy like that. It looked like the game was a lot of fun, and given how fast Buck had busted through the areas, he was hopeful that it would keep Chris entertained for a while.

"The next big event is in November, and they do a month-long event. I look forward to that. It's also National Novel Writing Month, or NaNo for short. Depending on their wants, the kids will work on outlining a novella or short story. The teacher will go through all of the steps with them, and then in November, they will write it in class for the whole month."

"That's why I'm starting this now. I wasn't sure what was going on there."

"Yeah, I guess many of the teachers used it over the summer to make sure things were good for the kids. The formatting is a little lacking, but I don't think most would keep their stuff on there longer than needed to finish it. The editing and formatting can come later once it's in Word or whatever someone uses if they don't have access to Word."

Eddie went back to the start of the game, and he looked at those monsters. He laughed as he found the Wignow and read about it in the bestiary once he found it. He read over each monster and found that the game was actually kind of fun from an RPG point of view. It wasn't something he would be interested in doing, but he loved talking to Chris about it now that he had a better understanding of the game.

"I didn't realize that schools would even try and be this fun."

"I think it's the teacher, and she pushed the school. It's a pilot program. When I picked up Chris right after it started, I talked to the teacher; so far, it's only Chris' actual class, not the whole grade, but his class that is doing it. They will see how it goes."

Eddie looked at Buck with such a look that he was sure that Buck would see how much Eddie loved him, but Buck wasn't looking at him.

Except for Buck, no one else in the world loved Chris as much as Eddie did.

"Do you have fun playing even without the Chris angle?"

"Yeah, kind of. It's fun, and we talk about it. That is my favorite part. We like making up stories about the things that the monsters get up to."

"What?"

"Yeah, we have a running story about the Wignows stealing boots. We share that through email so that we can each work on parts of it without having to do much."

"Aren't there things that would make that easier?" Eddie asked.

"There is, having a backup on Google Docs but I wasn't sure if it was something you wanted. We can set it up so that he can't access weird things, and it can be safe. It might be good to have that access in other ways. I'm unsure about Word Online and whether we can make it shareable. I've never done that, but Google Docs does the same. I'll have to look into stuff about it. I was going to do that and then put it to you about what you think he would have access to."

"Then do that with Google Docs, make the document yourself, share it with him, and make sure he's not doing something stupid."

"Sure, I can do that. I'll work on that over the next while, and when it's done, we can work on it together. I can even share it with your account so you can keep an eye on it."

"I don't need that access; I trust you."

Buck looked at Eddie, and before he knew what he was doing, Eddie was leaning in, pressing his lips to Buck's. Buck made a noise, and when Eddie moved to pull back, Buck pulled him back in.

"What's that about?" Buck asked when the kiss finally broke.

"I've wanted to do it for a while, and I realized that maybe there was no reason not to. You love Chris like your own, and I can't ever see anyone loving him like you do, so why not embrace what I want?"

"You want it? It's not just because of Chris?"

"No, I want it, and it's not just because of him. Yes, it means that I'm more willing to do it, but I want to have you in my life, Buck. I want you in my bed. Bobby was trying to push me into something more with someone else, and he told me that I needed to go after what I wanted, not what Chris wanted, but I think that maybe I misunderstood him. I should have been going after what was in front of me all along that he saw and everyone else seemed to see. That date with Ana was stupid as hell," Eddie said.

Buck made a noise that Eddie knew well. He didn't want to say what he was thinking because it would sound mean, but there needed to be some kind of response.

Eddie poked Buck in the side. "Work on that, and I'll play around on the site to see what is going on. You can do that from your tablet, right?"

"Yeah, I can do what I need to do there. I copy and paste all of my writing out of the site before closing it for the day, just in case."

Eddoe relaxed back into the couch a little better while Buck moved to press their sides together. Eddie wrapped up using his other arm to move around the site so they didn't have to keep hitting elbows.

Maybe this was a really good thing.

---

Eddie hated being in pain, and he hated being shot even more, so being in pain from being shot was the worst. He was glad to be home even if things were not the best, with Chris freaking out and Buck not talking.

Grabbing his laptop with his good arm, Eddie started up 4thewords, and he navigated to where he had been messing around with a journal for his health while trying to gamify it and maybe deal with the issues that he was having.

Buck was in the kitchen cooking while pecking at a monster of some kind. Chris was in his room, doing who the hell knew what. Eddie felt alone, and it wasn't the good kind of alone.

He navigated to the part of the site that dealt with friends and paused before finding where he had stored Buck's profile. He clicked it and then added him as a friend before doing the same with Chris.

Buck's laughter told Eddie he saw what Eddie had done. Since Eddie couldn't play his normal games because he needed both hands, he was hoping this site would help him.

"So what made you do it?" Buck asked.

"I wanted to see what it was like to play and if it would help me with my desire to play games, but I can't. I figured that I could type fast enough for most monsters, and for the ones I can't, I'll get the words needed and then copy and paste in like you said you have done before."

"Chris is going to flip, and he's going to be happy. You might end up on the fan fiction we are writing."

Yeah, I'm just using it for journaling, Buck. I'm getting my thoughts down. You guys have fun with your fiction."

"Buck! Someone new is trying to make friends with me!" Chris yelled from the bedroom.

Buck laughed and took off for the bedroom, and Eddie wondered what kind of reaction Chris would have.

"Dad, you cannot get to the desert before me!" Chris yelled out a few minutes later.

Eddeei laughed and opened the document he was working on, which had his feelings about the shooting. He was glad that he never had to be pushed to do anything with it. He debated what would happen when he was in therapy to make sure he was good to come back to work because that was something that had changed in the wake of Buck and the lawsuit. There was a check and balance on anyone coming back after anything traumatic.

"Are you okay?" Buck asked when he came back into the room.

Buck came around the couch and crouched in front of Eddie.

"Yeah, I'm as good as I can be at the moment. I'll get better as we go and make sure that I talk to you, but you need to open up, too."

Buck made a face, and then he dropped to his knees and put his hands on Eddie's knees.

"I have been talking to Doctor Copeland, but I'm having issues because I understand what she is saying, and I have everyone at work acting like the shooting didn't happen to me as well. That I didn't see you go down, that I didn't feel that blood on my face. I'm getting there, and I'll work on it as much as possible. When I have my feelings figured out, we can talk about it, and I'll fill in the gaps."

"Who at work is talking about the fact that you can't be upset about it?"

The look Buck was giving Eddie told him all about it. Eddie snagged his phone, opened up his rarely used Instagram, and started typing something out. He wasn't going ever to let anyone tell him that Buck didn't experience something just as bad, if not worse, than Eddie. He knew what it was like to see a friend go down. He knew what it was like to have to try and help them while being shot at. No one else on their shift at the 118 could claim anything like what they had both gone through.

"Eddie, don't."

"No. I'm going to handle it the way I can, and then we shall see who speaks about it. I will type it up on Instagram and then post it with you tagged. We both went through that, along with those of the 133. Let them say anything about it, and I'll make sure that they understand exactly what they have to go through to have an opinion on it."

Eddie dropped his phone and pulled dBuck in close for a kiss. "It's us against the world, Buck. I will have your back, and you have mine, and I know it. I trust that. So, let's not let those assholes make you feel like you can't talk about something that happened to you."

Buck looked like he was going to cry, so Eddie pulled him in a hug. There would be no coming back from this, but that was okay. Eddie figured he would make a few enemies out of the people at the 118 who didn't like that Buck was Buck. Eddie was going to make sure they understood it all.

"Go write out your feelings, and I'm going to go and cook mine."

Eddie let Buck go and then started to work on what he wanted to say in 4thewords before he posted on Instagram. he needed to make sure it was actually as hurtful as he could make it while making sure that everyone understood what he was saying.

Buck was his, and Eddie would do what he could to protect him.

The End