#bel biv devoe voice: that boy has tra-u-ma

[laundrybiscuits]

(wait for the season to come back to me tag)

Eddie doesn’t want to tell the kids yet. Steve kind of understands, but he also knows Dustin’s never going to forgive him for holding out like this. He cancels his biweekly lunch with Dustin twice before sitting Eddie down and saying, “We gotta tell him something.”

“Fuck off,” says Eddie.

“He’s twenty-five years old. He can handle it.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“What the hell are you worried about, then?” Steve snaps. “I can’t keep lying to him, man! It’s not fucking fair! Just because you—”

“Steve,” says Robin. “Come on. Cool your jets, hotshot.”

Steve realizes he’s been kind of yelling, then. He also realizes that he’s standing over Eddie, who’s folded into a defensive crouch, and Eddie’s nails are in serious danger of ripping the couch cushions open. Eddie doesn’t look scared, exactly, but his face has gone inhumanly still and blank. It’d probably be worrying if there was any space in Steve for worry.

The anger’s still roaring full-tilt through Steve, though. He gets like this sometimes for no goddamn reason at all, and he knows it’ll pass in a minute, but right now the urge to break something is so, so strong.

“Fuck,” he snarls, and wheels around, storming into the kitchen.

He runs the tap just so there’s some noise as he tries to get his shit under control. Robin comes in after a little while.

“I’m—going to the gym,” Steve says, still gripping the sink hard.

“Okay,” says Robin. “Be safe.”

———

When he comes back, Eddie’s not in the living room.

“I told him he could hang out in my room for a while,” Robin says, before Steve can work himself up into a panic. “I think it would be good for him to have, like…his own private space. Not—I’m not talking about kicking him out, obviously. But maybe we could figure out a partition or something in the living room?”

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea,” says Steve. “God. I’m so sorry. He knows I’m sorry, right?”

Robin flicks him on the forehead. “Yeah, he gets it, dingus. I think he called you an ambulatory fountain of penitence once. Like, a perpetual apology machine.”

“Sure,” says Steve. “Got a lot to apologize for.”

“Nope, we’re not doing that,” says Robin, patting him gingerly on the shoulder. “I’d hug you but you’re all gross and sweaty. Go shower, you’ll feel like a person again.”

He does feel like a person again after a shower, but the Dustin question still hasn’t been figured out. He tries to bring it up again after a few days.

“I wouldn’t even have told you guys I was back if you hadn’t kidnapped me,” says Eddie, picking at his dinner. Vegan stuff is usually okay, weirdly enough, so Steve’s been learning to cook with tofu. He’s not sure if Eddie actually gets anything out of it on a nutritional level; he hasn’t asked.

“Yeah, I know,” says Steve. He’s trying pretty hard not to get mad again. It keeps him up sometimes, thinking about how easily Eddie could’ve wandered into a different bar that night. He hopes that they would’ve crossed paths sometime anyway, being in the same city and all, but maybe not. He just doesn’t know.

“So you get it, right?” says Eddie. “Why I don’t want to put that on the kids. They’ve all, like…processed it and everything. They’ve moved on, just like you did before I came back and fucked up your life again. And you didn’t even really know me.”

It’s not like he’s saying it in a mean way, but it’s deliberate. He’s watching Steve carefully to see how it lands. Steve takes a deep breath; he can do this right, this time.

“Eddie,” he says. “You know I’m glad you’re back, right? You’re not fucking up my life, I’m happy you’re here.”

“You seem a little stressed for a guy who’s supposed to be happy.” Eddie leans back and smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. “Just seems sometimes like maybe it would’ve been better for you if I’d stayed, like, a story from your past.”

“No,” says Steve. “No. No. Never. It—might’ve been less complicated, maybe. But not better.”

Eddie looks down at his plate, silently fiddling with the golden-brown chunks of fried soy protein, and Steve realizes it might not just be about how the kids will react.

“Hey. You know it’s going to be fine, right? Dustin loves you. He wants you in his life, whatever that means, and you know he’s not gonna do anything to make you uncomfortable. Plus, he lives like one town away and has his own car, so if I keep putting him off like this he’s just gonna show up here one day and then we’ll really be screwed.”

It’s kind of a joke but it’s also really, really true. Eddie laughs, some of the tension finally dropping out of his shoulders, and says: “Okay. You’ve worn me down, Harrington. Alert the brat pack.”