How Eddy realizes that unlike trust and respect, you shouldn't have to earn something that is supposed to be unconditional; if you have to earn someone's love, they probably aren't worth it. Trigger warning: emotional and physical abuse, psychological trauma.

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After the truth is revealed to the cul-de-sac, Eddy lies awake at night, remembering. He remembers how Bro's room was always off limits (he shivers at the thought of what happened the last time he had bothered Bro when he was busy in his room, a shaking hand unconsciously coming up to the arm that had been squeezed so tight that it had bruised, before he moves on).

He remembers how he wouldn't get any closer than three feet away from the car when his brother drove it. He didn't think it was nearly as funny as his brother thought it was when he would pretend (he hoped, he prayed) to try and run Eddy over.

He remembers the glares he would get if his brother caught him staring.

A cold, calculating look, a snarled, "What are you looking at, you little brat, you wanna get smacked around again, huh? HUH? LEAVE ME ALONE!"

He remembers how often his brother would fool him with fake love and attention.

Bro is cheerful, he's smiling, Eddy thinks Bro is happy to see him and it makes him happy, too. "You wanna play a game?" Eddy's eager, excited, of course he wants to play, he will always want to play with Big Bro!

"What game?" Bro smiles, but he furrows his brow and shows all his teeth in a grin and that scares Eddy, but he doesn't know why.

"Let's play Uncle." Eddy finds himself cautious, wary of that grin on Bro's face.

"I don't know how to play that game."

"Don't worry, I'll show you how." Pain and cruel laughter that leaves Eddy with a sprained wrist and bruised arms and tears streaming down his face as his brother calls him weak for crying and threatening more pain if he tells their parents.

Eddy remembers what Bro would tell him after the torture sessions called Uncle.

"I'm only doing this because you need to toughen up. I'm only doing this so you can be strong without me." Eddy doesn't know that what his brother was feeding him was the mind-crippling poison made from lies and not the bitter medicine of life's harshest truths. He took it because it was Big Bro and Big Bro wouldn't lie to him, Bro was just trying to help him. He tries so hard not to cry when he and Bro play, but every time, he fails. Each and every time, his brother is disgusted at his weakness. Each and every time he wishes he could be strong like Big Bro

At the time, he didn't know why that grin scared him so much.

He knows why, now.

He remembers.

He remembers all the horrible little truths about his brother that he had shoved to the back of his mind and forgotten. He remembers all the pain and cruel words and the conditioning.

He remembers how much of a monster his brother truly is.

He remembers how desperately he wanted to be like his brother, how his brother's approval drove everything Eddy did, and how he would have done anything, ANYTHING for his brother to love him even a fraction of the amount Eddy loved HIM.

He remembers how his desperation nearly tore him and the friends he was too blind to see, apart.

He remembers how all those ugly little truths were finally uncovered and shoved out into the light for the whole world to see.

He remembers how mortified he was when that happened.

He remembers how broken he felt.

He remembers how surprised he was when his friends, the Kankers, and even the kids from the cul-de-sac, the ones who chased him on a cross-country trip with the goal to beat him to a bloody pulp, stood up for him and accepted him as one of their own.

But most of all, he remembers how he had finally, finally realized that his brother wasn't worth it, and he smiles.