Sideways

Chapter 39 Threading The Needle

Wes paces back and forth in a private waiting room at Cedars Sinai. He pauses and then looks around at Cole and Athena's concerned faces before resuming his worried wandering. With as many friends and family as he has buried over the years, Wes would think he would be used to this by now. But losing the people you care about never gets any easier.

Wes knows, for the most part, that he is going to an extreme and that the other members of the 118 should be okay. But after losing his mother the way he did, he will never count anything out.

Over the years, Wes has accumulated a lot of friends and teammates, and they have all become his surrogate family. He would gladly lay down his life to protect any of them.

His own biological family, well, that's another story; a nightmare, really. His mother was one of the most extraordinary people to exist, and of course, he was biased; she was his mom, after all. She was loved by so many people before she was taken from this world. His dad is a piece of shit that likes to play god and tell people how they should live and behave. He still wants to know what his father said to his two brothers for them to disown him the way they have.

His teammates, now they are his real family. After things went sideways in Peru, the few remaining SEALs and Wes's original squad were merged into a New York-based team with Wes as the Tactical and Strategic lead and Cole as the Field Commander. Things were going great until he and Cole were asked to participate in an off-book black ops mission last year.

As soon as that mission wrapped up, Evan called and needed help. Evan was always someone who could take care of himself, but hearing the fear in Buck's voice that day, Wes knew that LA was where they needed to be. No, they were not needed; they were supposed to be there. He was not sure why, but it felt right, and Wes had learned the hard way to trust in his feelings.

Now, six months later, he and his husband are the Co-Leads of the LA branch of Steve's 5O Task Force and are currently living with Buck and Eddie. Never mind that he had somehow made a whole new set of teammates and family members. At some point, his old family would meet his new family; he just hoped the world wouldn't have to go to hell for it to happen.

But Buck and Eddie were different; there was something there between them, the four of them he couldn't quite figure it out yet. Wes knew his extra-sensory abilities were going to come into play at some point. However, he never expected today's events.

Buck knew there was more to both Wes and Cole, pretty much since they first met. Eddie, on the other hand, was going to be a challenge. Wes has been trying to lay the groundwork for revealing himself to Eddie for months. He trusted the man too much to lie to him. Eddie deserved better, and so did their friendship. However, one thing about Eddie Diaz is that he can be thick-headed and oblivious when he wants to be. He was also incredibly stuck in his beliefs, or non-beliefs as they are.

So, Wes started slowly. First, by bringing in Dani, between her "feelings" and the bet about their natures, he began to peel the onion back with Eddie. Wes and Nate had outright called Dani an empath in front of the man, and he hoped Eddie would start to catch on. He's not sure if Eddie didn't catch it or just didn't believe it. But then there was the conversation they had about his tattoos and the beliefs behind them with Eddie and Adriana.

When that didn't look to be working, Wes switched gears and had been trying to point out the similarities and parallels between Eddie, Buck, Cole, and himself to the thick-headed man for months. Highlighting the little things between the two of them seemed to be slowly working, as it felt like Eddie was starting to believe he was connected to Buck on a deeper level, just like Wes and Cole were.

But today was something different entirely. When he stood in the shower at HQ and felt their pain from the other side of LA, it changed and confirmed some things for him.