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He didn’t mean to say it, hell, if this was anyone else he wouldn’t have said it but Wally is so much younger than the housewives and widows that flirt with that the truth escapes without his consent.
“You’re too old!”
Silence follows as Eddie slaps his hands over his mouth while Wally stares up at him with wide, black eyes, shock and confusion permeating them.
“I’m too..” His mind fills in the blank and a furrow curves his brow.
“Eddie, I’m sixteen. Frank is like thirty, how am I..”
The pieces seem to slowly fall into place.
“What if I was fourteen? Am I still too old?”
Eddie doesn’t answer for a moment before nodding.
“Lower?”
“Please don’t-“
“How about twelve? Or ten?”
Eddie isn’t sure what expression he makes that causes understanding to light up in Wally’s eyes but he feels his stomach fill with stones when he does.
“I have to go-“
“Wait-“
Eddie is out the front door quickly, leaving behind a confused, though thoughtful, Wally.
“Hi, neighbour!” Eddie looks up from the mailbox, a smile coming to his face at the sight of the younger man — more of a boy, really, with his wide black eyes and catty smile.
“Hello, Wally!” He feels a bit nervous given the last time he’d seen him but the other looks as if he’d forgotten all about that.
The boy leans against his door jamb and crosses his arms over his chest, revealing the splattered paint on his fingers.
“How are you?” Eddie greets, momentarily forgetting about the task at hand. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”
Wally smiles and scratches the back of his neck.
“I was visiting my parents.. they aren’t as thrilled as I am that I’m living on my own.”
Eddie hums in thought but doesn’t respond.
His parents.
Wallys still so young that he’d needed his parents' approval to move away.
Eddie lets discomfort swirl in his stomach as he waves the other goodbye, cutting their chat abruptly short.
“How long do I-“
“Don’t move! I’ve almost got it!” Wally leans in close to his easel and makes tiny little movements with his thin brush, squinting at it before a wide grin spreads across his face.
“Done!” He waves Eddie over and proudly shows him his work.
“Whoa.” The mailman’s eyes go wide as he takes in the image.
Somehow, Wally has captured a part of himself that he didn’t even know existed.
In the painting, he looks soft and gentle in a way that he has never felt before.
Truth be told, he always saw himself as something of a predator. He was the cat who stalked the mouse, the snake who swallowed birds whole, but Wally had somehow turned him into something without flaw.
“Wally, this is..”
The teen smiles, cheeks flushed red.
“I take it you like it?”
“Like?” Eddie’s eyes briefly dart to Wally before being drawn back to the painting by some unknown force.
“Wally, I love it.”
“Hi, dear.” Eddie leans over the back of the couch to kiss his husband, a rush of warmth flooding him when Frank responds in kind, something of a smile taking the place of his typical frown.
“How was your day?”
“Fine. Wally had me pose for him, now I’m as stiff as a cactus.”
“That’ll do it,” Frank confirms, having modeled for the boy weeks prior.
“He’s been slowly working his way through the town but no one really minds — he’s got something special in him.”
Eddie thinks back to his piece, to the kindness that radiated from his false self.
“That he does.”
“Come in, come in!” Wally was particularly jovial that evening, waving Eddie into Home with a little smile.
“You said you wanted to show me something?”
“It’s a surprise!”
Soon, they were sitting on the couch, cups of steaming tea on the table before them while Wally soothed his hand over the photo album that rested in his lap.
“I was thinking about what you said.” The boy admitted, dark eyes focused on the album.
“I.. I shouldn’t have-“
“It was my fault for flirting with a married man, you know?” Wally continued speaking as if Eddie hadn’t said a word.
“But I was curious. So, I borrowed this from my parents when I went to visit.”
Wally flips the album open, seemingly to a random page, landing on some old photos.
The title read: “First day of Preschool!”
Eddie’s eyes found the page.
“I think I was four?” The images showed a younger Wally, without that familiar pompadour and instead, with wild curls that fell down to his shoulders.
“What would you have done to me at that age?” Wally asks.
“Wally-“
“Is that too young?”
Eddie looks back down at the picture, at Wally’s tiny hands and childish face.
“A bit.” He’s not sure why he answered but maybe it’s the same reason he avoided playgrounds.
That darkness inside of him was slowly waking.
“I’m eight here.”
Something warm begins to burn in Eddie’s stomach.
Wally is looking up at the photo with wide eyes, a paint brush in his eyes while he draws something that’s too out of frame to make much sense of.
He’s wearing nothing but an oversized shirt with paint splatters all over it as he smiles, showing off two missing front teeth.
“Is this better?” Wally has scooted closer, their thighs brushing together.
“Would you have played with me?” Wally asks, his pupils blown out.
“.. yes.”
Eddie feels dirty as he reaches forward and gently traces the tips of his fingers over the photo, rubbing over Wally’s legs.
“What games would we play?”
“Bad games.” Eddie breathes, thinking about how a young Wally would have been so easy to lure away from the swing set. He wants to hate himself for it, he’s spent years pretending this part of himself didn’t exist and all it took was a few photos for him to lose himself.
“Can we play those games now?”
Dark blue eyes meet black.
If he squints, it’s not hard to pretend that Wally is as young as he is in the photo.
He’s still got those cheeks, round with baby fat and his wide eyes haven’t changed one bit.
Eddie wishes he could hate himself for this.
“Ah, ah, ohhh-!”
Wally’s moans fill the house, he’s so small it’s easy to pretend he’s still eight.
His legs can’t wrap fully around Eddie’s waist and his little hands grip at the front of his shirt. When he pushes in deep, he can see the bulge from his cock in Wally’s little tummy.
“Fuck,” Eddie moans, gripping Wally’s hips tighter, pushing in to the hilt.
“I-I’ll give you some pictures-!” His thighs spasm against Eddie’s hips, “I’ll give you some pictures and you can-you can tell me how you get off to them.”
Eddie kisses Wally to shut him up.
The other opens his mouth obediently for his tongue.
It’s so easy to pretend he’s lured Wally away, that his moans are little cries of confusion and pain.
Eight year old Wally wouldn’t know or understand sex.
In his mind’s eye, he can imagine little Wally stumbling back to his parents with his cum still running down the insides of his thighs. His mussed hair and tattered clothes, the tears on his cheeks…
“Ah-!” Wally’s cum splattered against his stomach, he tightened up around him.
It’s perfect.
“You’re so small,” Eddie pants, “do you like this game?”
His thumbs touch when he squeezes around Wally’s waist.
“No-“
Eddie’s eyes roll back as he fills the boy to the brim.
As they lay there, panting, the mailman already knows that he may not be able to pretend the lurking darkness in him is nonexistent after this.
Wally blinks his eyes open and points to the photo album that had dropped to the floor at some point.
“Take whatever you want.”