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The first time Eddie hears the song, it's coming from the record player in the living room. It's a new one, though not particularly nice.
Eddie doesn't know much about money, but he knows that Wayne is gone more days of the week than not, and that the sun has always set by the time he gets home. And then he knows that a fancy, box-looking thing shows up on the table next to the couch and suddenly the house is filled with sweet music more than it is with silence.
And Eddie likes that.
Because before Wayne, Eddie's house was always one of two things: silent, or scary.
If it wasn't eerily quiet, with nothing but the sound of his own breathing to fill the place, it was loud.
And loud meant yelling. Loud meant arguing. Loud meant leaving the comfort of cigarette-stained wallpaper in favor of a trailer that was smaller than his third-grade classroom.
When this box shows up, though, loud takes on a new meaning for Eddie.
Now, loud means fun.
Loud means learning. Loud means that Wayne's in a good mood, and he wants to share it with Eddie.
Now, loud means this song.
It's kind of slow to start, the guitar strumming out chords that sing shades of brown behind his closed eyes. The man's voice is soft yet scratchy, and it reminds him of Wayne. Hardened from years of taking bullets meant for someone who can afford a vest to protect against them, yet soft where the gun didn't find him.
Soft, in all the places Eddie knows.
When Eddie first hears it, he doesn't understand what it means. Doesn't know words like "stout" and "tomcat," and when he asks Wayne about them, his uncle just smiles and pats him on the shoulder. Tells him that he'll get it one day.
But Eddie doesn't mind. He doesn't need to know, not when the song becomes the soundtrack for sunny days and soft smiles in the light of the place he'll learn to call home.
And so Eddie grows up hearing that song. Nearly every single day, that music-box-turned-record-player pumps the words out beat by rhythmic beat, and it becomes his favorite thing in the world.
He still doesn't quite understand it when he starts high school, but he hears it in the morning before he leaves for the bus. Knows Wayne had an early shift and didn't want to wake him before his first day.
He whispers, "I love you too," to the air, and hopes Wayne hears him.
When he gets home that day, legs tired from walking the eight miles to the trailer after he was threatened out of ever taking the bus again, all he wants is to hear that song.
But when he goes to place the record in its place, something terrible happens.
He drops it.
And it's just like him, to be so clumsy. To ruin something so easily, so quickly, like it didn't mean the world to him to even hold it in his hands.
He's crying when Wayne gets home.
And the old man, of course, immediately rushes to his side. Holds him without asking why.
It only makes him cry harder.
When he tells him what happened, hours later, after Wayne coaxes it out of him with a calloused palm to his cheek, the man laughs.
And for a moment, before Eddie understands, he thinks that this is the worst thing that's ever happened to him.
But then Wayne smiles, and he kisses Eddie's forehead, and tells him to never scare him like that again.
And Eddie would never tell Wayne this, but he finds Reefer Rick the next day.
And it's not just to buy a new record, of course, not when Wayne's working double at the plant just to barely make rent each month. It's to help, in any and every way he can, since he's the reason they can barely afford to survive.
But it is, at least partly, for the look on Wayne's face when he comes home two weeks later and hears that song.
It'd been playing on repeat since Eddie got home from school, just as eager as his uncle to finally let that sweet music fill his ears once more after so long without it.
He was so careful, placing it on the stand. Ensuring with everything he had that he lined it up just right, set the needle down the way Wayne taught him.
The record started to spin, and Eddie let himself spin with it.
Let himself fall into the whiskey-rough voice of the singer, let himself imagine he was sitting there in that bar, his eyes trained on the beautiful person he loved enough to sing about.
The song carries him through high school. Carries him through three tries at graduation. Through life and death and life again. Through Hellfire sessions and grief beyond comprehension. Through so much love and so much loss that he doesn't know what to do with it all.
Eventually, he learns what a stout is. Never quite understands what a tomcat was, but knows enough about the world and songwriting and love to put it together.
Eventually, he finds the person he loves enough to sing about. Loves enough to write songs, write sonnets about.
And, miraculously, that person loves him back.
When Steve comes over for the first time, it's late. The moon is high in the sky, illuminating the world beyond the kitchen. A kettle sings on the stove.
Steve had warned him earlier that he might make fun of his music collection. That he wouldn't be able to help himself, if all he saw were rows upon rows of Black Sabbath and Metallica.
Eddie had simply laughed and kissed his cheek.
When Eddie pulls this record out, however, Steve is quiet. Lips parted slightly as he breathes into the midnight air.
Eddie doesn't say anything as he places the needle into the divot at the edge of the record. Doesn't say anything as he reaches out for Steve, traces a gentle finger up the line of his forearm, strokes over the tendons.
Neither of them say anything as they draw closer to one another. As their bodies find each other in the night, in the light, like moths to a flame. Eddie's hands slide up Steve's arms, and Steve's Eddie's, and they meet in parallelism on the other's shoulders.
And the song plays, and they stand here. Holding each other.
Looking into the other's eyes, searching.
Listening.
Steve's hand finds the back of Eddie's head, drawing it to the space where his neck meets his collarbone. Eddie sighs into it, feels his body relax as he breathes in the scent of his lover. It fills his head the same way the music does; brown and musky and warm.
Safe.
Like Wayne.
Eddie cries.
The song plays on as they sway together in the kitchen. Filling this place, this home, with sweet music. With the sound of Eddie's childhood, the sound of everything and everyone that Eddie has ever loved.
Later, they'll play this song at their wedding.
And Wayne will be there, standing next to Eddie, and next to Steve, and he'll cry when Robin pronounces them husband and husband.
And, finally, Eddie thinks he'll understand it.