#its just that girlhugs get him right in the mommy issues u see

[glitterslag]

eddie hasn't been cuddled - y'know like really cradled - since he was a little kid.

when he first comes to live with wayne as this angry, skinny little twelve year old, he's averse to all touch. He bristles with it. Wayne swears he can almost hear it, sometimes, the invisible forcefield he's built around himself, humming like an electric fence.

but eddie's heart is soft beneath all that barbed wire, and he grows out of it in a couple years. Whether it's down to the relative stability of wayne's care, or just the growing pains of adolescence relieving themselves with the passage of time, is another story.

wayne isn't really a hugger himself, anyway, more likely to plump for a hair tousle or a clap to the back whenever eddie makes him proud. Still, it makes him happy to see him growing up kind and affectionate despite it all, against all the odds, really, so he tolerates it, just about, when his boy gets big enough to lift him off his feet in a bone-crushing embrace.

"damn fuckin' menace..." is all he'll say, harrumphing and readjusting his cap before going back to tending to the dinner or tinkering with his car or whatever he happens to be doing, and he hopes it sounds like "i love you too, kid."

it's true. Despite his less than ideal upbringing, eddie really has no trouble with affection at all. Especially not with his new girlfriend. Lately, he finds he's pulling her in for a hug anytime he gets a spare minute, whether it's in the line at the movie theatre or if he's sneaking up behind her as she's stirs a saucepan full of dinner.

the first time chrissy holds him, though, eddie breaks down in tears.

it comes at him out of nowhere. They're sharing a joint in bed, blankets drawn up over their naked forms and a record that needs cleaning playing soft and grainy in the background. Typically, after sex, he'll scoop chrissy into his arms and they'll lay that way for some time, quite often until wayne yells at him through the door to take the girl home before her momma goes ballistic. It's always pretty difficult to let her go. This time, though, it's her reaching for him. And it blindsides him.

she's gazing down at him in her lap, a blonde angel in the lamplight playing with his hair and when she brushes back the bangs from his forehead to give him a kiss, he just bursts into these heaving, uncontrollable sobs.

"i'm sorry, i'm sorry" is all he can splutter out, over and over again as he rolls over to plant his face into her stomach. "i don't know what's happening right now." Mercifully, she just holds him tighter and doesn't ask him any questions.

he writes it off as one of those weird body things that happen sometimes and tries not to think of it again, and it's not until weeks later that he realises. No girl has ever done that to him before. No girl has ever touched him nicely. He's had sex before chrissy, sure, but none of those people ever stuck around to listen to records after. He's not even sure he would've wanted them to.

of course, it would be entirely too mortifying to say any of that out loud, but the next time they're in bed together and she reaches straight for him with this knowing look in her eyes, he realises she's probably already figured it all out anyway. She always was way smarter than him. Thankfully, he doesn't tear up this time.

eddie munson sure knows how to love, but learning to be loved in return, as it turns out, can take a little more time. It's a good job he's got all the time in the world.