Work Text:
‘Boring. Boring. God damn. Why is everything so boring all of the time forever?’
These are the deep, philosophical questions for the ages that run through Eddy’s shapely head as he gazes up at the torn upholstery dangling from the roof through the smoky haze filling the back of The Van (the three of them took to calling it that years ago after bouncing around a bunch of different names that never stuck.) Ed occupies The Van alongside him, banging his head to the noisy mess of music pouring out of the speakers that mount the walls on either side of the waterbed. The bass is loud enough to make the whole bed jiggle, reverberating through Eddy’s jeans and making his eardrums itch.
“Ed, could ya turn that noise down?”
No answer.
“Hey, lumpy!”
Now the noise is accompanied by Ed’s fist slamming against the wall, greasy, ginger hair flopping in front of his eyes as he makes what looks like his best attempt to snap his head clean off his neck.
“Ed!” He shouts, losing his permanently short temper. “Turn off your awful fucking music!!”
The scream rips painfully out of his smoke irritated windpipe, but his efforts aren’t for nothing. Ed finally realizes he’s being talked to and turns down the volume on the speakers before answering him.
“What was that, Eddy?” Ed yells his question as if the music were still blaring.
“Just keep it down,” is Eddy’s grumpy response, taking another rip from their shared bong. That’ll be his last for tonight. Ed’s shit does some crazy nonsense to his brain if he doesn’t limit himself.
“Roger dodger.” Ed replies cheerfully, holding out his hand towards Eddy. Eddy takes the hint and hands the bong back over.
“No more for me, Ed. Knock yourself out.”
“The old man is snoring, Eddy.”
“Uh huh.” He collapses backwards onto the water bed, the jiggly sack undulating underneath him and slinky-ing his spine. He’s just gotten bored enough to start counting the fairy lights Ed hung up some time ago when more loud banging gets his attention.
“Ed—!” He sits up to tell him off, but is surprised to see Double D standing in the doorway to the back of The Van. The sound of the doors slamming against the exterior of The Van still echo against the walls of his skull, the creaky hinges squealing like they’re about to give up the ghost.
‘Great,’ Eddy thinks with a grimace, ‘here comes the fun police.’
It’s been quite some time since Double D tried to police this particular activity. He has taken to quietly slipping off back home once the glassware comes out, and in return Ed and Eddy had spared him from teasing him for being a goody two shoes wuss. But he seems more adamant than ever this time, shoulders set and jaw clenched as he searches The Van for his target. Once his eyes land on the bong in Ed’s hand, he steps forward, hand held out rod stiff, his voice clear, calm, and hard.
“Hand it over.”
“Boo!” Eddy jeers. “What are you, his mother?”
“I’ve been a bad boy, Mama D.” Ed chuckles, tongue sticking out through his teeth as he holds the bong out of reach.
“Ed, I mean it! I—” Double D cuts himself off, taking a deep breath and then coughing as the smoke filled air enters his dainty virgin lungs.
“I want—” he waves at the air in front of his face, getting a lungful of slightly fresher air before continuing. “I am going to partake in smoking marijuana with my peers.”
The stale air in The Van grows even more stagnant. Eddy’s not sure he heard Double D right, and Ed’s expression has gone completely blank. Something must have eventually clicked into place, because before Eddy can formulate a response, Ed’s eyes light up as a wide smile splits his face.
“All right, Double D!” He cheers while re-stuffing the bowl. “Welcome to the club, brother! Some wacky tabacky to celebrate we shall have.”
“Holy shit.” Eddy lets out a laugh as he finally catches up with everyone else, slapping his knee before standing to sling an arm around Double D. “No foolin’? You’re gonna break the law? Use an illegal substance?” The blush that rapidly spreads across Double D’s face is as pretty as it is hilarious, and Eddy wishes he knew if it was from the teasing, the close proximity, or both.
“Well… no pun intended, but it’s high time, don’t you think? It’s a ritual of youth to rebel against the norms and standards of our well ordered society in an attempt to express individuality and independence. It’s a rite of passage, if you will; it’s criminal activity, yes, but ceremonial in its own way, an inevitable metamorphosis that we must all undergo, consequences be damned, as they say, and furthermore—”
“Dee! Relax. Yeesh. You don’t gotta justify it to us, we ain’t cops,” he interrupts his impassioned rambling, taking note of the way Double D’s fists clench and unclench, the way his tongue runs over the front of his teeth, how his eyes pierce straight into nothingness.
‘Criminy. Why’s he always gotta be so serious about everything?’ Eddy wonders.
“Is it like the ceremony in ‘They Came from the Back of the Fridge: Part Four’, when the chuck roast from the mutated omega cow gains sentience and plots to sacrifice Timmy, Tommy, and the string bean boys to return from whence it came?” Ed asks excitedly, his red eyes wide with wonder and sleep boogers.
“Yup, exactly like that.” Eddy answers just to shut him up, then gives Double D’s back a hardy slap and leads him over to the bed. “C’mon, let’s pop that cherry.”
“Must you be so vulgar?” Double D complains with an accompanying pained expression, rubbing his assaulted spine.
“Eddy is saucy like gravy, Double D.”
“Shut up, Ed.” Eddy reaches over to grab the bong, placing it and his lighter in Double D’s waiting hands.
“Thank you, Eddy.” Double D studies the bong carefully, holding it up at eye level and squinting at the contents inside. After rotating the bong a few times, he lifts out the bowl and peers inside the down stem, then puts the pieces together again. Gentle fingers run around the rim of the carb as he places the mouthpiece under his nose and takes a delicate whiff, followed by a grimace. All the while, Eddy watches Double D with an innocent smile, feigning ignorance as he fights to hold back his snickers.
“... Oh, just help me already!” Double D finally relents, face heated as he shoves the apparatus in Eddy’s direction. That does him in, laughter pouring out of him as he clutches his sides.
“Don’t sprain your brain there, professor bunsen burnout!” He teases as the last of his laughter dies out between them, “Ed, get some ice. Gotta protect his baby lungs.”
“They grow up so fast, Eddy.”
Once the ice from the cooler is in the catcher and Double D has wiped down the mouthpiece with a disinfectant wipe, (‘Where the hell did he pull those from?’) Eddy holds the bong out in front of his face. “Lips on the mouthpiece—not like that, jeez, it’s not a blow job, Dee. Yeah, like that. Okay, thumb here. I’m gonna light the bowl. Don’t inhale until I start to lift it. Ready? Suck it up, babe.”
Eddy doubts the smoke even made it into Double D’s lungs, his thin, wiry frame wracked with an almost immediate coughing fit. It sounds bad enough that Eddy doesn’t even laugh, looking on in uncharacteristic concern as he gives Double D’s heaving back a few firm thumps.
“Good Lord, that was awful!” Double D finally cries out once he’s caught his breath, pounding his own chest with a firm fist as he tries to completely vacate the smoke from his airways. “Why on earth does anyone do this?”
“It turns my brain into a soft and fluffy bunny.” Ed supplies unhelpfully.
“That rip sucked shit, Dee.” Eddy chastises the newbie, giving his back a few rubs before putting the bong in front of his face again. “You need to take a slow, deep breath, then hold it. Ya know, like how Ed takes his inhaler.”
“A world where I can’t pet kittens is a world I don’t want to live in anyway, my friends.”
“You told me to suck it up.” Double D pouts petulantly, eyeing the offered bong warily.
“I didn’t mean it literary.”
“Literally, Eddy.”
“Literally suck my nuts. C’mon, try again.”
He’s fully expecting Double D to reject him, that his failed rip was enough of a confidence destroyer to halt his experimenting before he ever really got started. But to Eddy’s surprise, he takes the bong, lights the bowl himself this time, and takes a deep breath as instructed. Tears fill his eyes as he holds the smoke in his lungs, valiantly restraining himself from hacking up a lung again. He still coughs on the exhale, but not nearly as much as he did before. Eddy feels something resembling pride; whether he’s proud of Double D for finally being a little more adventurous, or proud of himself for being a bad enough influence to sully Double D’s innocence, he’s not sure.
“You always were a quick learner.” He says in a congratulatory voice, giving Double D a soft pat on the back to help ease his wheezing coughs.
“Yes—well. I never suspected that my eagerness to learn would assist me in a situation such as this.”
“Knowledge is power, Double D, and power keeps the lights on.” Ed takes the bong back and Double D watches on quietly as he hits it easily, not a single wheeze to be heard or watery eyeline to be seen.
“True, but my powers will never match yours, Ed.”
Ed grins proudly at the compliment as he hands the bong back.
“Whoa, slow your roll,” Eddy starts, trying to intercept the bong, “that’s enough for one night. Ed gets the strong shit and you’re new to this.”
“Oh?” Double D interjects with a raised brow, looking down his nose at Eddy. “Now who’s behaving like someone else’s mother?”
Eddy’s glare could kill if Double D wasn’t so used to being on the receiving end of it. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, sockhead.”
For his considerations, Eddy gets a tongue stuck out at him. That’s what he gets for giving a shit, apparently.
The evening goes on as it usually does, The Van continuing to fill up with smoke and laughter. The addition of Double D is a welcome surprise to the mix, and as he gets more acquainted with the bong, his smile grows wider and wider, his usually tense shoulders relaxed and jumping with laughter. Eddy can’t help but smile in kind at Double D’s easy grin, struggling to remember the last time he saw him this unclenched. There’s a nagging at the back of his brain, but he decides to ignore it. Why question a good thing? Double D is actually telling naughty jokes—using scientific innuendo and vocabulary neither he nor Ed can understand, but they get the gist of it. He doesn’t even cover his mouth when he laughs at his own raunchy humor, guffawing loudly with no attempt to hide his gap. God, Eddy hopes Double D keeps joining them for this.
Eventually, they all start to wind down, basking in the glow of a good time with good friends. Ed, as usual, keeps talking shop, making sure his friends stay up to date on the world of cheap comics and B rated monster flicks. Eddy gives him half-hearted responses, eyes drooping as he feels his bedtime fast approaching him. Ed isn’t immune to the passage of time, either, obnoxiously loud yawns escaping his gaping maw in between sentences.
It’s not until Ed’s lighting up the very last of the bowl that Eddy realizes Double D hasn’t said anything in a while. He gives the body lying next to him a cursory glance, frowning at what he finds; Double D’s face is pale and his eyes are wide, arms pinned to his sides as he stares at the roof, chest just barely rising and falling with shallow breaths.
‘Shit.’
“Uh, Double D?” Eddy tries to get his attention, Ed noticing the sudden silence as he peaks over at the two of them.
A long silence stretches between the three friends as Double D continues to stare at nothing, his whole body going more and more rigid the longer the silence continues. Eddy’s about to freak and try to snap him out of it when he finally answers in a tiny, breathy voice.
“I can’t move.”
“Oh, brother.” Eddy bemoans, rubbing his face as Ed looks on in terror.
“Oh no! Double D’s been paralyzed by the mist creatures of centurion moon six!”
“No, burhead, he’s just high,” he gives Double D a wary look before adjusting his statement, “like, really high.”
“Oh.” Ed says with a frown. “Poor little guy.”
“I need to go to the hospital,” Double D whispers, voice strained as if every syllable is a battle.
“No, you need to go to bed. Lumpy.” Eddy snaps his fingers demandingly, standing and pointing at Double D’s motionless body. Ed gives him a solemn salute before grabbing Double D and throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of clean laundry and taking him out of The Van and into the humid night air. He hangs there limply, beanie flopping up and over his head while his hands dangle near Ed’s ass.
“Ed,” Double D speaks, his words muffled by the green fabric of Ed’s jacket, “when was the last time you washed this jacket?”
“Not since many fortnights ago, brave soldier,” Ed commiserates, giving Double D’s bony butt an apologetic pat.
Eddy makes sure to hide the goods and turn off the music before stepping outside with them and closing the doors shut. Mosquitoes immediately go for his pale, pink skin, his arms flailing wildly as he tries to shoo the buzzing annoyances away. The acrid stench of the junkyard is worse than ever after a day sitting under the summer sun, leaving Eddy itching to get home and get in bed.
“Vamoose, Ed.”
“Moose? Where, Eddy?” Ed shouts excitedly as he whips his body around this way and that, trying to spot the megafauna himself. Double D ragdolls in Ed’s grip, arms swaying comically as his head bumps repeatedly into Ed’s back.
“Ed, please—” Double D whines.
“Give it a rest, lumpy. You just missed it. Come on, let’s go.”
“Aw, I wanted to see the moose, Eddy.”
They make their way to the lane, needing no light to guide them along the familiar path out of the junkyard. The night air is full of the sounds of crickets and peepers, nostalgic and familiar and fucking annoyingly loud. It doesn’t pair well with Ed’s rambling, recounting the gory details of one of his more recently read comic books to his two friends. As much of a bombardment on his senses as it is, Eddy still finds it somewhat comforting, like the way his room smells or waking up and hearing his mom listening to the same news anchors every morning. On the other hand, it makes their situation feel extra jarring, filling Eddy with unease as he watches his friend be so out of character, listless and silent as he dangles, stoned, from Ed’s sloping shoulder. Now that he thinks about it, he can’t really imagine what could have made Double D suddenly go back on the D.A.R.E. pledge he’s taken so seriously since the fifth grade, never mind why he made no attempts to limit just how much he smoked.
He doesn’t have very long to think about it, though, the three of them already arriving at the turn that will take them towards Double D’s house. Making the assumption that his parents aren’t home, he fishes the house keys out of Double D’s pocket once they’ve made it to the front door and lets them all in, Ed still mid-ramble about a particular panel where the heroine’s breast had been ripped off.
“Couch.” He doesn’t even need to look at Ed while issuing his command, the big oaf going straight for Double D’s living room to place him gently on the cushions. Neither of them wipe their feet at the entrance mat, and Double D doesn’t make a single peep about it, further worsening Eddy’s unease about all this.
“Go home, Ed. I’m gonna keep an eye on Mr. Psychedelic over here.”
“Ya sure, Eddy? I haven’t even gotten to the part where her eyeballs melt into her skull and out of her nose.”
“With the way your mom’s been talking about military school, you really shouldn’t be missing any more curfews.”
“Camo makes me chafe, Eddy.” Ed answers, lower lip jutting out while he goes into full puppy eyes mode.
“Then get home. I’ll call my folks with Double D’s phone.”
Ed gives one last solemn salute before trudging outside, closing the door behind him. When he glances at Double D, he finds him with his eyes closed, muttering something rapidly under his breath. While he’s occupied with… whatever that is, Eddy takes the opportunity to use the phone out in the hallway, letting his mom know that he’s sleeping over at Double D’s. He returns to his prone friend once that’s taken care of, standing above him and giving him a skeptical once over, hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Double D’s lids snap open, eyes darting around in their sockets as he takes in his new surroundings. “Where am I?” He asks stiffly.
“Your house.”
“Oh. How did I get here?”
“Ed carried you.”
Much to Eddy’s annoyance, Double D’s eyes start welling up with tears. “Lovable oaf.”
“Look, I don’t get to say this often, especially not to you, so I’m gonna savor it.” Eddy pauses for dramatic effect, taking a deep breath as he raises his hands up near his face, pointer fingers and thumbs pressed together and eyes slipping shut. On the exhale, his hands slide away from his face like a conductor waving two batons, eyes staying shut as he gets on his tiptoes and leans down to say his piece. “I told ya so.”
“Are you sure I shouldn’t go to the hospital?” Double D’s voice wavers, causing Eddy to open his eyes and frown down at him.
“Yes, I’m sure. You’re having a bad reaction and panicking over it. You just need to sleep it off.”
“I still can’t move,” is all his usually verbose friend can say. Typically when Double D’s in a state of panic, he can’t shut up, gesturing wildly as emotions play openly on his animated face. Seeing him so stiff and at a loss for words is upsetting, even if Eddy knows why.
“Your gears are jammed.” He explains unscientifically, gently rapping his knuckles against Double D’s forehead. “Like I said, you’ll sleep it off.”
“I…” Double D starts, trailing off with narrowed eyes. “I have… the munchies? That’s what they’re called?”
Eddy rolls his eyes and sighs laboriously. “I guess I’ll make you a sandwich, your royal highness.” He lifts a brow at him, a complete lack of amusement in both his expression and his voice. “Get it? High? Ness?”
Double D just gives him a confused look.
“Yeah, my heart wasn’t really in that one.”
He leaves Double D in his state of confusion, and as he walks down the hall and turns into the kitchen, the first thing he notices is another atypical site for the evening—a mess in Double D’s kitchen. More specifically, it’s a mess of sticky notes piled on the floor in front of his unusually barren fridge.
‘The heck?’ Eddy thinks to himself as he approaches the pile, his hair standing on end. He kneels down to start picking through the notes but doesn’t find anything out of the ordinary; it’s the same old list of chores and reminders he usually sees hanging all over the walls and furniture of Double D’s house. Determined to figure out what the hell’s going on with his friend, he keeps digging, reading them all until one of the notes at the bottom of the pile gives him pause.
‘DEAR EDDWARD,
YOUR FATHER AND I WON’T BE ABLE TO ATTEND YOUR RECITAL. HAVE ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS RECORD IT FOR US.
♡ MOM’
Eddy scowls as his fingers grip the edges of the note, heated breath huffing out of his widened nostrils. Fucking of course that’s what tonight has been about. Double D’s once-every-two-years steel pedal guitar recital is one of the few things his parents still both show up for; it’s the only reason Double D still plays the hated instrument. Sure, when he was a kid, he made sure to follow all of his parents’ notes to a T, but as he’s gotten older and been left alone more often and for longer periods of time, he’s become a lot more lax about the notes. The notes about his steel pedal guitar, though, he always follows, and though he’s never admitted to it, Eddy knows it’s out of a desperation to impress his absent parents.
All that work he puts into the stupid thing, and now his folks ain’t even showing their faces—won’t be showing their faces for who knows how long.
Eddy hastily crumples the note in his hand before grabbing fistfuls of the rest of the discarded notes, cramming them tightly in his fists. He stands and makes his way to the garbage can, foot pressing down on the pedal to lift the lid when a better idea occurs to him. Letting the lid fall back down, he marches over to the sink, shoving the crumpled up balls down the drain and running the water before he flips the garbage disposal on. The sound of the blades churning the soggy notes brings him a small amount of satisfaction, and he lets it run until all he hears from the drain is a gentle hum.
“Eddy.”
Nearly jumping out of his skin, Eddy slams down on the faucet and turns to face the hallway leading to the living room, heart beating a mile a minute. For a second, he thinks he might have just been imagining things, but then he hears it again.
“Eddy.” Double D calls out from the living room, sounding more frantic this time.
‘Shit.’ Alright, forget the sandwich. He swings open cupboard doors in an attempt to find something Double D can snack on, grabbing the first food item sees.
“Hold yer horses!” Eddy calls back to him before making his way to the living room with a box of chunky puffs in hand. He’s eager to make sure Double D is okay but he stops in his tracks when he sees what’s going on. Eyes wide with wonder, mouth agape and gap on display, Double D carefully tracks the movement of his own arm, which he repeatedly lifts up into the air before dropping it back to the couch again. Eddy stands still in the doorway and watches him repeat the motion a few more times before he steps over, looking down at Double D with his brow furrowed and lips turned down.
Finally taking notice of him, Double D’s gaze drifts from his arm and up towards Eddy’s face. “I can move my arm.”
“... Congratulations.”
“It goes up, and then down. Up, and down. Up… and down.” Double D narrates, gaze falling back to his miraculously mobile arm.
“I think Ed has more brain power than you right now.” Eddy shares his scary thought. “Think you can move that arm down into a box of chunky puffs and up into your mouth?”
Double D’s hopeful expression let’s Eddy know that he’s gonna try his damnedest, anyway. He puts the box on the floor next to the couch, nodding in satisfaction when Double D succeeds in stuffing a handful of cereal into his maw. He chews his lip as his mind wanders back to what he found in the kitchen, feet shuffling awkwardly on the clean carpet.
“Hey, Dee? You know that recital you have coming up?”
Double D freezes mid transport, fist full of cereal hanging over the edge of the couch as he gives Eddy a deer-caught-in-the-headlights stare.
“Well, there’s a movie coming out that day that Ed really wants to see. Bad enough that he said he’d shell out the cash for our tickets. You should skip the recital and hang with us.”
Double D lets out a slow breath, arm relaxing before he brings the cereal to his mouth. He chews slowly, gazing thoughtfully up at the ceiling as he sits with Eddy’s suggestion.
“Mm. I may take you up on that.”
“Great. That rebellious streak is finally coming in full swing, huh?”
“Oh, yes. I’m quite the rapscallion now.”
Eddy snickers, then goes silent when he sees Double D’s eyes welling up with tears again. He lifts both hands to his chest and clutches them together, fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt as he goes back to lying motionless.
“Jesus.” Eddy rubs the back of his own neck, grimacing down at the display. “You want your weighted blanket or something?”
“No.” Double D whispers his answer, tears threatening to spill over his cheeks, still plump with baby fat.
“Why not? You love that thing.”
Double D blinks and the tears finally fall, running down his temples and getting absorbed into his beanie as he starts whispering again. “Because that was the present my parents got me the last time they bothered to be home for my birthday.”
That tears it. Eddy groans in frustration and moves into action, stepping closer to the couch so that he can lay himself down on top of Double D, chests pressing together as his shorter legs lay over Double D’s longer ones, arms folding at the elbow and squeezing against his sides in an almost hug. The couch creaks unnervingly before settling, the both of them sinking further down into it. The soft breath he hears him let out makes Eddy shiver, the mixed odors of Double D’s laundry detergent and the pot he smoked earlier unfamiliar and enticing.
“There. Weighted enough for ya?”
Double D’s snotty sniffle doesn’t do much to let Eddy know if this is working or not. “Yes. Thank you, Eddy.
“Don’t mention it.”
Silence fills the air around them, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, Eddy too wrapped up in his own thoughts to worry about whether pretending to be a weighted blanket for someone is weird or not. He can hear Double D’s breathing start to even out, and he decides to get out his last thought while Double D is still in an agreeable mood.
“Hey. Next time, you’ll start with one hit, and we’ll see what that does to you. Maybe we’ll bump you up from there. Alright?”
Double D hums sleepily, and Eddy can feel his smile pressing against his hairline, his breath tickling the short hairs there. “Alright. Thank you, Eddy. You take such good care of me.”