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kevwantsthedoubled · 12 years ago

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The Non-existant Perks of Being a Third Wheel

Because suchararity and I felt the need to discuss Nat/Edd today, she asked for a One-Shot... so I made this. It's not so much Nat/Edd as it is unrequited oh-shit one-sided shenanigans but OOPS. I fell on my keyboard and this happened.

Also: Nat's inner voice is fun, the end.

Nat belongs to c2ndy2c1d.

Summary: Edd shows up alone at the Planetarium and Nat feels the need to cheer him up.

Summer jobs were the worst, and working at the Planetarium during the summer took the fucking cake.

It could have been worse, Nat mused. He could have been a lifeguard and had to subject himself to skin cancer for a living. At least the planetarium had air conditioning. He could have easily done without the screaming brats and the soccer moms, though. The ungrateful little snots had a tendency to leave popcorn everywhere and spill their drinks in the stupidest of places. Really, who spills a drink in a corner? Or between seats? Or anywhere else that wasn’t an easily accessible aisle? Getting a mop around those state-of-the-art cushion-y seats was hell and Nat wasn’t paid enough for that crap.

But occasionally, there came a night when the Planetarium was empty. This phenomenon happened to occur during big baseball games, but Nat wasn’t entirely certain of the correlation. Surely people who liked baseball also didn’t happen to like astronomy? In either case, he assumed that the entire town went dead when a big game was on. That was fine with him. He got paid to be lazy those nights.

As the last busy show for the night ended, Nat waited patiently for the final sticky-fingered child to run from the auditorium. It was nearing 6 o’clock—dinner time. Most parents would be either stuffing fast food down their kid’s throats or pretending they could cook by opening a box of Hamburger Helper so he wasn’t at all surprised to see that there wasn’t a queue for the last show.

That was fine by him. He could take that extra time to put a little bit of elbow grease into his cleaning. If he deep-cleaned the auditorium now, he wouldn’t have such a hard time doing it at close and he could get home to the sweet, sweet release of doing jack shit.

Seeing as there wasn’t anyone around, Nat popped in one of his earbuds and put on some music from his phone so that he could give himself a bit of company while he swept. By the time he’d finished sweeping the larger bits of debris to one side of the auditorium, there still wasn’t anyone coming inside, so he moved to get a push broom and lazily shoved the contents of the floor to a corner for easy removal. He was just about to head for the back room for the mop when he saw someone standing in the middle of an aisle.

“Holy shit!” Nat’s heart leapt to his throat and he dropped his broom in an attempt to yank the earbud from his ear. He’d only put one in so that he could listen for any patrons, but apparently this person was a ninja.

Except, the person wasn’t a ninja.

It was Edd.

“I apologize!” Edd stammered, hands rising in front of him defensively. “You were so preoccupied with your work, I had no desire to disturb you.”

“Fuck, dude,” Nat ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Don’t scare me like that. You could have said something.”

Edd stayed mute. He just stood in the center of the aisle looking a bit like a lost puppy while clutching the strap of his messenger bag. It was actually kind of strange to see Edd by himself. Nat was starting to get used to seeing him attached at the hip with a certain redheaded jock. Seeing Edd alone made the teen look… a bit off.

“You okay?” Nat asked, checking around to see if Kevin was hiding behind any chairs, waiting to call him out on something. It really was just Edd by himself. “Where’s Kev?” Normally Nat would be showering Edd with obscure nicknames but he couldn’t bring himself to do it with Edd looking like that.

“Kevin is at his residence, watching the sports game,” Edd shrugged a little half-heartedly. “I came here for the solitude. I find it refreshing to gaze up at the stars without the nuances of mosquitoes and city lights.”

“Don’t you like bugs or… something?” Nat picked up his broom so that he could lean onto it and rest his chin on the tip of the handle. “Like all bugs?”

“Mosquitoes are fine until I become their source of sustenance,” Edd smiled a little bit. It was so easy to make him smile.

“So they can suck everyone else’s blood but your own,” Nat smirked. “That’s bug-ist. You’re bug-ist against mosquitoes.”

Edd’s smile widened. “Such a word does not exist!”

“It does, now,” Nat hummed.

A short silence fell between them. The amount of time Nat spent alone with Edd could be counted in minutes on one hand. Possibly two. His toes weren’t even going to be called into question. Thankfully, it was Edd who broke the pause. “Maybe I should come back another night. I was unaware you were working.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nat waved it off. “Lemme just sweep this shit up and I’ll be out of your hair. Hat. Thing. Just sit down, will ya?”

Edd turned this way and that, checking the seats for the most sanitary option, no doubt. When he’d selected his perfect chair, he took off his messenger bag and sat down, placing the bundle safely on his lap. Nat did his best to speed-sweep the remaining trash so that he could leave Edd to his own devices.

The problem was that even after Nat had finished, he couldn’t bring himself to shut the Planetarium doors and leave Edd alone. The kid said he’d been looking for solitude, right? But his face was just screaming ‘Keep me company.’ Then again, most everyone’s face screamed ‘keep me company’ to Nat. Who could possibly refuse Nat’s company?

In the end, Nat said ‘fuck it’ to the universe and shut the Planetarium doors, only he was still on the inside. He set the program to begin its course a few minutes early and sauntered over to the row just in front of Edd and kneeled down on the chair directly in front of him. He’d seen this particular program hundreds of times by now; he could probably recite it from memory. He had no need to face forward, so he kept his back to the domed screen and leaned over the back of his chair, elbows resting where the headrest should be.

“Double Dee,” Nat crooned, wiggling his butt in the air behind him. Edd looked so small sitting in the center of the row and hugging his messenger bag to his chest. Nat just wanted to reach forward and tug the offending bag away. “Did something happen? Did you fail a test? Did a pet die? Did Kevin do something to you? … did you do something to him?”

Edd shook his head, “Nothing of the sort. I’m honestly here to enjoy the show by myself.”

Nat crinkled his nose, “Who does that?”

Edd gave him something akin to a bitch face, but Nat knew if he asked, Edd would deny it, and simply say he was exasperated or something equally as wrong.

“You look like you could use some company,” Nat tried again, complete with an eyebrow waggle. Surely an eyebrow waggle would illicit some kind of reaction.

“You have no idea when to quit, do you?” Edd mused.

Nat shot him a toothy grin. “Don’t you know it, sweetcheeks.”

It was for only a second, but Edd’s eyes flickered over to the chair beside him and Nat knew that was his unspoken invitation to watch the galaxy explode around on a screen so he took it. With a hurdle that would impress even the most stingy of Olympic judges, Nat leapt over the row of seats and took his place next to Edd.

“I’d offer you some popcorn but I just swept it all into the trashcan and I think you would probably die,” he said. King of smooth.

Edd let out a giggle and immediately threw a hand over his mouth as if he felt he shouldn’t have the right to laugh. This, of course, only furthered Nat’s desire to make Edd laugh because it sure as hell beat seeing him look blue.

When the program finally started up, Edd nestled into his seat, presumably to enjoy his show uninterrupted, but Nat would have none of that. He leaned hard on the armrest between them because showing a blatant disregard for personal space was the new cool.

“Nathan,” Edd whispered, despite the fact that they were the only people in the planetarium. “What are you doing?”

“You enjoying the show?”

“It just started."

“So… is that a yes?” Nat wiggled his eyebrows again. He was pretty certain he could carry on an entire conversation with just his eyebrows if need be.

Edd slowly inched away from Nat, probably trying to gain back his personal space, but for every little bit Edd pulled away, Nat only leaned forward more. “Yyyeeeesss?” he teased.

“I can’t enjoy it when you’re so close!” Edd finally spouted out. He flailed a little bit, trying to get Nat off him but only succeeded in tangling his fingers in Nat’s work shirt and failing to push him away. By the time he finally stopped struggling Nat was practically laying on him.

Nat grinned. “Sup.”

“Nathan, you’re heavy,” Edd commented.

“And you’re being mopey and won’t tell me what’s wrong,” Nat shot back at him.

Edd let out a huge sigh that forced Nat to shift uncomfortably in his seat and he had no other choice than to sit up like a proper human being. But, since Edd looked like he was going to spill the beans, Nat decided to forego any teasing or punishment for making him get off the shorter boy.

“Do you ever get the unsettling feeling that life is going too fast for you? How are you aware that you’ve made the correct decisions? I appreciate how my life has turned out so far, please do not take this the wrong way. Maybe I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.” As Edd spoke, he fidgeted with the buckle of his messenger bag. Nat watched him with curious eyes. Even when Edd moved with idle intentions, his actions appeared precise and calculated. Nat almost expected Edd to spontaneously mold his satchel buckle into a flower or a plane or a 2000:1 scale model of the Eiffel Tower, just from the amount of fidgeting.

Nat couldn’t take it anymore. He placed a hand over Edd’s, trying to get him to stop messing with the buckle and calm down. “In other words,” his voice said softly, losing the normal pompous quality he’d come so fond of adding. “Things are too good to be true?”

“Precisely,” Edd flushed. His eyes were glued to Nat’s hand, but Nat didn’t move it. He tightened his grip around Edd’s fingers and knuckles slightly, just to place some re-emphasis that yes, he knew what he was doing and yes, he would totally keep doing it.

“Just enjoy it,” Nat said seriously. “I love seeing you two together. You deserve each other.” It was so easy to say the words because he knew Edd needed to hear them.

Edd’s face crumpled in contemplation and Nat couldn’t keep his eyes off it. For so long he’d been an advocate in making sure Kevin could admit his feelings to Edd. And when the two had finally gotten together, Nat had been completely on board. But then their honeymoon phase never seemed to end and suddenly Nat became less of a buddy and more of a third wheel. He missed his alone time with Kevin enough that he may have felt a little jealous toward the little science kid.

Just from seeing Edd in the Planetarium tonight, alone, Nat finally saw him in a different light. Was this how Kevin really saw him: A lonely genius, shuffling his way through life? Edd was so honest in his actions. Nat almost felt bad for teasing him for so long. Almost. While part of him wanted to let Edd curl up in his arms and be comforted, the other part of him wanted to dance around on his lap in an awesome attempt to make him smile. Why were life’s important decisions always so difficult?

Finally, Edd began to turn his hand under Nat’s until their palms were touching and he laced their fingers together so that he could give Nat’s hand a gentle squeeze, “Thank you, Nathan,” he said, his smile finally coming out of its hiding spot. “You’re a good friend.”

Oh, that smile. Nat could see exactly why Kevin had fallen for this little dweeb. “Of course I am,” Nat choked out, trying to talk around the fact that his stomach had somehow fallen to the floor. He could feel his heart beating in his hand. Could Edd? Was that a thing? Either way, he needed to squash whatever weird butterfly feelings he was experiencing before they turned into a full-blown obnoxious… whatever. Kevin was probably going to kill him. He gritted his teeth. “I’m the fucking best.”

Fuck.

#nathan kedd goldberg #natedd #nedd #is there a ship name?#suchararity #sorry not sorry #mesita writes

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