Rebecka. 28. pan. books and cats. lots of emotions. not en english and film student (anymore). Multifandom gal. I go feral about a lot of things on the regular. Say hi
We all need a little help sometimes. A story about TK in therapy at different stages in his life, starting from age 21 detailing all the way to the show and beyond.
A look at how it all started.
Word count: 5.2 Read on ao3. Rated M.
Okay, please everyone, before you read this I advise you to read through my tags and warnings on ao3, just in case. We’re going to dive into the heavy stuff and I really don’t want to trigger anyone <3
PART 1
TK, age 21.
Rehab, New York.
TK can’t stop fidgeting.
The couch he’s sitting on is uncomfortable. But it’s not just that it’s uncomfortable, it’s also so ugly, the mint green so discoloured it looks like puke. For the last ten minutes he’s stubbornly been pulling at a loose thread in the cushion he’s sitting on, just so he doesn’t have to look at the man facing him. His attention keeps switching between the thread refusing to give and his own shoes, white new Nike sneakers his mother thought was good to get him for some reason before he left. The smooth leather is tarnished by a brown ugly spot that he keeps persistently scraping against the disgusting linoleum floor, to see if it will get worse or not. The sound also works as a nice distraction in the quiet room.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, ten, fifteen minutes, time in here doesn’t really matter. It often feels like it operates differently here than it does in the real world, everything slowed down and passing at a snail’s pace compared to the outside world. The room has no visible clock in it, it’s probably a conscious choice by the man sitting in front of him and he, for a moment, can't help but wonder how he can tell the time at all. They’re still sitting in silence and it’s fraught with unease, probably radiating off TK in waves.
He moves his attention to the room instead, which is tiny, feels like it’s not much bigger than a broom closet, a small desk in the corner with an ancient computer on top, a bookcase and then TK on the couch, separated from the man only by an ugly carpet meant to distract from the even uglier floor. The ventilation system is loud, whining in the corner and TK tries not to shiver in the cool room.
“Tyler? Or Kennedy?” The man says and that gets TK’s attention. He glares.
The man sitting in an armchair in front of him is old. He has a notable mop of white wavy hair and an equally impressive beard to match and he looks a lot like Santa Claus. If TK cared enough about it he’d find it ridiculous. He has small eyes, that in the glasses he’s wearing are made to look massive, and an olive green tweed jacket on with jeans that looks too washed out to resemble any colour and he really looks more like an overstressed history professor than he does a physiatrist, but he is watching back with attentive kind eyes that tells TK he’s clever, probably too clever to fall for TK’s tricks.
He already hates this.
But he doesn’t care so he pushes down the urge to comment on any of it.
“TK.” He corrects, because that he does care about.
“TK.” He amends. TK averts his eyes.
His right hand that’s been trying to pull the thread loose is shaking again. He makes a fists and clenches his fingers so hard against his skin it sends a jolt of pain through his arm. He’s been doing that a lot recently, and soon he will pierce skin and draw blood and a part of him welcomes that feeling of pain, that he even can feel pain that’s not just emotional effects he’s suffered from having to detox. He’s spent most of his time here with his head pressed against the cool floor, body in a fetal position, puking at first, shivering and suffering from a fever high later, not sleeping, he distinctly remembers crying at one point too and as the drugs begin to leave his body, slow at first, quicker later, he was convinced a few times his heart would give up and he would just die, alone and in a disgusting heap of his sick. This isn’t the first time he’s detoxed, but it’s the first time he’s detoxed with this much in his system and it goes to show how bad it’s been when he’s reacted this strongly to it.
His hands still shake though, the tremors uncontrollable when they happen. But they’re lasting less and less each time and someone he can’t remember the name of told him it’s a good thing.
“I heard you’re eating…” The man says again. TK meets his eyes, lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed. The man looks like he wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. TK doesn’t say anything.
“That’s good. Progress.” TK scoffs.
“I got hungry.” Is what he offers up as the explanation.
Truth is, after he’d been forced to detox when he was admitted, with the first day spent puking his guts out, so even if he would have been able to keep solid food down, it really wasn’t an option. When that stopped he couldn’t make himself eat, his stomach turning just by the very thought of it, and he was scared it would set him off again so he refrained from it for as long as he could. But after a few days of not leaving his room, he was forced to and so he sat down in the cafeteria and he stared at the plate in front of himself because he couldn’t make himself look at anything else, and picked at the food, forced some boiled carrots down and then some dry tuna and then little by little the whole plate disappeared and a career which TK knows is called Henry, because Henry has barely left his side had looked at him approvingly, a small little smile curling at the end of his lips and TK had averted his eyes and hadn’t felt anything.
“I see, well that’s still good.”
He shrugs. The man’s lip twitches.
“So, should we start?” TK doesn’t offer up a reply. It doesn’t seem to deter the man one bit and an unexpected flare of annoyance pushes through TK’s wall of indifference he’s been upholding since he got here.
“Sure.” He mutters but doesn’t say anything else.
“Do you want to begin telling me about yourself?” TK glares, huffs and sits back, stops for a moment and finally gets the thread loose. It gives him a brief moment of satisfaction, but it disappears as soon as it’s come, and instead he crosses his arms in front of himself, hides the hands that are still trembling and sits back. He refrains from tucking his knees underneath himself though, not wanting the man to see how uneasy he feels about being here.
“Don’t you have all the information about me in your file already?” He glares at it, wishes he could burn it. The man lifts an eyebrow.
“I have some, not everything, not the things that matter. At least I don’t think your weight matters in helping with your recovery, do you?” TK hates the word recovery, it makes him sound like he’s ill, damaged, broken. The list can be made long and TK would probably agree on every point on that list, but having some stranger refer to him as being in recovery makes sudden hot anger appear immediately, TK struggling to tamper it down.
“Do you want me to read out what the file says about you?” TK narrows his eyes in suspicion, but it’s distracting him from the anger, so he shrugs indifferently to hide his curiosity, he’s never been offered to be read his own files before. The man doesn’t say anything, but maybe he sees TK’s curiosity because he flips it open and readjusts his glasses before he starts reading.
“Tyler Kennedy Strand, age 21, 154 pounds.” His lip twitches when he reads that out, apparently thinking he’s really funny. “Prefered drugs of misuse are opioids, particularly fentanyl. This is the first time he’s been admitted for an overdose. No other known medical history that is cause for worry. It also says you signed yourself into rehab, correct?” TK only nods.
“Cause for starting using is unclear. Then it’s just some unimportant personal details your parents provided, like birthday and address and health insurance number, etc.” The man closes the file and leans forward, fixing TK with a piercing look.
“So, where do you want to begin?” TK doesn’t answer.
“Okay, should I ask you a question then?”
“Do I get anything in return?” He shoots back. The man smiles.
“Therapy.” TK rolls his eyes.
“So, I’ll start easy. How are you feeling?”
“That’s supposed to be an easy question?”
“Is it not?” The man lifts an eyebrow, intrigued and he picks up a pen that makes TK’s skin crawl in discomfort. His mouth hardens into a thin line and he glares, starts stubbornly staring into the ground, unable to look at the man for a moment. The man clears his throat.
“Would you prefer a recorded session instead?”
“I have no opnion on the matter.”
“Your reaction to me picking up a pen tells me you do. So, does it bother you that I want to write things down?”
“Doesn’t it bother everyone to be studied? Judged and picked apart by a stranger.” He snaps, eyes flitting to him for a moment but he doesn’t look surprised or angry, just calm eyes looking back.
“Yes, I would think so.”
“So, there is my answer.”
“Is me taking notes during a therapy session the most uncomfortable thing you’ve experienced since you got here?” TK, despite himself, shakes his head.
“Well then, if you managed to get through the rest of it then you can get through this. No one will read what I write down, whatever you say will stay between us, I promise.” He says it earnestly and it bugs TK that he believes the man. He just shrugs, because he doesn’t care who reads it or not, at least he tells himself that.
“So, how are you?” The man seems to have the patience of a saint because not a trace of annoyance or any lingering frustration in TK’s purposeful conceits in avoiding this whole thing seems to have gotten to him yet. It’s almost admirable. But maybe the man has had more difficult patients than TK and for a moment he thinks he should up his game, but he rejects that as soon as he’s thought it. He barely has the energy to stare indifferently at the man as it is, putting more effort into the whole thing seems to be a little too much for him and his exhausted body and mind right now.
He sighs and feels shaky.
“Fine.” The man lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed.
“Terrible.”
“Fine or terrible?”
TK sighs again.
“What do you think?”
“It’s not my place to tell you how you feel or think, or what you should feel either for that matter.”
“Then what is your job?”
“You really don’t like answering questions, do you?” The man chuckles heartedly and jots something down in his brown leather notebook that looks to be the most expensive thing in his office by far.
“Did you just write that down?”
“I’ll tell you what I put in here if you tell me how you feel, for real this time?” The man smiles, the dare in his words obvious and TK huffs, crosses his arms again, which makes it look more like he’s wrapping his arms around himself in a guarding gesture or reassurance than in confidence. He sees the man write something else and he averts his eyes, lets them travel around the room so he doesn’t have to look at him and his stupid knowing eyes.
There’s a painting hanging by a bookcase. He thinks the painting is ugly but he can’t help but look at it anyway, the person looking out at the horizon surprisingly captivating. He sees the man take note of that too, but this time he doesn’t write anything down, just looks at TK to see his reaction.
“I feel… bad.” He settles on, gives the man an answer he seems to be craving so much. He hums.
“Short and concise, why do you feel bad?”
“Is that not obvious?” He bites back.
“Indulge me.”
“Well, being forced to go to rehab for starters.”
“But you signed yourself in.” The man reminds him, unhelpfully.
“Yes because what was the alternative?” The man smiles now, kind, eyes crinkled in the corners and he nods.
“I don’t know.”
“The alternative wasn’t an option.”
“Because?”
“I thought you would tell me what you wrote down in the notebook if I told you how I felt. I’ve told you, terrible and trapped, your turn.”
“Very well. But I don’t think this conversation is quite over.” TK says nothing, levels the man with a heated glare instead. It seems to have no effect on him whatsoever but he turns the notebook around, forcing TK to lean forward to see. It turns out the man hasn’t written anything down at all, instead he’s doodled a little silly cartoonish version of what TK thinks is a ferret, crouched down on a couch looking grumpy. He looks up in disbelief, unexpected anger flaring inside of him.
“What the fuck?”
“It’s pretty good right?”
“You tricked me.” He accuses, feels like a child, but can’t help but be hurt too. The man huffs, and drops the smile, grows a bit more serious.
“In my defense I didn’t say I wrote anything down to begin with. And sometimes I like doodling my patients as animals, I find animals can be very representative of a person.”
“And I’m a ferret?” He scoffs, hurt.
“Maybe, maybe not. You know, ferrets are very clever, good at thinking on their feet. They are also surprisingly affectionate and crave company…” TK’s frown falls off his face. “But they can also be very destructive, especially when they feel lonely.” He trails off and TK feels his face sting and he stubbornly looks down at his feet, because of the words a jagged ache cuts through him.
“But even though small in size they are strong, intuitive, not an animal to doubt.” The man says, apparently way too perceptive already to TK’s moods. It annoys him, that he can be read so easily by him.
“They are annoying.” He says to disrupt the tension and his own sense of lingering uncomfortableness.
“Those are your words not mine. I wouldn’t say annoying though, maybe tenacious is better?” He suggests a hint of thoughtfulness to his words, like he’s spent time actually thinking about it. TK dares to look at the man, who’s watching back with an annoyingly calm disposition to the whole thing. It is frustrating, but it’s also effective, being in the room with someone who doesn’t fall for TK’s attempts to get a rise out of him, who is calm, clashing against TK’s much more stormy moods, who hasn’t felt calm in a long time. There’s always a strumming just underneath his skin, burning in his veins. It’s more quiet now than it has been in ages, but he feels it still, if he really lets himself focus.
“You got all that from just meeting me?” He says after some quiet, hates that he’s curious about it.
Not that he’s ever been to therapy before and all the movies and tv shows that talk about it, well he’s pretty sure their therapists don’t look like Santa Claus and draw their patients as animals. But what does he know?
He looks up again and the man looks a little sly, his wrinkles becoming even more prominent when he almost smiles.
TK shakes his head, finds that the man is odd and that he kind of likes it. It’s refreshing at least.
“I did yes. I’m not saying my assumptions are right though. People are more complicated than that, some like being included in a label, some don’t.”
“And my label is a ferret?”
“If you want.”
“I’m already gay, that’s the only label I think I’d like to presribe to thanks.”
“And an addict.” He reminds, kindly but it stings anyway. The man holds his hands up, in an almost apologetic way.
“Okay, moving on. So, out of curiosity, anything that I said about you that you disagree or agree with?”
For a moment TK wants to stubbornly refuse him, but he’s tired, and he feels a headache coming on and the faster he gets this over with, the faster he can leave.
“You think I’m destructive?” The man sighs, almost sounding disappointed, but maybe TK is reading too much into it and takes his glasses off, wipes them on his sleeve.
“I don’t know TK. I’d say most people that willingly put a substance as dangerous as drugs in their system, knowing the risks of it, are a little destructive, yes. That said, you’ve given me very little information about yourself so from what I know so far I’d say that maybe you’re more lonely than purposefully destructive. It might be that when you get that lonely feeling you just don’t know what to do with it so you act out instead.”
TK gulps and shakes his head, doesn’t want to fucking cry.
“And now you think I’m lonely?” He avoids the answer with a passion.
“Are you?”
TK doesn’t dignify that with a response, he shrugs, tries getting some dirt out from his finger nail instead and shrugs again.
“Maybe.” He says when the quiet gets a bit too much.
“Also, avoids my questions with a passion because he struggles with dealing with the uncomfortable truth of what he might be. He’s in denial.” The man easily fires back.
“Ouch.” TK winces.
“It’s the truth though, no?”
“I don’t avoid it…” He weakly defends and regrets opening his mouth, realising too late that he wants to get a rise out of him.
“Don’t you?”
“I know what I am.” He mutters.
“And what is that?”
“A fuck up, a freak, a massive mistake and a nuisance. Would you like me to go on?” His voice breaks and he hates it. It makes him feel weak. He doesn’t want to cry and he doesn’t want to bare himself to this man. He wants to go home. The man looks a little sad but he quickly conceals it back behind aloofness instead.
“What makes you say that?”
“Wasn’t that what you want me to say?”
“No. It wasn’t. But it tells me a lot that you seem to think those things about yourself.”
“Isn’t this what all… addicts...think about themselves?” He spits out the word that he hates, tasting like acid on his tongue.
“Not all, some yes. Some feel ashamed too. Do you?”
“Obviously.”
“Why?”
“Because!” He says, expasterated, exhausted, angry.
“Because what? Does it have anything to do with your parents?”
“Yes.” He says through gritted teeth, because that should be obvious to anyone.
“Okay, why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“It’s a question.”
“I know it’s a question, I just don’t get the relevance.”
“Letting your parents down, is that the only reason you feel ashamed?” The therapist pushes and TK glares for a very long moment at the man who doesn’t seem to know when to stop. He stares back though, unaffected.
“I don’t know.” He admits, defeated, tired, the air going out of him, and looks down at his feet again. The man sighs.
“You don’t know or you don’t want to tell me?”
“I don’t know.” He settles for. “It’s a mess and everything hurts and I’ve spent most of my time here on the floor puking. So no, I don’t know.”
“Okay. I’m going to be frank now.” TK looks at him, can’t help it, feels almost scared of the perceptive eyes looking back at him and he nods mutely.
“Why are you here?”
“Because I have to, it’s included in the program.” He fires back easily. The man’s lip twitches.
“I meant in rehab.” TK sits quietly for a long time, fidgets with his hands that are now still and the answer comes to him, even though he pretends to think about it.
“Because… because I can’t do it alone.” It’s hard to admit, but even TK knows as much, even when he’s exhausted and hates himself and craves a high more than he ever has in his life.
“Good.” When TK looks at him the man nods encouragingly, smile a little proud and eyes kind. “So, what do you want?”
“Out of therapy?” The man chuckles, shakes his head.
“Out of life.” TK frowns, he hasn’t really thought about it. He shrugs.
“To not be here.” He mutters.
“Fair enough, most people don’t want to be here. And yet here you are anyway.”
“I checked myself in.” He reminds him and the therapist snorts but nods again.
“So, back to the question then, why did you?”
“Because I would have died if I didn’t…” He whispers, hands wrought so tightly together now it hurts. It hurts thinking about everything right now, but the swell of emotions being pushed to the surface of that statement almost makes him gasp. He clenches his hands so tightly it’s all he can focus on.
“And you don’t want to die?” TK shakes his head, bites at his lip and gulps down the tears, refusing to let the emotions assault him of images he doesn’t want to think about.
“Okay. So, do you feel alone?”
He’s happy for the change of subject, he is, even as his brain scrambles to keep up, all of his emotions tangled together into a mess, not sure what he is feeling when the man jumps onto the next subject like he’s in a hurry, TK rushing to keep up with him. He feels, though, vulnerable in an uncomfortable way, like he’s been thrust into a situation so uncertain it’s unmasking him, exposing him and his ugly self, unable to hide behind feigned confidence anymore.
“Sometimes, don’t everyone though?” He forces the words out, clears his throat.
“Yes, probably, but not everyone starts using drugs because they are lonely.”
“I didn’t start using because I was lonely.”
“Okay, why did you?”
“I don’t know, I started and then I couldn’t stop.” The man nods, a little thoughtfully.
“What do your parents do?” That takes TK by surprise.
“My dad is a firefighter and my mom is a lawyer.”
“So, they are busy people then?” TK nods.
“And were you left alone a lot growing up?”
“Yes, it’s still not the reason I started using.”
“I’m not saying it is.” He assures, but he does note something down in his notebook. TK can’t help but wonder if it’s another animal. He frowns and can’t help but to think of the question, finding it harder than he thought to come up with something.
“Does it have to have an answer?” He wonders, less hostile and defensive about it, just a little unsure, wanting to know if there has to be a reason for everything.
“No, not necessarily. But everything has a beginning.”
“And an end by that definition.”
“Yes, but this isn’t the end for you, it’s just a beginning and a stop and then off you go forward.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I have an inkling.” He smiles, eyes twinkling a bit michvesiously, a face full of wrinkles now on display, and TK rolls his eyes.
“I want to get better, I don’t want to be fucking miserable, which I am all the time. The only time I’m not is when I am high.” He says after some brief hesitation, the words almost pulled out of his mouth. But, despite TK wanting to deny he’s even said that, it’s probably the truth.
“Good.”
“Good? I just told you that drugs are the only thing not making me miserable.”
“Yes, but it’s also an acknowledgement from your side, that you want something. So, if you don’t want to be miserable, then what do you want to be?”
“Happy?”
“Happy? Or happy.”
“Is there a difference?”
“You just answered my question with another question, so I’m just asking you whether you would like to be happy, or if you just think you want to be happy.” TK thinks on it.
“I’d like to be happy, whatever that means.”
“Good, I think happy is an excellent goal. Not everyone can crystalise what they want to get out of therapy, you seem, despite all this deflection, to know what you want.”
“I guess…”
“There is power in recovery.”
“There is also power in addiction.” He chimes in and the therapist nods slowly.
“They are going to be at war with each other, butting heads. It’s not easy recovering from addiction, it really isn't. But there is hope at the end of the line, if you’re willing to go the distance.”
“Poetic.” He mutters, but with less bite than he had planned. The man chuckles.
“Most people who come in here don’t even recognize that they have a problem. The fact that you have already done that gives me hope that you’re going to be okay, with time.”
“You don’t know.” He points out, unsure, because the fact that anyone does have hope in him, that they expect things of him, makes everything feel much bigger and scarier. He doesn’t want people expecting anything from him. He’s just going to let them down, he always does.
“No, I don’t. But I think we can make some progress together. You want to be happy, sure, no one is happy all the time. But being happy is still a realistic goal, even for you.”
“It doesn’t feel like that.” He murmurs.
“Maybe because you haven’t had the right motivator before.” TK looks at him again, compassion evident in his eyes, body language loose and relaxed, and TK doesn’t understand how someone can be so comfortable in an environment that’s so deeply unnatural. It makes no sense.
“And now I do?”
“Why do you want to be happy?” He counters with a question instead. TK shrugs.
“Because I want to know what it’s like. I want to be free of this…”
“Cage?”
“Yeah…”
“So you want to be happy for yourself?” TK nods, looks at the floor and nods more assured again.
“Well there is your motivator then, you’re doing this for yourself, not for your parents, but for you. It’s good to try and remember that during the time you’ll spend here.”
“Well I do want to get better for my parents too. I want to stop letting them down all the time…”
“Yes, I get that and that’s a valid reason too. But don’t let that be your only reason for wanting to get out of here and experience the world. Put yourself first for a bit and trust that what you’re doing here is the right thing.”
TK looks at the man, studies him, tries to find some clever words as a come back. But he’s finding that hard to do right now, because the idea of getting better looms large in a space where despair and unhappiness has loomed even larger for a long time. TK knows there is no quick fix, obviously, but a part of him thinks it’s nice having someone telling him that there is a way out, not that it’s going to be easy, but that it can be done anyway. It feels realistic, doable, even for him.
“How long is it going to take?”
“However long it needs to.” He looks unimpressed and the man laughs.
“Addiction is a lifelong battle and you’re going to have to fight every day to stay sober, that’s the reality of it I’m afraid.” He says a bit more serious. “That said, life can still be good and fun and beautiful, despite it, it’s not a reason to give up. Many people do get out of addiction and go on to live long and happy lives. That’s definitely a possibility for you as well.”
“But I’m always going to be…” He cuts himself off, feels the despair again, the word that he hates.
“An addict?” He cringes but nods. “Yes, you’re always going to be one. Don’t let the stigma and shame get to you though. There is nothing wrong with being an addict.”
TK looks around the room, raises an eyebrow. The man chuckles.
“This place speaks differently to that.”
“There is nothing wrong in asking for help though. We all need some help from time to time.”
“Mhhm, I guess we do...”
“I think we'll finish there today.” TK looks up in surprise, feels it’s come about suddenly, disrupting his train of thought completely.
“Really?”
“Yes, unless there is something else you’re burning to tell me.” He jokes and TK shakes his head, bites down his own little smile. “Well then I’m happy for now.”
“Right, well, what should I call you then?” The man grins, points with his pen at the desk where a small sign says Bill Hayworth.
“The name is on the door too. But Bill is fine.”
“Right…”
“I think Henry is waiting outside.”
“Yeah he said he would be.”
Bill closes his notebook and taps the pen against it, smiling gently.
“Well I’ll see you at our next session TK.”
“Okay.” TK gets up, feels strange, thought the whole thing would last longer. The clock in the corridor says he’s been in there a little longer than an hour though so maybe that’s why he’s been told to leave, the man must have other patients.
Henry is on his phone but he smiles gently when he sees TK comes outside, stepping away from the wall he was leaning against. TK sighs and runs a hand through his soft hair that doesn’t have any product in it, wishes he had the hindsight to have brought it with him. He wishes he could fix it, make it look nice, like how it would look on the outside, so he could stop feeling so goddamn out of sorts about everything. Not able to feel completely like himself in a place designed to pick him apart is harrowing, tiring in ways it shouldn’t be, forces his tightly built up walls down and makes him feel like an empty shell, the layers peeled back so far that the rotting corpse hidden beneath everything is forced to the surface.
Or he’s just extremely tired and he’s mind is running haywire and comes up with things that aren’t totally true. He hasn’t been this clean in a really long time, probably over a year if TK has to be honest, and he just feels upside down about everything, but particularly about the lucidity of everything - and maybe this is how the world has always worked and TK’s just forgotten, always sought to escape the sharpness of everything and its hard edges just waiting to cut him. He needed a buffer, so that everything would just stop feeling so goddamn hard all the time, the drugs fixed that for him.
Lot of good things did him though, because it still ended him up in here.
It’s hard not to feel trapped. But he has to tamper that down completely, if he doesn’t, he’s not going to be able to walk the short distance back to his room. He doesn’t feel great, but when he tries thinking of the therapy session it doesn’t make him feel totally terrible either. It’s something to hold onto, whatever the feeling is. So he sighs, concedes to his fate, and follows Henry back to where the sounds are coming from, people grasping at a sense of normality in a cage. It’s his life, for now.
It'd always been a running joke between their friends and family that Steve was Wayne's favourite nephew.
The funny thing is that this started when Steve and Eddie were still nothing but friends, and yet there was no denying it; Wayne took such a liking to Steve that it was impossible not to notice the difference in treatment.
With anyone else, Wayne Munson was this closed off, quiet guy that offered hand shakes and four word answers when he was feeling friendly enough. But with Steve? With Steve he talked for hours about sports and Eddie's embarrassing childhood stories; smiled soft and gave the boy hugs without being prompted to.
Eddie found this amusing.
Soft was a word he never thought he'd use to describe his uncle, but it was the only one that came to his mind when he saw him interacting with Steve. Wayne treated Steve like a loving parent would treat their kid, and this warmed Eddie's heart in a way that left him breathless sometimes.
The kids loved to tease him about it. How Steve was Wayne's favorite, but Eddie honestly didn't give a shit because Steve was Eddie's favorite too, so he totally understood.
As years went by and they built a life together, this never changed.
Steve and Eddie became a couple, moved in together, then moved from Hawkins and to Indy and the joke stayed more alive than ever.
Steve would always be the first one Wayne hugged when they came back home to visit, the man would always take Steve's side in whatever argument he and Eddie were having.
"I know you too well, boy," Wayne would say. "Just apologize to him and fix things."
Five years after they moved to Indy, they came home to spend the holidays with Wayne and, despite their endless claims that gifts were unnecessary, the man shoved a wrapped box in their arms on Christmas morning and told them to open it.
Steve opened his present first, and burst out laughing when he saw what it was. Eddie's confusion lasted only a moment before Steve fished his gift out of the box and showed it to him; a white t-shirt with 'FAVORITE NEPHEW' written in bold red letters.
"Oh, so you finally admit it, old man," Eddie said in fake offense, only to earn a slap upside the head.
"Shut up and open yours."
Eddie did, and had to stiffle the sob that almost escaped him as his eyes stung.
He got a t-shirt too. His was black, with 'FAVORITE SON' written in white.
"Now that that's settled," Wayne smiled, patting Eddie's shoulder as he got up from the couch. "Let's eat."
Eddie was still stuck in place when his uncle disappeared through the kitchen door.
"Aw, baby, are you emotional because your uncle loves you?" Steve teased him.
You remember what that’s like? Having friends? Yeah, I do. I remember what it was like to have a good friend, a real friend who actually believed in me, and who was actually kind to me.
Hey, about some of the stuff I said earlier, I just… It’s fine, it’s okay. No, just… It’s not okay. Eddie… He saved your life. Our lives. And I know what he meant to you. I can’t even imagine how hard it’s been. But instead of just being there for you, I just… Well, I got angry about it. I guess I got angry because things were different.
