Work Text:
“What took ya?”
Eddy leaned against the presently opened door frame of Double D’s house with a raised eyebrow.
“I apologize for not simply allowing gravity to cascade my corpus willy-nilly down the stairs to retrieve you sooner, Eddy. Though I must inquire as to what brings you to my house unannounced?” Edd retorted, crossing his arms.
“Never hadda ask before,” Eddy swaggered his way past Edd, “and besides, I wanted to give ya somethin’. But we gotta go up to your room so I can give it to you.” He leaned towards the taller boy, eyes glinting with a spark of mischief.
“W- we can’t do that.”
Eddy took note of the swift and nervous response.
“Why not?”
“Well I…”
“Don’t tell me it’s a mess ‘cause I know that’s a lie.”
“To be honest… I cannot allow you into my bedroom.”
“Why!?” Eddy exclaimed in frustration “Ten years and suddenly…” he paused mid sentence with a grin. “Your hiding something, aren’tcha?” Edd’s arms flew up defensively.
“Eddy, no… please try to respect my wishes as – ” Without a moment of hesitation, the curious intruder ran for the stairs. “Eddy! Halt this instant!”
The chase was on as Edd frantically fumbled after the nimble teen.
“Curse these feeble legs,” he gasped in pursuit.
Eddy whipped around from the hallway into the doorway of Double D’s room.
“Ah HA! Just what I- Hey! Where’s my surprise?” The disgruntled 13 year old tapped his foot, waiting for Edd to catch up; when he did, he was sorely out of breath and gasping pleas to Eddy. Edd anxiously and in a nervous sweat grabbed at Eddy’s collar, all the while begging between gasps of air.
“Vacate… my room… immediately. Now come!”
The taller teen’s insisting fell on deaf ears. With the fabric of the bowler shirt bunched in Edd’s hands, it was easy for Eddy to slip clear out the bottom like a slippery serpent and to freedom.
“Sheesh, Sockhead. Give it a rest, I was ju-” Eddy paused as he turned towards the corner of Edd’s room where the bed resided. Edd jumped nervously with a suppressed squeak.
“Eh- Eddy.”
“Sticky notes? In your room? Man, your parents sure hit some all-time low, didn’t they? Was bad enough they put ‘em all over the house…” Edd made another last ditch effort to divert Eddy’s attention.
“Oh th- those? Don’t be silly. They are of- of little, minute, dare-say microscopic importance! I’m sure there is a superfluity of activities in which to engage outside of this room, don’t you agree?” But Eddy wasn’t listening as he hopped on the bed to read one of the notes stuck above the headrest. Edd nearly shrieked as Eddy began scanning the messages of the notes from the bed; and he had to do so with his shoes on too?
“What’s this one say… hmm… ‘Eddward, don’t associate with that ‘Eddy’ boy. Love, Dad’!?” The amount of anger that bubbled up in the short 13 year old body came to a head as steam whistled from Eddy’s ears.
“Double D! What is this!?” he yelled shrilly, pointing accusingly at the yellow note and staring daggers at Edd. Averting his eyes, he responded desperately. “Please, Eddy. No further inquiries on the matter.” Eddy continued his rant regardless.
“What’s the big deal with this!? And it’s right above your stinkin’ bed. I’m gonna- I’m-” Eddy growled as he stomped in a circle on the bed. He then jumped off and stormed out of the room, snagging his shirt back from Edd’s shaking hands and aggressively squeezing his way back into it on his way out. The taller teen frantically kept in pursuit several steps behind, but once again failed to keep up. Edd knew exactly where Eddy was headed based on his trajectory: his parent’s room. This knowledge was enough to pique his temper. He angrily yelled down the hallway as he chased after Eddy.
“That is quite enough, mister! What in Sam Hill do you think you are –” A loud gasp escaped Edd’s gap-toothed mouth as he witnessed Eddy, in mother and father’s bedroom, holding a colossal pile of sticky note pads.
“Where’s the matches? I’m burnin’ these, I swear. Who do they think they are writin’ that sorta crap and puttin’ it on your walls!?”
“They are my parents, Eddy!”
“You better start explaining, Sockhead.”
“Explain? I’d much rather prefer we not discuss this at all.” Thoroughly overwhelmed Edd turned his back on Eddy and made his way towards his room; as a result the sticky notes were thrown aside so Eddy could follow hot on his trail. The little yellow squares blanketed the hallway floor.
“I need to know, Double D!” Eddy exclaimed, desperation drenching his words.
Edd couldn’t contain his tears as his mind went through a flurry of emotions; fear, anger, sadness, anxiety. Once he’d stomped his way back to the doorway of his room, he swiftly turned to Eddy with a red face and exploded with the truth.
“Mother and father know of our affections!” It was then and there that Edd broke down onto the floor with sobs, nearly soaking through the carpet. Between gasping and sniffling, he continued, “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t the heart to inform you, Eddy”. His wails of despair echoed through the hall as Eddy watched frozen in place, his mind racing as the reality sunk in. This was bad news; really bad news. Who knew what sort of trouble this could get them in? And parents talked, right? What if they called his own parents? But above all things, of all the fears that flooded Eddy in that moment, the worst of them all was seeing Edd sobbing like he was on the floor.
“Ya gotta stop crying, Dee.” He commanded in an attempt to thwart the feeling. But Edd continued on in his dramatic and sniveling confession.
“Ever since we ran away this summer their trust in me has dwindled drastically. Oh what can I do? What can I do? Oh Eddy! Oh dear oh dear oh-” Edd was interrupted by a loud WAM that jolted him to attention. It came from inside his room. He turned swiftly, looking behind himself with puffy eyes. In his fit of anguish, Edd had failed to notice Eddy walking past, picking up a discarded sticky-note pad and a pencil, scribbling on the pad, and slamming his note directly over one above the bed. Edd picked himself up from the floor and walked his way towards the bed, where Eddy was sitting smugly. With his eyes full of tears it was hard to see: he squinted and read Eddy’s note: “Forget about them! Love, Eddy”. Immediately upon inspection, the note was not approved.
“You can’t do that! They are my parents, Eddy, I can’t simply-”
“No, Double D. They are your parents but they don’t know apples from artichokes when it comes to you!” Eddy swiftly turned back to the notes and read one aloud; “Dear Eddward, a good son must always listen. Love, Mom and Dad. Ugh!” Eddy scoffed in disgust, taking the pad and pencil in hand and scribbling his own note quickly. He put his directly over theirs; it read ‘This is bunk! Love, Eddy’. Once again, in a panic, Edd objected to the additions and made his way to the edge of the bed to intervene. By this point, Eddy had moved on to the next note, written by Edd’s father. Similarly disgusted, he covered it as well with a note saying ‘This too! Love, Eddy’.
Edd’s nerves went haywire watching Eddy posting his notes over those of his parents. He attempted to grab one of the intruding notes to remove it, all the while tears welling up in frustration and fear.
“Do you have any idea what sort of trouble I could get into? First you invade the private space of my parents’ room, then steal their personal supply of sticky-notes - with which I’ll have you know you’ve created an enormous mess in the hall - and now you are writing flagrant-”
Double D was interrupted with a jab to his side, well exposed as he was in the middle of reaching his arm out to remove a note from his wall. Edd paused momentarily to crane his neck to read the upside-down scrawling. In big letters, it said ‘Don’t Cry. Love, Eddy’. No sooner had he registered the message of the note did Eddy yank him into the bed.
“Eddy! Release me! I am wearing my shoes on the bed. Why, we are both wearing shoes on the bed!” but Eddy had already gone to work, reading more of the sticky notes on the walls aloud and covering them with his own comments. In between sticking notes over notes, Eddy ranted angrily.
“If anybody should be leavin’ you notes, it’s me anyways. Your parents have nothing on me an’ Ed when it comes to knowing what’s good for ya.”
“But Eddy!” Edd cried. Really cried. The tears were still streaming down his cheeks. Eddy had to think of something to get him to stop crying. He turned to the first note that had caught his eye, ‘Don’t associate with that ‘Eddy boy’’. Taking the pad in hand, Eddy chuckled as he doodled and stuck his note over the offending note.
Edd took one look at it wide-eyed before shouting, “That is absolutely inappropriate!”
The anger quickly dissipated as Edd failed to stifle the 13-year-old impulse to chuckle at the phallic effigy scrawled sketchily in pencil. “And so crudely drawn…” He immediately covered the grin with a hand, not wanting to feed into Eddy’s immature ploy. But it was too late. This glimpse of happiness was just the fuel Eddy needed and he laughed with the small victory. Edd giggled sheepishly before attempting to reach over Eddy and pluck the offensive sketch down from the wall. Eddy wouldn’t allow it.
“Nope, you let ‘em see that. And if they got a problem with it, they come to me!” With that said, Eddy attacked Edd’s exposed sides with a barrage of tickling fingers. The onslaught of tickles caused Edd to yelp and retract his arms that were once supporting him, collapsing directly atop Eddy. He squirmed and laughed and pleaded for Eddy to stop, smiling but still teary eyed. But Eddy was ready to fix that. Taking the pad of sticky-notes, he feverishly began to write. Now was Edd’s chance to escape in fear of further tickles, but Eddy hooked his arm around his waist and snapped him back in like a rubber band. Eddy stuck the note he’d just written onto Edd’s head, right on his big ol’ brain. Edd, taking the note off his head, read it and blushed: “You are the smartest guy I know. Love, Eddy”. He smiled warmly at the kind words.
“’atta boy! I missed that smile. Now let’s see what we can do about those tears.”
Eddy scribbled some more, then stuck a note directly onto Edd’s nose. It was removed and read.
‘You’re easy on the eyes too. Love, Eddy.’
Edd smiled again and sniffled. “You really think so?”
“What, haven’t you looked in a mirror lately? ‘course I do!”
Seeing Edd brighten up with each and every compliment prompted Eddy to begin writing a flurry of them, each of them stuck all over Edd’s body with intermittent tickles to fish out some more giggles. Edd wiped at his watering eyes, which had transitioned into tears of joy and laughter. But both couldn’t shake the feeling that this moment was bitter sweet; what would happen to them? Why did this have to be a big deal? What was the problem with wanting to make someone happy, doing whatever it took to make them crack a smile, to care?
Eddy dropped the pad and grabbed Edd’s face, pulling him into a big wet smooch on the cheek.
Pulling away with an exaggerated lip-smack, Eddy said “An’ that’s what I wanted to give ya.”