#TeaserTuesday: Daddy Issues

 

Literally any excuse to make these two bicker, and I'll take it. Despite all the lies he tells himself, Walsh and Fox BOTH love Devin the most, and have been the most hurt by him, they just handle that hurt in different ways. 

 ***

Fox squeezed a lime wedge into his G&T and then dropped the whole thing into the drink with a little splash, so the liquid brimmed right at the edge. He ducked forward to suck the first half-inch off the top, then picked up his glass and eased back on his wicker bench. It irked Walsh to no end that the bastard could make any seat, no matter how sedate, look like the coolest possible place to sit.

“The thing is,” he said, lifting a forefinger off his glass to aim at Walsh, “not a one of us has a leg to stand on when it comes to telling her what to do with her love life.”

Walsh regarded his can of sparkling water with extreme regret. He’d spotted an unopened bottle of Grey Goose in the freezer earlier, and it was taking a not-small amount of willpower not to go and fetch it. He sipped his La Croix, grimaced, and said, “Do you think I don’t know that?” He didn’t want to have this conversation with Fox, but Fox was the only one he could have it with, so, here he sat on the back deck of the Albany house, watching Cass play beer pong with her fiancé.

Christ.

“It makes sense, if you think about it,” Fox continued, unbothered. “All of us have daddy issues—”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Oh no. You hate him worse than anyone. You have the most daddy issues.”

“Shut up. I’m leaving,” Walsh said, but didn’t move.

“Dad and I get along famously.”

“That’s because you have no soul.” And also, Walsh knew, because Fox was the one who actually loved the bastard. Loved him the most, anyway: Tenny was pretty damn attached at this point, and Cass, too, to a lesser extent. But like Raven, Walsh had watched her pull back over the years; had seen her carefully snip through some of those threads. All the little-girl love she’d once felt for Devin had been transformed and was now directed at Shepherd.

Speaking of…the beer pong game came to an end, and Shep reeled Cass in by both hands to kiss her like nobody was watching.

“Ooh,” Fox said, flatly. “We might have to kill him.”

“Yeah,” Walsh agreed.