The next day found them all unwittingly congregated in the living room once again. Despite the distraction of yet another show marathon, it merely served as white noise to the tension in the room at best.
All three timeline natives were honestly starting to get kind of sick of the constant air of hostility and need to walk on eggshells in their own house. It was maddening, this was supposed to be the place were they could relax and unwind, not host three apparently somewhat unstable future versions of themselves with mountains of emotional baggage between them.
They'd expected this to a certain degree, of course. It was obvious that the older men were on two sides of some sort of struggle. Something serious and rather big, by the look of it. It was a disquieting thought, that they could one day turn on each other in such a way.
Tom and Matt had never really felt protective of Edd before. The cola addict was annoying at best when he was having one of those days and he could definitely take care of himself, as he had proven time and time again.
But he was also their friend and probably the only thing that held this friend group together (ignoring Tord for the moment). Seeing reflections of themselves brutally beating and coldly threatening a version of Edd... it was kind of terrifying, because it proved that they could go that far given the right circumstances.
So yeah, aside from the reason they'd mentioned for their sudden protective streak, there was also a bit of misplaced guilt in there as well. Atonement for a sin never committed.
Matt dealt with these revelations the same way he dealt with most of his problems: he ignored and hoped it'd go away eventually, and maybe spent a bit more time in front of his wonderful magical mirrors than usual.
Tom, well... he drank more. Not a lot more, although his alcohol intake had been pretty high to begin with. And he tried not to think about it too much, because he really had no idea what to do about it. Last night had been bad though. He hadn't been able to sleep and had finally given up around midnight and decided to play on his precious Susan for a good three hours, until the strings and the music had soothed him enough to listen to the call of oblivion.
Edd didn't really have much of an opinion. Yeah, his older self had been kinda brutalized and dehumanized for a little while there, but he'd also tried to kill Edd hours before. And Thomas and Matthew were his friends. Well, not really obviously, but they were still the same people, if rather twisted and worn. He couldn't just leave them, even there was obvious hostility between them in the future.
Besides, they didn't seem to have much of a problem with him, per se, despite the doubts he'd harbored yesterday, only with Edward.
It was weird and bit hard, thinking of them as truly separate entities from his friends.
Either way, they were most definitely getting on his nerves right now. All of their nerves. Matthew's coldness and Thomas' dark looks were bad enough, but piled up on Edward's now constant biting remarks it was all starting to cross a line.
"Alright, that's it!" Edd finally snapped, turning off the TV.
Everyone else startled, although Tom and Matt to a lesser degree. They'd seen this coming, after all. The older men, however, had grown used to Edd being rather mellow in the last two days, so this was a rather jarring jump back into reality.
Edd turned to glare at the three, Matt and Tom looking on with interest, "You three are going to tell me what exactly is going on between you and then we're going to at least find some sort of compromise. This constant hostility is driving me mad and I will not have it in my own house!"
They grimaced simultaneously and it was honestly kind of creepy.
"Look, uh, Edd," Matthew started, "I don't think we really should-"
"If you're going to constantly ruin our day we at least deserve to know why." Tom drawled over Matthew, and Edd shot him a grateful glance.
Edward was the first to give in.
"There's a war going on in our time. Has been for years."
Thomas snorted, "I'd hardly call it a war by now."
Edward shot him a dark look but continued on, "A man, Red Leader," he spat out like poison on his tongue, "built up an army several years ago, for us. He took over Norway in a matter of weeks, and then moved on to the rest of Europe. By the fifth year of the war, very few countries were left independent from the Red Nation, and even fewer left untouched by the war. Currently there's only a few dregs of resistance left in the US, India and Israel.
"After the British army was slaughtered in a massive strike pretty early on and left inoperative, I formed a rebel group to fight against the encroaching Red Army forces. We," he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "we were doing alright at first. We kept the reds out of the border for a few years."
Edd, Matt and Tom were listening attentively. This was so much bigger than they had thought, and dread started to pool in their stomachs.
"But the reds cut off our supply lines, inserted moles, instigated discord... and eventually we fell apart. I've been on the run ever since, being a wanted man and all." he sighed, looking even older than he was supposed to be.
The younger men exchanged concerned glances, looking the other two, who had remained mostly silent.
Matt spoke up hesitantly, "Then we... you... you're with this Red Leader guy?"
"We are." Thomas affirmed, face carefully blank.
There was silence for a moment as they tried to process this.
Tom looked between Matthew and Thomas with a borderline bewildered scowl, "Why?"
Matt continued uncertainly, "Yeah, wouldn't we.. wouldn't we be on Edd's side for something like this?" he asked, keeping said man, whose face had gone completely blank, in his sight.
Thomas frowned and Matthew looked away. Edward on the other hand looked at them expectantly, cool stare sharpening, "Go on." he pushed.
Matthew sighed, still not looking at them, "We were, at first."
"And then what, you went rogue?" Tom asked forcefully.
"Basically." Thomas responded, face still blank.
"Why the fuck would you do that?!" Tom tried to make the question sound aggressive and demanding, but it just came out desperate and panicked. What the fuck? What the fuck was this? Why go work for the megalomaniac? Why betray Edd? Why why why why why why why why
"That," Thomas snapped and leaned forwards, LED eyes narrowing, "is none of your fucking business."
"The hell it isn't-!" Tom was interrupted by a bitter chuckle, courtesy of Matthew.
"Besides, can you really betray someone who betrayed you first?"
Edward stood up, fury radiating off of him, "That again! What the fuck are you talking about, Matt! You're the one who suddenly showed up in the enemy lines after I'd thought you dead for months!"
Matthew rose up to meet him, left eye now blazing red to match its cybernetic counterpart, "Do you know why, Edd?! You left me for dead! Red Leader found me and saved my life and showed me how much of an ignorant fuckup you really are! How many lives did you waste in your harebrained operations, Edd?! Did you even care?"
Edward seemed shocked before his anger started rising steadily, "Left... left you for dead? You had a hole in your chest, Matt! Courtesy of your precious Red Army by the way! There was no way I could help you and I had a whole platoon to evacuate before they died as well! Do you think I wanted to leave you there?! You were..." his stuttered, growing quieter and lowering his head as tears pooled in his eyes, still scowling, "...you were all I had left. I never wanted to leave, I didn't want you to die, but we... we didn't have time and we didn't have the resources... I never wanted... I never wanted this!"
Edward dropped down heavily on the sofa, face buried in his hands as he took in quick, shallow breaths, leaving Matthew to gape at him, eyes incredibly wide.
Thomas glared darkly at a corner of the room, refusing to look at anyone. Edd, Matt and Tom fidgeted helplessly. It felt like they were suddenly intruding in something deeply personal.
While Edward tried to get himself under control, Matthew started shaking, face twisting into something wretched and raw. Before anyone could hope to stop him, he bolted further into the house, disappearing down the hallway.
A heavy silence blanketed the room, broken only by Edward's desperate gasps for air. Tom looked at him worriedly. The man was trembling, had trouble breathing, his nails were drawing blood from his scalp-
Shit, was he having a panic attack?
"Hey, hey, come on," he sat down awkwardly beside him, having absolutely no idea what to do but unwilling to just leaving him like this, "you're okay, it's alright, deep breaths, come on, breathe with me Edw- Edd, come on..."
While Tom continued whispering comforting nothings in Edward's ear trying to get him to breathe properly and Edd stood around not knowing what to do, Matt followed after his older counterpart after only a moment's hesitation.
He checked the 'guest room', but it was empty. Thinking hard, he tried to listen for anything unusual as he walked down the hall, up until he was facing his own room's door. Matt hesitated for a second, but grabbed the handle and walked in.
It took him a little while, what with the mountains of random objects in his room, but he finally found a shaking figure huddled at the foot of his bed. He approached it slowly, not wanting to startle the man, but Matthew didn't seem to react to his presence.
When he finally reached him, Matt sat down beside him, getting close enough that his arm brushed with Matthew's just barely, so he could easily shy away if he wanted.
Matthew didn't react.
Tentatively, Matt pressed his arm against him a bit more firmly, trying to provide at least some sort of physical comfort he could latch onto.
They sat there for a long time. Matt didn't really know why he was doing this, nor did he know how he felt about all the terrible things he'd just learned, but when Matthew's shaking eventually started subsiding, he decided the why didn't really matter right now.
Every now and then, Matt could hear footsteps go by his door, but no one came in.
Finally, after what felt like ages, Matthew stopped shaking entirely, although his head was still buried in his arms, legs held close to his chest.
They sat in silence, counting breaths, inhale, exhale, inhale, until Matthew finally broke it, not lifting his head.
"I loved him."
Matt almost jumped at the sudden sound, but forced himself not to react, humming slightly in response to the entirely unexpected statement.
"We were together. After Tom disappeared it just kind of happened. He stopped sleeping with Eduardo and then, suddenly, we were a thing."
A pause, a deep breath.
"I loved him. That's why it hurt so much, I think, when he left me in that dark hallway."
The quite stretched on after that, until it was clear that he wouldn't be saying much else. Matt nudged him lightly with his shoulder.
"Want to spend the night here?"
"...yeah." came the hoarse reply.
AN:
that fight was actually planned, miracle of miracles, though id expected it to crop up a bit later. it couldve gone many ways but this is what i settled on. hopefully ill be able to mention everything else i wanted to bring up at a later point.
also tom is so lost, trying to help smn with a panic attack, the poor guy