Eddy peered through the crack in the door.
A snowball with lipstick marks on it hit the door a few inches away from his eye, prompting him to close it.
"They're still there." he muttered, annoyed.
The first snowfall of the winter inevitably led to the first snowball fight of the winter, which Eds, in one of their more savvy decisions, usually waited out. Unfortunately, this was the first snowfall since the Kanker sisters, known in the neighborhood as 'those annoying trailer trash jerks', moved into the town. Now, they were the only ones remaining on the battlefield, waiting for their 'boyfriends' (read: favorite targets) to come out, with a massive pile of pre-prepared snowballs.
"What are we gonna do, guys?!" Ed wailed. "I don't wanna get snowballed!"
"What about the backdoor?" Eddy asked, noticing Edd coming from behind the corner.
"The janitor won't allow us to use it." The slender boy frowned. "To quote: there's three of you and three of 'em, man up and fight."
"Of course." Eddy spat. For whatever reason, the adults in his life just couldn't be bothered to act like they should ninety percent of the time. When he complained, they responded with a variant of misery builds character.
"This is barbaric." Edd leaned against the wall. "Soldiers during wartime have more rights than we have right now."
Eddy gave him a glare. "What are you on about?"
"There are numerous treaties and conventions guaranteeing that the wars would be fought with respect to human dignity."
Ed stared at him. "War… with dignity…?"
"Relatively speaking, of course."
The gears in the ringleader's head started turning. "What's in those contravention thingies?" he asked.
"Well, the most recognizable, the Geneva Conventions,detail how civilians and prisoners of war should be treated, and Hague Protocols were the first attempt at prohibiting the use of chemical weapons and…"
A metaphorical light bulb appeared over Eddy's head.
"Incoming messenger!" Edd exclaimed, as the door was slammed open. Or more accurately, was opened with slightly more force than usual, because Edd wasn't capable of slamming it with enough effect.
The girls looked at him, too puzzled to open fire then and there, and he allowed himself to march to them with a clipboard in his gloved hand.
"I want to inform you that I am completely unarmed and approach you as merely a messe-"
"To the point." Lee cut in, tossing a snowball in her hand. "What do you want?"
Edd wordlessly handed over the clipboard.
"The Peach Creek Contravention." Marie muttered.
The boy pulled out a pen from his pocket and corrected 'Contravention' to 'Convention'. "This is the last time I let Eddy note things down." he muttered.
"What's this about?" May asked.
"Well," Edd interlocked his fingers, "considering the inevitability of the conflict, I wanted to ensure that some measures will be proposed so as to avoid unnecessary wounds and bruises."
"Now repeat that in English."
Refraining from commenting on the girls' poor vocabulary, he said "For instance, using nothing but propelled snow, no hard or sharp pieces in snowballs, no attacking surrendering combatants, hot chocolate for the defeated, and other similar guarantees."
Lee crossed her arms. "Why should we stick to that and not just shove you into a snow mound?"
Lacking a good answer to that, Edd decided to appeal to the usual villainous mix of pride and overconfidence. "Should I interpret that as you being too cowardly to accept those simple terms?"
The eldest Kanker took a step forward and stared the boy down. "Did you just call us chickens?" she rasped.
"Well, it was an implication, not an outright statement." he replied, as confidently as he could. "Alternatively, it could mean that you are too incompetent to fight without playing dirty."
"Not getting your butt kicked requires playing dirty." Lee spat. "But fine, we're gonna play by your rules if you really need us to, wimp."
"Splendid." Edd handed her his pen. "Would you care to sign at the bottom of the page?"
"You do it first."
The boy took a clipboard and, with a sweeping motion, wrote at the bottom of the paper: Representing myself, Edward McMillen and Edward 'Eddy' McGee, I hereby promise to follow these rules to the letter. Eddward M. Kowalski
Lee took the clipboard and the pen from him. "Those are your last names?"
Edd raised an eyebrow. "Were you unaware of that?"
Marie shrugged. "We didn't really need them. And what does M stand for?"
"Maybe not this time."
The girls read the agreement, muttering something under their breaths silently enough for Edd to not understand a word, before each sister signed it with their name.
"Fantastic." Edd took his things back. "Alright, now that all is said and done, allow me to retreat."
Creepy grins appeared on the girls' faces. "You forgot a small thing in that convention of yours, Oven Mitt." Marie cooed.
"What is it?" He took a step back.
May and Marie picked up a snowball each. "There was nothing about not shooting the messenger."
"Ah, this." Edd smirked. "Well, it was intentionally left out. Just like a few other things. Like the appropriate sizes of snowballs."
He allowed himself to spend a second to savor the girls' puzzled expression.
"Or, in fact, anything about sneak attacks."
Before the Kankers could react, or even process that sentence, a five-feet-wide vaguely round chunk of snow hit them from the side.
"Bullseye!" Eddy complimented his friend's throw.
"And that," Edd saluted, "is my exit cue."
Then the trio broke into sprint.
The Kankers entered the trailer park, angry, defeated, and covered in half-melted snow.
Admittedly, each of them was also a liiiiitlle bit in awe that their boyfriends managed to pull that off, but wouldn't admit that in case the other two decided to relieve their frustration on them.
Lee put her feet on the step to her trailer, and for whatever reason, lost her balance and landed flat on her back.
May noticed a metal tube lying sidewats on the steps. "You slipped on this."
"Any more astute observations, Holmes?" the redhead growled on the ground.
The blonde picked it up. "That looks like a thermos." She opened it, and felt warm air coming out of it. She sniffed it.
"So?" Marie asked. "What's in it?"
"Hot chocolate."
Yeah, just a funny lil' thing I spat out, for all the folks who aren't praising badly-written shipping right now.
Barth, did you just shoehorn a complaint about shipping in a fic that has nothing to do with it?
YES I DID. MY SALT RESERVES ARE ENDLESS. MY GEMSONA IS A SALT CRYSTAL AND HER POWER IS FLOODING THE WORLD WITH SODIUM CHLORIDE.
Also, this is probably my first K+ rated fic ever. Holy... um, doodoo?
"Sockhead?"
"Yes?"
"Outta curiosity, did they return the thermos?"
"Indeed. In related news, I will need to get a window replaced."