L'EDgendary

by dobanochi

A few years since we last saw any of them, the Peach Creek Boys and the Merry Men run into one another at just the right time, working together to undermine an oppressive city government as well as their burgeoning insecurities. An action-comedy-drama character study about friendship, leadership, self-esteem, and the divide between who we're born as and who we choose to be.

27. The Huckster's Last Stand, Pt 2

27. "The Huckster's Last Stand, Pt. 2"

The Limey Giant and his Bumpkin Bruin friend weren't home, probably out barnstorming the city. All the better; he was only using their camp as a navigational reference point. An encounter with them would have been awkward at best, especially since his mind was now safely leaning toward 'thanks-but-no-thanks' after his rediscovered success had steered him back in his original direction. Plus he wasn't exactly itching to find out whether the bear was still pissed at him for delivering a message via rock-based air-mail - y'know, there was an added upside to choosing not to roll with them: his brain wouldn't have to juggle having both a Johnny the Brown Bear and Jonny the Koala Bear in his life; hanging out with two guys with the same first name as himself was confusing enough. He didn't look too closely as he passed the clearing by the big tree, but he did get the inkling that it seemed a bit more disheveled than he remembered.

What he was really looking for was just beyond the camp, a place that he still couldn't believe had been sitting right under his nose his whole life, and - evidently - a place whose location could prove to be a valuable secret which could score him some serious social mobility points if he played his cards right. This place would have held a lot of baggage for her, considering the circumstances, but maybe taking her there vicariously could be seen as the ultimate act of goodwill.

Or the ultimate act of overstepping boundaries. He stood there for a solid three minutes, staring at it, wondering whether this would be a good move or a deplorable one. Then he stepped away from it to take a leak at the base of a tree, then he went back to staring at it for another four minutes. He didn't really care at this point about getting her to reciprocate his crush on her, which had waned anyway with every passing year she insisted on staying with that evil man; this was more about getting her to realize that that evil man wasn't as great as she thought him to be. Kevin had tried to provide this moment to her, but was struck down as a consequence of his own pride. But he could still provide this to her because he didn't share his near-fatal flaw.

He could see this being perceived as either extremely courteous or extremely callous - hell, or both. He wasn't fundamentally afraid to gamble on himself, but… was this gamble worth it? Would this make him look like a gentleman or a degenerate?

...You know what? Screw it, he might as well ask her herself. The Singapore-flavored jawbreaker in his cheek was down to the size of a pea, so he swallowed it as he worked up his nerve.

"Uh, he-hey, Nazz?" he coughed into the walkie-talkie.

He stood there still as a statue as he waited for a response. He was fully anticipating Sarah or Jimmy to come on the frequency to tell him to leave her alone, but imagine his delighted surprise when he heard her soft-spoken words over the receiver.

Chirp. "Uh, yeah, I'm here." Chirp. "Uh… Eddy, was that you?" Chirp.

He pressed the button firmly. "Ye-yeah, uh… cou-could you meet me on another frequency? Just you and me? I, uh, I wanna talk to you privately. For just a second. If you don't mind."

Chirp. "Um… sure, what channel?" Chirp.

He thought for a moment before he pressed the button. "Uh, how abouuut…. channel… three… subchannel… nine?" It was the only number he had in his head, a number he frequently had in his head thanks to his deep-seated insecurity. "Does that sound good?"

Chirp. "Yeah, I can do tha-" SQUEEEEEEE!

Somebody else had tried hitting the button to talk and caused the frequency to jam, and everyone on the line must have heard it, including whoever caused it. Then there was silence on the radio for just a brief moment before a very unwelcome voice made her presence known.

Chirp. "Eddy," said Sarah, "what's stopping us from just switching over to that channel and listening in on you?" Chirp.

And you know what, that was a damn good question. So after pondering for a second, Eddy gave her a damn good answer:

"Because, Sarah, even if you don't care how I feel about you, you probably respect Nazz enough to want her to think you're mature enough to respect when someone asks you nicely to give them a little privacy. And Jimmy, and Jonny. And maybe you don't just want to seem that mature… maybe you actually are."

Nobody on the frequency said a word after that, and as Nazz pressed the buttons to switch to channel 03-09, she thought that was actually a pretty good answer out of Eddy. Of course, she had no idea what he wanted to tell her on a separate frequency, but as long as it was just words over the airwaves, it probably couldn't have tangibly hurt her in any way, unless he had some dirt on her and wanted to embarrass her for whatever reason, in which case he would have been better off staying on the line everybody else was already on for maximum exposure. As far as she could tell, the only person here risking embarrassment was him.

She waited a good twenty seconds after arriving on 03-09 before she tried breaking the silence. "Uh… you there, Eddy?"

Chirp. "Huh? Y-yeah, I'm here. I'm here." Chirp.

"Cool, so… what's up?" she asked as she walked over to her window and wondered where the heck he was calling from.

Chirp. "So, uh… long story short, I guess, I had a-a lot on my mind, and… I just needed to go for a walk and clear my head. I-in the woods, I did, um… and… I just sort of… stumbled upon the waterfall again." Chirp.

Her blood ran cold. "Uh… I-I see…"

Chirp. "Now, I know the whole, uh, the… the situation, so… the thought crossed my mind that… would you like me to take a picture of it for you?" Chirp.

She didn't know what to say. In light of what had happened to her, she couldn't decide whether such a proposal was courteous or callous - hell, or both. It could have been an innocent gesture of kindness by someone trying to reform himself, or it could have been a perverted power-grab by an insecure little interloper looking to take advantage of a situation; she could totally see it going either way. But before she could make up her mind on her own, the actions of others swayed her decision-making.

Chirp. "Eddy, you scumbag, are you really trying to hit on her!?" Chirp. It was the voice of the only other young girl on the block.

Chirp. "Eddy, that is disgusting!" This was that other girl's little friend speaking. "You know that the waterfall has a sentimental place between Nazz and Kevin! How dare you try to cut in between that!" Chirp.

Chirp. "Yeah, Eddy!" Now it was the weird loner kid's turn. "If anybody's picking up where Kevin left off, I want it to be me!" Chirp.

Chirp. "You leave her alone, too, Jonny, you weirdo!" Chirp. And while Nazz found it nice enough that Sarah was saying what she herself wanted to say, Nazz was also thinking that she would really have rather that none of these people were listening in on them in the first place.

Chirp. "What the fff-? I asked you people nicely to give me and her a moment alone, and you don't even give us that!?" Chirp. Nazz couldn't lie, she was with Eddy on this one.

Chirp. "As if we would ever simply allow her to be left alone with you!" Chirp. Jimmy was sounding particularly self-righteous today.

Chirp. "We told you to your face that we were gonna follow you to the other channel and now you're acting surprised that we did!? Idiot!" Chirp. And as Sarah spat the word idiot, Nazz could hear genuine, undiluted hatred in the bear girl's voice, and hearing someone be that full of hatred just didn't sit right with her. There had been times in the past that Nazz would have agreed Eddy would have deserved such unrestrained vitriol, but this was not one of those times. Absolutely not, not when he hadn't even done anything out of line yet. It was almost enough to make Nazz reconsider who the good kids and the bad kids in this neighborhood were.

Chirp. "Hey, I asked her if she'd give me her time, and she said yes! It wasn't like I grabbed her arm and dragged her away with me!" Chirp.

Chirp. "Oh, shut up, Eddy! We all know that if she said no, you'd probably kidnap her and torture her!" Chirp. As she heard Sarah claim that everyone knew Eddy would do that, Nazz couldn't help but think that she knew nothing of the sort; Kevin had put some trust issues in her head, but she was still able to say that it was far from certain - or even likely - that Eddy would do something that evil.

Chirp. "Hey, Nazz! Ya wanna go climbing trees with me and Plank sometime?" Chirp.

Chirp. "Jesus Motherfucking H. Christ, is anybody else listening in on us talk in private!?" Chirp.

Chirp. "Rolf is here, too, Sneaky Love-Struck Ed-Boy! Though Rolf does not trust that this contraption will not peer into Rolf's soul, he could not resist from joining in the festivities, yes?" Chirp.

Chirp. "Wait, Rolf, where did you come from!?" Chirp.

Chirp. "Uh- my apologies for not informing you sooner, Eddy, but Rolf just got off of work and wanted us to sell him one so he could participate with everyone else." Chirp.

Chirp. "DOUBLE-D, YOU'VE BEEN LISTENING IN ON US, TOO!?" Chirp.

Chirp. "I'm sorry, Eddy, I couldn't resist; I turned on a radio simply to keep in touch with you, and as soon as I did, I heard you beckon Nazz to the other frequency, and I felt compelled to keep abreast of your situation after you left us. Um- if I may ask, Eddy, what are you doing by the waterfall after you told us you were going to talk to call your brother?" Chirp.

Chirp. "Double-D… did you seriously just air out my details in public where everyone can hear you?" Chirp.

Chirp. "Well, Eddy, I'd have no desire to do that if I didn't fear you had purposely misled me." Chirp.

...Chirp. "Hiya, Eddy!" Chirp. That last voice scratched off the last kid in the cul-de-sac who wasn't currently sitting comatose in Bethlehem General.

Chirp. "...Is anybody else on the line to hear me embarrass myself?" Chirp.

Chirp. "Nuh-uh, Nazz! You're not taking my little foxy stud away from me!" Chirp.

Chirp. "Hold on, which one of you fucking maniacs sold Lee Kanker a camera-phone!?" Chirp.

Chirp. "Camera-phone? The hell are you talking about? We were just scanning the channels looking for boyfriends on our walkie-talkies when I heard my sweetheart's voice! By the way, the girls say hi!"

"Hey, Big Ed!" said the opossum girl in the same transmission.

Followed by the raccoon's overly-sensual "Heyyy, Double-D!" Chirp.

With the neighborhood trailer-trash interrupting the conversation, nobody else was in the mood to say anything anymore, and the line was silent for a few moments. Then Nazz decided she ought to say something that someone needed to hear.

"Sure I'd like a photo of the waterfall."

She sat on the edge of her bed, waiting for a reply, and apparently everyone else was, too, since the frequency was dead. But after a few moments, the frazzled fox replied:

Chirp. "...R-really?" Chirp.

She pressed the button again. "Sure! I-I mean… hey, that was a pretty bold move of you, least I can do is say yes. And besides… I'm still curious if that waterfall is real. I'd love to see what it looks like!"

Chirp. "Nazz, you don't have to appease him if you don't want to."

"I want to. Jimmy, grow up."

Chirp. "Uh… y-yeah, I can still take that picture," said Eddy. "Um… I… I guess I'll see you back in the cul-de-sac then." Chirp.

Chirp. "So where you all meetin'? I wanna make sure this hussy doesn't run away with my wittle boy-toy!" Chirp.

Chirp. "Okay, everyone back to the original frequency. Nobody say what it was, just go there." Chirp. And since nobody wanted to reveal their precise location to one of the Kanker Sisters, everybody kept their mouths shut and listened to Eddy this time.

Nazz pressed the buttons and returned to the original station, switching from hearing Lee Kanker protesting that people weren't giving her the exact location of the boy she wanted to assault to hearing the kids all agreeing half-heartedly to meet back at the playground; they wanted to see the waterfall, too.

And she kind of wanted to see him, too. Nazz was unusually distant when she met up with the other kids at the playground and waited for Eddy to get back from the forest. The others silently chalked this up to her still being bummed out about Kevin, some even thinking that stupid Eddy had directly caused her somber mood with his stupid gesture, but if any of them had had the guts to ask, she would have told them plainly that she was disgusted by how basically every single person in this neighborhood had willfully invaded their privacy, and how not even a single one of them seemed to be remorseful about it. She figured this was the necessary downside to being the most mature kid on the block: all the other kids aren't on your level.

That self-professed maturity combined with her offense at the kids' actions was what led her to ultimately accept Eddy's gift; the poor little guy deserved a break after that. What was Eddy going to do after this? Was he going to get the wrong idea? She'd cross that bridge when she came to it, but for right now, this was an act of compassion for someone who was kicked while he was down.

Though if you encountered Eddy on his way back from the woods and informed him that the girl of his dreams agreed completely with how he was feeling in that moment, he honestly couldn't have cared less; give it a few days and he'd likely be ecstatic, but as of that moment, he was fuming.

Jesus Christ, they really didn't afford him any dignity at all, did they? He asks kindly for a moment alone with someone and then literally every single kid on the block immediately betrays his trust, several of them actively mocking him for trusting them on the grounds that he's so self-evidently evil that it was righteous of them to betray him.

How in the hell was he considered the biggest villain in this neighborhood? How was he considered the most maladjusted? Were any of these delinquent fucking kids paying attention to one another? Sarah had severe anger issues and would regularly verbally and physically assault people and Eddy wouldn't have been surprised if she had some sort of legitimate emotional handicap (Ed had been moping all morning about his parents making him go to a mental doctor tomorrow, but Eddy would posit that Mr. and Mrs. Browne were taking the wrong kid to go get checked out); meanwhile, her little twerp friend Jimmy was either a helpless hypochondriac or a manipulative little shit who milked his well-documented bad luck for attention and sympathy, one way or another a kid his age really shouldn't be flopping to the ground every time he got gently hit in the ankle by a wayward acorn, and all that was on top of the fact that he was a conniving, vindictive little sadist who still hadn't ever been brought to justice for elaborately framing Eddy and his friends for sabotaging the stupid Friendship Day celebration a few years back, and at this point bringing up that he did that would just alienate everyone further; much like how the gay community ought to find Jimmy and hide him somewhere lest he keep perpetuating negative stereotypes of being catty and cowardly, Jonny 2x4 likewise gave loners everywhere a bad name, not quite in the creepy antisocial Columbine-y sort of way, but rather in the way that any sympathy he would have gotten for any legitimate social anxiety was erased by his propensity for simply bugging the shit out of people until they wanted to kill him, along with other eccentricities that tangibly negatively impacted people, most notably stealing stuff and then getting actually defensive when people tried to get that stuff back, stuff ranging from scavenger hunt lists, to camcorders in the middle of filming a documentary for Eddy's brother, to most recently a camera-phone which he seemed to steal simply because it amused him to do so; Rolf had an explanation for his bad behavior but he didn't have an excuse, surely moving to America was a culture shock, but c'mon dude, you've been here for four or five years now and you speak grammatically-perfect-if-syntaxially-bizarre English, by now it's starting to seem odd that you don't have a better handle on local customs than you do, can you please stop violently flipping the fuck out when confronted with something foreign to you and just trust that this video camera (which was just stolen back from Jonny ten minutes prior) isn't trying to steal your soul, and surely most people would agree that it's not being xenophobic to ask Rolf to not force involuntary participants into the more injurious tenets of his Old World culture, surely people would agree that a big strong horse shouldn't be slamming his head into a shrimpy, wimpy wolf while wearing a hat shaped like a giant hammer, surely people would agree that a big strong horse shouldn't beat a poor little fox up with a giant mackerel in a duel on a log over a fifteen-foot pit for the crime of fracturing his pride; Kevin's flaws were self-explanatory, the guy goes around thinking he can do no wrong because everyone in the neighborhood loves him, and it was debatable what came first, everyone thinking he was cool or his ability to get people to think he was even cooler than before, but one way or another he had appointed himself the savior of the cul-de-sac these last few years and while sure people sometimes had their problems with him, he never got any social pushback for behaving boorishly, mostly because the guy admittedly picked his battles well and only decided to play the hero against whoever was currently pissing people off, usually the Eds, against whom he would commit acts of assault that he surely would not be getting away with were they adults, but now he was in the hospital and he might never wake up and speaking ill of him was tantamount to speaking ill of the dead; and Nazz, oh dearest Nazz, her biggest flaw was tolerating too much of Kevin's dark side, like seriously woman, how can you call yourself the most mature person in the neighborhood and then be completely complicit with Kevin's acts of brutality, surely somewhere along the line she would have realized that someone who's actually a good person wouldn't take as much joy in beating the everloving crap out of three misfits as Kevin did, and if her intention was to change him, then she seriously needed a wake-up call that the shame of giving up on a goal was far outweighed by the shame of being too foolish to realize that goal was unattainable, and as such, in this moment, her sympathy for his bitter embarrassment meant nothing to him.

That only left his idiot friends, one who was too dumb to live in the sense that he thought he was actually the smartest person to ever exist all while somehow never once realizing that you need some quantity of social acumen to truly understand anything about mammalian life on this plane of existence, and the other one who was too dumb to live in the sense that he was literally too dumb to live and it was honestly extremely depressing that the adults in his life were just now starting to worry about how he'd ever survive as an adult. There was no contest there.

Eddy probably couldn't in good faith say that he truly believed he was head and shoulders above them all as a person; he might say it in frustration, but he wouldn't mean it. But he could certainly pass a polygraph test by saying that yes, he really did think that he was no worse than the other kids either, certainly not to the point that he deserved to be treated as a villain in his own neighborhood. Was anybody perfect? Likely not - that stupid tall handsome intelligent charming well-spoken heroic British jagoff he'd met the other day may have come close, but even he probably had some negative qualities to him that he was simply too smart to show to the world. Everybody has their flaws - but Eddy would daresay that the kids in this neighborhood were more flawed than most people you see on the street, to the point that quite frankly they should have kept their stupid mouths shut about his own flaws because they had absolutely no place to talk. They really wanted to tell him he was the undisputed worst person in the cul-de-sac? Oh, please.

And the idea that he would be forced to do business with these people until he was able to expand his operation was infuriating. One piece of wisdom his brother had given him before he moved out (probably to stroke his own ego and convince himself he really was worthy of dispensing wisdom rather than for any benefit to his baby brother) was that the power of the individual really was something else, and even though people will hate you for your success, nobody's hateful enough - nor powerful enough - to go out of their way to keep you from achieving your dreams… yeah, no, Bro, nice sentiment and all, but draw your little brother a diagram of how he achieves his goals if his goals entail that these people willfully trust him enough to give him their money; seriously, you'd think a salesman would know better than to give such nebulous advice. Now Eddy was almost wishing the camera-phone scam/scheme/plan had failed so he wouldn't have had to fulfill his promise to himself to stick with selling stuff.

The thought did cross his mind that maybe it was just that because all the kids in the cul-de-sac were just that: kids. Even as Nazz had said, youths their age really weren't supposed to be fully-developed people yet. Well, for all of their sakes, Eddy sure hoped every kid on this block hadn't reached their final form. But the thought that kids were inherently underdeveloped as people didn't give Eddy any comfort; stuck surrounded by these morons, he just wanted them to grow the hell up.

Even as soon as the other kids first noticed him approaching, they could tell from a block away that he looked pissed. They didn't care what he was upset about; they assumed that he was still sore that he expected privacy where he had no right to it. They were just there to see the picture of the waterfall and amscray; they had no interest in apologizing. They were so anxiously anticipating his return that not a single one of them bothered to look at the sky and notice that it looked significantly darker in the west (well, okay, Double-D noticed and remarked as much, but Double-D being Double-D, he used a bunch of obscure meteorological jargon and everyone tuned him out immediately).

As for Eddy, he wasn't looking at the sky ahead of him; he had his eyes locked on the other kids long before they were in speaking distance. He made a concerted effort to not look so furious; it was important to maintain good relationships with people you didn't necessarily like, after all, which was the entire reason he was even allowing them to bask in the splendor of the image. He was just hoping that these delinquent fucking kids wouldn't keep running their mouths about how stupid and awful they thought he was while he showed them the Polaroid; maybe things could go off without too much of a hitch. You can imagine, Dear Reader, how much it threw a wrench in his gears when he felt something wet land lightly on the end of his snout.

Then another. Then he turned to the sky and got a droplet right in the eye. Then, one might say, the floodgates were opened.

"It's raining!" shrieked a feminine voice, probably Jimmy's.

The kids in the playground made a mad dash for the canopy under the slide's wooden platform; the horse and the older bear sibling had some trouble fitting under there, but they managed to duck and squeeze under. That just left one person unaccounted for.

"Eddy, come here!" called the bobcat.

"Eddy, get out of the rain!" called the bear girl.

"C'mon, Eddy, it's dry over here!" called the koala.

"Come, Eddy, we've found shelter!" called what at first seemed like the wolf but then Eddy realized it was actually the rabbit.

And for a split second, the little fox came to a complete stop and just stood there in the pouring rain, thinking about what he was witnessing. Did he just… hear these kids caring about him? Had he been too quick to judge them? True, it shouldn't have taken seeing him in an unfortunate situation such as this to get them to show empathy, but… when misfortune did befall him, they nevertheless did. Was it possible that, under the right circumstances… they actually didn't all hate him?

Elated at the prospect of acceptance, he ran for cover to join his neighbors. The elation was short-lived.

"Uh, th-thanks, guys," he stuttered, still stunned by their showing of empathy. "So-"

"Show us the picture, Eddy!"

"C'mon, where is it!?"

"Quit holding out!"

Before his brain could even register which words came from which voices, the polaroid photo was snatched from his paws by the uncouth ursine girl.

"Hey, this isn't no picture of a waterfall!" she growled.

"Why, what a disgusting act of duplicity!" her bunny friend scoffed.

Eddy, to put it mildly, was confused. "B- what the hell are you talking about!? Are you blind!? It's right here-"

He grabbed the picture back, able to feel that it was discernibly stickier than before. In the split second before he was able to see it, a flash of a thought occurred to him that he hadn't actually laid eyes upon it since the sudden rainfall. Sure enough, as he looked down at the piece of celluloid held in his stained fingers, the photo had been reduced to an unrecognizable scene of smeared, runny ink.

"...What the-?"

"Hey, you lied to us!" Jonny accused.

"Rolf was led to believe he would see a photographic rendering of the Eighth Wonder of the World, Ed-boy!" Rolf seethed.

Eddy looked to Ed, Double-D, or even Nazz for backup, but they clearly had no intentions of saying a word. Whether this was because they didn't know what to say either or because they were simply being cowardly, he didn't know, and at this point it honestly didn't matter.

"A-are you people fucking crazy!?" Eddy hollered. "You saw I just got caught in a torrential fucking downpour! How the hell could this possibly be a trick!?"

"You knew it was gonna rain and you planned this whole thing!" Sarah accused.

"Yeah!" added Jimmy. "You knew darn well it was gonna rain so you took a picture of nothing special and let it melt in the rain! That way you could look as though you were effortlessly going to outshine Kevin but alas, alak, poor you! You got caught in the rain and your photo was ruined!"

Eddy was stunned - specifically, the infuriated kind of stunned. "Jimmy, you're really showing how much of a manipulative little shit you are that you can put together these elaborate hoaxes on the spot! But just because you would do something like that doesn't mean anybody else would! Double-D, help me out, what's the word I'm looking for? Projection?"

"I, uh, um-"

"Double-D can't help you now, Eddy!" said Sarah.

"You've been exposed as the insidious interloper that you are!" said Jimmy.

"Yeah, if anybody gets to cut in on Nazz, it's me!" said Jonny. And to that, Sarah picked the koala up by his large head and threw him out of the shelter of the slide's platform, and Jonny, holding steady to Plank and his camera-phone, flew through the air and managed to make contact with the dangling chains of the swingset.

"Are you people even thinking with your fucking brains!?" Eddy reiterated. "Why would I go through all that trouble to impress Nazz? She fucking hates me! You really think I'm so stupid that I'd think I could replace Kevin with one stupid photo!?" As he said that, he couldn't help but sneak a glance at Nazz right at the she hates me part, and the look on her face was a hard one to decipher. It was something like a cross between the hurt of Eddy, I don't hate you, how could you accuse me of being a hateful person in front of everyone? and the embarrassment of Wow, Eddy, you're right, I really do hate you, was I really being that obvious this whole time?

"Well, Eddy, it seems you only have two options," Jimmy began. "Either you were stupid enough to think that would work, so you left your photo out in the rain on purpose… or you were stupid enough to never think that you should have put the picture in your pocket when the rain started."

Eddy simply glared up at the two of them.

"Ha. Speechless," sneered Sarah.

"I'm not speechless! I've got a lotta things I wanna say to you bozos and I'm trying to figure which one I want to say first!"

"Yes, give the Ed-boy time to speak!" Rolf cut in. "Rolf can sympathize with being confused for being speechless when he is simply trying to remember the correct English words!"

"Hiya, Rolf!" Ed greeted the other kid whose head had its back against the ceiling of the canopy. "I forgot you were here!"

"Guys, my head's stuck!" they all heard Jonny moan from the swings. Upon glancing over, they could see that he had indeed gotten the chain of the swing wrapped around the top of his cranium.

"Aw, shut up, Jonny!" Sarah screamed.

"Perhaps I can radio him the message!" Jimmy suggested confidently as he pressed the button on his walkie-talkie. "Jonny, would you please- wait, my radio isn't on!"

This inspired everyone else to check their own camera-phone contraptions; some were panicked, others were already resigned to what they correctly assumed was their fate.

"Yeah, mine's busted, too!" Sarah screamed.

"Rolf's doohickey is also non-functional!" went the horse.

"Yeah, uh… mi-mine, too," added Nazz, seeming to be hesitant to join the rowdy crowd of protesters.

"Do you people not know how rain works!?" Eddy demanded.

"Do you not know how customer satisfaction works!?" Sarah spat. "If what you're selling breaks as soon as it gets caught in a sudden rainstorm, we aren't paying one whole dollar for it!"

"You wanted me to waterproof the fuckin' camera-phones!?"

"YES!" Sarah growled as she leaned over and glared down at the diminutive fox.

"Plank and I want our money back!" came a voice from far away.

"Me, too!"

"Me, too!"

"Rolf also demands a refund!"

Eddy again looked at his friends for support. Their lips were sealed. He needed new friends.

"...Why are you doing this to me?" That was the question on Eddy's mind so he asked it. "I'm doing my best here… but you guys just want to make it as hard for me as possible, don'tcha?"

Jimmy scoffed. "Nobody has to care about how hard you tried if your best isn't good enough!"

"Yeah!" added Sarah. "We're only nine years old and we already know that, you're almost in high school and you don't? How are you the older kid here? You're so immature, Eddy! Tell him, Nazz!"

"Uh…" And Nazz didn't say anything more than that.

Not that there was anything she could have said to make Eddy feel like the entire world wasn't against him. Not knowing what else to do at that point, he took a wad of soaked singles out of his pocket, probably more than necessary, and dropped them on the ground at his critics' feet. "Whatever," he muttered as he turned and walked back out into the violent storm, not turning his head even one degree toward his betrayers.

"Eddy, wait!" Double-D pleaded. "You'll catch your death of pneumonia!"

"And we don't want you to die, Eddy!" added Ed.

"Speak for yourself!" Sarah shot at her brother almost as soon as he finished his sentence; her remark saddened him as much as it confused him about whether she understood the gravity of a situation where the zombie apocalypse occurred anytime between Eddy's passing and Ed's thereby requiring Ed to give his corpse friend the Old Yeller treatment.

"Sarah! What- on earth has gotten into you!?" Nazz snapped; it was clear as day that she had bitten her tongue to keep from swearing at a little kid, but she really, really wished she didn't care to act so mature right about now. "You and Jimmy have been more mean-spirited today than I've ever seen you before!"

"Aw, put a sock in it, Doll-Face!" Sarah sneered. "We're trying to back you up when that weirdo's trying to cut in on you! This is the part where you're supposed to thank us!"

"I suppose it's true what they say, Sarah," mused Jimmy, "no good deed goes unpunished."

"Oh, please!" Nazz scoffed. "Even if he was some sort of a threat to me, I could handle him! I don't need two little kids… um…"

And just like that, it stopped raining.

"Hmph! Well we see where we're not wanted!" Jimmy huffed as he dropped his camera-phone on the ground and started pushing his wheelchair out from under the slide. "Sarah, would you please grab my refund for me?"

"With interest!" Sarah said as she picked up at least four or five bucks on her way out.

"Hey!" Double-D protested. "You can't take all that! That's more than you're owed!"

"He gave it to us, didn't he?" said Jimmy snobbishly.

"You two really have a lot of nerve calling other people immature!" said Nazz.

"Aw, shut up, ya dumb bimbo," Sarah said as she turned away from Jimmy for a moment to give Nazz a dirty look. "You're too stupid to even know when a creep's creeping on ya!"

"You tell her, Nazz!" Jimmy cheered, despite still struggling in the fresh mud with his wheelchair a solid twenty feet away from the shelter of the slide. And his bent axles from Jonny's earlier shenanigans weren't making movement any easier. "Uh, Sarah? I'm stuck-"

What happened next could be described as either a pop, a crack, a burst, or a flash, but one way or another, the entire world seemed white-hot bright for a split second with the sound of energy, and that split-second ended with Jimmy on the ground and his wheelchair ablaze.

"JIMMY!" Sarah cried as she went to retrieve her fallen friend, while the others watched in wordless horror. Surprisingly, he was completely awake and conscious.

"I'm okay, Sarah!" Jimmy beamed, though beaten. "I told you putting those cushions on my wheelchair were a good idea! And not just for preventing bedsores!"

They all took a better look at the wheelchair and observed that it was indeed a pair of pillows on the back and the butt of the wheelchair that had combusted after the lightning strike.

"Well I'm still taking you home!" Sarah declared as she picked up her delicate friend and made a dramatic about-face, promptly slipping in the mud and face-planting, the bunny disappearing somewhere beneath the bear.

"Sarah?" a faint murmur could be heard from beneath her mass.

"Uh…" Double-D stammered, "u-usually I try to be a gentleman and offer my assistance in dire moments, b-but considering the, uh, circumstances, I, uh, think I should, uh, refrain from, uh…"

"Rolf is also usually a gentleman who will help the feeble and injured!" the horse declared. "But Rolf is wise, and knows better than to touch cotton-tail Jimmy lest Rolf catch Jimmy's jinx! Rolf will also be taking his refund now, thank you!" He reached down to grab the rest of the cash on the ground while dropping his own camera-phone next to Sarah and Jimmy's and took off.

"Guys, my head's still stuck!" Jonny wailed. Everyone heard him; everyone pretended not to. "Is there any more cash for Plank and me?"

And then there were three. Nazz looked awkwardly at the wolf, then the bear, then the wolf then the bear then the wolf, giving them the nervous smile of someone who knew she was about to hurt them but didn't want to and was going to try to make this as painless as she could.

"Uh… here, guys," she said as she placed the camera-phone in Double-D's unexpecting paws. "I, uh… I appreciate it, but I… I didn't do anything to earn getting one for free. I don't feel right getting this special treatment."

"Oh, bu-bu-but, uh…" the wolf sputtered as he offered the contraption back to her, "if Eddy were here, he'd surely say that you're welcome to purchase it free and clear if you'd like."

"Uh…" She looked around at the mess that was their neighborhood. "I-I think I'll pass. Nobody to use it with, y'know?"

"You can use it to talk to us, Nazz!" Ed suggested. "You can talk with me about horror movies and you can talk with Double-D about science and you can talk to Eddy about, uh… whatever Eddy likes!"

She again looked at the two of them back and forth in quick succession, losing the energy to maintain her fake smile. "I… I'm sorry, guys, I gotta go." And she left, leaving the boys confused but not necessarily having any questions they'd want to ask her.

They had one question for themselves, however: "Is Eddy okay, Double-D?"

"I don't know, Ed. I don't know."

"Guys, could somebody put out the fire on Jimmy's wheelchair? Plank's afraid of fire, and the smoke's makin' me start to feel lightheaded… or maybe it's the chain's too tight around my head!"

-IllI-

Knock, knock, knock.

"There ya are."

"You beckoned me, Eddy?"

"Yeah, I wanted to tell ya something. Come with me."

"What was it that couldn't be said over the phone? Not that I'm not glad to see you after this afternoon; I do hope you're doing well-"

"Yeah, yeah, you're concerned for my well-being 'cuz you're a good friend, we know. But it's just something that… I don't wanna just say it over the phone."

"Oh! Is it… particularly personal?"

"Eh, kinda? And I just don't want the phone company hearing it. Anyway, Ed's-"

"'Don't want the phone company hearing it? Eddy, please tell me you're not planning something even more illicit than your preposterous idea to sell fake IDs!"

"Jesus Christ, Sock-Head, no! Who gave you permission to make assumptions like that? ...If anything, it's the exact opposite."

"...I don't think I follow, Eddy."

"I didn't think you would. Anyway, as I was trying to say, I already told Ed the news. He's busy being tranced by my lava lamp again."

"What news? I don't understand."

"Hi, Double-D! Are you excited to go and play Adventure Heroes?"

"...'Adventure Heroes'!?"

"The kid's got a point, we could use a change of pace."

"What on earth does he mean by 'Adventure Heroes', Eddy?"

"Double-D, do you actually not know what I'm talking about, or are you playing dumb?"

"I actually don't know what in the Sam Hill you're talking about!"

"I think you're just playing dumb because you know exactly what we're talking about and you don't like it."

"You know, Double-D, we're gonna go play with Future Me and Future Eddy and run around with bows and arrows and really big sticks and beat up mean people and help good people!"

"...I was indeed playing dumb because I didn't like the answer."

"That's seriously a bitch move of you, Double-D."

"Well quite frankly, Eddy, if this is in any way serious, then I don't think I can trust your judgment enough to care about what you think of me."

"Of course you don't, because you've been lied to by adults your whole life and tricked into thinking you're an amazing person specifically because you stay inside and read books and follow orders and do your homework, never realizing even once that you actually gotta go out into the world and do things to be considered great. And I wanna be great! And I would say I honestly don't get why you don't wanna be great too, but then I remember that you've been fucking brainwashed your whole life. They made you so stupid that they could convince you that you were smart to the point that you won't let anybody else tell you that you're stupid!"

"Ah, so you speak so very ill of my parents, Eddy? Where are your parents? Shouldn't they be home by now? What would they think of you actually going out and risking your life and giving yourself a permanent criminal record all for some silly game of vigilante?"

"The game's called Adventure Heroes, silly Double-D! Right, Eddy?"

"Yeah, silly Double-D!"

"Eddy, you're avoiding my question!"

"I'm not avoiding your fucking question! I'm ignoring it because it's stupid! What would my parents think? They'd probably be shocked at first, maybe even pissed, but then they'd probably be happy that I'm making my own way in life and not following the footsteps of my stupid brother who they hate! And just think about how proud they'd be when they realize the good I'd be doing! Doesn't everybody want their kid to grow up to be a hero!?"

"Oh, so you want to be a hero so badly, Eddy? Well then, if you want to make a positive difference in the lives of the impoverished, I can recommend to you many ways that would assuage the plight of the poor that don't involve reckless behavior and breaking the law! Go volunteer at a homeless shelter, or a soup kitchen, or - or the homeless shelter of a soup kitchen!"

"...Wait, what?"

"D'oh, I-! I mean the soup kitchen of a homeless shelter, you know what I meant! Don't mock me for my instances of misspeaking, Eddy, I'm flustered right about now!"

"But it's just like you said, Wolfie. What's the word? 'Assuage'? Volunteerism's nice and all, a noble hobby, if you wanna start volunteering, knock yourself out. But it's just… assuaging these people's problems. These guys wanna go out and fix them, go knock some sense into the people making these people poor in the first place. Here's a sciency metaphor for ya, Dubs: you can be the Band-Aid if you want, but I wanna be the cure."

"That's a very nice use of the word 'assuage', Mr. Dichotomy, but do you really-"

"Will you cut it out with the fucking 'dichotomy' stuff!?"

"Do you really think their methods-"

"Hey, I'm still pissed about the 'dichotomy' thing!"

"At this particular moment, I don't care, Eddy. Now tell me, are you truly so delusional as to think that their fantastic and borderline adolescent methods would work?"

"Were you paying any attention to any part of their story at all!? They almost pulled it off before they got cockblocked by 9/11! Jeez, Double-D, I thought paying attention was one of the five things in life you were good at!"

"But it was just that, Eddy: a story. I suppose what I'm trying to ask is… have you never been taken advantage of by a smooth talker before?"

"...If you ever use my words against me like that again, I'm gonna fucking kill you."

"Duly noted, Dichotomy. It's nice to see that not only are you blindly buying into a story that is surely a work of fiction-"

"A work of fiction that they both told, in tandem, at the same time, both somehow knowing where the other was going with it, both being able to play where the other one left off, for forty-five minutes, and despite being completely made up on the fly they still wound up telling a cohesive story that made sense in and of itself and was accurate time-wise. Yeah yeah, right."

"-but you've also adopted their affinity for violence."

"...The hell are you talking about?"

"You just threatened to kill me, Eddy."

"No, I mean what the fuck did you mean by 'their affinity for violence'!? Again, were you paying any fucking attention to their story!? They've never killed anyone, they've never tried to kill anyone, and they only hurt people on an as-needed basis!"

"And yet they have no problem engaging in activities that are sure to eventually get them killed. Are you sure you're willing to risk your life for what they're fighting for!? Hell, is ED!?"

"Double-D said a bad word, Eddy!"

"Huh. Never thought I'd see the day."

"Ed, are you truly willing to literally, actually die during your little game of Adventure Heroes!?"

"Nuh-uh, Double-D, nobody gets hurt when you're playing pretend!"

"You see!? You see!? Dragging Ed into this is borderline abuse of the mentally ha- abuse of those who don't know better!"

"Say what you really wanna say, Sock-Head. Is it a word that rhymes with 'departed'?"

"Oh- no, I would never use such a vulgar word, especially not to describe my own friend!"

"If he's really your friend, then you should give him more credit. He's probably a lot smarter than he's letting on. I wouldn't be surprised if he's just pretending to think that it's all gonna be play-pretend because he thinks having a serious conversation about it's boring - and considering how much fun I'm having talking to you about this, I honestly couldn't blame him."

"...Do you want to die, Eddy? Do you want to actually die!?"

"If I'm stuck surrounded by people like the ones in this neighborhood, then maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, eh? Because I'll tell you what: honestly, as we walked out of that candy store, I was feeling good about our camera-phone operation, and I was thinking that this was a good omen that I oughta stick with salesmanship and tell Prince Albert and John Wayne to jump in a lake. But then every single kid in this fucking neighborhood - you and Ed included - went miles out of your way to betray my trust, disrespect me, and just generally piss me off. So now I need to get the fuck out of this neighborhood and do something to prove I'm better than them. And if it kills me, then maybe they'll regret being such pricks to me when they're at my hero's funeral."

"...Eddy, I'm starting to wonder if this sudden change of character may have something to do with clinical depression."

"Oh. Oh, Double-D. Jokingly saying I must have depression, that's no good."

"I'm not joking, I'm serious!"

"And this is right after you say you're too good to use the word 'retarded'? I'll have you know, Double-D, depression is a mental illness, and making jokes about mental illnesses is… what's the word? 'Ableist'?"

"Oh, I am not being ableist! I'm trying to gauge whether you actually have some sort of death wish for which I need to be concerned!"

"Well tell me, Double-Dillhole, who, specifically, would be the people who kill me in this scenario?"

"Oh, all sorts of people might be liable to retaliate with deadly force! It could be rich people carrying weapons, it could be gang members who find it irritating that you're undermining their plans to become wealthy by illicit means - it could be nobody at all! You could just fall down and hit the back of your head and never wake up again!"

"...I was expecting you to say the rich people's personal goons, which in this case is…?"

"..."

"...The police."

"Or also the police, yes-"

"Who in this fucked-up city are under the leadership of…?"

"...You just had to bring him up, didn't you, Eddy?"

"You really thought I wouldn't?"

"Honestly, I hadn't even been thinking about him."

"Well, now you are. So tell me, if you think the limey bastard and the redneck are so evil, do you think you're uncle's the good guy?"

"..."

"...Okay, come to think of it, your uncle's more of a redneck than that Johnny guy, but you know what I mean."

"..."

"Left ya speechless, didn't I?"

"Now you've got me thinking about something else entirely, Eddy."

"What?"

"About… my uncle… and why my parents don't like him… and how I'm fairly certain they're wrong, but the nature of the accusation is such that I can never know for sure."

"...Uh… whaddaya mean?"

"...You know what? That's a darned good question! Tell me Eddy, in complete seriousness, what would these so-called heroes do if they were in the process of looting a house and they discovered evidence of a child being abused?"

"...Jesus Fucking Christ, Double-D."

"And I apologize for being so… explicit in my imagery-"

"What do your parents think he did!?"

"I don't personally believe that he did such a thing, I'm simply stating my parents do, though as much of an uncouth man as my uncle is, I would never take him for someone who would do that."

"To you?"

"My parents are under the impression that he may have and that my subconscious mind subsequently erased the memory to spare me from chronic trauma, but I must say that I'm beginning to think that this is more of a reckless assumption on my parents' part than they would like me to believe."

"So you're finally starting to question your parents' judgment. Good boy. Took ya long enough."

"But please, Eddy, answer my question: what would these individuals do if they discovered evidence of something like that? Not even necessarily that kind of abuse, maybe just… excessive corporal punishment? Or spousal abuse. Or elder abuse. Or abuse of a pet iguana! Or any number of other heinous acts which couldn't easily be solved by simply robbing them with as-needed simple assault! People manufacturing controlled substances, mammalian trafficking and sex slavery, a murder plot - or a plot to commit an act of terror in a public place? What do these heroes do then? Do they take matters into their own hands? Do they… d-do they even go as far as to try to exact extrajudicial justice, violating their own rules against acts of violence with the intent to harm? Or do they swallow their pride and get the proper authorities involved? Surely these 'heroes' wouldn't simply stand there and allow such acts to continue unabated!"

"...You know what, Double-D? ...These are honestly really good questions. Really, they are. 'Would a hero kill?', it's a classic question-"

"Now, Eddy, don't misinterpret me, I didn't necessarily mean kill-"

"-but you know what? If I'm gonna be hanging out with them a lot, I'll have plenty of time to ask, now won't I?"

"Oh-! Eddy, you don't go jumping headlong into an arrangement like theirs without knowing the answers to questions such as these!"

"Well then, ask them yourself."

"...I beg your pardon?"

"Me and Ed are gonna have to find them again and tell them we're in; ya might as well come along and tell them what your hang-ups are. Hell, maybe they'll even give you an answer that'll change your mind about them! I mean, hey, you strive to be a gentleman, right, Mooney? Do you really think it's polite to blow people off when they're expecting a response from you? Because remember, they're still expecting us to get back to them."

"...You know what, Eddy? I'll consider it-"

"Well you better consider it fast, because I told them a few days back I'd get them an answer by tomorrow-"

"You spoke to them again!?"

"Didn't speak to 'em. Went to the van, they weren't there, went to the woods, they were there but they were in the middle of a conversation, I went back home, wrote 'em a note expecting to leave it there but they were still there and still talking, actually I think they were even reading a book or something, but I just tied my note to a rock and air-mailed it. The mauler was pissed, but it got the job done."

"...Hm. Then perhaps you will need me there since I'm apparently the only one among us who can communicate eloquently."

"Jeez, you really can't hide how much smarter you think you are than us, can ya?"

"But let me be clear, Eddy, I'm not going with any intention of changing my mind."

"So you're stubborn."

"Oh-! For good darned reason, I'm stubborn! The fact of the matter is there is nothing they can say that will convince me that I should tag along with a pair of homeless vagrants in their quest to execute a naïve and fantastic vigilante mission, no matter how noble their intentions or well-spoken their words!"

"You keep saying 'fantastic' like it's a bad thing. Fantastic's a good thing, Sock-Head. Movies are fantastic. Roller coasters are fantastic. You know what's better than feeling good? Feeling fantastic."

"'Fantastic': of or relating to a fantasy, as in the fantasy with which our culture is infatuated wherein there are stories of heroes who do heroic things and always win. But that's just that: a fantasy. One day soon, their methods will fail and their luck will run out, and I take no pleasure in saying that they will have an unpleasant moment of clarity when that moment comes. You can only go so far in the real world acting like the protagonists of a children's storybook."

"...'Children's storybook'? This is about them just straight-up admitting that they're taking cues from a Sidney movie, isn't it?"

"...N-no, it's not just that-"

"Because I'm not too thrilled about the idea of following the lead of a crappy kids' skinny flick, but I'm trying not to care where they're getting their inspiration from as long as it's working. Meanwhile, Wolfie, you seem like you think you're too mature to allow yourself to be inspired by a kids' movie, which a lot of people would actually argue makes you less mature. Now, ain't that ironic?"

"..."

"Double-D looks like he's seen a ghost, Eddy! Is your room haunted?"

"Only haunted by the lingering scent of the skunk chick my brother deflowered; you can still smell it in the walls on hot days when everyone in the house forgets to turn the A/C on. When that happens, my parents always think I'm smoking grass but then they remember that I can't even afford grass and the memories of The Delilah Incident come back to them. But hey, Double-D, tell me, if they said those guys in the woods were inspired by any of the other fifty-gazillion Adam Bell movies for adults, would that make you feel better!"

"It's not about-! I'm just not comfortable with the idea of emulating… Adam Bell, of all characters-"

"Fine, then emulate Al Capone - before he fucked up with the St. Valentine's Day massacre and lost Chicago's love, I mean. O-or Jesse James! ...No, no, wait, I think my brother told me once that Jesse James never actually gave to the poor-"

"Eddy, why do you have so much knowledge of these 'noble criminal' types?"

"Jesus, first you're mocking me for adding a new word to my mouth, now you're offended that I know things about a topic that you didn't!?"

"I already did know the respective mythos behind Al Capone and Jesse-"

"I would never think Eddward Marion Lupo of all people would make fun of me for having knowledge!"

"I'm not making fun of you for having knowledge, I'm disturbed by how you only have a seeming depth of knowledge in very obscure and controversial subjects!"

"The word 'dichotomy' is controversial?"

"..."

"What's a dichotomy, Double-D?"

"He'll explain later, Ed. But I get it, Double-D, you're not comfy with taking after any loveable-rogue type. You're a very by-the-books guy. And maybe if I can't convince you to take the opportunity to be something greater than what you are right now, then maybe that wasn't just your parents' doing, maybe that's actually just your nature. And if that is the case, fine, I won't fight it, but if deep down you want to be like all the other little boys on Planet Earth and play the hero instead of taking a passive role in your own existence, well, don't say I didn't offer."

"Eddy, I'm quite comfortable with who I am-"

"And I thought the same thing about myself before those two weird older guys in the woods made me realize something: maybe I don't want money so much as I want adoration. And I could be wrong, but I'm willing to give it a try. I want to live, Double-D."

"...You just admitted that you're doing this not out of the goodness of your heart, but for your own greed and desire to be admired. Do you realize that?"

"It can be both, jeez, Double-D. And being seen as a community leader who anybody would do anything for's gotta have its perks, too. Honestly, you're kinda messing up my plans here, Dubs; there's three of us and two of them, and we coulda outnumbered them in their own group if you just tagged along with us."

"You're using this as a power grab, too!?"

"Double-D, who fucking CARES why I'm doing it!? It's still a good thing I wanna do! And I'd bet my bottom fuckin' dollar that deep down, those two fuckwits are in it for the gold and glory, too. That's just how people are. It's better to do something good for selfish reasons than to not do something good at all, you fucking twatwaffle - unless you want to argue that, too!"

"..."

"..."

"...Eddy, I stand for law, order, and civility, and-"

"That has absolutely nothing to do with what I just said. Double-D, do you want to go cash in on the rewards of being a good person, or do you want to sit alone in the dark reading books and telling yourself that the fact that our society remembers the names Adam Bell and Al Capone and Jesse James but not the name of whoever discovered the fucking molecule really means that there's a problem with everyone else except for you?"

"...Eddy, I said I'd come along to speak with them one more time tomorrow, and I meant it. But I also meant it when I said I would be steadfast in my beliefs and would not be swayed to their way of thinking. And let me be completely transparent, Eddy: I'm going to seek to convert you to my way of thinking-"

"Honestly, fair."

"-but remember, Eddy, even if you think your parents would eventually come around to accept your decision, I don't think I would have the same luck with mine-"

"But we're never gonna find out about how they feel, now are we!? Not my parents, not yours, not Ed's. Because you're not gonna tell them, or anybody else! Now isn't that right?"

"...Don't give me a reason to, Eddy."

"...Oh. Oh, you think that was clever. And with someone else, it might've been. But no. You're not gonna squeal, not even if you do have a reason to."

"And why is that, Eddy? Tell me. I'm curious, genuinely."

"...I'll tell everybody you-know-what."

"...I beg your pardon?"

"Sweetheart, you heard me loud and clear, I can see by the look on your face that you did."

"...Surely you're trying to deceive me."

"Nope."

"Fine then! Tell me what 'you-know-what' is!"

"Do you really want Ed to find out?"

"What's 'you-know-what', Double-D? Does it have chickens?"

"...How did you find out?"

"You give off hints more often than you realize."

"L-like what hints?"

"Oh, you drop them all the time. Even a few as we've been talking just now."

"...Oh, dear…"

"Mmhmm."

"Oh-! Please, Eddy, please don't do to me what Kevin did with your middle name! Please don't tell anybody my secret! I beg you! Your whereabouts will be safe with me!"

"...Well, that worked fast! Thank God, this chapter's getting long enough as it is."

"'Chapter'?"

"Of our lives, Double-D. But do we have ourselves a deal?"

"...I wish we didn't Eddy… but it seems as though you have won this round."

"Just what I wanted to hear."

"Eddy, Double-D, how do they get lava from volcanoes and put it into jars?"

-IllI-

"So when does the game actually start?"

The foxes were both sitting on the bear-sized one-seat recliner while the bears volunteered to take opposite ends of their three-seat couch. A bit of an awkward arrangement, but if the wolves ever cared to show up, they could probably squeeze into the middle seat on the couch and that would likely be the most efficient seating arrangement for everybody.

Of course, physical comfort was one thing, but the room's emotional comfort was a lot harder to manage. They were gathered to watch a sport that they didn't hate by any stretch of the imagination but also about which none of them particularly cared, and the tension was thick as they all knew that nobody else in the room would have listed basketball as their favorite pastime. But they weren't ready to address what they were really there to discuss, so Hilary grabbed the TV Guide off the end-table in an effort to maintain the charade a little bit longer.

"Uh, let's see… here's the pregame show; uh, the actual game starts… 9 o'clock? What the hell?"

"That late!?" said Matilda.

"That can't be right," said Terry.

"So when would the game end, then, midnight?" asked Toni. Clearly nobody in the room had been watching the first three games of the series or this incredibly late start-time would have been no surprise.

"I… guess," Hill mumbled as he put the magazine down and looked at the TV; they had the pregame show on, but they had the volume on so low it might as well have been on mute. "I mean, that's probably easier on the people in San Antonio and Detroit since they're, what, an hour behind us?"

"No, I gotta call The Big Three in Michigan every so often to ask when vehicle warranties expire and shit like that," said Terry, "I guarantee you Detroit's on Eastern Time."

"Hm. I guess they just don't want hard-working people to get a good night's sleep before their jobs in the morning," said Toni; after spending her early childhood in Kaposfüred, her adolescence in Vancouver, her college years in Boston and her married life in Nottingham, her accent was all over the place.

"Eh, whatever," Hilary grumbled, "we don't need to watch the whole thing if we don't want to. And by the way, we would've been fine watching hockey if it was on-"

"Hill. Hill," Terry interrupted. "We understand. It's fine. We know you know us."

"Maybe it's better this way," said Toni. "There was a good chance it could've been Bruins-Canucks this year and you two wouldn't have wanted to watch me and Terry go at each other's throats in your living room."

Hilary and his wife both forced a nasal chuckle before he said, "Well, we'd probably be on Terry's side for obvious reasons."

But Mat completely ignored her husband's quip and made more awkward conversation in response to Toni. "That bad, huh? You two really are hockey nuts."

"Hey, I'm from New England, we love every sport up there," Terry insisted. "Twenty-five years ago, I probably would've told you I preferred baseball, but then I hooked up with a Canadian girl and that made up my mind for me."

"You ever teach your boys how to play?" Hill asked, anything to keep the conversation away from what he really needed to talk about but really, really didn't want to talk about.

"Oh, believe me, we both tried," said Toni, "but neither one of them really cared for it. Or sports in general, really."

"I mean, Eddy really liked the ice-skating part of it," Terry added, "and then one year when he was a little kid, the Winter Olympics were on TV and he sees figure skaters doing their thing and he turns to us and goes 'Mom, Dad, I wanna do that!' and that's when I thought, okay kid, no more hockey for you."

His wife elbowed him without one iota of subtlety. "I was going to leave that part out, but I guess you really want to make yourself look like an ignoramus."

"Hey, I don't hate gay people, but I acknowledge that most people in the world do and I'm trying to spare my son from all the grief I can!" Terry protested. "I'm a good father."

"Don't worry, we believe ya," said Hill. "No luck at all with your oldest?"

"Our oldest?" Terry asked with a sneer. "Jesus, Hill, I know you didn't mean nothing by that, but I really don't wanna think about him. Let's- let's just say we have very good reason for knowing that he's at least into… certain kinds of females. I-I'll put it this way: if Eddy did turn out to be gay, I'd be fine with it so long as he stayed away from certain… kinds of guys. Because I could handle one of my sons being into… certain kinds of people, but I don't know if I could handle both of them being into the same other kinds of people. For the same reason I didn't want him figure-skating in the first place: to avoid catching other people's grief. Man…" he grumbled as he looked off at the armrest, "...I'm almost kind of glad that freakin' kid with the retainer hates Eddy just to erase the possibility that they'd be each other's first crush. I'd lose it."

Terry turned back to the room to see his wife and his neighbors staring at him in awkward confusion.

"Um… Terry," went Toni, "I-I may have misunderstood the question myself, but I thought that Hilary meant whether, uh, whether we had luck with getting him to like any part of hockey like we did with Eddy-"

"That's exactly what I meant," said Hilary abruptly.

"...Oh…" Terry could feel his cheeks burning under his red fur. "Uh- y-yeah, no, he didn't give a rat's ass about any sport, except for track, and running in circles isn't a sport, it's just a contest… Goddammit, Hill, why are we here?"

"Huh?"

"Why'd you invite us over? What did you really want to talk about?"

Hilary looked bashful. "Oh- c-c'mon, Terry, we're having such a good time, let's just get there when we get there-"

"We're taking our son to the doctor tomorrow," Mat interrupted, then tapped her temple with her finger. "That kind of doctor."

"Jesus, woman, I wasn't ready to talk about that!"

"Aw, grow up, you big baby!" she said with an accusatory finger, then lowered her voice to a harsh whisper: "You think Terry was ready to talk about how his sons are into fucking bunnies? You can make yourself talk about this!"

Meanwhile, Terry whispered something to his own spouse: "Did I really make it that obvious?"

"Did you really forget that they already knew?" Toni replied. "This isn't the first time you've complained about his taste in women."

"Yeah, but the way he asked, I thought he forgot-" But he stopped when he realized the bears were done whispering to one another and were again looking at them with downtrodden faces.

"So we're finally doing it," said Matilda. "We're biting the bullet. And we're really afraid about what they're gonna tell us about him."

"And we know you and all the other parents on the block think we shoulda done this a long time ago, but…" Hilary trailed off as he sought the words he wanted. "...I-I guess we… we're just in denial."

"Oh…" Toni cooed. "We understand that must have been a tough decision to finally make." Took you long enough.

"Yeah," added Terry, "I-I completely getting- uh, I completely get that feeling of wanting to help your child but not wanting to admit they have a problem you're powerless to fix." Now go get your fucking daughter of yours to therapy, will ya?

"And it's not just the worry that we've been irresponsible in waiting this long," said Mat, "it's the worry that… we're gonna get some news that's going to… just completely turn our lives upside-down. Like we'll never be a normal family again if our son gets diagnosed with… something that, uh…" She trailed off as she looked at the floor in front of her.

"And you know what?" asked Terry. "It might. It absolutely might, but if that's what the doctor says needs to happen, then you guys gotta do what's best. And we trust you two to do that."

"Yeah, I agree with Terry," said Toni. "Don't beat yourselves up over whether it was a mistake to wait this long." It was, though. "What's done is done, and what's important is that you're taking the steps you need to take to help your son. So if the experts say you have to do x, y, and z to accommodate for your son's, uh… condition, and to help him become a well-adjusted adult, well then, you've gotta do what you gotta do. And we'll be here to help and support you."

"And we're sure the wolves will be, too," added Terry, "...in spirit if not physically, since they clearly need to get their own asses to Workaholics Anonymous."

"Thanks, guys," said Matilda with a tired smile. "You two are true friends."

"Hey, what can we say?" Terry said with a sly smirk that made it clear where his sons got it from. "The world don't trust our people, the world don't trust your people… we stick together. It's what we do."

"Just let us know what we can do to help," Toni said warmly. Provided it doesn't involve you dumping your responsibilities on us.

"Of course," said Mat. But then the three of them all noticed that Hilary hadn't engaged in the conversation for a while, and was still staring - glaring - at the commentators on the silent TV.

"Uh… how ya feelin', Big Guy?" Terry asked Hilary.

He didn't look at them. "...You guys didn't really think you could say two sentences and this conversation'd be resolved, didja?"

After a few moments of them all being speechless, Toni was the first to speak: "Uh- n-no, that's not what we thought at all-!"

"It's not just… worrying about fuckin' lifestyle changes, that'll be the easy part," the bear kept grumbling to the TV. "It's more like… I-I have one son." He finally turned to face his wife and neighbors. "We have one son. We're not gonna have a second one. A-and yeah, we got our daughter, and we love her, but… you get different things out of sons and daughters. A-and you know, I'm a guy, I want a son to take after me…" He turned to the TV again. "...and this was my one chance at that… and I'm never gonna get a son to be proud of." And there's still a very high chance that I never really got a son at all and I just got stuck raising this kid; that's what he really wanted to say, but he knew he really couldn't say that, with company over or otherwise.

Once again, the others were rendered speechless by his candid confession. "Oh, uh… dude, it's alright," Terry attempted, "I-I-we get the feeling of kids not turning out exactly as planned. I mean, look at us, our oldest is an asshole, and our youngest is a… our youngest is an asshole who sucks at being an asshole."

Toni just ignored her husband's remark. "Hilary, it's alright! Um… thi-this could be a great learning experience! You can discover there's so much more to be proud of in your son than… than whatever you were hoping him to be!"

"They're right, Hilary," Matilda said to her husband. "I'm trying to tell myself that I'll be proud of him for trying to overcome any disorder or disease they diagnose him with; are you?"

"Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ, stop," Hilary groaned, "stop it. I'm never gonna be proud of him. It's just like how Terry said that he'd never be proud of his sons if they turned out to have a cotton-tail fetish or a love of figure skating; I'm never gonna be proud of having a retarded son."

"Oh, Hilary, I never fucking said that!" Terry protested. "I didn't say I wouldn't be proud of them, I'd just be afraid for their safety at the hands of, like… skinheads and fundamentalists! Y'know, bigots!"

"So you'd be afraid they'd be helpless, is what you're saying," Hilary glared. "Nobody's proud of their kids being helpless; if you are, you shouldn't be."

"I didn't say my sons would be fucking helpless-!"

"But Ed is!" the bear roared. "He's never gonna be able to operate as a fucking adult in society and I can't pretend to be proud of that. And I know it's not his fault, and I'm still gonna lo- try to love him - not making any promises that I'll succeed - but I can't pretend that I'm going to feel any fulfillment out of acting as his parent if he stays the way he is now forever!" Then the others saw the focus in his eyes change, almost like a sudden look of shock, but couldn't understand why. Aw, shit, I said 'acting as' out loud, didn't I?

Matilda, for her part, was absolutely appalled by her husband's behavior; just imagine how pissed she'd be if she had caught onto the 'acting as' part. "Hill, what the fuck is wrong with you!? We invite our friends over for emotional support as we try to start a new chapter of our lives, and you wait until now to say that you're not even gonna attempt to be a good parent?"

So Hill returned the anger. "Okay, woman, for one, I didn't say that I wasn't gonna try to be a good parent, just that I wasn't gonna get any sense of rewarding out of it. Second, I'm not taking this from a woman who clearly, hrm- bleedingly fucking obvious that you prefer your daughter over him anyway!"

"Oh, I do not-!"

"BULLSHIT, YES YOU DO! You never once take his side when she says he did something, half the fucking time he didn't even fucking do it!"

Mat did a poor job of hiding how her anger was giving way to embarrassment. "I- w-well, I- I will admit, I'm inclined to believe her more because she's the more… cerebral one, but it's not like I set out to take her side-"

"You don't even investigate her claims, you just believe her," Hilary stated flatly. "You never give him the same benefit."

Now Mat was angry again. "Well if you feel so strongly about this perceived injustice, why don't you ever speak up about it!?"

"Because, woman, you don't fucking listen to me! LIKE YOU'RE NOT DOING NOW!" he spat. "'Nyeh, you're not even gonna try to be a good parent-!' Bitch, it's telling that you said that. You didn't accuse me of not loving my son, you accused me of not trying to be a team player as a parent, which you care about because if I'm not participating then it's gonna be harder on you, and not because you care about your son, which you don't either."

And now Matilda was embarrassed again. "Oh- th-that's not what I meant-"

"Then what did you mean?"

Knock, knock, knock.

"That's probably Sammie and Vince," said Hillary, "let 'em in."

"Uh- a-are you sure?" asked Toni. "I-I can go to the door and tell them it's not a good time-"

"SAM, VIN, COME IN! DOOR'S UNLOCKED!" Hill hollered at the ceiling. He slumped in his seat and stared at the TV again. "And, y'know, honestly, it's embarrassing. Like… how did we wind up in this situation? Did we do something wrong during the pregnancy, and now the entire world can tell? Or was there something wrong with the genetics?" Not necessarily my genetics, but I digress-

"Hi, Mister and Missus Eddy's Mom and Dad!"

Hilary damn near paralyzed himself with the speed he turned his neck to see Ed having scooped the foxes off the armchair and presently squeezing them both into a bear hug.

"Oh, uh… hey, Ed," wheezed Toni.

"What's crackin', Short Stuff?" Terry tried to joke but lacked the breath support to deliver it as he would have liked.

Ed put his friend's parents down and looked at his own. "Hi, Mom and Dad! I knocked like you said I should so I wouldn't walk in on you and Mr. and Mrs. Eddy's Parents having a grown-up talk!"

Hilary just nodded slowly, his eyes still pursed open in shock. Matilda, pretty surprised herself, tried to say something: "Th-thank you, Ed. We appreciate that."

"Oh, uh, by the way, bud," Hilary forced himself to say, "remember, don't stay up too late, we're going to the doctor's in the morning."

"Doctor!?" Ed gasped as his voice broke. Flummoxed and agitated, he started waving his arms and jumping in place, hitting his head repeatedly on the ceiling eleven or so inches above his skull but not seeming to be fazed by it. "I don't wanna go to the doctor! He's gonna pick out my brains and replace them with a robot brain so I won't resist the mechanical uprising!"

"ED!" they all heard Sarah yell from upstairs. "Quit making all that noise or I'll freaking kill you!"

That comment inspired Toni and Terry to exchange knowing glances at one another.

It also successfully got Ed to mellow out, and Matilda stood up and put her hands on her son's shoulders. "Now Ed, you mustn't upset your sister like that."

"Hm, I'm sorry, Mom," Ed moped.

Hilary addressed the foxes: "You're seeing this, right?" he said, pointing. "Her son is deeply emotionally distraught and she's still scolding him for mildly inconveniencing his sister."

"Oh, Hilary, I am not playing favorites!" Mat shot back. "I'm just… teaching my son to be mindful of a lady's delicacy!"

"Delicateness!" Terry said through a fake cough, warranting another elbow to the ribs from his wife.

"Okay, Mom," said Ed, "I'll be more mind-y-full of a lady's delicacy-ness." Then he turned to Hilary: "And thanks for knowing that I felt bad." Ed leaned in and wrapped his arms around his father, pulling him into a standing position and giving him a bear hug of his own. "I love you, Daddy."

Hill could just turn his head enough to see his wife and friends staring at him, anticipating his response. So he reluctantly put one arm around Ed and patted him on the back. "I know you do, kid."

Ed let go rather suddenly and looked around the room in a panic. "Oh! I need to tell Eddy and Double-D that I can't go play tomorrow since I'll be at the doctor!" he said as he ran out the front door, leaving it hanging wide open behind him. The adults stood around for a moment, wondering what just happened, and eventually Matilda made her way to the door to shut it.

"Fine, I'll do it!"

"Works for me," said Hilary as he sat back down. "So what were the boys supposed to be playing tomorrow?"

"Beats me," Terry said with a shrug, and he and his wife both stared at Mr. Browne for a moment. "That boy loves you, Hilary."

"That sweet, kind-hearted young man loves you, Hilary," Toni amended.

"Yeah, of course he does," Hilary said as he grabbed the remote and changed the channel away from the basketball game that was never going to start. He switched it to TBS to see if the Braves were playing, just to have something to watch; much to his relief, they were. "He's too stupid to know that he shouldn't."

-IllI-

Okay, slight delay. But as Eddy locked the front door after seeing Ed out for the second time that night, he thought that perhaps in just a few days from now, nobody would be mocking him for being a teenager who still needed a step-stool to turn the deadbolt on his door. Someday soon nobody would care about his business failures or his personality flaws or his physical shortcomings; they would see him as a great person whose name was to be exalted on high somebody who they revered so highly that they would never choose to mock him. And that was all that he'd ever wanted.

He'd rather not have waited an extra day, of course, but he had a feeling that he was going to have to practice patience if he was going to earn those two guys' respect enough to get them to let their guards down and divulge the secrets of their skills that made their public adore them. Fine, so Ed was going to be absent tomorrow as his parents dragged him to the doctor to finally put an official medical term on whatever made Ed weird; as long as it didn't wind up with Ed being institutionalized and Eddy being alone with those two weird older guys, he could bear the wait. He and Double-D were still going to find them tomorrow and give them a formal answer as they had promised them. Tomorrow would still be the first day of the rest of his life.

He hopped onto his circular bed and laid in its exact center, staring at the ceiling of the room that was a testament to his brother's gray morality. All the furniture and fixtures, all the gewgaws and knickknacks (knickknacks, wasn't that a fitting thing to call them?), all paid for by his brother's drive to do good things simply to prove to everybody that he was successful and powerful enough to do so, and they weren't.

But what did his motivations matter? He still did it. What would Eddy's room have looked like without his brother footing the bill for its customization? He'd seen a picture or two of his brother's bedroom in the old Georgetown apartment from before he himself was even born; there was a bed and a dresser and not much else in the space bounded by those blank, sickly-white walls. Their parents had both hit the career jackpot around the time Eddy was born and on paper were able to escape poverty, but if not for his brother paying for so much of his and Eddy's own stuff, would their family's financial situation have been a lot more like it was Georgetown than it was today? He shuddered to think about it.

And this all posed an interesting question: had this call to perform great deeds been hiding in plain sight this whole time? For over a decade, Eddy had sought to emulate his brother's business abilities because for the longest time those seemed to be the most tangibly rewarding skills possessed by anybody in his life; then he became more acutely aware of who his brother really was and how much his adult life sucked and suddenly he didn't seem so heroic anymore. But maybe Eddy had had the right idea the first time in trying to learn from his brother, but rather than entrepreneurship, he should have been focused on the good things his entrepreneurial success had allowed him to do, motives be damned. The elder brother had managed to use his skills and talents to make the younger brother happy in ways others couldn't or wouldn't, and consequently earned his respect and admiration; why couldn't Eddy have a similar arrangement where he made others happy and they in turn looked up to him?

Because Eddy had been fuming all day about the time he'd wasted trying to be a shifty con-artist like his brother and wondering why nobody had ever cared to tell him that heroism was an option; maybe all these years he had only needed to look around his room to realize that it always had been.

But lamenting lost time would fix nothing. He needed to act, and luckily for him, he already planned to act, starting tomorrow and hopefully lasting well beyond that. And he was going to make clear to those guys that he was going to reserve the right to bail on them at any time if the arrangement they were offering turned out to suck more than it did on first glance, but so far, he was actually feeling pretty hopeful that tomorrow was going to be the beginning of something cool. In twenty-four hours' time, he may have been well on his way to finally being happy, perhaps even merry.