#i've been trying to write about college baxter but it's just so so sad

[differenteagletragedy]

RIP MC (Sorry Baxter)

So i got a request for Baxter finding out MC had died during the five years he was gone and I wrote this WHOLE ASS THING without realizing what that meant. So if I do two Baxter angst fics in a row with a dead MC, please don't call me out on it, I already know :(

"Did you have fun in Cali, Ass-ter?"

"I did, Richard, and that's very clever, as always."

Baxter let out a light sigh, not very excited to be reunited with his college roommates. He tried to focus on his task on unpacking his things as Richard and Matt, the two spoiled rich boys he shared a suite with in one of the school's more expensive dorms, high fived over the unbearably stupid nickname they'd given him during their freshman year.

He was a spoiled rich boy too, he recognized. But at least he was a little quieter about it.

He began the task of putting his finer clothes in his closet, carefully picking up the hanger his tux was on and putting it away first. He ran a hand fondly over the coat, remembering the last time he'd worn it. With you.

When his roommates decided to turn on the tv, looking for a game, he barely paid attention, instead lost in his thoughts. He'd been miserable, even more miserable than normal, since he'd left you. He kept telling himself that it was for the best, that it made sense, that you wouldn't miss him nearly as much as you'd thought you would -- probably not even at all. He was fun for a little while, he knew that much about himself, but carrying out a relationship, even just a friendship, over texts and phone calls across the country?

He wasn't worth that. He'd hated seeing you so upset with the way he left, but at least it was a sharp sort of pain over the dull ache that would had happened as you inevitably lost interest in him.

"Hey Baxter, isn't this where you were?"

"Hmm?" he asked, barely registering what Matt had asked. Both boys were looking at the television, so that's where he turned his attention.

There was your picture on the screen. You were smiling brightly, dressed in a swimsuit. He recognized both.

He stared at the photo, puzzled, trying to piece together what your photo would be doing on the news. It was like his brain got a little foggy trying to figure it out, but a few words did fight their way through.

"Rip current," was one he heard. Another was "drowned."

His heart started beating faster, so hard that it became all he could hear. The room started getting hot, much hotter than it had been, and breathing became difficult.

He vaguely registered his roommates approaching him, but instead of trying to fight through whatever he was feeling to respond to them, he promptly turned and left the suite.

Baxter wasn't sure where he was going, he just knew that the room had suddenly become much too small. Without thinking much about it, he made his way out of the building and started walking. He wasn't aware of any conscious thought he had, too overwhelmed by the pounding of his own heart, and suddenly he was by a small pond on campus, kneeling by the edge of the water and gasping for air.

It didn't make sense, he thought. That couldn't have been you. It must have been someone who looked like you. Why would you be on the news all the way in Virginia? And there was no possible way you could have drowned. Not in the ocean you knew like the back of your hand.

Still, as much as he tried to convince himself that he'd misunderstood what he'd heard, an aching pain began forming in his chest, and soon he was sobbing.

If anyone else had noticed him down by the pond, they didn't approach him. He sat like that for a while, trying to remember how to breathe and telling himself over and over that you were ok, before he remembered the phone stuck down in his pocket.

With a considerable amount of hesitation, he pulled it out, then opened his browser. After shaking out his hand a few times in an attempt to steady it, he did a search for your name.

He'd heard right the first time.

He read as much as he could stand -- you'd gone out to the beach by your house the night before to swim, but you hadn't come home. That morning, as people from the neighborhood searched, your body ...

That's where he stopped reading.

Baxter hadn't planned on ever seeing you again. He knew that. As he flew over the country after leaving you, he'd tried to minimalize the entire summer and what it had meant to him until he'd almost convinced himself that that's what he actually wanted.

But knowing now that it wasn't a possibility to see you again, that it would never happen ... that even if he magically became a person who could believe in himself and fight for what he really wanted, that he couldn't have you, was a pain he couldn't have ever prepared himself for.

Once his tears slowed, he pulled himself up, absentmindedly brushing off his legs. He looked in the water. It was dark and still, nothing like the ocean he'd seen with you over the summer. Even so, he couldn't stop himself from picturing you in there, struggling.

He slammed his eyes shut and put both hands in his hair, then balled them into fists, pulling. The pain became forefront in his mind, and he managed to take a breath. Then another.

You were going to be there, Baxter realized. In the water. In the sand, in the mountains, in bowling alleys and cupcakes and feather boas and coffee shops. In summer. There was no way of changing that.

He was just going to have to find a way to live with it.

#our life beginnings and always #olba #our life #baxter ward #olba baxter #our life baxter #baxter x mc #baxter x you #baxter x reader #baxter ward x you #baxter ward x mc #baxter ward x reader #our life angst #i've been thinking about baxter in college so i already knew about richard and matt and those guys are the wooooooooorst #i've been trying to write about college baxter but it's just so so sad