Monday morning rolled around with minimal drama. He had spent the majority of Sunday somewhat doped-up on the Sullivan's couch, remote in his slack hand, listening intermediately between the History Channel and Eddy's mother's light conversation without fully processing either. She hadn't seemed to mind the audience as she went about her cleaning. Or, if she had, she hadn't mentioned it (and most importantly, hadn't brought up his conspicuously missing parents), so Eddward was inclined to believe that she had spoken to her son before shooing him out of the house and over to Ed's. He cared for Eddy a lot, but even he hadn't looked forward to the prospect of being pestered by the bored teenager all day.
Seven-thirty AM on Monday morning found him rubbing bleary eyes as Eddy practically sprinted out the front door, backpack over one shoulder. He squinted at the flashing neon of the TV's clock before the door flew back open. Eddy appeared winded. "Oh, you're up. Ah," he stammered, shoving a hand through comically messy brown hair, "Mom and Dad are at work. I think Mom called you in. I'm like, really gonna be late, so just... don't blow the house up, and I'll be back as soon as school's out."
Eddward nodded dazedly. This must have been what Eddy was waiting for, as the door swung shut again and the room was again void of all other occupants.
Blow the house up? Eddy, your home isn't a science lab and I'm not stupid...
It did feel strange not going to school, however.
Eddy's living room was smaller than the family room, but no less welcoming. The couch and love-seat were creme with a floral pattern. They, at one time, had probably been part of a Martha Stewart home collection. There were matching purple suede pillows and a deep plum-colored throw, and it would have been akin to his own family's living room if not for the flat screen affixed above the fireplace. It was functional and lived-in, and it was that trait that most separated it from the Blake's.
Against one of the walls was a bookcase that looked promising. He spent several minutes flexing his toes and calves to return feeling to them before ambling over and settling himself on the carpet at its base. The bookcase housed the most varied assortment of books he'd ever seen; there were a few cookbooks, a good many car magazines and crime novels, Shakespeare, history, half the Encyclopedia Britannica, and about eight different versions of the dictionary. A National Geographic from 1985 caught his eye for the striking portrait of the Afghan Girl that he had often seen but never read about. Peach Creek's library wasn't reliable for anything other than romance novels or fashion magazines - neither of which he had any interest in.
He settled in with his back against the bookshelf, magazine propped up against his legs so that he could turn its pages with his good arm. The outside world disappeared and he immersed himself in the pursuit of knowledge.
Some time not too long after he had started he was distracted by the rather ferocious growling of his stomach. Careful to memorize the page number, he tucked the magazine back into its place in the bookshelf and stood, lunging to grab the wooden frame when his legs swayed like jelly beneath him. He glanced at the clock.
Three hours? That couldn't be right.
After all, he had only gotten through... Nearly two-hundred pages of fine print. That in mind, it wasn't any surprise that he was feeling hungry.
The Sullivan family kitchen was right off of the living room. Everything in it (save for the appliances and oak cupboards) was painted a bright lime green that was as comforting as it was blinding. A large red fruit bowl stood sentinel in the center of the island. It contained one apple and two oranges, and he could imagine that both sets would remain until Mrs. Sullivan either ate them or threw them out. He couldn't see either of the Sullivan males eating anything healthy.
A note sat on the counter in neat cursive stating that Eddy's father would be home early and that he was more than welcome to help himself to anything in the kitchen. To make himself at home. There was even a "=]" smiley face doodled at the bottom, reminiscent of the last note he himself had written to this woman.
She's amazing. Just amazing. If the prospect of it hadn't seemed so childish, he would have pocketed the note.
Shaking his head, he chastised himself for becoming overly sentimental.
He wandered over to the fridge (a stainless steel monstrosity with four doors and half a dozen buttons above the overly complicated ice dispenser) and contemplated its contents. Salad or macaroni? Hotdog or leftovers? It was almost an out-of-body experience to have so many different choices after his own fridge being empty for over a week. He settled on a small Tupperware container of some sort of pasta, and shut the fridge door.
"I think that's old."
Eddward jumped as Mr. Sullivan seemed to come out of nowhere.
The man didn't seem to notice his surprise, and scratched at his stubbly chin with contentedly squinted eyes. "Maybe. When did we have pasta? Uh... Either way, it wasn't the best to begin with. Don't tell the wife I said that, though..."
He stepped out of the way as the older man opened the fridge again, dragging out a package of bloody beef. Even wrapped in styrofoam and saran-wrap, the meat made a wet squelching sound on contact with the kitchen counter. A brick of cheese, head of lettuce, and several condiments joined it as Eddy's father tore open the packaging. Cheeseburgers, apparently.
Eddward swallowed compulsively, taking a seat at the kitchen table. He remembered vividly the last conversation he had with his own father; the man had been asking after his grades while heating up a cold cup of coffee in the microwave. In many ways, he hadn't been concerned with his aptitude, or even his feelings about school. Father only wanted the best for the family name.
"So." Mr. Sullivan slapped a few formed patties in a pan and turned to lean back against the counter, eyes warm and more than a little curious. "How's that nitrogen thing coming along?"
"Nitrogen...? Oh," he hummed, drawing imaginary circles on the tabletop. "I uh, I haven't had the opportunity to request the materials yet from school, what with the broken arm and all. The chemistry teacher is required to sign off on the lab hours and the rubbing alcohol, too. Um, procedure and all. It seems sort of excessive, though, since it is found in most bathroom cabinets." He realized that he was rambling and immediately shut himself up. The other Eds may not have terribly minded his loose jaw, but as Father used to berate him after dinner parties he had unintentionally ruined, children were to be seen and not heard. Already he regretted not being brief.
Surprisingly (or perhaps not so much, given who his sons were), Eddy's dad didn't seem to mind. "Huh. Kinda always figured you were the Mad Scientist type. You know, running experiments in your basement and stuff. Though I guess you couldn't get the credit for it if you couldn't prove you made it, now could ya'?" He chuckled, shaking his head and flipping the patties on the burner. The topsides came away mostly pink-free.
Eddward felt his lips twitch into a smile. Small as it was, the knowledge of it made his face feel warmer. "Eddy says the same thing. The mad scientist bit, at least."
Mr. Sullivan stood silent and observed him for a moment. There was a calculating, interested look on his face that arched his eyebrow and pulled his soft smile off-center. His son had perfected the same look, often shooting one at Eddward when he was doing something particularly nerdy or random. Eddward had always equated it as a "what am I going to do with you?" Coming from his father, however, Eddward felt scrutinized and bare.
His hands flitted to his hat, tugging the soft material down a bit more.
Then the look passed to something more like a smirk, and somehow he suspected that even the hat couldn't hide whatever Eddy's father thought he saw in him.
"You and Eddy-boy, you've known each other for a long time now, yeah?" Nod. What does that have to do with anything? "And that Ed, too. Good friends. How come he's not over here every night, too?"
Ed has a family to go back to. Ed isn't surviving off of your hospitality. Ed... isn't a freeloader.
A crash came from the front room, though, saving him from answering. Several rather colorful swears followed, and Eddy froze when he entered the kitchen to find his father staring at him. "Uh..."
"I didn't hear anything."
Eddy shot his dad a cheeky grin, before latching onto Eddward's good arm. Eddward followed obediently as he was tugged downstairs to the pulled-out couch, where he was deposited and quickly abandoned. He was only left confused for a few moments though, before Eddy returned. Loaded in his arms was a tangle of wires and plastic controllers, which he promptly dropped in a pile before the TV.
Everything from the day of the accident was a bit blurry in reflection, but he could have sworn there were other plans involved. Knowing Eddy, probably something involving gratuitous amounts of violence and testosterone. "Eddy," he called softly, half out of fear of distracting the other teen from his mission of untangling wires. "I thought you had plans to visit the arcade...?"
"We had plans," Eddy corrected, warbled slightly through the cords strung between his teeth, "and I was gonna drag you along, broken arm or not. But you can't play arcade games with one arm, and I am not going to be the loser with a cripple following me around all day, so..." He leaned back on his heels and grinned in success as he got the Wii console hooked up to the TV. Several of the cords were still hopelessly tangled in a knot inches from the base, but he proved as he sat down beside Eddward that they still stretched the required distance. "We'll tag-team some zombies. Here, you can be my nunchuk. Only need one hand for that."
Because, of course, my desire to play has no bearings on whether I will...
Still, it was sort of sweet, in a way. Sweet for Eddy, at least. He dutifully swung the plastic controller about in a haphazard fashion and amputated a few nearby undead.
"So then get this, he says somethin' like, 'because donuts don't wear alligator shoes.' Damn, that movie was ridiculous."
"But Eddy, what about the dynamite? Why didn't anything explode?"
Sometimes (meaning most of the time) Eddy wanted to shake the giant oaf until his circuits connected in his brain. Somehow though, he always figured it'd be more like shaking a peanut in a coffee can.
"Black Dynamite was his name, dumbass." He paused to gulp down the last dregs of his energy drink, which had been saved from lunchtime, then tossed it to Ed who flattened it against his hard skull. "Definitely could've used more explosions, though."
The two boys were mid-route heading home from school, the third trailing behind them like a limp puppet on a string. Eddy noticed the exhausted expression, wobbly knees, and arm that was only being held up by the pull of the sling. Noticed, but didn't say anything. They were teenagers but still men, and if the shortest of the trio wasn't going to start whining about the long first day back, he certainly wasn't going to instigate it.
"Given the already low-budget nature of the film, I would say the action sequences far surpassed what should have been your expectations, friends. The logic sequence, however... How do they honestly expect the audience to follow such insanity?"
How typical. Nitpick the logic...
Eddy sighed, throwing out a hand palm-up for emphasis. "Insanity was the whole point. It's supposed to be funny. You just didn't get it, admit it."
"You say humor, I say poorly thought-out plot structure."
Ed's house came into view. Sarah, Ed's little sister, was sitting out front with another girl around her age with short dark hair. Both girl's hands immediately went behind backs or equally out of sight behind legs when they spotted the boys coming up the street. Ed waved cheerfully at them with his entire arm.
The big lug ambled off toward the girls, leaving Double-D and him to continue on alone.
Double-D was still frowning. Sometimes the guy could be such a tightass.
"It's a thing of beauty when foreshadowing is taken into proper account. The climax hitting all the more hard when you can think back to all the clues they provided - ones you never assumed were meant to be clues - and think, 'why didn't I know that was coming?' Otherwise..." The teen glanced out across the misty lawns towards his own home, where an unfamiliar black SUV was parked in the driveway. "The plot is predictable and you are left unsatisfied."
They walked up to the end of the drive and the front car doors opened. Two men in near-identical black suits stepped out, polished black shoes making little noise on the stamped concrete. The driver slipped on a pair of opaque sunglasses that were unneeded in the overcast afternoon weather. Without saying a word to either of the boys gawking at them, the other man stepped back to open the door to the backseat, holding it open for the young woman behind it.
She was well-dressed and polished with her auburn hair pulled back into a twist. Her matching skirt suit was a deep plum color accented by functional black heels. Despite all this, and the two men escorting her, she nearly tripped over her own feet getting out of the car and her laugh was self-depreciating and genuine when she saw that the teenagers had witnessed it.
"Would either of you happen to be an Eddward Blake?" she asked gently, smiling a soft, crinkling smile that Eddy connected with a person who was about to give bad news. One of the suited men made an impatient gesture behind them.
Double-D cleared his throat a few times beside him, but took half a step back before replying. "Um...That's me..."
The woman smiled at him in a weak attempt to lighten the atmosphere and make him feel comfortable. It didn't seem to be working. She held out an identification badge for both boys to read. "My name is Lisa Harada. I work for the state. I understand that you were in an accident a few days ago?"
"It wasn't anything too terrible. Just stupid prepubescent boy activities..."
"I see," she said just as softly. "We've been trying to contact your parents over the weekend in regards to the incident, but couldn't get a hold of them. I'm afraid you're going to have to come with us until we can reach them, hun. It's not safe to leave you home alone for so long."
Eddy frowned. Double-D had been staying with him for a week, and nobody had cared then. What was so wrong with his house that these asswipes had to get all uppity about it? He almost said something to that effect, but the other male nodded and turned to him.
"It's okay, Eddy. I'm sure they just don't have my parents' new work number yet. I'll..." he licked his lips and looked away. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."
The boy joined the woman in the back of the dark vehicle, followed by the two men. The doors shut. As the car was driving out of sight, a raindrop fell and landed on Eddy's cheek.
He looked up. A storm was brewing.
So I took forever, and I'm sorry. I'll try to be more prompt in the future.