By the time Eddie’s ninth birthday rolls around, his parents have been dead for two months.
He gets a little sad when he remembers that fact. He remembers them, he’s old enough to, but he doesn’t really remember what they were like. He remembers that he has hair and eyes like his mother and a face like his father, but he doesn't know their favorite foods or the lullabies they liked to sing to him when they were home.
They were gone most of the time, deployed by the First Army again and again, until one day, they didn’t come back. Since then, Eddie has been with Uncle Wayne - he's Grisha, so he and his dad didn't talk much before - at the Little Palace.
It’s nice, even if it was weird at first. Eddie went from living off rations to having quality meals for every meal. He went from owning two shirts to owning ten. He went from running around outside to, well, running around outside, only this time, it’s on manicured lawns and safely maintained woods instead of on dusty dirt roads and barren wheat fields.
Outside is all he really has, aside from the little house he and Uncle Wayne have on the grounds. Eddie isn’t Grisha, so he isn’t allowed inside the Little Palace.
He’s okay with that. There’s a whole bunch of stuff to do outside, between the forest and the fields and the lake, while he waits every day for Uncle Wayne to come back from teaching classes about fire.
Sometimes, there are other people outside, too, but Eddie doesn’t talk to them. He doesn’t think he is allowed to, even though Uncle Wayne never gave him that rule. The other kids his age seem pretentious, anyway, with their bright, expensive clothing and chins held high.
Eddie might be living a lot better now, but he still doesn’t like rich kids very much.
His train of thought is interrupted when he falls out of the tree he’s perched in.
Luckily, he doesn’t fall very far. He was eight feet up, at the highest, and now he’s on the ground, having landed and rolled the way his dad taught him to the last time he was home.
That thought makes Eddie sad again, so he makes his brain swerve away from it.
Eddie stands up and brushes the grass off his pants, but instead of being alone, like he was, before there’s another boy standing in front of him.
He’s pretty. That’s the only word Eddie has for him. This boy is pretty, from his wavy brown hair to his smooth skin to his perfect, straight smile.
The adult teeth Eddie has growing in are already noticeably crooked, and he only has three of them.
“Hi?” he says, and it sounds like a question because he doesn’t know who this boy is. That and because he’s wearing white, and the only Grisha Eddie has ever seen wear either red, blue, or purple.
Either this boy is special, or he’s not Grisha. Eddie kind of hopes it’s the second one. It would be nice to not be the only one, even if this boy is wearing clothes that are worth more than Eddie.
The boy doesn’t say hi back. He instead points at Eddie’s forehead, where a cut and a bruise from yesterday’s failed attempt to swing from one tree to another are still healing.
“I can fix that,” he says.
Eddie doesn’t care one way or the other what his face looks like, but this boy looks like he does. He looks completely uncomfortable with being outside, and it doesn’t look like he belongs here, either. Not with his pristine white robe and his perfect, pretty face.
The longer he looks at Eddie, the worse his face scrunches up.
“Okay,” Eddie says. And then, because he’s polite, “I’m Eddie.”
“Steve,” the kid says. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too. Are you going to fix my face?”
Steve huffs out a surprised little laugh and takes a step closer. “I can if you hold still.”
“I’m bad at that,” Eddie admits.
Steve giggles. “You’re funny.”
“You haven’t fixed it yet.”
Steve rolls his eyes, but he brushes his hand over Eddie’s forehead, and Eddie feels a sort of warmth, like the itch of a scab, before it’s gone just as soon as it came up.
“There you go,” Steve says. “It’s fixed.”
Eddie reaches up toward his forehead. The skin is smooth, but when he presses down, it aches.
Something must show up on his face because Steve says, “It’ll still hurt.”
“I thought you said you fixed it.”
“I did. It’s gone. But it’ll still hurt, at least until it heals on the inside.”
“How do you know that?” Eddie says.
Steve shrugs. It’s the first careless gesture Eddie has seen him make.
“I just do,” he says.
Eddie frowns at that, but before he can say anything, Steve turns around and starts walking away.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” Eddie calls.
Steve stops and looks over his shoulder. “Maybe.”
In Eddie’s world, maybe means make it happen. He’s determined to.
He watches Steve walk back toward the Grand Palace, not the Little Palace, and wonders who on earth he is until he hears Uncle Wayne calling him in for supper.
there's more here.
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Toxic Couple Tango. MXTX version
(Where they all mention their partner's red flags.)
Lan Wangji: My Better Half is an alcoholic, chronic rule breaker, annoyed his way into my heart, re-invented grave robbing and picks fights with children.
Wei Wuxian: My Silly Little Rabbit sincerely intends to rail me eight times a week and he won't even increase my allowance. (TT)
Lan Wangji: You already get paid more than A-Yuan.
Wei Wuxian, pouting: I have adult expenses!
Luo Binghe: My Beating Heart told me that all lives were equal just a few days before he pushed me into the abyss for being half demon.
Shen Quingqiu: You know I had to! Don't even pretend like you're a saint my Adorable-Life-Support, I can't tell sometimes if you want to kill me or fuck me.
Xie Lian: Dang. You guys stay safe, cause we are not toxic at all. ^_^
Hua Cheng, muttering under his breath: My Reason-to-live practices self harm as a way of life.
Xie Lian: I already promised to stop! (TT) And personally, I wouldn't call it a red flag, but My-One-and-Only-Love-of-my-Life, you did stalk me for 800 years, created lots of intense art and tried to kill my best friends a bunch of times.
Hua Cheng: They deserved it.
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