Chapter Text
A winter jacket wasn't something Eddie Diaz had ever needed to own, the heat of El Paso never having dropped low enough in all of his 18 years of living there to necessitate such a thing, but that was the thing; he wasn't in El Paso anymore.
He was in London, England.
When applying for colleges he'd only thrown Kingston down on the paper as a joke, there was no way they'd ever want him attending such a prestigious school, except they did. Out of all of his acceptance letters that had arrived in the mail; Kingston had been the first.
Even after booking his flight and scouring dorm accommodations Eddie still truly didn't believe any of this was real, the reality of the situation only settled in on his very first night in his new home.
While, yes, he had been lucky enough to get an entire space to himself- with all kitchen and bathroom facilities included in his little space- his neighbour in the room to his left was obnoxiously loud, to say the least. Eddie was no stranger to noise while trying to sleep, it came with the territory of being born into such a large close knit family, but not once since the day he was born had he heard the cacophony of over the top moans and grunts through the walls.
He guesses he has his neighbour to blame for bursting his little bubble of denial, it was thanks to them that Eddie realised just how out of his depth he truly was in this new country, so similar yet so foreign to his own.
And so, for the next year of his life, Edmundo Diaz was stuck living the life of a performing arts student at Kingston College.
Eddie turns towards the sound of his blaring alarm, the display reading 7:30am, his eyes stinging his the thrumming behind his cranium only increasing in pain, a pain that wouldn’t even exist if not for the girl his neighbour had brought over a few hours before. While the guy he shared the wall with, Lukas as he’d found out from the girl's exaggerated moans through the thin plaster separating them, didn’t have any lessons scheduled that day; Eddie did, which will be increasingly more difficult for him to get through with less than 2 hours of sleep.
Maybe he could find somewhere private to nap before his 10:30am class starts.
His mornings were a simple affair for Eddie; it starts with a shower, one that never lasts longer than 5 minutes, followed by a thorough brushing of his teeth while his hair is left to drip dry after a quick ruffle of his towel. His kitchen hadn’t been used for anything more than instant noodles in the week since he moved so his breakfast, as always, would consist of a buttery croissant and either a cookie or a brownie paired with his morning coffee from the little place just around the corner from campus.
That morning it was something new that caught his eye in the tantalisingly inviting display case of baked treats; a blondie, it was called according to the girl behind the counter.
Perhaps it was a sign of what was to come.
His timing, as it seemed, was impeccable. Eddie had arrived as soon as the doors had opened, leaving him just over an hour to catch up on his sleep before his classes even began. There was no point in even heading towards his class, the only two friends he had managed to make in such a short amount of time in England- Kim and Anthony- were the type to arrive late, consistently.
The building was still a mystery to Eddie, the only places that had permanently engrained themselves into his memory were the cafeteria and the performing arts block of the place- it’s how he knew about the third floor staircase, that lead to no floor at all, but it did lead to a locked door to the roof.
It was practically begging to be used as his own personal napping spot.
Except that by the time he was turning the last corner of his destination the space had already been claimed.
Blonde curls, kissed by the sunrise leaking through the small rectangular window on the ‘emergency exit’ door, were the first thing his eyes gazed upon. His head was down, his gaze undoubtedly following the nimble movement of his fingers as they twist and turn around the little screwdriver buried deep into the camera in his hands. Eddie thinks maybe he should leave the boy to it, he was the perfect portrait of tranquility afterall, but the soles of his trainers had other plans, the high pitched squeak produced by the rubber bringing the attention of the boy in the stairwell to him.
Blue, brighter than the sea in Cuba where his family had stayed one summer as a child, dazzling alongside golden curls steal the breath from Eddie's lungs. He never knew eyes could possess such hypnotic beauty, until he saw him.
“I- sorry. I was just looking for a place to-” Eddie turns his face away from the boy, there’s a warmth dancing along the tips of his ears that he didn’t want, to not only address, but he also didn’t want this stranger in front of him to notice. “Nevermind.”
“I, um-” He freezes mid step at the boy's voice, as he turns back to face him he notices the jacket, neatly folded, that hadn’t been there before Eddie had turned away. “I hear jackets are a pretty good substitute for pillows, here, you can borrow mine.” A freckled hand gently pats the article of clothing.
As Eddie draws closer he notices that sitting beside the man is a towel, one containing neatly laid out camera parts, he wonders just how long the disassembly had actually taken.
The college had been open for less than 15 minutes, there was no possible way he could have deconstructed the device that quickly, right?
But that wasn’t a question that needed an answer at the moment, a question that did need an immediate answer however was; just how the hell did the guy even know that the reason Eddie had even come up here in the first place was to have a quick nap?
“How did you-”
“You look tired.” Steady blues direct their attention to Eddie, the boy shows no amusement in the moment, even as his lips hide pressed against his own palms Eddie can tell nothing more than understanding glimmers in those eyes. There was something so undeniably charming about this person that had Eddie wanting to know more, maybe there was a chance the two of them could become friends.
He didn't even know their name and still somehow it felt as though Eddie had been scouring the timelines for those gentle blues.
“Understatement of the century.” Eddie sighs as he lays on the ground, his head looking to the ceiling where it lays atop the stranger's jacket. “I’m Eddie Diaz by the way.”
“I know. I mean, uh, you’re kind of a hot topic around here, it’s not very often that we get people from overseas and I just-” The boy, his cheeks rosy in embarrassment as he cuts himself off from his tangent, sighs. Eddie can't help but stare at the way his birthmark completely disappears as his face only deepens in colour. “I’m Evan, um, Evan Buckley.” Evan finishes, his face dipped in scarlet, Eddie tips his head back to watch as he picks up the body of his camera once more, his tiny screwdriver now replaced with something that has a huge bulb on the end of a stick that Eddie can only assume is used for blowing dust away.
“Let me guess, you’re studying for a law degree?” He yawns behind his palm.
Evan turns to him, his strawberry kiss marked brow raising in confusion at Eddie's- obviously nonsensical- question.“Huh? No, I-” His lips form an ‘O’ shape as his brain unscrambled the puzzle, Evan pouts the second he hears Eddie's poorly hidden snickering. “That was just a joke, wasn’t it?”
He wasn't like the other friends Eddie had made so far. Evan spoke calmly and soft like a faint summer breeze, unlike Kim whose tone was the equivalent of nails trapped within a blender. Though she swears it's the ‘northern’ accent- not that Eddie really understands what that means- she possesses that is to blame. Even Anthony, who shares the same accent as Evan, didn't feel at all similar to the boy beside him right now.
“It was. But seriously, what are you doing?” Eddie turns on his side, the pale pink cotton pressing delicately against his cheek as his eyes flutter slowly. Blues crease gently as their eyes meet, with the gentle rays cast upon Eddie from the blonde's smile comes the reveal of a set of dimples burrowed deeply in his freckled cheeks.
Just when Eddie thought the boy couldn't get anymore attractive, he smiles.
Maybe that's why Evan was hiding up here to begin with, to avoid being the cause of a fatality due to rapidly increasing heart rates.
Eddie pretends as if his own chest wasn't thrumming along to a different tune the longer he stared into the azure abyss’.
“I’ve been having a few technical problems with my camera lately and, as it turns out, one of the components had-” Evans words, spoken in a slow comforting sweetness wrap around Eddie like a blanket, the vanilla scent pressing against his cheek from Evans jacket makes it feel like- just for a moment- that he’s back home in El Paso. The voice at his side fades away as Eddie is transported to a different realm, one where his abuela was in the kitchen with his tía, whispering and gossiping as Eddie, his sisters and his primos and primas played games while waiting for the moment when they could enjoy their abuela's food.
It hadn’t even been a week and yet the dreaded homesickness he'd been warned about was rearing its ugly head.
How was he supposed to survive an entire year by himself?
The El Paso in his dreams fades into the distance, he can only watch as his family disappear into a cloud of smoke before his very eyes. He knows the voice that calls to him from a distance, he's just not sure if he has the energy to respond to their call.
The pair of them were the overly energetic type, honestly Eddie's not even sure how the three of them had become friends in the first place.
“-‘ddie. Dude!” Eddie pushes her hands away from his face, his glare only intensifying at the giggles that roll through the pair in front of him.
“Fuck off.” He mutters, pressing his face further into the soft pillowy jacket beneath his head. It's only when the scent of vanilla barrels into him that he sits up, taking in his surroundings in more detail than before. In front of him was Kim, the chains hanging low on her belt knocking into the metal spindles with each fidgeting movement of her feet. At her side, perched precariously on the handrails themselves, was Anthony with his fiery head of hair in its usual sheep-like state.
But the only trace that Evan had ever been there at all was the pink jacket still tucked as neatly as it had been the moment he'd let Eddie borrow it.
“The fuck are you doing up ‘ere?” Kim asks with a curious quirk of her brow, Eddie tentatively wipes away at the dust gathered on the pink material now clutched in his hands.
“Dancing.” He rolls his eyes.
“Really?” Anthony interrupts, not quite understanding Eddie's sarcastic reply to an obviously ridiculous question.
“No.” Is his deadpan reply.
“Dipshit.” Eddie watches, while rising to his feet, as Kim's hand swats at the back of Anthony's head before continuing. “We've literally spent the last 10 minutes trying to wake the fucker up and you ask some dumb shit like-”
“How'd you even know I was here?” His fingers trace a hole in the sleeve of Evans sleeve that he'd not felt before in its folded state, Eddie should patch it up before returning it to its rightful owner, he thinks.
“Some creep with a camera came and told us you were up here before he-” Creep?
“Completely vanished! I'm convinced he was a ghost but Kim-” Ghost?
Both assumptions of the blonde have a heat rising inside of him that he can't put a name to. They didn't know Evan, hell, he barely knew Evan either but from what he'd seen during their brief interaction-
“He's not a creep. And he's not a ghost either, his name's Evan and… he's actually quite sweet.” Eddie misses the side eyed gaze shared between his friends, his own eyes having only been focused on the small hole in Evans sleeve.
“Mhm sure. Now, get a move on loverboy, we're already late.” He protectively swats her hands away, stopping them from landing on the jacket folded over his arms.
Why did he care that Kim had almost touched something that didn't belong to her? It's not like it belonged to Eddie either, but Evan had let him specifically borrow it.
Maybe that's why he was acting in such a way.
“You guys are always late.” Eddie rolls his eyes, not for the first time since his rude awakening, at Kim.
“Well, yeah, but you're not. Miss Shaw is gonna think we're a bad influence on the new blood.” Miss Shaw, notorious for not liking anyone who participated in her lessons, Eddie thinks he'll take his chances.
“Aren't you?” Eddie teases.
“Are we?” Anthony tilts his head as he asks his question.
“Why are- you know what, I'm not even going to say what I was thinking.” She squeezes at the space between her eyes, sighing deeply as if she were Anthony's disappointed mother.
“Because what you were thinking of was an insult?” Eddie knows he's right on the money, it's clear in the way her entire body freezes.
“...” Her silence is the only confirmation he needs.
“Mhm, that's what I thought. Hurry up you two, we're already late.” Eddie says while pushing his way past his friends, picking up his pace when he hears them chasing after him.
“Hey!” Anthony yells through a fit of giggles.
“You're a dick, Diaz!” Kim exclaims as she throws her empty plastic bottle in his direction.
“It takes one to know one, Milton.” He grins wickedly as he turns to face her, taking great satisfaction in the visible disgust on her features at Eddie's use of her last name.
“Ew! Don't you ever say that name-!” Honestly, it's kind of her fault for telling Eddie she hated it so much in the first place.