This is Europe, he can get some without having to pay fifteen dollars for a bottle right? Right. Here you go, friend.

Eric shoots Pete a look that doesn't know if it wants to be thankful or betrayed or angry or confused but accepts the water.

Yeah.

After he no longer has pudding or outrage blocking his throat he finally says, "And Sam?"

"Is also a lovely person. We're... even less serious, I think." Edmund snickers quietly. "I'm only using him for his body. Is probably how he'd put it."

He drinks some more water. "It's," clear throat, "none of my business anyway. I'm sorry for, ah, the strong reaction." He can't help looking at Pete with a small measure of contempt from the corner of his eye, though.

Oh please don't perceive him, he's having some emotions.

"And you are a Pevensie," he continues, looking at Edmund again. "You'll get what you want one way or the other "

"Goddamn it, Eric, I'm sorry. I bought you the cake and pissed you off so you'd be irritated instead of guilty about it and you could actually enjoy yourself when you cooled off, and have something nice for once. I'm falling over myself like an idiot for Pete and Sam and I knew you'd think I was an idiot if I said so, and the only thing I could think to do instead was act like a grown-up about it. And - and I'm telling you all this now, like this, to make you think about my feelings and act like I'm a person instead of some kind of relentless getting-what-I-want machine, and I told you that so you know that I can't stop doing this, everything I do is to get what I want, and you're the only one who knows me well enough that you should know it hurts."

"I wasn't really mad about the pudding," he says, quietly, because how the fuck does he engage with all the rest of the that.

(Okay this has gone all the way into awkward and he does kind of want to leave the two of them to sort themselves out except he doesn't have a way to do that that doesn't draw attention to him and he can't even rely on being a Mary Sue about it because he's pretty sure Eric actually is immune so he can't just get away with it.)

(Also he doesn't exactly want to, he wants to be there for Edmund, but. He feels like he's intrudingggg ahhhh.)

     Niamh comes over with two teapots on a tray and an extremely fake smile. "Sorry to interrupt."

"No, please do," Edmund sighs. "I've made an ass of myself and tea can only help."

     "Try pouring it in your lap," she advises as she sets the pots down. "First-degree burns to the genitalia are an excellent conversation ender."

"I'm considering it."

     "Don't sue if so," she says, gliding back to the counter.

"You haven't made an ass of yourself," he says as soon as she's gone. "If anything I have. It really is none of my business. I'm not your dad and I'm not Peter and I don't think they have a say in who you date, either, so."

"- I know you don't have a veto. But... even if you're not my brother, you're Peter's." He raises a hand. "No, shut up, I'm not kidding. You've been there for both of us longer than anyone, and when you have something to say about my choices, I can't just try to head it off at the pass because I don't want to hear it."

"I don't have anything to say about your choices that you haven't said to yourself. 'Two days is very fast'. 'Being with two boys at the same time is suspicious and might get you hurt'. 'Using someone for their body might get either or both of you hurt'. I only have common sense to offer, it's not like I have any experience with literally any part of any of that."

Why yes he is in fact pretending Pete isn't there, thank you for asking.

"Well... thanks for the common sense, anyway. You know how we need it."

Edmund turns to Pete and pours him a cup of tea. "I apologize for... all that. It's a conversation that needed to happen, but not necessarily while you sat there trying not to breathe."

"Thank you," he says, lifting the tea to his lips, which he then curls into a half-smile. "And I'm sure the readers enjoyed it."

Okay now Eric is looking at him again.

"Forty to seventy percent, I told you."

"...sure, but what does that mean."

"It was emotional and cathartic and probably did good things to your relationship and might be an in for you guys to have a different conversation once Ed is feeling less embarrassed and you're feeling less flustered which will further improve the relationship. It also surfaced emotions in me that I bet Ed will want to talk about later but you're the protagonists of this scene, not me."

"...huh."

"Sometimes it feels like you're just using your metafiction thing to say things that are true and insightful, but still confuse the hell out of people for your own amusement."

"I admit that that is nonzero part of the motivation. Good at breaking the ice, too, though, because now rather than being flustered Mr. Jones is just thinking about what a weirdo I am and what is wrong with you that I'm your type."

"Oh, God," he says, turning away again to rest his forehead on his hands. "He's just like you."