Double D lets out a sigh and looks over at the person next to him. The blue haired woman is asleep, using his bare chest as a pillow. 'I have to put a stop to this in the morning.' He thinks as he looks over at his alarm clock on the night stand by his bed, it is just past eleven o'clock. Double D closes his eyes and rests his head on his pillow and tries to clear his mind, it is late and he has to be up early the next morning.
The alarm goes off, waking Double D and the other occupant of the bed. Marie Kanker jumps out of the bed and starts getting dressed in her clothing from the day before before Double D is even out of the bed himself.
"Marie." Double D says as Marie pulls on a pair of faded and tattered blue jeans. "This has to stop happening."
"Uh huh." Marie is not paying attention as Double D spoke, she is more concerned with finding her own t-shirt than what the eighteen-year-old boy she just spent the night with has to say.
"I'm serious Marie." Edd sits up in his bed. "You need to stop all of your seductive tricks you keep playing on me."
"Ok." Again Marie isn't paying attention as she sits down on the bed to pull her old pointy toed boots on.
"Then you understand, this is inappropriate of us to be doing." Double D is feeling somewhat hopeful, that maybe Marie is finally going to hear him out on this matter.
Marie stands up from the bed, cracks her back and gives her hair a quick scratch with her hands, to try and de bed-hair it. She tosses Double D's dress shirt, that she had on prior to waking up, at Double D and leans down to him.
She gives him a kiss on his cheek, says; "See ya in class", and then turns on her heels and walks out of the room.
Double D watched Marie walk out of the room stunned, he was sure that she was listening to him as he talked, but she clearly wasn't. He falls back into his pillow. "You are making college life very difficult Marie."
Double D and Marie are not in Peach Creek anymore, they are both at the state school in Washington in their first year of college level education. Double D is only here working on his general education classes until he decides what he wants to major in and Marie is working on an art related degree. He isn't sure if he'll go for an engineering degree, or mathematics, he might even go with a history major. He is still working out what he wants to do with his life, but one thing he knows, once he makes his decision, his parents are going to want him to transfer to a different school, one that will be better equipped for his major of choice.
After only a few minutes of laying in his bed, Double D tosses the covers off and sits on the side of the bed. He shares his dorm room with another freshman named Tom, but he has only ever seen him on moving day. But Double D knows Tom still attends the college, articles of clothing and school things are always in different places when Double D returns for the night.
Double D stands up from his bed, turns to quickly make the bed, and then dawns his bathrobe and grabs the plastic waterproof bag of his bathroom supplies. His dorm room doesn't have a shower or a toilet in it, instead, the coed dormitory has a showering room for each gender at opposite ends of his floor.
Double D opens the door of his room and sees that the hallway is already full of other students preparing for their mornings. Some heading off to their first class of the day, or off to find breakfast, but there are a few like Double D that are wanting to partake in a morning washing before anything else.
The boys showering room has half a dozen personal showering stalls at one end, an equal number of personal toilet stalls on the other, and four sinks and mirrors in between them.
Double D makes for the empty showering stall on the far end and locks the small door behind him. It was really hard for Double D to use the public showers at first, the first week of school he would walk into the shower fully clothed and disrobe inside of them out of embarrassment. But doing that only drew attention to himself even more than walking in in a bath robe, so he pushed his boundaries and made peace with the fact that he would have to walk down the hall in nothing but his boxers and bathrobe.
Double D removes his bathrobe and boxers, slipping the latter into the pocket of the robe, tosses it over the top of the door and hooking it on the outside. Double D turns the hot water on and starts his morning wash.
The walls of the personal showers are made out of semireflective aluminum, allowing a basic silhouette to appear on its surface. So as Double D washes he notices something odd in the reflection, there is something on the side of his butt. Worried, Double D twits around so he could get a look and discovers that "property of Marie K" has been written on his skin in black marker.
Double D sighs. "Not this again Marie." He applies more body wash to his luffa and starts scrubbing at the writing.
This isn't the first time Marie has done this to Double D. Over the course of their almost two year relationship she has written on him numerous of times. Scrubbing at the writing makes Double D think about Marie, and how they became a thing.
It started out as a mistake of identity at a Halloween dance during their Junior year of high school that marked the start of their relationship. It was an interesting two years for Double D, he grew a lot due to Marie, expanding his boundaries and becoming a little more free spirited. But they had to put school first when the time came for them to start college, so they were supposed to have ended their relationship.
Double D scrubs at the writing until his skin was red and raw, but the letters were still visible. "When did you even do this to me, Marie?" Double D wonders as he gives up on removing the writing.
A short time later Double D is in the cafeteria of his campus eating his breakfast. Even in college Double D will still make time to get a proper meal in in the morning, though it has changed from the bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice that he used to have every morning. Double D is sitting at one of the tables away from all the other students eating a cup of yogurt and has a granola bar for after the yogurt is done, he still wants to have a good breakfast, but he doesn't have the time to sit and enjoy it. Double D also has a paper cup of coffee with him that he is nursing. He quickly learned how important caffeine is to college students, late nights and early mornings can be very strenuous on anyone.
Double D is still drinking from the paper cup as he walks into the lecture hall of his first class of the day, College Level Algebra. Double D sits down in the back and prepares his notebook and pen for when the lecture starts. Just as the professor is about to start, Marie drops down in the seat next to Double D and digs out her own note boot from her bag. Double D and Marie both know hardly anyone on campus, so Double D didn't see a problem with Marie sitting next to him, they were both know to be antisocial in high school, to begin with.
As Double D is writing down what the professor is saying, he couldn't help but look over at Marie and see if she is keeping up with the lecture. As he looks at her, Double D sees that Marie has one of her earbuds in her ear and smiles. It was a trick Double D discovered early in their time together in high school. if Marie was listening to instrumental music she would be able to focus better on her task at hand. Double D smiles again as he goes back to focusing on taking down notes, letting his mind not go to thinking about the blue haired girl next to him.
Double D being right handed has his left hand sitting off to the side not needed for any task at the moment. He suddenly feels his left hand being moved and looks over at it. Marie has hooked the pinky of her right hand around the pinky of his left. This was something Marie did all the time back in high school when the two of them had a class together, it was her way of holding his hand without drawing attention to them.
But they are not a couple anymore, so Double D pulls his hand away from Marie's, breaking the link. The act didn't annoy Double D, but he didn't think it was appropriate and he also needed to concentrate on taking his notes. But after the third time Marie of hooking their fingers together, he had enough and tucked his left hand under the table and out of Marie's reach while saying; "stop Marie" just loud enough for only Marie to hear.
Later that night, after all his classes are done and having eaten dinner, Double D is in the school library trying to write a paper, but he isn't getting much progress done.
Marie has chosen to use the computer next to Double D to work on her own school work. But she is only half trying to read the text on the screen in front of her, wanting to spend more time attempting to rest her head on Double D's shoulder.
Double D keeps pushing Marie off of his shoulder, but she would fall back onto him a few minutes later, closing her eyes and smiling.
Double D has lost track of how many times Marie has done this and is getting fed up with her distracting him from his work with her flirtatious act. "You need to stop doing this Marie. We are not together anymore, this is inappropriate." He says pushing Marie's head up from his shoulder again.
Marie rolls her eyes as if she thinks that Double D is overreacting. "Fine, I'll leave you alone." She pushes the power button in on the computer she was using, killing the machine. "If that's what you want." She gets up from her chair and walks away from Double D without another word.
Double D doesn't see Marie for the rest of the week, the longest time he has gone without seeing his former girlfriend. Without Marie around, Double D has realized that the school is rather quiet without her occasional interferences. He was able to get all of his class work done for the week and will have the weekend completely free.
He spent most of Saturday morning and afternoon in his room, reading a fiction book about rogue robots attacking mankind, a book he has forgotten that Marie gave him. But come the evening Double D set his book down and went to work on taking care of the one real chore he has while living in the dorm, his laundry.
The dorm building has its own laundry room in the basement, next to a recreational room, and Double D being Double D has planned out what will be washed each week for the year, leading to him only ever having to pay for one wash and one dry per week. This week is shirts and socks.
He is the only person in the relatively small wash room, there are only five washers and five dryers and a folding table in the room, and is in the process of folding his shirts into perfect squares when someone else walks into the room.
Double D looks up to see who it is, and is stunned and worried at the same time. Marie has just walked into the room with a sack of her own dirty clothing and a yellow bottle of soap. It wasn't the things she has with her that stunned Double D, it was what she has on. Marie has on a loose fitting spaghetti strap tank top and a pair boxer shorts, that is leaving very little to the imagination. Double D will later learn that those are in fact a pair of his boxers that Marie "borrowed with no intention of returning" from his dorm room after one of her successful plans of seducing him into spending the night with her.
"Oh, hey there Double D, fancy seeing you here." Marie says, faking surprise to see him in the laundry room. Even if they are not a couple anymore, Marie still leans Double D's habits, so she could use them to her own advantage.
"Good evening, Marie." Double D couldn't help but take in her appearance and is reminded how truly beautiful Marie has become, from her long blue hair, to her freckles dotting her cheeks, to her almost mathematically perfect figure. Double D shakes his head and tries to go back to his task at hand, but is continuously distracted by Marie.
Marie is intentionally holding up each pair of her underwear as she pulls them out of her sack of clothing, as if to inspect them, before dropping them into the washer. But Double D knows that that isn't what she is doing, she is trying to tease him, to make him think about her and to get his primal male urges to take over.
But Double D isn't going to fall for it this time, he is not going to let her seduce him and get him to go back up stairs with her. He looks away from her to the door, hoping to clear his mind of the thoughts Marie is trying to put inside of his head. But as he looks at the door, he catches a random guy looking into the laundry room as he walks past, looking at Marie and grinning. This angers Double D slightly, he not only finds it inappropriate for someone to be looking at Marie like this guy was, but he felt a level jealousy and a need to protect Marie from any prying eyes that might come after the guy.
Without fully realizing what he is doing, Double D walks around the folding table and shuts the door to the room, blocking anyone from looking into the laundry room.
Marie watched Double D do this and only speaks once the door has clicked shut. "Wanting to make this room a little more, private?" She asks while wiggling her eyebrows at Double D.
With Marie's comment, Double D finally decides that enough is enough, no more going soft on Marie, it is time to put his foot down. "You cannot keep doing these things to me, Marie. We broke up because it was for the best, for us at school."
Marie's eyes shoot wide open at this statement. "The best for US? Oh no no no, it's what YOU thought we both wanted for this place."
There is a hint of anger in Marie's voice, that startles Double D. "We are not in grade school anymore Marie, this." He points at her and then to himself and then back at her. "Isn't why we are here."
Marie's infamous Kanker rage is boiling. "I'm only here because of you." She is done holding back what she has been feeling for months now. "You helped me get good grades. You encouraged me to apply for the Art History Scholarship. YOU convinced me to believe in myself when I never did." Marie points at Double D as she spoke.
"But, Marie." Double D tried to talk but was cut off by Marie.
"But then, when everything was going perfect for us, you drop your "we are both going to want to focus on our studies" bull shit on me." There is fire forming in Marie's eyes, at least the one that can be seen, her other is covered by her bangs.
"I didn't want you to lose this opportunity, Marie." Double D tries to justify his reason for ending their relationship.
Marie lets out a single sarcastic laugh. "That's just it, EDD, it was what YOU wanted for me. Do you want to know what I wanted while being the first ever Kanker to go to college?" Marie doesn't wait for Double D to respond. "I wanted to walk around campus holding your hand. Eat meals together. Read in the library with you. Explore this new city with my best friend. And hold you damn pinky with mine because it is fucking cute." This was such an emotional thing for Marie to say that she is starting to choke up.
Double D can see a tear forming in Marie's eye. "Marie, I-" again she cuts him off.
"I love you so goddamn much that it hurts having to trick you into showing that you still love me." The tear rolls down her cheek.
"I was afraid of what could happen when I leave this school for my next." Double D blurts out, finally letting out the fearful thought he's had in his head for months now. "We both know that I will be moving to a different school once I've decided on my major." He is starting to get emotional himself. "And I didn't want to put us through a separation after six years together."
Marie moves to Double D, she is standing right in front of him. "What makes you think I would let you leave me behind?"
"What do you mean?" Double D asks, looking Marie directly in her eyes.
"You think I wouldn't follow you to whatever city you went to? That I would let us actually end? I love you too much to ever lose you.' Marie takes Double D's hands with her own as she spoke to him, she regrets not bringing all of this up to him sooner instead of playing her Kanker tricks on him for months.
"Marie..." Double D squeezes her hand. "I do still love you."
Marie lets out another laugh, this one however is a laugh just like Double D remembers from when Marie would be happy. "I know silly, so stop trying to deny it." She leans the last little distance to him and kisses him.
Double D lets his true feeling for the blue haired girl out, and kisses her back.
Double D may be the smartest ed, and Marie may be the cleverest Kanker, but they are both still human, and humans make mistakes. Double D should have talked with his girlfriend about what would be best for the both of them in college, and Marie shouldn't have just stewed on her anger with him over his decision and talked to him about it. They both could have easily avoided all of this if they had just talked. But then they wouldn't be Marie and Double D if their relationship wasn't a messy and confusing one.
"Hey Double D." Marie says once she finally pulls away from him. "As much as I would love to keep kissing you, I actually need to wash my clothes, I don't have any clean undies."
Double D lets out a chuckle, he missed Marie making him laugh. "Ok, do you want me to leave you be then?" He asks, unsure if she wanted to finish her work in private.
"Nope. You keep you sexy butt right here, you have a lot of holding me in your arms to make up, and I expect you to start right away."
Double D lets out another chuckle. "I was unaware that there was a quota."
Marie starts to quickly toss her clothing into the washer, not caring to look them over before they go in. "There is. You have about a hundred hours to make up, and anything from after last August doesn't count."
Double D moves to stand behind Marie and wraps his arms around her stomach. Marie is the only person Double D has ever felt comfortable touching and having them touch him. "I'm sorry Marie, for everything I have done that has upset you." He kisses her on her cheek.
Marie stops tossing her clothing into the washer and leans back into Double D. "You are forgiven Sweetie, so long as you agree that we talk about any major decision involving our relationship from here on out."
Double D squeezes Marie, hugging her. "I promise, never again will I do something that stupid."
AN: Ello all! So I got myself a laptop to help me work on my writing when I want to be away from my desktop computer, so I wanted to christen it with a new Edd and Marie fanfic. This is a short one with an obvious moral in it (first time I've had a moral to the story I think) that quite literally came to me in a dream. I'm still working on some original creation short stories, that once I get one done I will post on FanFictions's sister site (FictionPress) under the same username I have here. I am slowly working on taking this hobby that turned into a dream and making it a reality, and I know I wouldn't be here today without all of you that have read my fan fictions over the years (still feels weird to say that). So thank you each and every one of you that has taken the time to read my work, I hope you have enjoyed them (and this one).
Until next time, keep being awesome.
Linken88.