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worlds1stghost · 4 years ago

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Rustblood Summer

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32272465

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Homestuck

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Vriska Serket/Karkat Vantas

Characters: Vriska Serket, Karkat Vantas

Additional Tags: Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Alternia (Homestuck), Massage, Hot Weather, Sweat, Shirtless, Cuddling & Snuggling, Accidental Bonding, Scents & Smells, Reading Aloud, Roughhousing, Scars, Romantic Fluff, Prosthesis, Getting Together, Books, Teasing, Tenderness, Unexpected Visitors, Wet Clothing, Swearing

Waves of heat rippled across the purple sky like a sheer curtain, smothering the lawnrings below in a blanket of static aridity. The sun was nowhere in sight, yet its torrid rays scorched the land with no regard to the darkened sky and twin moons in plain view.

This strange phenomenon occurred only sporadically during the Alternian dark season, yet troll society had several names for it. The most popular one was also the most disparaging, often grumbled throughout the higher rungs of the hemospectrum: Rustblood Summer. No weather pattern was more reviled among trolls because it spoiled what was normally the most active time of any given solar sweep. The chance to enjoy an extended reprieve from the dreaded sun now had to be spent indoors. While the conditions were not as dangerous as when the sun was in the sky, the heat was such that anyone who wasn’t a rainbow drinker would be sent scampering for shelter after a minute’s exposure. It was never certain how long a Rustblood Summer could last. It could linger for as little as a few days, or it could devour the remainder of the season, all while the planet’s inhabitants stewed in their hives and bemoaned their lost plans for fun and jubilation.

Vriska rolled her shoulders and let her jacket fall off her back. She dragged a hand across her forehead, wiping away a freshly laid layer of sweat. Through the checkered array of windows, she had a full view of the surrounding lawnrings and the shimmering sky overhead. Every door in the suburb was sealed shut to escape the miserable weather. Aside from the lights shining through their windows, there wasn’t a trace of life to be found. The mechanical joints of her middle finger went rigid and she jutted her whole arm out the window. It wouldn’t get rid of the heat, but she needed to show her contempt for it somehow.

“Uuuuuuuugh! What is up with this weather? I think it’s even hotter than it was yesterday. No, yeah, it totally is hotter!” With a snarl, she pivoted toward the only other person in the room. “Turn on the air conditioner, Karkat, I’m roasting like grub loaf over here.”

The computer monitor surrounded Karkat’s hunched form with a glimmering, blue-white halo. His face remained fixed on the screen, making no motion to acknowledge Vriska’s whining. “First off, your majesty, it’s called a gelidity circulator. Secondly, it’s broken right now.”

“Then fix it! This is unbearable!”

“Oh alright. I’ll be sure to do that once they start handing out replacement parts for free.”

“Why are you so stupidly poor? It’s pathetic! If I had known I was going to be wasting away in this oven, I would’ve stayed home.”

“Yeah, I wish you would’ve done just that.” As if he had just noticed the stifling atmosphere of the room, Karkat tugged the collar of his long sleeved shirt. “Why are you here anyway?”

Vriska’s single eye lingered on the boy in front of her for a few silent seconds before she rolled her gaze back toward the window. She wasn’t about to let Karkat know that she was only spending time with him because she was bored. Vriska Serket did not get bored. Boredom implied surrendering to passivity, to leave things up to chance. Everything she did was to be deliberate. She planned all her moves eight steps ahead. Even an outing to Karkat’s hive, unusual as it was for her, was the end result of careful planning.

Nobody played FLARP during a Rustblood Summer. In harsh conditions like these, not even the game’s most insane thrill-seekers were willing to go outside and run a session. Vriska herself might be willing to brave it if she could rope some unlucky victim into playing with her, but in the meantime she was trapped in her furnace of a hive. The only companion she had was her cantankerous, hungry lusus, who was much more interested in food than conversation. Fortunately, the big beast kept stockpiles in her web to subsist on during emergency situations like these, so there was no pressure for Vriska to endure the elements in search of food.

This did little to soothe her fraying nerves, though. The lack of company and being confined at home made her stir crazy. Talking on Trollian wouldn’t satisfy her; she needed real, physical contact with another troll. Going to visit one of her friends would do the trick, but the intolerable weather made it so that if she traveled to one of their hives, she would be stuck there until the heat dwindled enough for her to make a safe return home. She had to plan her trip out carefully and choose a target who she wouldn’t want to strangle after only a few hours.

Karkat was an unlikely candidate to fulfill that need, but it made sense when compared to her other options. He was the only one in her friend group who either didn’t have a grudge against her or wasn’t completely insane. The only obstacle would be getting him to agree to hang out with her. It was no secret that he didn’t like her. In every regard except his mysterious blood color, he was transparent. His thoughts were broadcasted openly in his characteristic aggression and arrogance, and while he fancied himself as a hardened chess master and natural leader, it would be easier than anything for her to manipulate him into diving out of the window and leave him as a mess on his own lawnring. There was no challenge in pushing him around, but by the same virtue, there was no other troll she could goad into reacting so explosively. If she was forced to spend a night in any of her friends’ hives, who better to pick than the one who could make her laugh on a dime?

“Well, oooooooobviously it wasn’t to visit you!” The locks of Vriska’s sweat-drenched hair smacked her skin as she tossed them over her shoulder. “I was running a session with some chump out here in the sticks when it started to get insufferably hot. Fortunately, your hive was in the area. So here I am, getting a momentary reprieve from the heat. As soon as it gets a little cooler, I’ll be loooooooong gone.”

A likely story, Karkat reflected. He had found her standing on his porch, her baggy clothes sodden with sweat. She had worn her usual cocky smirk, but the desperation for shelter hiding inside her sneering eye was unmistakable. He would’ve shut the door in her face if it didn’t mean condemning her to burn alive. As much as he’d try to tell her otherwise, he’d never let her roast out there.

“Why would you even try playing your shitty game in this weather anyway?” Karkat asked. “It’s obvious to anyone with a functioning lobe stem and a basic understanding of seasonal climate that this heat isn’t going to fade any time soon.”

“Man, I know! But it was pretty cool around sunset, so I was really hoping things would normalize. Just my luck that this happened to me!”

“Right, your self-described terrible luck that is totally the result of some unseen force and has nothing to do with your monumental stupidity and critical lack of good judgment. Say, doesn’t this guy you said you’re playing with live around here? Why don’t you go give him a headache instead of subjecting me to this sponge-pulverizing inanity?”

“Ugh, no way! He’s the absolute worst. The only time I can ever stand him is when I’m knocking his ass to the ground with my expert FLARPing skills.”

“Oh yeah? What’s his name? I might’ve run into him before if he lives around here.”

“He’s nobody you of all people would know! Can you give it a rest with the prying already? Give me a break!”

Karkat swiveled his chair around so he could face his increasingly unpleasant guest. “I already opened my door for you. You seem to be pushing me to kick your ass out if you keep up the attitude.”

“You’re not really going to send me out on my way, right?” Vriska flapped her hand against her cheek dramatically. “Open your sanguine pump, Karkat! I think I might just melt if I go outside.”

“It’d really suit a witch like you if you just melted away.”

“Fuck off! You have to let me stay. I know that you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself otherwise. Am I riiiiiiiight?”

A twinge shot across Karkat’s eyelid before he turned back to his computer. “Fine, fine. Just until it cools off a little, okay?”

“Sounds great!” Vriska clapped her fingertips together in overwrought enthusiasm. The rapid connection of flesh on metal slapped against Karkat’s eardrums.

“Knock that off!” He stuck a finger in his ear, twisting it until the internal ringing ceased. “Go ahead and find something to keep yourself occupied. Just so long as it doesn’t concern me.”

With victory secured, Vriska hoisted herself to her feet to snoop around Karkat’s respiteblock. Posters of movies that she’d never seen before plastered the walls. They were all romantic comedies, a genre she had zero interest in, and she sneered as her gaze passed over the faces of lowbrow comics like Troll Adam Sandler. She’d make a snide remark about them to Karkat, but she didn’t want to chance setting him off into a rant about how impeccable he believed his taste in movies was. It also wasn’t worth testing his patience again so soon after his overworked nerves finally cooled off.

A tall bookcase stood in the far corner of the block. The top shelves contained mostly texts about coding and programming languages. Their spines were all coated in thick layers of dust, most of them only having been touched on the days he bought them. Scanning down the rows revealed guidebooks for video games, magazines, and a few psychology textbooks. The only casual reading material was a smattering of romance novels. None of them contained adventure or high stakes, things she found crucial to a good story. They were all sappy, clichéd rags trotting out the same array of faceless stock characters and derivative plots. For someone who fancied himself as scholarly, Karkat’s library was dry and shockingly narrow.

It was only after giving up on the shelf that Vriska found a book that caught her interest. A block of white pages about eight inches thick sat on top of a dresser beside Karkat’s recuperaoon. The massive tome took up more than half of the dresser’s width. The symbols for each of the romantic quadrants were printed on its otherwise solid black cover. How lurid, Vriska thought. She would have never guessed that there might be a sensual part of Karkat hidden inside his crusty, ill-mannered carapace.

“What’s this?” she asked, her mechanical index finger pointing at the book.

Karkat’s eyes followed the finger, a self-conscious cough slipping out of his mouth once they reached the book. He had been skimming through some of its contents last night and forgot to put it away. Getting out of his chair and walking towards the dresser, he hefted the leather-bound tome to his chest with a soft grunt.

“It’s the Comprehensive Compendium of Quadratic Courtships and Romantic Convolutions. It’s a bit wordy, but it’s an invaluable supplement for the rest of my collection. I suppose I’d be hard-pressed to define it as anything less than a classic.”

“It’s a little unbecoming of you to leave your erotic reading material out in the open like this, especially when you knew you’d have company over.”

“First off, I planned on spending the day in peaceful solitude. It’s not my fault you barged in on me without any warning. Secondly, you fantastic moron, this isn’t smut. It’s a thought-provoking, purely academic piece. Though, I can see that its subject matter is clearly too sophisticated for your juvenile sponge to process. Maturity is a necessary requirement to be able to form a deep interest in this field.”

“Gee, look how interested I am.” Vriska put a hand to her mouth to muffle a forced yawn. It was yet another textbook broadcasting Karkat’s innate blandness. The provocative symbols simply belied its true nature.

“You should be, because it’s seriously fascinating as all hell.”

Karkat opened the book to a random spot, tilting it toward Vriska in an invitation to read. Vriska relented and stepped closer to view its contents more easily. The text was in such a small font that she had to squint in order to see it properly. Black words ran down off-white pages in unending columns of technical jargon and pseudo-philosophical drivel. As she forced herself down each paragraph, everything would blur further together in a grey haze and constantly keep her trying to reassert her focus. The strain pooled in the back of her good eye’s socket, squeezing it like a yellow grape until the pressure made her jerk her head away from the book.

“This is so booooooooring.” Vriska took off her glasses and rubbed a closed fist against her throbbing eye to relieve some of the strain.

“Typical,” Karkat huffed, pulling the book away from her and hugging it to his chest. “I knew this stuff would go way over your head.”

“It’s not that! The words are so small I can hardly read any of it.”

“I can read them just fine. You’re just making excuses. I bet if I read you a passage from it, the intricacies would still be lost on a clinical retard like you.”

“Oh yeah?” Her spine stiffened as she threw her arms across her chest. “Prove it then. Read me some of it.”

Karkat did a double take between her and the book. “Are you serious? You really want me to read to you?”

“What’s the matter? Afraid to put your money where your festering protein chute is? Maybe you’re just scared to find out that I’m not as dumb as you pretend I am and your paper-thin ego will burst into flames.”

“Oh sure, and I can’t wait for the endless commentary you’ll provide on how fucking bored you are. Look, I already know you don’t give a shit about any of this. I’m not going to waste my time being insulted.”

“Oh my God, Karkat! You’re so sensitive! I promise I won’t make fun of you, okay? I’ll be totally well behaved, like back during schoolfeeding.”

Karkat had doubts that Vriska was anything resembling a model student back during her schoolfeeding days. She was only trying to bait him into another exchange so she could make fun of him like always. However, sincere or not, it was an invitation to share his wisdom, and he’d be remiss if he passed up the opportunity. Even if Vriska was ultimately disinterested, he clung to the foolish strand of hope that there was a slight chance that she was open to learn. Maybe if he was lucky, some of his words could break through her thick skull.

“Okay, but no interrupting, or I swear I will throw you out the window and watch with unbridled glee as you fry to a crisp.” Karkat returned to his seat and opened the book. He was already in the middle of the latest of many rereads, so he would just resume from where he left off from last night. Flipping through the pages until he found his bookmark, he decided to start from the top of the chapter. “Chapter 88: The–”

“Ooooooooh! I’m into it already.” Vriska rolled her shoulders and leaned back against the wall, a grin stretched across her face. Not that she was actually interested. There wasn’t anything else to do other than let Karkat run his mouth until the temperature dropped off. She could at least pluck out some nuggets from the pretentious drivel he’d be dishing out and use it as ammunition for a later time.

Karkat rolled his eyes and resumed. “… The Corporal Realm of the Flushed Quadrant. In this chapter we explore the array of intimate, physical interactions two flushed partners may indulge in…”

Vriska’s eyelid drooped as her muscles decompressed, stretching her limbs out from her body. While the dry and clinical material did nothing to intrigue her, Karkat’s enthusiasm was palpable and it reflected in his reading voice. It was oddly soothing how he trod along the passages. Each sentence was meticulously read, emphasis placed carefully throughout on key terms to ensure that she wouldn’t get lost. Never monotonous or forced, he maintained a relaxing rhythm that allowed the information to reach her naturally and effectively. This wasn’t anything like when he’d rave about this sort of thing over Trollian. His walls of text were easy to ignore and be dismissed as the product of a deranged, out of touch fanatic. Now she could hear his passion. It was the missing component to make all this nonsense comprehendible. It had hooked itself into her and she couldn’t pull away even if she wanted to.

Another page crinkled to the side as Karkat trudged through the chapter, a titillating section on the adequate pressure one should maintain while hugging a partner. The scorching air from the outside seeped into the room, accumulating into a searing weight that pressed down on the two trolls. Sweat glued Vriska’s t-shirt to her skin, making it impossible to concentrate on Karkat’s droning cadence.

“Wait a second. Hold on!”

Karkat’s eyes shot up from the page. Visible annoyance flickered in his glare upon his reading being interrupted. “What?”

“Give me a second. I’m burning up in here and I gotta get more comfortable.”

Peeling the sodden shirt from her torso, Vriska wormed her head and arms out of the holes before throwing it onto the ground with a wet thump. Her bra clung tightly to her modest breasts. Twiggy and awkward she may be, but there was still a natural feminine beauty to her form. It was hard to believe that such a fragile-looking body could belong to a troll as deadly as her. The only distraction was the lumpy mass of scar tissue emerging from her left shoulder. Like a chunk of blue, overcooked grub loaf, it served as a scabrous buffer between her sweat-smeared skin and the glistening metal of her artificial arm. While technically elegant and well-designed, the fusion of steel and flesh was an unfortunate sight that she rarely allowed other trolls to see. There was no reason for her to be guarded around Karkat, though. Judging from the way he fought to avert his gaze, he was more self-conscious in this situation than she was.

“Don’t make a mess in your pants, Karkat,” she said, her tone playful rather than overtly mocking. Her words made him stiffen and jerk his head to the side. She couldn’t help but cackle. “What’s the matter? Don’t tell me this is your first time seeing a half-naked lady?”

“That matter is none of your fucking business,” he snarled. He rubbed his ear, stinging from her laughter.

It was obvious that it was, even without peering into his mind, but Vriska didn’t press the subject. She returned to her seated position, her spine curving back as she stretched her body out to its full length. “Hey, whatever. I don’t really care anyway. Keep reading.”

Once the last of the trembles dissipated off of his body, Karkat threw his gaze back at the pages. Sweat continued to stream over his forehead. He often paused to rub his sleeve across his face, its thick material sucking up the moisture like a woolen sponge. Although Vriska would like to convince herself otherwise, he wasn’t sweating out of embarrassment. The inside of his shirt must be like a sauna.

“Take your shirt off already,” she chirped, interrupting a passage comparing and contrasting the definitions for a caress and a stroke. “I know for a fact that it can’t be comfortable for you.”

“Fuck off. I’m fine.” Karkat buried his face deeper into the pages, hoping to avoid the subject.

“You’re sweating like a hogbeast! Why don’t you wear something more comfortable?”

Karkat pointed to his shorts as if they were the most obvious thing in the room.

Vriska’s eye rolled so far back that it might pop out of its socket. “Those don’t count! Take the damn shirt off.”

“I said I’m fine!”

Vriska lifted herself off the ground, rolling her shoulders and stretching her arms casually before leaping toward Karkat. She seized the hem of his shirt and pulled up. Karkat resisted, thrashing his arms and kicking at his assailant.

“Fuck you, get off of me!” he hollered, his shoes knocking against her shins.

Vriska yelped and renewed her efforts despite the repeated pain stabbing her legs. “You idiot! I’m only trying to help you!”

After a minute of flailing limbs and angry curses, Vriska finally yanked the shirt from off of his head. She chucked it to the far side of the respiteblock, a triumphant smirk stretching across her face. Karkat glowered at her with his arms crossed over his bare chest. His body type could be described as perfectly average. He had the metabolism to keep himself at a comfortable size, but his lack of physical exercise left a thin layer of fat covering whatever muscle he had. The rough carapace he tried so hard to shield himself with was all bluster and words. He was soft, but Vriska had a preference for soft boys.

“There!” Vriska eyed her prize with a victorious sneer. “Does that feel better?”

Karkat huffed, screwing his face to disguise the relief he felt from his damp skin being able to breathe.

“Now that that’s all over with, let’s keep reading.” Rather than returning to her spot, Vriska slunk around behind his chair. Hopefully she could get a better look at the pages from this position.

The book had fallen to the ground during the scuffle. Karkat patted his moist torso before picking up the book and retaking his place. “… Section 24.b: Massages. Massages are an ideal intimate exercise for flushed partners to engage in. The most common area for massage is the torso. One partner can stimulate the other’s back, ribs, and shoulders.”

Vriska’s hands crept over the back of the chair as he read. Her fingers pressed onto his shoulders, which went rock solid under her feather touch. “Like this?”

Breath hissed through Karkat’s clenched teeth. The contrast between the warmth of her natural hand and the coldness of her mechanical fingers was sensory overload on his bare skin. “What… what do you think you’re doing?” His tone was void of his usual anger. A shroud of confusion and a tinge of unease kept his voice breathy and quiet.

“Call it applied learning. You’ve been talking for a long time now, and I wanted to try putting it into practice.”

Like a roughened slab of granite, Karkat’s overly rigid frame appeared unmalleable. Fortunately for Vriska, she was never one to back down from a challenge. She eased her fingers against his tense flesh, fanning them out to cover as much area as possible. His skin was smooth, even with all the knots and lumps underneath. All the passages and jargon Karkat had been rattling out from before swirled in her mind, and she struggled to recall what to do in this situation. Target the underlying muscles, use deliberate, confident motions… Not everything stuck to her, so most of the time she was relying on gut instinct. As she explored the expanse of his back with as gentle a touch as she could manage, Karkat fidgeted and squirmed like each of her fingers was a razor blade slicing into him.

“Would you just relaaaaaaaax? Man, I’m only trying to make you feel good.”

“Having your twitchy appendages molest my body is a far cry from what I’d call relaxing.”

“Well, if you feel that way…” Vriska started to pull her hands off of him, halting once Karkat’s hand seized her wrist.

“Wait a second. I didn’t say you needed to stop.”

Her lips curled in a wordless smirk. With his permission she resumed, bolder than before. She slid her hands down to his sides, her fingers drumming along his ribcage like a xylophone. The words Karkat tried to form got lost in the sea of moans spilling from his mouth. The book fell out of his lap, the impact creating a shockwave that shook every item in the room. Vriska pressed her nose to one of the vertebrae in his neck, nuzzling her forehead against his mop of scraggly hair. A pungent shock of cologne rose above the faint mist of salty sweat coating him from top to bottom. The cheap, alcohol-heavy odor was almost enough to make her cough, so she pulled her head back a little. “Is that cologne? Why’d you put that on if you weren’t expecting company?”

“I like the way it smells, alright?” An oddly defensive answer.

“It stinks.”

“Screw you.”

There were less of these attempts at conversation as the minutes passed. The heat radiating off the two sweaty bodies only contributed to the room’s increasingly sweltering temperature. It was enough to cook Karkat’s brain inside of his skull. The heat was making him delirious, and combined with the ministrations of Vriska’s fingers and her forceful yet tender strokes, even the act of thinking was a gargantuan task. He allowed himself to get lost in the haze, keeping him blind of everything other than the melting sensation of the pounds of stress sloughing off his shoulders. He hardly registered when Vriska was no longer behind him, instead shifting spots to sit on his lap.

Once it became clear that she was expecting him to return the treatment, his trembling hands gripped her shoulders. The wounded one was coarse and wrapped in a layer of scars. A wince rocked Vriska’s body once he touched her there, but she relaxed back into him after a moment’s hesitation. He made sure to be delicate in handling the scabrous tissue, only caressing it lightly while he treated her other shoulder to a more conventional massage. Nothing he did would be able to pierce that hide, but he was gentle all the same. Unlike her, he had fully comprehended the methods listed in his book over the course of countless rereads. It was a surreal experience to finally put those words into practice, but through the delirium and Vriska’s barely contained moans, he was able to find his footing.

With the humid fog coalescing around them, they soon grew tired of moving and found it easier to just lay still. Their damp, clammy bodies spooned together atop the chair. Sweat dissipated off their skin as soon as the droplets formed. Puffs of their panting breath rose up in clouds, joining the sultry mist that hung over them. Karkat’s eyes rolled down to the troll on top of him, her svelte form trying to fit onto his lap by curling into as compact a shape as she could manage. He stroked her hair, letting his fingers get stuck in the snags and matted knots.

“So… what does this make us?” Karkat asked. A splinter of pain shot through his horn as Vriska flicked it with her finger.

“You’re the romance expert. You tell me.”

“Ow! Bitch!” Karkat cupped his horn tenderly. “Well, if we’re being honest here, I’ve probably exhausted enough romantic insight on you that even your damaged sponge must have retained at least a fraction of information. So feel free to offer your interpretation, however nescient it might be.”

“Hey, hey!” Vriska tossed her hair over her shoulder, hoping it would distract him from the blush rising in her cheeks. “There’s no need to speed through this whole thing at once, right? Why not space these lessons out a bit?”

“Yeah, that sounds fine.” Karkat nestled back into the chair as he mopped off a layer of sweat off his brow. “We can talk about it another time.”

“Do you think you’ll have your air conditioner fixed by then?”

“I doubt it.”

Vriska huffed and nestled closer to Karkat’s slick chest. Through the salt and musty cologne, she breathed in his scent. Though she may act like she’d never set foot in this oven of a hive, she’d put up with it as long as he was in there with her.

#vriskat #fanfiction #writing #homestuck #karkat vantas #Vriska Serket #karkat x vriska #vriska x karkat

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worlds1stghost · 4 years ago

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Bridge Over Troubled Ed

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30385248

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Ed Edd n Eddy

Rating: Teen

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Eddy/Sarah

Characters: Eddy, Sarah, Ed, Edd

Additional Tags: Teen Romance, Enemies to Lovers, Day At The Beach, Friendship, Fluff and Humor, Feelings Realization, Aged-Up Character(s), Post-Canon, Bikinis, Body Image, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Caught, Holding Hands, Public Display of Affection, Hot Weather, First Kiss, Getting Together, Teasing, My First Work in This Fandom, Sweat, Personal Growth

The repeated tapping of Eddy’s shoe against the sidewalk created a tuneless, inconsistent rhythm that threatened to make Edd’s head burst. With one hand over his ear in a hopeless attempt to block out the noise, he lifted the other to check his watch. It was approaching five minutes since he rang Ed’s doorbell, yet there was still no response. Edd could only grumble to himself about the vices of tardiness as he took a seat on the cooler he placed on the front lawn. He could tolerate this flagrant disregard for punctuality if it wasn’t combined with the incessant slapping of rubber on pavement. A nerve on the side of his head throbbed in alternating rhythm with Eddy’s shoe. The desire to scream swelled like a balloon inside of his throat, waiting to explode in Eddy’s face in a singular cathartic burst.

However, years of self-imposed civility curbed that urge and he spoke up, albeit in a strained voice: “Eddy, would you kindly stop that, please?” Much to his relief, Eddy obliged. He placed his hand down to his side and took a deep breath, savoring the silence. “Thank you.”

Eddy lifted his sunglasses to his forehead so Edd could see him roll his eyes. It also didn’t help that the shadow covering the house’s front lawn made it too dark to see with them on. “What’s taking him? We’re gonna waste the whole day if we wait any longer!”

Edd refrained from mentioning the irony of his friend’s impatience. Despite Eddy being the organizer of this get-together and even giving specific times for them to meet up, he was dead asleep and had to be physically dragged out of bed when Edd arrived at his house.

“You needn’t worry so much. As I assume you’ve noticed by the position of the surrounding shadow, the sun has only just begun its journey across the sky.” Edd paused, and then giggled. “You see what I did there, right? I spoke as if it’s the sun that is orbiting the earth. In reality, it’s merely our perspective that creates that illusion when it’s, in fact, the inverse that’s true.”

A pause reserved for an anticipated laugh stretched out for several awkward seconds; Eddy only grimaced throughout. “You’re a real riot, Double D.”

Edd cleared his throat, acting as if he hadn’t heard Eddy’s jab. “In any case, there’s no need to be so impatient. We still have plenty of daylight for a fulfilling, enjoyable time at the swimming hole.”

“Not with how long you’re running your mouth, we won’t.”

The sunglasses slid back over Eddy’s eyes as he plopped down beside Edd and the cooler. Why shouldn’t he be impatient to start the day? According to Edd’s meteorological calculations, today was supposed to be the hottest day of the year before summer started. With the end of the school year approaching, the normally crowded swimming hole would be void of rowdy beachgoers as they all scrambled to finish any last-minute schoolwork. Eager to partake in this chance to beat the summer rush, Eddy had announced to the other Eds that they’d spend the whole day at the creek to celebrate their upcoming graduation from high school. They would end the year in style, he told them, enjoying one last hurrah before the three of them graduated and moved on to bigger scams beyond the cul-de-sac.

Another two minutes dragged on in agonizing pace, yet there was no sign of Ed. Eddy’s towel and sunscreen tumbled out onto the grass after he had kicked his bag in frustration. He didn’t get woken up this early in the morning just to have that big lug shift him like this. This was one of the few plans he made that wasn’t motivated by self-gain and he’d sooner bust down the door himself than see his rare act of charity fall through. Storming past Edd and nearly knocking him over, he approached the door with his clenched fist raised over his head. Right before he could land a punch, the door swung open and the two boys were greeted by Ed’s infectious smile.

“Ready for liftoff!” Ed trundled out the door. An umbrella, a large bag, and several folding chairs were all slung underneath his arms.

The sight of the larger boy morphed Eddy’s scowl into a million-dollar grin. “Thatta boy, Lumpy! Geared up like a regular pack mule.” He stretched out his arms to grab his friends, bringing them in close. “Now let’s get this show on the road! We’re gonna be set like kings, baby! The entire swimming hole just for the three of us!”

“Hahah!” Ed’s wide grin stretched across his face, but soon flattened into a pensive grimace. He raised his hand and counted on his fingers, all while his features twisted in intense thought. “One, two, three, umm… boy Eddy you are pretty bad at counting.”

Eddy gripped the back of Ed’s neck and yanked him down to eye level. “Get your ears checked, lunk head. I said three. Did you forget how to count or something?”

Ed’s gaze shifted to the side to avoid eye contact with Eddy. “I see three, yes siree. But what I mean is that which is not seen.” Ed grabbed the back of Eddy’s shirt collar and effortlessly lifted him from the ground. He turned the smaller boy around so he was facing the front of the house. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

“Pardon me, Ed,” Edd interjected. His lips curled into a smile bordering on hopeful excitement. “But was that Shelley you just quoted? I never would’ve guessed you had such a poetic side.”

Taking a moment to comprehend his friend’s words, Ed shook his head and laughed. “Nah, I read that in Mutant Horrors Issue #5, where the evil mummy leads the helpless damsel to his tomb before sucking her brains right out of her nose!” Sticking two fingers into his nostrils, he stretched them open as wide as he could to demonstrate, all while the optimism drained from Edd’s face.

Before Eddy could yell at Ed to stop messing around and put him back down, a figure cloaked in a wide shadow stepped onto the porch. Sarah nudged up the brim of her floppy sun hat to get a better view of the boys. Edd was dancing frantically to avoid the spray of boogers being unleashed from the depths of Ed’s now impossibly enlarged nostrils. Ed chortled all the while, oblivious to both his friend’s distress and the thrashing boy lodged under his arm. Eddy’s flailing attempts to free himself from his noxious, swampy stranglehold proved useless as his arms bounced harmlessly off his captor’s torso. Sarah regarded these shenanigans with no change of expression, as if she had seen this exact scene play out before her multiple times.

Eddy twisted himself around in Ed’s grip so he might face Sarah in a slightly less undignified position. A beach bag dangled from her shoulder, heavy with towels and plastic beach toys. “What’s all that for, huh?” he said with a sneer. “You bringing Mono-brow the rest of his stuff for our trip?” The word ‘our’ was emphasized as a means to exclude her from the sentence.

“What are you talking about?” Sarah tugged at the sagging collar of her oversized t-shirt to keep it from slipping off her shoulders. Anyone could tell that it was Ed’s based on the faded alien graphic on the front, which meant it had to be sanitized thrice-over before she got anywhere close to it. “These are my things, bozo.”

“Why the heck would you be all dressed up like that for?” The smug timbre of his voice faltered in his throat. His brain was making the connection, but he refused to acknowledge it.

“What? Didn’t Ed tell you?” She grinned, relishing in knocking Eddy off his composure. If he insisted on playing dumb, she’d gladly spell things out for him. “I’m coming to the swimming hole with you guys.”

“What!?” Eddy wrenched his body back around and grabbed Ed by the shirt collar, shaking him hard enough for his head to jerk back and forth. “What’s the matter with you!? I thought I told you no plus-ones!”

Ed bit his trembling lower lip, looking at Eddy like a scolded puppy. “It’s not my fault, Eddy! Honest! I told my mom what we were doing today and she said…” He cleared his throat and stiffened his posture before continuing in a higher, throatier register: “Edward if you are going out, you must take your sister with you!”

“Parents!” Eddy spat the word out as if it was burning the inside of his mouth. “Always wrecking everything! I can’t believe they’re still making you babysit her!”

“Tell me about it!” Sarah spoke up, her mouth curling into an indignant scowl. “I should be able to stay home alone. I’m not a kid anymore!”

The urge to laugh rose in Eddy’s throat before he stamped it out. Sarah might be going to the same high school as they were now, but that wasn’t enough for him to view her as anything more than Ed’s “baby” sister. Before he could contradict her statement, his eyes twinkled with a devious glint as an idea crossed his mind. “Couldn’t have said it better myself, squirt. You’re all grown up now, so maybe you should just let Big Ed hang with us while you have the place all to yourself. What your mom don’t know won’t hurt her, right?”

“Is that so?” Sarah’s grin returned, wider than before. “Well, then maybe I will stay. But that still means Ed has to be here with me! Rules are rules, Eddy. Where I go, he goes!”

Eddy gritted his teeth. “Why you little…” His insult went unfinished as he plummeted to the ground alongside the rest of the beach supplies. He shoved a towel away from his face while Ed threw himself at Sarah’s feet, hands folded together and wobbling in desperation.

“Oh please oh please baby sister, don’t do that!” the larger boy blubbered.

“Now now,” Edd spoke as he stepped in between the feuding parties. “I’m sure we can all reach an amicable understanding here. Eddy, surely you can respect the fact that Ed is merely fulfilling his obligation as both a loyal son and a responsible older brother. Besides, I see no reason why Sarah’s presence should spoil our little excursion. The more the merrier, as they say.”

These words, well-intentioned as they were, rang hollow in Eddy’s ears. Edd was only playing peacemaker because he was an only child; he didn’t know what pains siblings could be. There was one reason Eddy could name for why Sarah shouldn’t come, but it was the only one he needed: bringing along another person defeated the whole point of the trip. It would just be another routine visit to the creek, not the special pre-graduation celebration he had been envisioning. Why not invite the whole cul-de-sac if it wasn’t going to be the three of them anymore? Eddy’s narrowed eyes bounced between Edd’s pacifying smile, Ed’s quivering lips, and Sarah’s taunting smirk. The sun had changed places over the course of this argument, causing the shadows outlining their respective features to skew at different angles. He turned up to the sky to confirm this, his frown deepening. How long had they been standing here, and how much more of the day did they have left?

“Alright, fine!” Eddy relented, throwing his arms in the air for dramatic effect. The more time spent arguing was more time wasted, so it was best to just give in at this point. “Let’s get a move on. I don’t want anyone slowing us down, okay?”

Rejuvenated glee lit up Ed’s face. Springing up from the dirt and scooping up all the beach supplies, he charged ahead of the group in a manic sprint down the sidewalk. “Onward to victory!”

“Ah, careful Ed!” Edd exclaimed, scurrying after him. “Take care not to drop any of our essentials!”

With only Eddy and Sarah standing side by side on the lawn, Eddy shot a parting leer at her before trudging after his friends. Sarah sauntered close behind, her springy footsteps doing nothing to conceal her newfound sense of triumph. Getting a rise out of him took no effort on her part, but it was enough to make her giggle whenever his face flushed red with anger. This trip to the creek promised to hold many opportunities to get under his skin, which was why she was eager to tag along. If Eddy expected today to be a day of fun, he wouldn’t be counting on her idea of fun to be at his expense.

The balmy summer sun cast a shimmering ripple across the cloudless expanse of sky. Its position overhead had changed very little by the time the group had made it to the creek. As they neared the yellow sands of the lakebed, Eddy bounded ahead toward the shady spot near the cliff. With a beach umbrella held over his head, he speared it into the sand and twisted it with glee. The prime spot was all his and no other kids were around to fight him for it.

“Bingo!” Eddy said with a satisfied chuckle as he unrolled his towel. The others soon joined him and set up their respective places in the shade as well.

“Well it does appear that my calculations were accurate.” Edd made no attempt to hide the pride in his voice as he watched the spangles of light skipping across the water’s surface. “It certainly is a scorcher today.”

“Yeah it is. Let’s hope you don’t burn up this time,” Eddy said through his snickering.

Edd’s brow flattened. “Ha ha, very amusing, Eddy. Fortunately, I have taken extensive precautions to ensure that that mishap would not repeat itself today.” Digging into his bag, he pulled out a bottle of sunscreen and held it triumphantly before screwing off the cap and squeezing it onto his arm. “Aaah, the cool, soothing touch of SPF 50. Let it be known that any ultraviolet radiation attempting to savage my epidermis will have its attempts thwarted by this impenetrable, topical shield!”

Eddy shook his head, unimpressed by the sunscreen’s supposed glory. “Jeez, don’t be so dramatic, Sockhead.”

“Toss that over here, Double D,” Sarah called out.

Edd handed her the bottle and she squeezed a generous glob of the goop into her hand before slapping it onto her face and body. She had since slipped out of her borrowed t-shirt and was now wearing a pink two-piece swimsuit. Even in the shade, her skin glowed with a bright, natural warmness that dazzled Eddy’s eyes. He had never seen so much of her exposed skin before; she used to always wear a one piece back when they were kids. The change in apparel helped accentuate her slender frame and the minute curves of her chest and waist. Those had taken five years to develop, but they might as well have all sprouted overnight as far as he was concerned. After having caught himself staring for a few seconds too long, he swung his head in the other direction, scowling at his lapse of focus. She clearly wasn’t Ed’s “baby” sister anymore, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t the same brat she always was.

“Don’t forget to reapply at regular intervals, especially if you’re planning on entering the water,” Edd’s helpful voice chimed. If he had been watching Eddy at all, it wasn’t evident in his tone.

“Maybe later,” Sarah said as she rubbed the last of the lotion on her face. “I’m going to be building sandcastles.”

“Sandcastles?” Eddy made a squawking laugh. “What are you, ten years old?”

“If you hate ‘em so much, that’s good news for me.” Sarah picked up a pail and shovel before marching toward the water’s edge. “It’ll be the best place to get away from you.”

A smirk cracked across Eddy’s face. If Sarah truly meant what she said, he could pretend she wasn’t even here. It was doubly better that he wouldn’t have to worry about her body either. “Perfect. So what do you want to do first, Double–” He paused once he saw the skinnier boy bring a pen and notepad out of his bag. “What the heck are those for?”

“I was hoping to use this opportunity to get better acquainted with the wildlife inhabiting our humble creek,” Edd explained. “Since there are no unruly swimmers to disturb them, it’s an excellent chance to observe these creatures in their natural state. Why, I’m positive there’s an extensive assortment of lichen making their home on those rocks over yonder that are just waiting to be catalog–”

“You’re jokin’, right? School’s almost over, Double D! Don’t bring the classroom out here when we’re supposed to be having fun!”

“On the contrary, Eddy, I find this to be an enjoyable, and might I add quite productive, use of my leisure time. Of course, you are welcome to join me if you change your mind.”

Eddy’s eyes smoldered as Edd strolled off towards the craggy rocks on the opposite side of the lake. “Fine! Go write a novel for all I care! Ed and I are going to have a day for the record books, all without you! Ain’t that right, Mono-brow?”

But Ed was running off towards the water and laughing all the way before Eddy had even finished asking his question. Ed was, as usual, living within his own world. Eddy wasn’t even a factor in whatever plans he had for the afternoon.

“Prepare yourselves, creatures of the deep!” Ed bellowed. “For I, Ed, have come to plunder your fishy kingdom!”

With a mighty jump, Ed soared through the air and hurtled towards the lake. A towering jet of water erupted from his point of impact, casting a shimmering shadow along the shoreline and steadily growing until it nearly reached the top of the nearby cliff. It soon dissipated into a sparkling shower that rained on the lake like a miniature monsoon. Eddy waited in annoyed silence to see how long it would take Ed to resurface, but gave up after a minute had passed. If he was going to ditch him too, he could stay down there for all Eddy cared. The whole reason for this trip was for them to hang out together, but both of his friends would rather be with the fish than with him. Grumbling to himself, he put on his sunglasses and fell back on his towel. The underlying sand cooled his back, relaxing his knotted muscles while he racked his brain for ideas on how to make the most of his time. It was still a nice day, all things considered. It shouldn’t be gone to waste just because he was by himself.

“Well, well, look at who got left behind!”

The mocking voice burned Eddy’s ears. He rose himself to his haunches, glaring at Sarah from behind his glasses. Water sloshed over the rim of the pail swaying in her hand. Eddy chose to focus his eyes on that hand, rather than the one languidly resting on her hip.

“Alone? No way! I’m just working on my tan, is all.”

“In the shade?” She let loose a giggle that deepened Eddy’s frown. “Why don’t you stop moping and come help me build sandcastles?”

“In your dreams! I’d rather stay here.”

“What’s the matter?” Sarah sneered before resuming in a gruff, bumbling imitation of Eddy’s voice. “Don’t want to look like a baby?”

“Hey! I said ten years old, not a baby!”

“Well you sure cry like one.”

A hot flush consumed Eddy’s face as his jaw clanged shut, his teeth rattling together. Even after five years, her words could still dig under his skin. Now on his feet, he stomped over to Sarah with his fists trembling at his sides. “You’re such a pain! Why’d you have to tag along and stick your big mouth in our business? This trip was supposed to be just the three of us!” The jab about her mouth made Sarah’s eyelid twitch. “Why are you still such a jerk, huh? You need to grow up!” Her back stiffened, straightening her posture as much as she could to match his height. It was only a two inch difference between them, but she was determined to make it appear non-existent.

“Yeah?” Plucking off his sunglasses, he slouched slightly to meet her fuming eyes. “You first.”

The space between their foreheads grew dangerously smaller. The two of them pinned each other in place with their eyes, silently goading the other into making the first move. A drizzle of sweat slid past Eddy’ nose and his lip grew sore from his fervent nibbling. A long time ago, he would bellow some insult or otherwise throw a few punches if it meant getting her out of his face. His dry throat refused to muster any words and his shaking arms remained glued to his sides. Sarah was similarly frozen, even though she wasn’t one to stop herself from biting and clawing anyone she felt had wronged her. No longer were they the angry kids ready to tear out each others’ throats. They were teenagers now, a little calmer but no less stubborn. Violence wasn’t an effective means of solving their disputes anymore.

Shielded from the sweltering rays of the sun, Eddy’s cool head had time to weigh his options in this stalemate. This day was supposed to be one for the record books and he was on course for sulking it all away. Sarah had offered him a means to salvage it. Rejecting her meant either stewing in solitude or indulging the other Eds with schoolwork or underwater shenanigans. Of all his options, building sandcastles promised to be the least obnoxious use of his time. It didn’t hurt that she wasn’t so bad to look at, either. For the moment, his glare remained fixated on her expectant eyes, not willing to risk getting distracted by the rest of her body during his surrender.

“All right look!” Eddy leaned back and groaned. The remaining shreds of his pride clumped up in the back of his throat and slithered down like a stone. “Those two feebs aren’t coming back any time soon, so we’re both stuck with each other. All’s I want is to try to make the best of this stupid trip.” His voice lowered to a grumble while he let his next words spill onto his chest. “So I’m sorry, okay?”

Sarah’s expression softened once it became clear she had come out on top of this exchange. Wrenching an apology from Eddy was no easy feat, even one as half-hearted and mush-mouthed as this. As cute as he looked earlier with his face bright red and his teeth gnashing together, she found the grimace weighing down his cheeks to be a more endearing expression for him. “Sounds good to me,” she said, embellished sweetness dribbling from her voice. “I’m about to set up our work site, so grab a pail and follow my lead.”

With leaden feet, Eddy shuffled behind Sarah, who skipped ahead and dug up a shallow bowl in the sand to contain the water from her pail. Beside her beach bag laid a spare yellow pail, which Eddy snatched up while she readied their supply of wet, pliable sand. Eddy sat at the opposite end of the hole and plunged his hand into it, grimacing as wet granules stuck to his skin.

Scooping up large handfuls of slurry at a time, he shoveled them into the pail without much thought. The crumbly, uneven lumps weren’t packed tightly enough and would create a castle that would disintegrate the moment he upturned the pail, but he didn’t care about any of that. Every time he tried focusing on his work, an unknown force would pull his attention back to Sarah. She had grown quite a lot in five years, only superficially resembling the runty terror that would menace him and his friends on a daily basis. Although he had poked fun at the size of her mouth earlier, it wasn’t noticeably disproportionate to the rest of her face anymore. Time had allowed all of her parts to fit together quite nicely and, Eddy had to admit, attractively. His cheeks were ablaze, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the blood rushing to them or because he didn’t use any of Edd’s sunscreen.

It wasn’t long before Sarah caught him staring. There was a peculiar, hazy gloss in his eyes as they roamed her body like a hungry dog. He had made that expression before, back when they were kids, but she couldn’t recall from where. As tempting as it was to let him enjoy the view a little longer, she had to keep up appearances. With a sneer, she folded her arms over her chest and purposefully twisted her body away from his line of sight. “What are you staring at, weirdo?”

“Staring, nothing!” Eddy turned his head and rubbed his fist against his eye. “The stupid sand got in my eye, is all. Probably from you digging so much of it up.”

“Yeah right. Maybe you should focus more on your castle instead of what I’m doing.”

Eddy’s “castle” more closely resembled one that had been besieged and reduced to rubble. Using his hands as like a pair of shovels, he pushed the mass together in a feeble attempt to mold it into an acceptable shape. He kept the act up until she returned her attention back to her own work. They each toiled in silence, neither one willing to risk another awkward encounter. The only thing filling the space between them for the next several minutes was the arid pre-summer air pressing down from above. Any word that might have been spoken would’ve been stifled upon contact with the sizzling heat.

With Sarah’s own castle completed, immaculately molded without any fissures or lumps, her eyes wandered back to Eddy. His attention was entrapped by his own castle. With each passing second, the sun was sapping more moisture out of the sand he was using, making his bumbling attempts at molding it even more ineffective. A scathing jab at his intelligence and abilities formed itself on Sarah’s tongue, but it dissolved before she could throw it his way. It was more agreeable to sample some of his natural assets the way he had been poring over hers not long ago. High school had given him the long awaited wish of a growth spurt to rival the other kids in height. Several of them still had him beat by a couple of inches, but he was no longer the pint-sized pariah of the cul-de-sac. Physically, he was developing into a well-formed young man, ignoring the few stubborn remnants of baby fat still sticking to him. Why exactly did she find an oaf like him so handsome? He wasn’t the smartest or the strongest kid in the cul-de-sac, and certainly not the nicest. But he was a lot like her in ways she was embarrassed to admit. He was someone who knew what they wanted out of life, and smarts didn’t matter when he had plenty of charisma and resources to burn through until he got what he was after. Much like how she used brute force and intimidation to get her way, Eddy’s approach differed in execution but was similarly strong-willed and tenacious. If it was somewhat narcissistic of her to be attracted to him just because he reminded her of herself, she’d just have to deal with that.

Loose sand streamed through the gaps of Eddy’s cupped hands before he slammed them down on his ruined castle in defeat. After the cloud of dust settled, he caught Sarah’s distracted gaze locked onto his body. There was a longing gleam in her eyes and Eddy smirked. “See something you like?” The muscles in his bicep twitched as he made a subtle flex of his arm.

Sarah’s lips pursed once she was caught, but her eyes didn’t leave Eddy’s body for a second. Flashing a grin as a shield of assuredness, she leaned closer, scuttling across the sand so that her vision was filled with nothing but Eddy. “Nope! I don’t see anything at all.”

“Man, you’re such a little pest.” Webs of sweat criss-crossed down his brow and traced along his eyelids. She was getting uncomfortably close to him now, but he anchored himself to his spot.

“Oh really? What are you gonna do about it?” Her smirk was defiant. Sultry. She was egging him on to make a move. It was what she had been doing for the whole trip and he was just too oblivious to notice.

That glazed stare had returned to Eddy’s eyes. This time, Sarah recognized where she had last seen it: he looked like that whenever he was looking at Nazz. She forced her face to remain composed despite the heat roiling in her cheeks. Not once had she ever considered herself to be on Nazz’s level, but the way Eddy’s eyes pored over her from top to bottom did plenty to convince her otherwise.

“I’m gonna…” Eddy pushed himself forward and pressed his lips to hers. They were soft, holding a sort of plumpness that shouldn’t belong on a mouth capable of unleashing such rage. He pulled away, half-expecting her to bite his face off, but she chased after his lips and caught them.

No words were exchanged, not with their lips locked together. Eddy’s body continued pushing forward and he was on top of her. Sarah sunk into the sand, her arms coiling around him to keep herself steady. Her fingers curled into his skin, taking hold and pulling him down closer to her. She was determined to not be passive in this exchange, but Eddy didn’t seem to mind. Skin on burning skin, heated by the torrid sun, rubbed together in movements only fueled by hormones and long-ignored desires. They remained like this for what felt like hours before the kiss broke apart with an eruption of gasps and weak coughs. Even though neither of them had stepped foot in the water all day, the dampness coating their bodies was hard to ignore.

“Eddy…” Sarah’s petite breasts pushed up against his chest every time she inhaled. Static engulfed her mind, preventing her from finishing her sentence.

Eddy wanted to respond, but his heavy breaths smothered any word he tried to force out. All he could think about was, after years of being menaced by the Kankers, how nice it felt to finally kiss a girl by his own volition for once.

A shadow draped over them, causing them to disengage and turn toward the source. Edd stood to the side, slack-jawed and his paper and pen fluttering in his shaky hands. Even though his sunscreen protected him from being burnt, it didn’t stop his face from flushing a fire engine red. Eddy jumped off of Sarah, dusting off his moist chest as if nothing had happened. Sarah sat up, twisting her arms in front of her chest self-consciously.

“P-pardon me, I promise you that it wasn’t my intention to intrude. But, um…” Edd wiped away the sweat currently streaming down his forehead. His trembling knees were audibly rattling as he, Eddy, and Sarah remained fixed in this awkward staring match. For the first time in his life, the normally verbose boy was at a loss for words.

“Get on with it, Double D!” Sarah finally yelled.

“O-oh, yes!” Edd tugged at his shirt collar as he cleared his throat. “Well, uh, I thought I’d just inform you that it’s getting rather late. Um… wouldn’t you agree?”

Eddy and Sarah turned toward the sky, which was in the process of changing from red to a deep purple. How long they had spent kissing, neither of them could say.

“Guess you’re right,” Eddy sighed. “Let’s head back.”

“Just a moment. Have either of you seen Ed anywhere?”

Loud, soggy squishes slammed into the sand as Ed tromped toward the group, his body pruned and soaking wet. His hands were raised triumphantly over his head, a large sheet of gristly green film held between them. “Look guys! Pudding skins from the depths!” He brought it to his mouth and took a large bite, chewing happily.

Edd examined Ed’s new prize with scrutiny for a few moments before the recognition nearly knocked him backwards. “Ed! You’re eating a biofilm of algae! That’s utterly insalubrious!”

Ed continued to chew and push the algae along the inside of his mouth. He mulled over Edd’s reaction while trying to discern the flavor. His lips peeled back in a toothy grin, green globs of fuzz lodged in the gaps in between his teeth and gums, as he extended the sopping wet sheet over to Edd. “Want some, Double D?”

Edd’s face went as green as the algae and he placed a hand over his mouth to suppress his retch. “Good lord… Would someone please make him stop before my stomach has a chance to expel all of its contents!?”

Sarah shook her head disapprovingly. “Jeepers, Ed, can you get rid of that thing? It might get you sick or something.”

“Okay, baby sister.” Ed chucked the algae sheet, sending it soaring in a high arc before it landed on the lake with a soggy smack. It floated on the water’s surface for a few moments before being sucked back to where it came from. “All gone!”

Under the cloak of approaching night, the group gathered up their things and set off for the cul-de-sac. As the sun faded from view and the sky darkened into a deep indigo, Sarah offered her hand. Eddy took it with no hesitation, her skin offering protective warmth from the evening chill.

“Eddy and Sarah are holding hands!” Ed’s barely contained excitement caused his whole body to hop with every step. “They will get married and Eddy will be my new brother, just like how I always dreamed!”

“Shut up, Ed!” the two of them shouted. They turned to each other and pulled their hands apart, disgust twisting up both their faces.

Ed continued to chortle as he lumbered ahead of the group. Edd followed close behind, shooting a brief, congratulatory smile at the couple before jogging after Ed. Once the two were a good distance behind, their hands clasped together again. In a way, Eddy’s prediction came true. It was a day worthy of the record books.

#fanfiction #writing #ed edd n eddy #EddySarah #Eddy #Sarah #Ed #Edd #Double D #eene #sareddy #eddy x sarah #sarah x eddy

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worlds1stghost · 4 years ago

Text

Carrot and Stick

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28426074

Dwight Fairfield had suffered through plenty of bad trials since the Entity had taken him. The one he was in right now wouldn’t rank with the worst of them, but he’d hardly consider it ideal. Only three of the necessary five generators were powered on, and two of his teammates, Jake and Nea, were already dead. The third one, Feng Min, was still alive, but he hadn’t seen a trace of her since the trial started. It was typical of her to put some distance between herself and the others to fix generators on her own, but it still made him anxious whenever he couldn’t keep tabs on her. Drifting apart and doing tasks solo was a good way to get picked off by the killer one by one. It was only through the survivors’ numbers, their one advantage, that they stood a chance against their eternal foe. Dwight knew this fact and made it a point to imprint it onto the others during every trial. Despite his natural awkwardness, he remained insistent on the subject, eventually allowing the mounting success rate of his strategies to speak for itself. The little community of survivors began seeing him as an emerging leader, even the more impulsive personalities like David and Meg. While they wouldn’t necessarily follow his lead to the letter, they at least admired him enough as not to outright snub his directions.

Min was the one exception. She was a solitary creature, more so than anyone else. Even Jake, once dubbed the stoic loner of the group, was more popular and congenial compared to her. From the day she entered the Fog, she made it a point to ignore any survivor who attempted to mingle with her. Further attempts to breach her privacy would only cause her to act nasty. She’d spit out insults, lurid hodge-podges of English and Mandarin slurs mocking her would-be friend’s intelligence and virility. Threat after grotesque threat, like how she’d smash her unshaven cunt in their corpse’s face if they didn't leave her alone, proved to be an effective means of getting the other survivors to oblige her requests.

None of it fazed Dwight. He ignored her gutter mouth the best he could and persisted if only because his de facto status as a leader compelled him to put forth an effort in including her in his game plans. After ending a trial together, he’d often approach her and try to lecture her about how she needed to improve her teamwork. Knowing that he wouldn’t shy away from any of her obscenities, Min would just cross her arms and stare at him without saying a word. It took no effort on her part to muster a glare contemptuous enough to freeze him to his spot. She knew just as well as he did that he wasn’t a real leader. He could talk big game and boss the others around, but he’d never be able to act on his duties when placed against real adversity. Those murky, frigid eyes cut through him, looking past the cracks in his persona to stare down at the impotent boy quivering underneath. Dwight’s mouth would dry up to the point where his unspoken words would slither back down his throat. Only after all of them had dropped to his stomach, clunking against each other like a bag of stones, would a sneer flash across Min’s deadpan face. With a condescending chuckle she’d sprint away, often with a middle finger raised behind her head, before his composure could return. All Dwight could do was watch in awe as her nimble body loped into the curtain of trees. The only trace of her presence would be the rustling of leaves, like she had dissolved into the wind itself.

This exchange repeated itself almost as often as the trials themselves, but he never got frustrated with her. Her dogged stubbornness only served to fascinate him. It was also one of the reasons why he loved her. No, not love. That wasn’t possible. Dwight knew that romance couldn’t take hold inside of the Fog. Whatever this place was, whether it was the real world or some kind of terrible afterlife beyond the living realm, it sapped away at the basic human emotions. Neither joy, nor affection, nor love could thrive in this desolate space. The fog suffocated these desires, forcing its captives to rely less on emotion and more on raw instinct. This animalistic focus manifested in a desire to avoid death and nothing else. That was the law in this land and Dwight knew it well.

It was easy enough at first. Notions like dating and romance were trivial when trying to avoid falling into the killer’s hands. Dwight had never once regarded any of the females with a lascivious eye, and they similarly showed no signs of interest toward him. Concentration on survival consumed them all; it wasn’t until Min showed up that his started to crack. Try as the Entity might to smother his natural impulses, there was a carnal urge that tremored within his core whenever he laid eyes on Min. Those long-ignored hungers, human needs that had lain dormant in his mind for years, were awoken by her. He might have been able to ignore the other girls, but that was partly because none of them were as gorgeous as she was. Her jet black hair, lustrous ivory skin, and dark eyes, fathomless and intoxicating whenever they weren’t narrowed in disgust, drew to his mind comparisons of an ancient war goddess. She was a being that commanded both admiration and subservience in equal measure. Dwight was eager to provide both of those in earnest if it meant receiving one small sign of acknowledgement in return. An approving nod, a glimpse of a smile, anything that assured him that she was aware of his existence.

What really drew his eye was her flashy sense of fashion. She had a sizeable wardrobe of cute outfits to wear during the trials, all of them equally capable of stealing his focus away from the generators. His favorites were the pleated skirts, flapping about her thighs while she scampered to her next objective. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he could even catch a glimpse of her panties whenever she vaulted through a window. These sights would lodge themselves into his brain, sticking around even after multiple trials had passed between them. Often times between trials, he’d find a secluded spot away from the campfire and the other survivors, usually behind the cover of a dead tree. With a fist shoved in his mouth to muffle his moans, he’d masturbate as he fantasized about lifting the cover of Min’s skirt, wondering what those panties would feel like against his palm. His spunk would shoot across the dried grass and dirt, all while he imagined it splattering atop Min’s plump thighs.

Dwight opened his eyes, placing himself back in his current location: one of the Institute’s shower rooms. Sparse light seeping from overhead glimmered atop the layer of scum coating the tiled walls. Roaches and other vermin made their homes beneath the grated drains, the scuttling of their many limbs causing the underground pipes to chime and grumble. Even in this dismal space, his nose clogged with the stench of mildew and dry feces, the thought of Min was enough to make a small tent in his khakis. He wasn’t proud of himself. He knew that she’d never reciprocate these feelings. If she found out about any of the things he did by himself, she would tell the others and they’d all think of him as a freak. As long as he could continue doing it without getting caught, he figured, things would be fine. Between rubbing one out in secret and letting these unsatisfied urges consume the remnants of his fracturing sanity, he’d choose the former. It wasn’t like there was much else to do in the Fog between trials.

With a weary groan, he squatted down beside the room’s generator and busied himself with it. It was better for him to focus on the task at hand rather than fret about what would never be. The dim fluorescents made it hard for him to see the generator’s internals, but that didn’t impede his progress. He had worked on so many of these things that he didn’t need to see what was in front of him; his hands were moving on almost pure muscle memory. He was about halfway done fixing it when a new scent singed his nostrils. A burnt, ozone scent rolled into the room, overpowering the space’s natural odors. The hairs on Dwight’s exposed arms began to stiffen and frizz in response to the drying air. The heart beat came afterwards, flooding his ears and knocking his brain against his skull with its pulverizing rhythm. The monsters lurking in the Fog each had their own distinct portents to signal their approach, and Dwight had enough run-ins with all of them to be able to differentiate these tells. Disregarding all else, the rattles of static electricity shaking off of each heart beat made it obvious for him to know which killer it was. It was the Doctor. And judging by the rising volume of each static burst, he was approaching this room fast.

Dwight stumbled away from the generator, hurling himself towards a nearby red locker. Its doors were ajar, so he sucked in his gut and slipped into the narrow opening. His shaky hand dragged the door behind him, inching at an agonizing pace to avoid any squeaks. The click of the metal latch closing detonated in his ears, loud enough to drown out the heart beat for a brief moment. As the crackling static mounted and a pair of weighty footsteps lumbered into the room, he could only pray that the Doctor didn’t hear him. Dwight clenched his eyes shut and swallowed the scream that had been brewing in the back of his throat for the past few minutes. The footsteps outside ceased only to be followed by a thunderous banging, an electrical fizzle, and a gasp of smoke. The Doctor had damaged the generator. Now he knew that a survivor had been working on it, and chances were that they were still close by. The stomping resumed, rattling the locker’s rusted frame as it drew nearer. The Doctor was so close that his staggered wheezes rushed through the slats of the locker doors. Dwight wasn’t sure if this was the cause of the rising temperature in his cramped confines, or if it was all in his head. Either way, his hands fidgeted at his sides as he fought the urge to wipe away the sweat burning his forehead and fogging up his glasses.

The door swung outward, causing Dwight’s eyelids to shoot open. The Doctor stood on the other side, a current of electricity circulating across his evil smile. Dwight sucked in whatever breath he could catch before the killer’s cold, anemic fingers wrapped around his throat. Expecting to be thrown over the larger man’s shoulder, he was instead yanked from the locker and placed on his wobbly feet. The hand still glued around his neck, he was held to the spot and unable to run. A stilted giggle buzzed past the Doctor’s parted teeth, but the braces around his face prevented any changes to his capricious expression. With his hand still fastened to Dwight’s neck, he jerked him in the direction of one of the room’s doorways and walked him out and into the hallway.

Dwight shuffled by the killer’s side as the two of them marched along the dim corridor. Intermittent flashes of light from the faulty overheads would illuminate the musty surroundings. Haphazard brown splotches of dried blood plastered the walls. Piles of rotted viscera congregated in the nooks and corners with swarms of flies forming buzzing black halos above them. No trace of that sterile hospital scent remained, if such a thing ever existed in this place. The rank odor of decay and blood was more reminiscent of a slaughterhouse.

“What are you doing?” The brittleness of Dwight’s dry whispers sounded ten times more pronounced when echoed in the barren hallway. “Where are you taking me?” Being led along like this was somehow worse than being slung over the killer’s shoulder. At least the former gave him an excuse for not being able to run away. He was tempted to make a break for it, but his gaze drifted toward that horrible thing in the Doctor’s other hand. Dragging along the killer’s side, the spiked weapon growled as its pointed tip scraped across the floor, skipping a little every time it hit a gap in the tile. There was no way he could run fast enough to get out of that thing’s range.

The Doctor only let loose a jittery laugh as he led Dwight toward the Institute’s main treatment chamber. Old CRT monitors were suspended from the ceiling, blasting blaring static and distorted monochrome video. The killer walked the boy to an operating table situated in the center of the room. Dwight’s skittering breath hitched in his throat once he saw Min’s supine body splayed atop it. She lay unconscious and undisturbed with only the slight rise of her chest to indicate that she was still alive. Not a spot of blood was on her, nor was there any evidence of trauma. It was almost like she was peacefully asleep, oblivious to the horrors around her.

The Doctor planted both of his hands on Dwight’s shoulders. Pushing from behind, he led the young man about four feet from the table before letting go. Even when the pressure finally left his shoulders, Dwight found his feet anchored to the floor. The Doctor tromped over to the door they had entered, turned back toward the table, and snapped his fingers. The friction of his fingertips caused a spark of static to flicker in between them.

In response to the snap, Min’s eyelids fluttered open. Her body sprang upright and she swiveled around to face Dwight before hopping onto the ground, her skirt ballooning for a split second from the air caught underneath it. She shuffled towards him, a dazed grin plastered on her face. The pleats of her skirt rustled against each other as her sluggish legs lurched forward in a clumsy simulacrum of a sexy strut.

“Hey there, Dwight.” Her syrupy voice spilled over her lips. It wasn’t her typical cadence, which was a curt, almost bark-like tone using the least amount of words possible to create the most efficient commands. Circles of undulating static swirled about in the depths of her shadowy eyes like lightning brewing inside a pair of thunderheads. “It’s so nice to see you again. Where’ve you been?”

Dwight turned his head away and peered behind at the room’s entrance. The Doctor still lingered beside it, the same electric arcs in Min’s eyes dancing along the wires of his headgear. There was no way that Min would be doing this on her own volition. She’d sooner retch out all of her organs before she acted nice to anyone, least of all Dwight. By some unknown means, Dwight wasn’t sure how, the Doctor was responsible for this. Maybe he electrocuted parts of her brain, like how he did when he executed the survivors by his own hand. Only this time he didn’t use enough voltage to kill. It was just enough to make her docile and friendly like a sort of fleshy, grinning robot.

Min took Dwight’s awed silence as an invitation to shuffle closer, leaning her face forward to be an inch away from his. “What’s the matter, aren’t you happy to see me?” Again with that hollow voice, a shadow of the saccharine affection she was attempting to emulate. She reached her hand out under Dwight’s chin, tracing her slithering finger along the edge of his jaw line. Her fingertip pressed up against his chin while she gently dragged his head back around so that he was looking at her again.

“Y-Yes, I am…” Dwight stuttered. He couldn’t look into those electrified eyes directly. His vision sank to her shoes. “I’m glad you’re okay, Min.” These were the only words he could muster. No objections, no attempts to snap her out of this trance, nothing. Although it sickened him to think about, a shameless part of him was curious to see more of this side of Min. His previous fears melted away in response to her voice, stilted and artificial as it was. To have her speak to him without a trace of hostility, to feel her fingers caress his skin, was something he would previously only be able to experience in his dreams.

“I’m more than okay. I’m fantastic!” Min grinned and twirled in place, the edges of her skirt climbing up her meaty thighs. “Do you like my outfit, Dwight?”

Of course he did. The formerly white collared shirt, its color soiled by uncountable layers of dirt and grime, underneath a brown vest was reminiscent of the top half of a school uniform. A similarly colored skirt extending just below the midpoint of her thighs and a pair of knee-high white socks completed the ensemble. He had noticed it in passing when the trial began, but they had parted ways much too quickly for him to have given it much thought until now.

“Y-Yeah. You uh… you look very p-pretty.”

“Yeah, I knew you’d think so.” Min shot him a sultry smirk. A slight wiggle rolled its way across her hips. “Don’t think I haven’t caught you staring. You’re the kind of guy that likes Asian schoolgirls, huh?”

Holding the hem of her skirt between two fingers, she lifted and swayed the fabric like a sheer curtain until she reached her waist. Her white panties, a tinge lighter than her pallid flesh, were on full display. Dwight crossed his legs, stifling the hard-on trying to escape his slacks. This wasn’t right. She was still brainwashed or lobotomized or something else that deprived her of agency. He couldn’t take advantage of her in this state.

“Don’t be shy.” Min reached behind with her free hand to grab hold of Dwight’s wrist. Her silky palm squeezed him in encouragement. “Go ahead and touch. I’m all yours tonight.”

Pulled along by Min’s hand, Dwight’s quaking palm found itself pressed against her bottom. Soft white cotton. Aside from the minuscule bits of lint clinging to the fabric, they were as smooth as how he imagined they’d be. His digits curled around a handful of her flesh. Like freshly made dough in a bag, he savored how easily his fingers molded into her silky skin. He placed his free hand on her other cheek and roamed about the expanse laid before him. Min eagerly pushed backwards and pressed herself against his groin. The cleft of her cheeks took hold of the aching organ in his pants, grinding up and down its trapped length. Dwight felt his hips push against hers in response, his eyes rolling back in his head while jolts of pleasure tingled his nether regions all the way up to his brain. Every former inhibition he held was ground away with every movement of Min’s hips. The mist of euphoria blanketing his mind even made him less aware of the Doctor’s penetrating gaze only a few feet behind him.

His reverie was momentarily paused once Min stopped her motions to turn around. Squatting onto the slick, grungy floor, she seized Dwight’s zipper and yanked it down. His khakis pooled at his feet, his boxers soon following. With all its barriers removed, his erection swung upward and nearly slapped his stomach.

“Oh my,” Min giggled. The same blank, stupid smile was still pasted on her face as she looked up to Dwight. “I think it’s happy to see me.” She ogled the organ like a hungry animal about to be given a treat. Turning around once again, she raised her ass up high and turned her vacant eyes back to Dwight. “Let’s go, sexy.”

With shivers still rolling across his body, Dwight squared up behind her and tugged the crotch of her panties to the side. Her sex, oozing with juice, begged him to proceed. Oxygen strained past his clenched teeth and billowed into his lungs. His twitching length breached her lips and his turgid lungs released their contents once he was fully inside.

“God, so big!” Min grunted. “Deeper! Push it in deeper!”

Dwight grabbed two fistfuls of pliable flesh, just above the edges of her pelvis, and bucked his hips forward. Her greedy lips latched onto him like a high powered hose, sucking him into her. It was effective enough. He pushed forward, she responded in kind. This carnal dance was everything he’d envisioned it being countless times in his mind, but it wasn’t real. Everything she was doing, from his name spilling out of her mouth in hungry moans to the frantic gyrations of her hips on top of his cock, was just a mockery of the real thing. No trace of her coldness, her acerbic tongue, or any defining feature that made her Min could be felt here. Dwight turned his head to the side, eyeballing the massive observer out of his periphery. The Doctor stood stock still save for the natural rise and fall of his raspy breathing, never having moved from his initial spot. His permanent stare was locked to the rutting pair, examining them with the scrutinizing eye of a scientist studying lab rats. Dwight could feel the prying eyes roaming his exposed body, even after turning his head back around to focus on Min. The loud and desperate moans on her end were able to drown out the Doctor’s hoarse exhales and occasional giggles.

As hollow and artificial as this act was, the sheer stimulation was more action than he had ever experienced up to this point. Each time Min moaned his name would push him closer to climax, and eventually he was forced over the edge. Surge after surge of pent up semen flooded her. This wasn’t anything like when he’d masturbate under the tree, closing his eyes from the world and pretending he was somewhere else. This was unrestrained carnality. Her entrance was flooded, causing much of his seed to drizzle out and patter across the floor. That was the hardest he had orgasmed in his life.

He exited Min with a squelching pop, releasing a fresh gush of semen onto the tile. Soreness enveloped his still stiff cock, which continued to leak out remnants of his seemingly endless supply. Min, panting in ecstasy, turned around to face him with her dazed smile still intact. From behind, an ominous rumble drew closer as movement finally overcame the pair’s silent observer. The Doctor marched toward them, his leering eyes set on Min and his intent unclear from behind his manic visage.

Min’s gaze rolled away from Dwight and up toward the Doctor. Giggles continued to dribble out of her slacked grin. “You want a turn, stud?”

The Doctor chuckled and shook his head before raising his boot above her. He brought it down on her head like he would upon a wooden pallet. Blood and chunks of brain matter spewed out of her split skull like it was a flesh colored watermelon. Runny red juices swirled across the grimy tiles, mixing together with the pools of semen and circling around the grated drains in the floor before spiraling down them. He spun around to face the other survivor, frozen in fear with his pants tangled around his ankles. Before Dwight could even scream, the killer swung his stick in a wide arc and connected with the boy’s skull. Its metal spikes punched into his temple and he was sent sliding across the floor in an unconscious heap. The Doctor tittered to himself. He’d hook that one in just a moment; the Entity could have it, for all he cared.

The killer redirected his attention back to the girl. He nudged the rim of her emptied skull with the toe of his boot, giggling in deep thought. The experiment was over. It was time to end this trial so that she’d revive and come back with working mental faculties in order to do another one. He looked back to Dwight, his wonderful test subject, and marched over to scoop him up. Oh yes, sometimes the carrot yields more productive results than the stick. He’d do well to remember to utilize both methods for future experiments.

#fanfiction #writing #dead by daylight #dwight fairfield #feng min #herman carter #DBD Doctor #nsfw

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