Chapter Text
‘Open,’ Edd stared at the unmoving door.
This had not been part of the plan. The first part had gone off without a hitch. Steal a time machine, navigate back to when everything was fine and find his old friends. Locating the old house has been easy enough, he could never forget this address, but now he was going to be foiled by a faulty door?
‘Enter.’
Nothing.
‘Access!’ he slammed his fists on the thing. Still no reaction. He lifted an eyebrow, glanced sideways, then tried again,
‘Broccoli?’
Damnit, past Edd. You slick bastard.
Oh, well. It was a long shot. Edd furrowed his brow in thought. What could his old self possibly have chosen that would keep himself out? He was sly, alright. Unless…
Edd placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it. The door creaked open obediently, and Edd cracked a grin. Oh, he was a genius.
‘Hands where I can see them!’ Edd practically kicked the door off its hinges and it slammed against the wall with a bang.
There was a yelp, then the sound of glass smashing as a mirror dropped to the floor. Two pairs of hands shot into the air. The third man lifted his head to look between his two trembling housemates, then the man with a gun pointed at their heads. With a shrug, he went back to nursing his flask.
‘What the- who are you?!’ Edd’s younger self barked at him, his arms moving to reach for something behind the couch. Future Edd pointed the gun in his face and he immediately threw them back up.
‘Don’t move,’ he growled at his past self, keeping the gun pointed as he made his way over to Tom, scooped up the little man and tucked him under his free arm.
‘Hey! What are you- Ooh. Strong man,’ The drunken idiot squirmed, then went limp with a giggle as Edd tightened his grip. Edd lumbered over to his past self.
‘Down,’ he growled.
Knees shaking, he obeyed.
‘What do you want?’
Future Edd went still. Thought back to this moment. Did he owe himself an explanation?
…
Nah.
With a grunt, he stuck the butt of his gun between his teeth to free his second arm, then snatched up Matt around the waist.
‘Hey! Edd! Edd!’ he squealed, and Edd couldn’t tell which version of him he was yelling at. Didn’t matter. The skinny little redhead’s fists pounding against his side were little more than a nuisance.
‘Put me down! Tom, help me!’
Tom snickered at him.
‘Dude, I don’t know what you want with us, but-‘ Past Edd started to protest. Probably to offer up all his earthly possessions or something - though Edd never did get to hear it since he cut himself off with a swift boot to the face. Then he ran.
‘Ey! Geth back ‘ere! ’ Edd could hear his own voice, stuffy from the sudden pain in his nose, call after him as he darted out the front door. Exaggerated, laboured footsteps sounded as he staggered after his future self in pursuit, but he was slow and unsteady and by the time future Edd was out the front door they had faded.
Edd zigzagged through alleys, dipped under gaps in fences and leapt over bins, the passenger under his right arm screaming his head off, while the other was completely dead to the world.
‘Shut,’ Edd hissed between laboured breaths as he jogged, ‘Shut up, Matt-’
As Edd let go of him for a second in an effort to readjust his grip, Matt slipped from his arm, and smacked head-first into the pavement.
Shit. Edd stopped in his tracks. He wasn’t moving - maybe he’d fallen on a rock, or something? Now cautious to keep Tom in his grip, he reached down and grasped Matt’s hood to lift his face.
Blood gushed from a gash on his forehead, painting his pale face red. He groaned.
‘E - Edd…’ A loopy, pain-drunk grin spread across his face, ‘Youuu have… beautiful eyes.’
Then his eyes rolled back, and he too, went limp.
Edd bit his lip. Oh, well. At least now he’d be quiet.
He kept on. Alternating between walking and jogging, endlessly into the London night to put as much distance as he could between him and… himself. Then, at last, when his limbs could hold up no longer, he allowed himself to dump his uncooperative cargo to the concrete floor and sink down against a streetlight. Despite the chill of the near-freezing Winter night, Edd’s hoodie was soaked through with sweat.
‘Oh, noooo,’ Tom attempted to pull himself into a sitting position but promptly collapsed back onto his stomach. He poked the unconscious Matt in the ribs, hiccuped, then turned to Edd with a lopsided grin. ‘Did you kill him?’
‘Hope not,’ Edd grunted back.
‘Would be a reaaaal shame.’
‘He’ll be fine. I’ll sort it later.’
‘Sooo, like,’ Tom finally succeeded in sitting himself up, and Edd watched him carefully as he crossed his legs. ‘Whatdya want with us? Why not Edd?’
‘I am Edd.’
Tom considered this, screwing up his face as he thought. Then, decidedly, he raised a finger.
‘No,’ he stated like he’d just realised the meaning of life itself, ‘You’re not. We just saw him,’
Edd sighed.
‘I’m from the Future.’
‘Oooh. Not our Edd.’
Edd felt his stomach twist. Was he not? Not in the literal sense, he wasn’t - he wasn’t the same Edd they’d just left beaten and bloodied back at the house. He was older, stronger, smarter… but those memories were his, weren’t they? The same memories that Edd back at the house shared, of years spent with his friends. Happy. Even if his were just a bit older.
If he wasn’t their Edd, were they still his Tom and Matt?
…It didn’t matter.
He’d make them be.
His Tom and Matt were gone. Red Leader had seen to that. Not dead, but practically - so lost under his twisted influence, muddled by the machines he’d stuck in their brains and eyes that they barely knew themselves anymore. Barely knew Edd .
He was still Edd, still the same friend they’d lived with for years. Wasn’t he? Or was that the Edd he’d kicked to the ground and fled from?
‘I am your Edd,’ he said quietly.
Tom, who had flopped himself over Matt’s waist in the silence to use him like a makeshift pillow, opened his eyes.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Edd turned away.
He cupped a hand over his eyes as he stared into the distance. He’d been running blindly, and where exactly they’d ended up was a mystery to him. These old streets were unrecognisable in their current state, without the red graffiti and floating drones carrying big screens that advertised ‘Cola rations for Red Army recruits!’
Edd had grown so accustomed to the ruckus of the new world that this street, with its winding mossy pavewalk and slight smell of urine, was something close to peaceful. Edd hadn’t been able to describe anywhere in London like that for years.
It would be cruel, to rip these two from such a tranquil place and into the chaos of his current day. Selfish.
But he'd already grown cruel. Red Leader’s new world had seen to that. And he needed his friends back.
Strutting over to his friends, Edd wrapped an arm around Matt’s body and hoisted him over his shoulder, then did the same with Tom, who grabbed his arm to squeeze his biceps as Edd lifted him.
‘Ooh,’ he chuckled, obediently shifting to settle on the older man’s shoulder, ‘We getting back on the road?’
‘Yes. Quiet now.’
He punched at the time machine on his wrist and the three of them blinked out of existence.