In the morning, he woke to find his guest was already up, dragging his clothes on with his back turned.

“Morning.” He grumbled. The blue streaked man turned slightly and responded with a similarly mumbled greeting.

“Off already?” Not that Eddie minded. In fact if he hadn’t already been leaving, Eddie would have had to not-so-politely boot him out.

The man didn’t reply to that, probably realising it would be waste of time. They had both known exactly what their intentions had been the night before. As the stranger stood to pull his jeans up, Eddie caught a glimpse of five perfect half-moons created by his nails. On his ass.

“Do you have a name?” Eddie asked, gazing lazily at the movement of hard muscles on the other man’s back. He looked athletic. He probably engaged in some healthy sport or another. Eddie was too competitive, so he generally stayed away from them.

“Does it matter?”

Eddie dismissed the rambling thought. “No. I had a lovely time, but don’t let the door hit that cute little butt on the way out.”

The man flashed him a singeing look, but said nothing, and soon Eddie heard the front door open and close, perhaps a little harder than necessary. Probably was a closet hetero, but Eddie had been in too much of a hurry the night before to stick to his usual rules. And the tumble had been hot enough to make him mindless for the space of a few hours at least. He had to be mildly grateful for that.

As he flew back down the highway, he wondered if it was too early to drop in at Christian and Laurel. It was a weekend and they hated to be up before noon. And Brendan would be there. It was painful but he could stomach it if he could a see sleep-tousled Christian.

God, he was completely lost. It was pathetic.

Really, he should have seen the warnings bells. Eddie didn’t form attachments. He loved, oh yes, he loved. Wide and long, he loved. But that was the point. Eddie made sure he had so many people in his life to love, that it remained diluted, and everyone got only a little bit of Eddie. No one got it all in one place.

The week he’d met Christian, he had taken up French, Mandarin and Klingon. He had dropped Klingon, because it sounded disgusting when spoken. But by the end of that week, he was fluent in the other two. Warning bell number one.

Number two should have been when he went to have a key made to the apartment, without permission. It never even occurred to him that was a very…committed… thing to do.

Number three should have been when he had made nice with Christian’s bitch of a roommate, because seeing the pained look on Christian’s face had bothered him.

After that, there were many warnings bells. A carillon of them. But he was so good at lying that he lied to himself, and before he could stop it, he was careening along, too fast to stop.

He might have pursued the pale boy. Wooed him, seduced him, tempted him. But the beautiful innocence of his face had made Eddie hold back, not to touch something so pure. Because Christian was pure, inside and out. He literally couldn’t hurt a fly. Eddie had once seen him shoo a bee out of a window, opening it in spite of the freezing cold weather, rather than kill it. That was Christian. Then, when Eddie had finally summoned up the courage to try, he had caught the charged, unguarded look between Chrissy and Bren and that had been that. He’d dragged his sorry self out the door and tried to drink his disappointment away instead.

When Jazz had happened, Eddie had felt as if by struck by lightning. Jazz was the kind of person who thought it was ok to take, even when someone said no. He had drugged Christian and tried to rape him in his own bed. Eddie had a renewed belief in a benign, universal benevolence since then, because the phone app that he and his friend Cornelius had created had essentially saved Christian from being molested. Since then, FindMe had taken off hugely, but as far as Eddie was concerned it had served its true purpose. Brendan had been the one to find him first, and just in time. But Eddie had helped purge him of the drug that night. Then he’d watched helplessly as Christian collapsed in a heap on the bathroom floor, weeping with all the strength of a kitten. Eddie had cowered in that moment, but Brendan hadn’t. Which just went to show who the better man was, really.

Jazz hadn’t gotten away, and it was only because of Christian’s appeal that he and Brendan hadn’t gone to find him with their fists. It had been frustrating to Eddie that he hadn’t been able to find the asshole before Laurel. Eddie did know a lot of people, but since Christian knew so little about him apart from a cell number, he had been difficult to track down. He certainly hadn’t been seen at the Pink Flamingo which only proved to Eddie that Jazz was a local predator. When Laurel had hacked into her professor’s computer to access Jazz’ academic record, Eddie had applauded.

Eddie was infallible. Eddie was unconquerable, Eddie was indomitable. And Eddie was loud and fabulously adept at hiding his real feelings. So he contented himself with the laughter, the fondness and the small scraps of affection he could glean from hanging out with Christian’s motley group. Not that he didn’t enjoy them. Genuinely. Eddie didn’t have friends, per se, but they were as close as he would get. Bren-bear, Madam Laurel and little snow-child Christian. Even Jordy made the cut, if only by association. But you couldn’t have real friends if you were always pretending.

And as long as he kept turning up the ‘fabulous’, Christian would never know.

It was harder now, because Christian and Brendan were a Thing. A very much, very new thing. Brendan had been the one Christian turned to, to shore him up. Brendan had been the one to hold him in the night, when Eddie had turned away because the horrific nightmares on Christian’s face had made him a coward. Eddie tried not to feel cast aside, because self-pity didn’t suit him. Christian loved Brendan even if he couldn’t admit it yet. And since the feeling was mutual, being around them making cow eyes at each other all the time was nauseating and a special kind of torture. So, he didn’t go over as often. But he could never really stay away for long.

That semester, Eddie took on an entire new set of courses, in computer sciences this time. This was why Laurel could never get a handle on him; he never stayed in the same discipline for long. He found something to learn, and he learned it quickly, then passed it over for something new. Being a genius had its perks.

He sighed without knowing he did. And drove on.