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Wayne hadn’t meant to say it out loud - knew better than to put his nephew on the spot like that about something so sensitive. Eddie remained quiet, as if he hadn’t heard him. It was early. Wayne had gotten home barely thirty minutes ago to Eddie making breakfast, which to Wayne was post work dinner. They only spoke of small things during the mornings. They had their routines. “What are your plans today then?” he’d asked, longing for his bed. His body was aching a lot more recently. It was slightly alarming.
Something had flickered across Eddie’s face, too quick for him to identify it. That had been the first deviation. “I’m going to Steve’s later. Figured we shouldn’t disturb you after work.”
“Ah.” Wayne didn’t tell him that it was fine for them to be here. He realized the trailer was small. That guys their age wanted privacy. They spent enough time there anyway for him to not be offended when they didn’t. “You’ve been spending a lot of time together recently.” He’d only said it as an observation, but this time he did register that Eddie ducked his head out of something akin to embarrassment. Which was always interesting.
“What can I say.” Eddie bit into his toast. “He surprised me.” Wayne knew they’d been in school together, but that they had never interacted until a series of strange circumstances which Eddie wouldn’t explain had made them friends.
“He’s a nice boy,” he said, forcing himself to look away.
“He is.” He could hear the smile in Eddie’s voice. That was what did it.
“You’re sweet on him.”
When he chanced a look at him again, Eddie was hunched so low over the table it was almost comical. Wayne could remember him at twelve. Always with that defiant defensiveness. He couldn’t blame him for it either, seeing who his father was. Wayne didn’t hate his younger brother, but he hated how he treated his one and only son; how he’d tried to beat the sweetness out of him. It had been a given to take him in, but he hadn’t been prepared for the preteenness of it all. Eddie had known him all his life, but they’d never lived together like that. Only from time to time, when it all had been too much and Eddie had been left at his doorstep. But Eddie at seven was different from Eddie at twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Wayne had done his best. Wayne had worked double shifts and had pulled his already thinning hair out when Eddie’s grades never got better and he didn’t know how to help him. But when Eddie had padded up to him in the living room, so quietly he’d made him jump, that one rainy night in March four years prior and told him during the commercial break that he was into guys, Wayne had known he’d done something right.
That didn’t mean he knew how to navigate his nephew having a crush, however, but that had nothing to do with gender. “Sorry,” he said, deciding against pretending it hadn’t happened. “I don’t mean to pry.”
Eddie groaned, something throaty and low, and took another bite out of his toast. “I’m not sweet on him.”
“Of course not.”
“I’m not!” He sat up, which was how Wayne found out he was bright red. “Just because I’m gay it doesn’t mean I like every guy I’m around.”
“Now when did I accuse you of that?”
“You think I like Steve.”
Wayne brought his cup to his mouth. “I have eyes.” Might as well double down, if only to see how far Eddie would take it. It was fun teasing him, when he wasn’t terrified of overstepping. Eddie not shutting down was a good sign.
“You need glasses, old man.”
Wayne laughed for longer than was probably necessary. “Yeah, yeah, keep denying it. We both know I’m right.”
He probably knew this would happen subconsciously, though it had been a few years since Eddie had initiated it. Had grown out of it, he claimed, but Wayne knew that wasn’t entirely true. Still it surprised him to suddenly have a lapful of Eddie, and he just about managed to not drag his cup down with him as they started wrestling.
Truth be told, Wayne wasn’t a physical guy like that. He didn’t tousle and he didn’t cuddle, but he’d taught himself that Eddie probably needed stuff like that after having grown up with the type of father he had. Wrestling was easy. It was fun and reassuring and always lightened the mood, and twelve year old Eddie had probably needed all that more than he realized. It stopped around the same time the cuddling stopped, which Wayne always found confusing. Eddie said he didn’t want to push him too hard now that he was getting old, which always earned him a tickle.
Speaking of. Eddie was doing his best to pull him to the ground as they moved around the kitchen, grappling and swatting at each other’s torsos. Wayne would be a fool not to do it, seeing as his underarms were all exposed and so very close. Eddie would understand, once he stopped being sore about it. Would probably commend him for it, albeit under his breath, and maybe Wayne would tickle him for a little longer just to hear it.
This was a dance he knew well enough. Eddie was always caught off guard by how strong he was, only enough time seemed to have passed for Wayne to have missed that Eddie himself had grown more muscles, or had maybe learnt how to navigate his ticklish attacks better, because it wasn’t as easy as just latching on and dragging him to the floor to tickle him silly. Eddie fought back, poking fingers and all. Wayne wasn’t particularly thrilled about it, if he had to tell the truth. Eddie’s initial yelp was drowned out by his own, both of them stumbling through the kitchen and laughing now, alternating between reaching out and recoiling. All Wayne needed, really, was a moment to properly strike, but Eddie was quicker. Eddie was now older.
“Hey!” he cried when his nephew managed to worm his hand under his arm. “That’s my job.”
“Too bad you’ve gotten so slow, old man.” Eddie’s glee, which was still accompanied by a ticklish laugh because despite his predicament Wayne was still poking and prodding with all his might, was enough for him to consider this humiliation to be worth it. Mostly.
He tried to twist away from him without caring that he was actively laughing now. “Oh, come on.” He gave up on trying to counterattack and grabbed his wrist, using just enough strength to pull him off. Eddie seemed to have been caught by surprise from the momentary deviation, and Wayne used that one second of stalling to latch onto Eddie’s upper ribs with both his hands, which would be Eddie’s downfall.
“Now,” Wayne said, looming over his pinned figure on the floor. “Tell me more about how not sweet you are on that Harrington boy.”
Eddie spluttered beneath him. “Wayne, I swear to god.”
But Wayne just laughed and took pity on him, but not before another tickle to his side, which had Eddie groaning out a laugh.