Maybe if he stared at the ceiling long enough it would give him the answers he'd been looking for in the last ten years.
Wishful thinking, yes, but it was what his muddled, exhausted brain was currently capable of.
Edward felt like he wanted to sigh, like he should have been sighing right that moment, and yet he was barely breathing. Sighing would probably permanently empty his lungs or something equally ridiculous.
Or maybe all this musty air was getting to him, Edward mused. He wondered when the last time was that someone had opened that window. Or the door for that matter. The room had seemed pretty damn untouched when he'd been led in the previous day.
He wondered about this supposed fourth housemate. He'd honestly had no idea about this. Eduardo had never talked about this person, neither had Mark, and he hadn't actually noticed he'd had neighbours until the cola incident. Well, he was gone now, and never really showed up again, so he must not be that important in the long ru-
His absolutely pointless train of thought was interrupted by the door opening and he couldn't even muster up the energy to turn his head and see whoever had just entered the room who would undoubtedly be-
"Hey freak, we need to talk."
-Eduardo. Of course.
He kept his eyes on the ceiling, "Here to kick me out?"
"...in a way."
Edward managed frown just the slightest bit in confusion as he heard the desk chair scrape along the floor and finally settle next to the bed, along with Eduardo himself.
"Since you're obviously planning on making a nuisance of yourself until whatever it is that drove you out of that damn house is resolved, we're gonna talk until your problem's solved."
Edward blinked. Then blinked again. And then he finally turned his head to look at the younger man in slight astonishment. "What?"
"You heard me." he said with a mulish expression plastered on his face.
And Edward could only stare, because yeah, Eduardo had always been a good listener and adviser, but getting to that part of him usually required a lot of opening up before hand, which had desidedly not happened in this timeline. At least he was pretty sure it hadn't. Relatively sure. Honestly his head felt kind of funny so maybe-
"Why?" he asked instead of dwelling on the painful truths of his situation (unfamiliarity in his eyes, a lack fond warmth, and he missed it all so so much).
"Because I want you out of my house."
The vehemence in his voice startled a small huff out of Edward, just light enough to maybe be called a chuckle. "Aww, I didn't know you cared." he mocked playfully, familiarly (and if the other weren't so obviously younger he would've felt like he was back at the base, surrounded by friends).
Eduardo's face contorted almost comically in indignant rage, "Why you fucking maldito hijo de-" he visibly stopped himself and took a few breaths. This didn't surprise Edward, he knew Eduardo was at best reluctant to curse in his first language, even when he slipped. Growing up catholic would do that to you.
Edward turned his eyes back up to the drab, lifeless ceiling. "You guys are really too curious for your own good. Keep asking me to open up like a book or something... heh. You don't even trust me, really."
"No." Eduardo replied, "But your dumb ass seems to trust me, for whatever reason. So..." he said with a somewhat bothered shrug, stopping Edward's train of thought in its tracks to contemplate over this.
"Well, if you want to know so badly..."
"I don't- !"
"...they brought Tord into the house."
"You-" a perplexed silence, and then, "Who the fuck is Tord?"
"Our former housemate."
"...yeah, that's not all of it."
Edward hummed, acknowledging the point, "And a world-conquering madman of a tyrant in my time."
"..."
Edward barely suppressed a sardonic smirk. Morbid(absolutelyterrifyingwhywashetalkingaboutthis) subject or not, striking Eduardo speechless would always be a highlight of his days.
"...and why would they let him in then?"
Edward shrugged as well as he could while lying down, "Thomas and Matthew work for him. And seem to be under some kind of delusion that this version of him is less..."
"Evil?" Eduardo completed his sentence in a tone as dry as the desert. "Is he?"
"Is he what?"
"Less evil?" Edward could just hear the air quotes on that one.
"He's Tord." he answered simply, still staring up, as if that explained everything. Which honestly, it did.
Eduardo didn't seem impressed however, "He's also fifteen years younger than the one you know." he brought up, seemingly just for the sake of the argument.
Edward scoffed, scowling, "Oh please, he's rotten to the core. Has been for years."
"Fifteen-"
"Five."
"What?" he sounded irritated at being interrupted once again, but his curiosity won out.
"In five years, he would come back. Lie to us, tell us he was moving back in. Get his fucking giant robot from his lab and destroy our home. Yours too."
Eduardo's skeptical frown deepened, but he didn't seem entirely ready to let go of the argument and the the subject was grating on Edward so much already that he couldn't stop the words before they slipped out.
"He killed Jon."
Eduardo seemed to freeze entirely in his tracks, eyes widening in warring disbelief and horror. Edward immediately felt a heavy weight of guilt in his gut as he peeked at his face from the corner of his eye. He averted his gaze to the wall beside him instead. It was a dreadful shade of faded red that made something in his chest ache.
"...I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"
"No." Eduardo stopped him before he could continue and his head unwittingly turns to look at the man. He was pale, but his eyes were unyielding, brimming with a familiar fire that momentarily took Edward's breath away. "I'm glad you did." he said firmly, and the words sounded like promises and warm memories and whispers in dark rooms to his ears.
("I'm glad you came, Edd."
"I... I don't..."
"Shhh, come here...")
Edward shook off the haze of memories overtaking his reality and muttered, almost hesitantly, "...alright."
"But that still doesn't mean he's the same person."
Edward's head whipped up in disbelief, chest rising up alongside it as he leaned on an elbow, "They got this one from prison."
Eduardo snorted, color returning to his face, "Full offense, but I'm almost completely sure you've been in prison."
"I-" Edward wanted to refute him so bad, but, well... yeah, he'd totally been in prison. Several times.
The younger man raised a challenging eyebrow, the ghost of a smirk overtaking his lips, "Moron."
Edward huffed and lay back down, staring pointed up at the ceiling once again, "Why are you even arguing for this?"
"Because you obviously haven't actually talked to him and I want you to get out of my house to go do that."
Edward's snort turned into a wet laugh as he raised a hand to cover his eyes.
"Bastard." he accused and the tremble in his voice was barely noticeable.
"Dumbass." Eduardo shot right back at him with no hesitation.
0 0 0
He had been on the way to the kitchen for a late breakfast, eyes still bleary from sleep, when he noticed it.
There, hanging innocently on the coat rack, was a somewhat familiar leather trench coat.
Jon blinked, trying to assure himself that he wasn't just still half asleep and his dreams were bleeding into reality. Nope, the coat was still there.
Well then.
That meant that for whatever reason, Edward was here, in the house. The kitchen was absolutely silent and there had been no one in the living room, so he must have been in a room. Maybe he spent the night here?
Breakfast forgotten, Jon traced his steps right back to the hallway, smile firmly in place. He wasn't exactly sure why, but he liked Edward. Strange or not, the man was entertaining to be around. Plus he still had a few questions about the future he was absolutely going to annoy the answers out of him. Because obviously he was too good at judging questions otherwise. Jon still knew nothing of his future, seriously!
Now that he was more awake, he finally noticed that the door to Todd's old room was slightly ajar. That settled it, he was definitely in there. They never really used the room usually, so it went ignored for the most part. The last time he'd seen it open was years ago. He reached for the handle-
"In five years, he would come back. Lie to us, tell us he was moving back in. Get his fucking giant robot from his lab and destroy our home. Yours too."
-and froze in his tracks, trying to process what he was hearing. What was this? Their house destroyed? Who were they even talking abo-
"He killed Jon."
The world tilted.
He killed Jon.
He killed Jon.
He killed Jon.
The silence on the other side of the door was oppressive, terrifying. He couldn't move, could barely breathe.
He was-
He was-
"Do you know future me? Is he cool? What am I like in... how far in the future are you from again?"
Edward stiffened, expression tightening a bit as he looked off to the side.
"...about fifteen years, give or take." he replied, pointedly not answering the previous questions.
Jon blinked and pressed on, "And future me?"
Edward's jaw tightened momentarily, "...the last I saw of you, you were still living with Mark and Eduardo."
Dodged dodged the question had been dodged not answered Edward couldn't talk about about Jon's future because in his time Jon was
Jon was-
Jon was dead.
AN:
so haha, its been a lil while. just gonna get to the heart of the matter. ive obviously lost the motivation to keep my previous momentum going. that does not mean ive lost interest in this story, it does however mean that updates will slow down significatntly, as you have surely already noticed. ill stil update, just... not as stupidly often as before.
in other news, due to an overwhelming majority the title will not b changed (interestingly enough tho a lot of you did aparetnly like the would-be title, just not enough apparently)
comments motivate me to write more! also talk to me on tumblr maybe .com and also check out my art tag? ive been getting back into drawing again (plus there might be a lil project blog in the works~)