Work Text:
The thing is, Steve loves his parents.
He loves them and respects them and hates the idea of upsetting them. He knows his Mom used to sit with him for hours to help him finish his homework as a little kid. She’d take him to swim class on Saturday mornings and ask him what kind of cake he wanted on his birthday, and would do her best. And he knows his Dad worked hard and did long hours because he wanted them to have a nice life and house and whatever else. Steve knows this.
He also knows that the older he got the more distant they were. That there are some things about Steve they wish were different. That they never taught him how to express himself or feel comfortable with his emotions. That their expectations are something he doesn’t know how to meet because he doesn’t really know what they are.
So, when it comes to his parents, Steve does what he knows. Does what he was taught, what he saw and what kept his little world spinning. He’s amicable, he’s placid, he fits in. He does as expected and he doesn’t kick up a fuss. That works. That, he’s found, is usually what is to be expected.
But sometimes, that backfires. Sometimes, it’s bad: because he doesn’t know when that placidity should end. When he needs to express his opinion and his emotions. When he really needs to know exactly what the expectations are. But he doesn’t know how to ask, so the floor falls out from beneath him.
‘E-eddie?’ Steve sniffs, flexing his hand around the phone.
‘Baby?’ Eddie’s voice sounds worried, even through the buzzing crackle of the line.
Steve takes a deep shaky breath. ‘My uhm, you know my parents are here for a few weeks? That they’re um, they’re staying for a while? Well uh, one of Dad’s cousins, who he works with sometimes, he, he’s staying here too. In the spare room.’ Steve says into the receiver, unable to remove the tremor from his voice.
Eddie hums, prompting Steve to keep going. He tangles his fingers through his hair.
‘I’ve met him before, obviously, because um because he’s family. But when he stayed before they always told me or, I heard because they got a cleaner in, so, like, I could always prepare. I would be prepared to like, talk to him and stuff. Have dinner with them all.’ Steve swallows, looks up at the ceiling and tries not to blink.
‘But um, yeah so, he’s gonna be here soon. I think soon, Dad’s out getting a drink with him. But, and, like, well, I need to eat dinner still and uh, ah, I’m.’ His voice wavers, the tear he was fighting back slides out and into his hairline. ‘What if they come in and I’m cooking and he might say something and. I just. I can’t do talking to someone like that right now and I don’t like it when people see me cooking or what I’m eating because, like, well. I just don’t like that, I’m. E-eddie I’m.’ Steve’s voice gets higher the more he talks, his words running together as the weight of the situation continues to settle itself heavily on his chest.
‘Where are you right now Steve?’ Eddie cuts through, voice clear and calm.
He pulls his knees up tighter to his chest, closes his eyes, cheeks heating. ‘In the linen closet, um, by the kitchen.’
‘Ah. So you’re alone. Do you want me to come there?’
Steve bites his lip and clenches his teeth, pain spreading through his skull. He only sits in here when he feels really weird because it actually gets fully dark. Every other room in the house has a window or too big a crack under the door. He’d never go in here in front of his mother, and he barely does it in front of Robin or Eddie. The fact that Eddie knows anything about the linen closet, it, right now, it doesn’t feel so good. Just another thing about himself that he didn’t hide well enough.
He throws his head back, thudding it against the wall. ‘I’ll just, I’m, no, don’t come here. It’s fine, I’m just gonna go to bed.’ He rushes out. ‘Yeah. I’ll get in bed and try to sleep and if they knock I’ll say I’m sick or snore or I’ll just hide. They can’t get me if I’m in bed or asleep. So I’ll, I’m just going to. I can’t, I can’t Eddie. I can’t.’ He pleads, vision blurred.
His hand trembles as it picks at the fabric of his sweats, worrying it between his fingers. Picking harder so he pinches fabric and skin between thumb and forefinger. He does it again, and again and again, harder.
He thinks Eddie might try and say something but there’s rushing water in his ears, and it’s pushing its way into his lungs. Thudding his head against the wall again; smack, smack, smack against the hard surface. It aches. Aches like his empty stomach. Aches like his fingers around the phone.
‘Yeah, maybe I’ll just, I’ll go to bed, I can’t be bothered to eat actually or, I’ll, I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know. I think, I’m like. It’s just shit. It, everything is all ruined. I feel sick. I want to throw up. Maybe if I eat and throw up I’ll feel better.’ He picks at this lips with his fingers, peeling a fleck of dry skin away, pulling at another. He tastes blood. ‘I’ll, yeah I’ll just. Yeah, hm.’ He feels far away. He feels glued to the floor.
‘Steve listen to me. Do not do that.’ Eddie says loudly and firmly through the phone. Steve blinks, licks the blood away. ‘It will not make you feel better and you know it. I want you to go make something that’s easy and quick, that you’ll be okay eating in your room, yes?’
Steve’s doesn’t know what to say.
‘Go do that and then go and rest okay? Just, just hide if you need to. You don’t need to feel bad about using your evening to relax okay? Baby? Do you hear me?’ He prompts, almost sounding like his dungeon master persona, asking for a stat check and dice roll, taking no prisoners and orchestrating the room. Steve almost giggles - but there’s bile in the back of his throat.
He sniffs, tears trickling down his cheeks still. He, he feels awful. ‘I hear you Eddie yeah, I’ll, I’ll go make something now.’ His panic emulsifying in his limbs, dragging him down. But he can hear, he can move.
‘Okay, good. And you have work tomorrow right?’
Steve whines weakly and mumbles ‘yes’.
‘Okay, come over after, bring anything you need and stay here.’
Steve nods to himself, tries to fill his lungs up. ‘Yeah. Yeah Eddie. Love you.’
‘I love you too, call me back if you need.’ And Eddie’s voice is soft, and real, and he can do it. He can.
‘Kay.’
He makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then he makes another with just peanut butter because the more he thinks about how sweet the jelly is the more he feels sick, the more he feels like there’s bees inside of him. He grabs a banana and drinks a big glass of water. He uses a napkin instead of a plate and brings another full cup of water upstairs with him.
The panic is still swirling inside him, but it’s duck-taped down for now, patched up for the night.
He eats standing up in his room, pausing between mouthfuls to pace around and tug at his hair or scratch at his scalp. Sitting down to eat feels like too much, it might make everything feel a little too real. But he manages to go through the motions, chew, swallow. Nuts are good for you he whispers to himself. Eating won’t make him die, or make him evil. Throwing up won’t make you feel better, not really. Eating isn’t the end of the world. He has control in his life, he does. He keeps repeating the phrases like mantras, something to hold on to, something to focus on that isn’t his clothes against his skin or the smell of banana under his nails.
‘You’re healthy. Steve, that’s what matters, you just need to stay healthy.’ Eddie’s voice filters through his brain alongside the din. Conversations he’s had with Eddie in the past. When things went all screwy and Steve couldn’t think of a way out that didn’t involve hurting himself.
He washes his hands, brushes his teeth and quickly showers all the flop sweat off of himself, thankful that the bathroom is so close to his own and thankful that he still hasn’t heard the front door slam.
Wayne gave him some earplugs that they use at the plant and Robin gifted him an eye mask last Christmas, lovingly made by her mom out of an old T-shirt of Robin’s: one that he always liked the feel of but was too broad to wear. He shoves the earplug as far in as they’ll go and slides the mask on.
Laying down in bed, he kind of feels normal, maybe. His sheets are the same, and his pyjamas. He’s not hungry and his mouth is clean. It’s dark and quiet but his heart is racing. His heart is racing and all he can think to do to help is to try and breathe into his belly.
Don’t think about anything else.
Everything is normal.
He can just sleep, everything will be okay once he falls asleep.
At some point between listening to his breath stutter and digging his finger nails into his palms Steve drifts off.
//
He wakes up with ants crawling under his skin.
It’s early, he thinks, from the light filtering through the bottom of the mask.
He goes for a jog. Doesn’t really think about it as he throws on his sneakers and heads out. It feels good at least, to sweat and to stretch and for his body to move as fast as his brain is, making the buzz dim a little.
Plus, if he sees his Dad at least he’s doing something productive. At least he’s a son who wakes up early and goes for jogs, instead of just getting up and eating. At least if he sees them he can say he’s been for a jog, they can mention it, it can be who he is for today.
But he doesn’t see them, not really. As he rounds the final corner right by their driveway he finds his Dad’s car pulling out, cousin in the passenger. They raise their hands at him, casual. Steve waves back, breathing hard, heart beating harder.
He steps in the house and doesn’t know where his mother is.
He does crunches until he feels sick. Until he feels the water he chugged threaten the back of his throat.
Then he lets himself shower.
//
He opens the store 10 minutes later than it should be. Kieth doesn’t notice when he comes in at mid-day but Steve reprints the crescents of his nails into his palms just in case. He can’t touch the receipt paper without feeling tears prickle at his eyes but thankfully they only get 10 or so customers before he’s told to take his break.
His stomach and muscles have been a steady presence all day, the ache gnawing at him with want and fatigue. But as he sits in the cracked break room chair, finally stopping, finally getting a little quiet, the dull ache feels good. It’s something familiar to focus on, something other than the anxious drill of his heart, other than the swirling mass in the pit of his guts. Hunger is normal, exertion is normal; something he has power and control over, something he can use to make himself new and better.
Because those other things, those bubbling lumps of anxious tar that exist within, those he can’t do anything with, those are just his failures, monsters he’s too weak to overcome. To cover them with hunger is a kindness, he thinks. It’s a kindness to ignore. To be amicable with the little beast inside him, feed it scraps and let it exist but never let it grow too big or too loud.
It worked for him before. Before Robin and before Eddie. Before their kindness and understanding turned his whole world on its head. Turned his little monster into a greedy thing, more desperate for love than ever. But this is not to do with them. This is old. This is to do with his parents - he’s dealing with his parents.
Control, hunker down until the worst of it is over. That’s how Steve knows to exist with his parents. Ignore, hide and restrict anything that could draw unwanted attention.
And be grateful. He must always be grateful when it concerns his parents. If he isn’t, they’ll know. Somehow, they’ll know.
These thoughts drift through him like a daze. That little beast mewling as he unwraps his lunch, another peanut butter sandwich was all his brain seemed capable of putting together. The banana he brought goes down easy. The apple sticks between his teeth and the beast howls so badly he’s forced to throw it out. To go out back by the little half rotten picnic table and breathe with his fingers pressed into his scalp, eyes closed against the bright white-grey cloud of the overcast sky.
//
The remainder of his shift feels like a long stretching road filled with warped overhanging trees and eyes that glow red. He feels like one change in the AC could make him burst into flames. He feels the scratch of Kieth’s pen against the skin of his arms even though he’s all the way across the store. He feels so much of everything, all of it a constant needling whine through his core, that once time has ticked towards the end of his shift; it’s almost like he isn’t even there at all.
Robin comes in to replace him just before 6pm. She only takes one fleeting look at his face before she’s grabbing him by the wrist and hauling him into the back with her.
‘Need to ask Stevie something, be out in a sec!’ She calls, not leaving space for a no from either man.
She leads him into the cupboard full of spare inventory and empty tapes. Turning to face him her eyes are big with concern, her posture tight with worry and love.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. M’fine.’ He manages, feeling brittle and unwell.
Robin narrows her eyes at him, chewing on her lip.
She’d started rubbing his wrist lightly with her thumb, fidgeting in thought. She moves it lower, skating over his palm, over the indents his nails have left over and over since last night. She stops.
Steve stops.
He steps back and curls his hands into his chest.
He feels tears well in his eyes.
‘M-my parents. They’re back and, and my Dad’s cousin is staying and I didn’t, I didn’t know till yesterday. Until my Mom came home and I heard her talking on the phone.’ He whispers shakily.
Robin stares at him, her eyes welling the same as his. But then her brows slowly knit together. ‘Those assholes!’ She hisses, stomping her foot.
Steve balks at her, tears slipping down his cheeks. He wants to scream, wants to laugh, he doesn’t know what to do.
Robin steps forward, pulling his hands back down and into her own. Uncurling his fingers to stop him pressing the indents in further. He didn’t even realise he was doing it.
‘What do you need?’
‘I want to go home.’ He says, feeling it deep down. ‘I want to be home. But, I can’t.’
//
He ends up at the trailer. After speeding to his house to grab some stuff. Relieved to find it empty, but he could smell his mother’s perfume along the stairs. There’s a new toothbrush by the sink. The smell of weird shaving cream almost makes him heave.
So he ends up at the trailer. Also empty but so, so different.
He walks the familiar path to Eddie’s room and throws his stuff in the corner, finally getting to rip his shoes and sweaty socks off, flooded with some small relief at last. He strips to his boxers.
In the little trailer bathroom he keeps the light off, turning on the shower and letting the tepid water relax the muscles across his neck and shoulders a little. The last thing he needs right now is a tension headache but he can’t always notice when he’s clenching his jaw by accident, causing one. It’s worse if he’s hungry and he can’t always tell that feeling. He supposes he should be hungry though, given all he’s eaten today. He’s feeling a lot of things.
Back in the bedroom, towel gripped around his waist he pulls his pyjama shorts out of his backpack. Then he noses in the pile of clean clothes Eddie keeps in a basket. The basket is meant to just carry the clothes from the machine, with the next step being that the clothes get put away. But Eddie never seems to get that far. He works through the basket until it’s empty, and the cycle repeats. Steve quickly finds what he’s looking for; a worn thin Budweiser T-shirt that Eddie found at a thrift. There’s a hole in the neck and the logo is faded but it’s the softest thing Steve’s ever worn. It’s white, with bright red sleeves and Eddie only really uses it to sleep in: he insists the red makes him look all pink and weird, but told Steve it looks ‘real pretty’ on him which made Steve go pink and weird. But anyway, it’s his favourite.
He walks the path back through past the kitchen and checks the door is locked, closes the blinds. He taps the little TV in the very corner of the room and heads back through to Eddie’s room.
Then he just, does it all again.
He starts in the corner, by Eddie’s dresser and guitar. Pads through and looks at the door, the blinds. Both still shut tight. Taps the TV. Turns and walks back.
He does it over and over. Like following an imaginary road, like he’s on a little conveyor belt. He retreads the path, his mind zoning out, just his body moving.
The little mean voice in the back of his head that he managed to quiet for a good few months comes back. Calls him stupid and ugly and worthless in answer to any thought his mind congers. It’s not good, he knows that now. Knows what it feels like to live without the voice telling him these things. Knows what it’s like to know in his heart that what it says isn’t true. Right now however, that voice sounds very very convincing.
Wayne and Eddie come in holding brown bags full from the grocery store.
Steve stops, caught, gnawing on the pad of his thumb. He places his raised foot back down on the ground. He stands up straight with his arms at his sides. ‘Uh. Hello Mr um, Wayne. Ah, sir.’
‘Kid, please. You like spaghetti when it has meat sauce?’ He asks, raising his eyebrows and putting his bags on the counter.
Steve pulls at a strand of his hair. Looks at the wall above Wayne’s head. ‘Yeah, yes. Thank you Wayne.’
‘Good. Go look after your boy Ed, I’ll call out when it’s done. Just serve yourselves whenever yer ready.’
Steve can’t take his eyes off the spot on the wall. He doesn’t move.
Eddie places his palm on his chest, right in the centre. It’s big, and warm. ‘Oh baby.’ He whispers, hand moving in circles, the pressure sending shivers through Steve’s limbs. ‘That bad huh?’
He nods.
He feels his face crumple.
Eddie wraps his arm around his shoulders and steers him back into the bedroom. Stripping quickly and tucking them both into the bed. They lay close with their limbs wrapped tight around each other. Eddie’s thigh and arm and shoulder pinning Steve to the bed. Solid and steady.
‘I just can’t believe they’d do this to me. They really don’t know anything about me.’ Steve sobs, his words crumbling together in a wet pile.
He can barely breaths through the shudder of his rib cage, snot clogging his nose and tears clogging his eyes. It all feels so much, it hurts, they did this and it hurts.
Eddie holds him as he cries. Steve’s face buried in the darkness of his boyfriend’s chest. Hand clawing at the skin of own neck, pulling at his T-shirt, fisting the cotton to try and soothe, hoping he doesn’t rip it apart.
He doesn’t know how long they stay there, the room falling dark as evening must turn to night. His sobs turn into quiet moans, long drawn out grunts that vibrate though him as he comes back down.
Eventually Eddie gets up to retrieve tissues and water. Urging Steve to sit up and drink, stroking hairs away that have been plastered to his cheeks with tears.
‘How’re you feeling?’ Eddie asks.
Steve sighs, how can he verbalise everything that’s happened, the contradicting feeling he has and the way his reaction is built on years of instances like these.
He blows his nose and wipes his cheeks again. Taking a deep breath. ‘I just feel guilty. I should just, if I was just normal it wouldn’t be an issue because I could, like. My dad would want me there to have a drink with them and I’d be able to do it.’ He says. Frustrated. He folds his finger back into his palms, pressing at the indents.
‘But it makes me so, so anxious just thinking about it. About all of it. I’m angry that they’ve done it, sprung it on me like this. But angry at myself more because I can’t deal with normal stuff and I hate it. I hate that it’s happening, but I hate being such a fucking loser over it more.’ Voice wobbling again. He drinks another sip of water.
‘I hate that I’m freaking out over someone I’ve met before staying in the same house as me. Over my Dad inviting his own damn cousin to stay in his own fucking house. I’m freaking out because he might see what I have for dinner and I’m freaking out because I didn’t know if I’d have enough energy left to fucking smile at him because most of the time I use it all at work. And I just really wish my brain wasn’t so fucking broken!’ He clamps his arms over his face as more tears slip out.
His face hurts from crying and his hands hurt from his nails digging in and he’s so tired. He’s so so tired of everything.
‘Sweetheart.’ Eddie soothes, taking the glass and hugging him close again. Waiting patiently for this wave of tears to end.
Once he’s calmed down they lay side by side. Eddie smoking and listening to a tape on his Walkman. Steve is wrapped up in the blankets with two big pillows hugged tightly against his chest. He runs his knuckles over the skin above his upper lip and lets his eyelids rest heavy and hooded: enjoying the soft glow of Eddie’s hanker-chief covered lamp.
The tape ends and Eddie slides the headphones off, curling onto his side to face Steve.
He smiles softly and Steve can’t help but smile back. ‘A little better?’ Eddie asks.
‘Yeah. Sorry for like, complaining about not being normal in the least normal way possible.’ He says, unable to force any emotion into his voice and ruining the joke.
‘S’okay. I mean, you’ll never be normal.’ Eddie shrugs.
Steve tenses.
Eddie notices. ‘Steve, baby. You’ll never be normal and that’s okay.’ He soothes, taking Steve’s hand. ‘It’s okay. I promise you: swear on on my guitar, on Wayne, on you! You tried being normal in school do you remember? You’re good at it, you even fooled me. But baby, remember how sick you got? How unhappy you were?’ He asks, eyes wide.
Steve does remember. He remembers the endless cloying fatigue that lasted for months. Making him feel like a golem of his own life, going through the motions with tissue paper encasing his whole body. One wrong moment, one little tare and Steve would crumple. He’d melt down into a soupy matter of saline and mulch. Or, more often, simply turn to stone. Alone in his room, far away from anyone that could begin to reanimate him. Hollow with loneliness and grief.
Eddie’s squeezes Steve’s hand in his own.
He refocuses his eyes. He rubs his cheek against the pillow. ‘I guess you’re right.’ He sighs.
‘Have you ever tried talking to them about any of it?’
‘I, honestly, doing that feels like the hardest thing in the world to me right now. Before you and Robin, I didn’t ever talk to anybody about stuff like this. Even with you guys it’s still really hard to do.’ He scratches his nose. ‘So with them it’s like, actually the scariest thing I can think of… top 5. After, you know.’ He says, waving their joined hands around.
‘Maybe that’s where you start then, talk to us. And, like, one day you could talk to Wayne and get his opinion. Work out what you want and what you want to say slowly, yeah? And you don’t even gotta ever tell them Stevie. Not if you don’t want to. But just, don’t face it alone anymore. For me, please?’
Steve smiles, looking all over Eddie’s face, taking in his long eyelashes and lumpy nose. ‘Yeah, okay.’ He whispers.
//
The next night Steve goes over to Robin’s after laying in the quiet of Eddie’s bed all day and eating leftover spaghetti with meat sauce.
He sits up on her bed, holds up his glass of wine, from the bottle he brought over, swallows some, and says; ‘sometimes my parents make me angry.’
Robin, across the room, stops fiddling with her radio and holds her arms up. ‘Yeah!’
Steve lifts his arm higher. ‘Them doing things like that, it, it pisses me off!’
Robin closes her eyes and pumps her fists. ‘Yeah!’
Steve stands, his chest rising and falling heavily, adrenaline filling his limbs. ‘I want to feel calm when I’m at home and that isn’t too much to ask for! I deserve to feel safe!’ He stomps his foot and finishes his class of wine in one gulp.
Robin leaps over and wraps her arms around him. She doesn’t comment on his voice cracking when he said safe, on how flushed he is from saying it. She just squeezes him and he squeezes back.
And Steve feels lighter.
Steve feels heard.