Father's Day
Author's Note: Yep, more dramatic and or angst-ish stuff from me. It's with Edd and Marie instead of Edd and Eddy this time, though… I just can't help myself. There's so much to work with, with Edd… Anywho, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Ed, Edd, n' Eddy or anything else copyrighted, for that matter.
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"…Stupid excuse for a holiday." Marie muttered, watching as a man and two small children walked by carrying ice cream cones.
"Pardon?" Edd inquired, looking up from his notebook, then glancing in the direction his girlfriend was glaring.
"I said, this is a stupid excuse for a holiday." The girl repeated with more of an edge.
"Father's Day?" The young man next to her inquired, putting down his pen as he sensed a conversation brewing.
"Yeah. That."
Edd watched the man and his kids walked past the park bench he and Marie were seated on, continued down the street, and around the corner. The idea of the holiday had never seemed strange to him; he got his father a gift every year and he received a sticky note thanking him every year. Then, as far as Edd was concerned, his obligation had been fulfilled; he'd honored his father on the appropriate day. He generally ignored the fact that both Ed and Eddy spent at least half of the day with their fathers.
Finally, he turned back to Marie. "Have you ever celebrated Father's Day?" He asked quietly.
Marie looked away, replying with a slight defensive tone. "Once. It wasn't that great." She paused. "What about you?"
"Of course," Edd answered, surprised. "I get my father a gift every year."
His girlfriend looked back at him expectantly. "And…?" She prompted him.
Edd blinked. "And… he leaves me a note to thank me. I usually find it the next morning."
"That's it?" Marie raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"Well… yes. Why? What is it you think should happen today?" Edd asked, gaining a slight air of defensiveness, himself.
"Iunno." Marie shrugged. "May gets to visit her dad on Father's Day. And don't Ed 'n Eddy spend the day with their dads 'er something?"
"Yes, they do. But each family is different. I don't see what's so wrong with the way I observe the day." The hat-wearing young man paused, then added, "There's nothing wrong with not observing the day at all, either."
"I did once, though." Marie insisted. "It was pretty sucky."
Unsure of what else to do, Edd scooted a bit closer on the bench. "I'm sorry."
Marie frowned. "Nothin' to be sorry for. Not like your dad's the amazing disappearing douche." She seemed to think for a moment, then snorted with slight laughter. "Then again…"
"Excuse me?" Edd stiffened slightly. Certainly, his family was unconventional, but that was no reason to insult them…
"Geez, I'm kidding. Never mind." The blue-haired girl frowned again, turning away. "I just… I think about that one time I got to actually spend Father's Day with my dad… and I think about how much it sucked… and how much I still, I dunno… like that memory. It just…" She trailed off with a grunt of frustration.
"To put it in your eloquent terms… 'sucks'?" Edd suggested.
This pulled a small smile from the teen sitting next to him. "Yeah. It sucks."
The two sat in silence for a few minutes before Edd ventured another question. "What did you do… on that day? That Father's Day, I mean."
"Oh… well, it started out with a lotta yelling." Marie shrugged and smirked. "Cuz' Bubba wanted to go out but my mom wanted him to spend the day with me an' Lee. May was spending the day with Rod. We were, like… I dunno, Lee was six an' I was five, I guess. Woulda' made May four…" She glanced over at Edd, both surprised and certain he was paying full attention and neither bored nor irritated.
"Go on," Edd prompted.
"Mom won the argument. She always did. So, Bubba took us to breakfast at some scuzzy diner. We thought it rocked, though, because we got chocolate milk with our breakfast and there was this huge jukebox. He put in a couple quarters and actually got the two of us to get up and dance with him…" Marie trailed off, glaring at an unknown point in the distance, "He always liked music. Like, 70's and 80's rock-type stuff. Mom n' Lee always figured he ran off with that shitty band of his."
Edd knew better than to ask what Marie thought had happened. Instead, he sat quietly and allowed her to continue in her own time.
"Anyway, after that, we went to the playground. Cuz', y'know… we were into stuff like that when we were little." Her hatted lover smiled and rolled his eyes affectionately, but remained silent, "We must've stayed there for, like, an hour. At least. Bubba wanted us to go on all the slides and push us on the swings and mess around in the sandbox. It was really weird. You couldn't get him to do parent-stuff nine times outta 10, but once he got going, he was really into it."
Thus far, the day sounded quite nice; Edd wondered why Marie had deemed it "sucky." Suddenly, the girl in question let out a small chuckle.
"While we were there, we went on the teeter totter and Lee had to go and fly off… she skinned 'er knee and was bawling and everything. Then that's… when things started sucking." Marie lost her humor. "Bubba didn't have any band-aids, so he went looking for a place that did and, surprise, we ended up in a bar. Got a band-aid for Lee and he told us to wait around for a minute "cuz' Daddy's thirsty"." Marie mocked an older man's tone.
"Ah… I see." Was all Edd could think to say.
"Yeah. So we waited around for a minute. And another and another and I guess we were out there for a while, cuz eventually Mom came and got us. I don't remember a whole lot of the rest of the day."
"I imagine you and Lee were rather ill due to prolonged exposure to the mid-June heat while being so young…" Edd murmured.
"Something like that." Marie replied, sounding as downtrodden as Edd had ever heard her. "Bubba was gone before the next Father's Day, so that was pretty much it."
"Marie… I'm sorry…" Edd began, before Marie cut him off with a punch to the arm.
"Quit apologizing. You didn't do anything." She reminded him, then softened slightly. "Actually… thanks, I guess. I mean, I can't complain about it at home cuz' May still has a dad and doesn't get it and Lee… well, we didn't get to know Butch before he died, so… she just tells me to quit bitching."
"Ah." Edd said again. He found himself repeating that same syllable around Marie rather often.
"Anyway," Marie said suddenly, making her intention to shift the focus quite clear. "What's your dad like? I don't think anyone here's ever met him. I've never even seen 'im."
"Oh, my father is a good man." Edd replied automatically. "He is quite intelligent and hard-working."
Marie smacked him on the shoulder and rolled his eyes. "Well, no duh. He's some big-shot surgeon or something. But what's he like?"
"Well, uh… He likes things to be clean and orderly, of course…" Edd continued, finding that words with which he could describe his paternal figure were growing scarce.
"Yeah, and…?" His girlfriend waved her hand impatiently, prompting him to continue.
"Eh… he wears glasses- for reading. And…" Edd blinked, searching for more information. Marie saved him the trouble.
"You have no idea, do you?" She asked in quiet disbelief.
"Umbrellas!" Edd shouted in sudden desperation, "He and Mother collect umbrellas!"
Surprised, Marie wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Why?"
"I… I have no idea." Edd admitted.
With nothing left to say, Marie slipped an arm around Edd's shoulders and leaned back against the bench. He reciprocated in kind, with an arm settled comfortably around her waist, and leaned back as well. "We should start a club." Marie muttered darkly.
To her surprise, Edd chuckled. "Yes; Father's Day Haters Anonymous." He replied. "We can print up t-shirts."
Marie rolled her eyes, but Edd simply continued, muttering more to himself than to her, "No, then it wouldn't be anonymous would it…? Perhaps it could be…"
His musings were interrupted by Marie's sudden laughter. "You're such a dork, you know that?" She asked affectionately.
Whatever indignant retort he could have come up with was cut off by Marie's lips.
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Author's Note: I had no idea what this was going to be when I started writing it… but I kinda like how it turned out. And I am now breeding plot bunnies for family-stories for all the cul-de-sac kids, particularly the Eds and Kankers. Anybody interested in seeing that, maybe? Let me know! Or let me know what you thought of the story! Or something… I just like hearing from people! Ookay, sounding creepy, now.